Press Release
The play's the theme York gives voice to music inspired by Shakespeare
From March 4,2006
Fort Worth Star-Telegram
By Punch Shaw
FORT WORTH -- A jealous husband raged, a fat and jovial old knight boasted, a couple of Italian kids loved and died and a Danish prince did some serious navel-gazing at Bass Hall on Friday night when the Fort Worth Symphony got up close and personal with the Bard of Avon in a concert titled Shakespeare in Music.
Helping conductor Miguel Harth-Bedoya and the symphony bring these plays and characters to life was Michael York, the veteran British actor who first visited our fair city to film part of the sci-fi movie Logan's Run in the Fort Worth Water Gardens in 1976.
The concert featured York delivering lines before and during performances of four orchestral works inspired by Shakespearean plays or characters: Dvorak's Othello Overture, Elgar's Falstaff, Liszt's Hamlet and Tchaikovsky's Romeo and Juliet Fantasy Overture.
On the whole, this joining of literature and music worked well. Although this theme is commonly used, the musical choices were mostly unfamiliar and therefore fresh. And York still has not lost touch with the natural music of Shakespeare's text or his impeccable British accent -- despite having lived in this country for the last 30 years.
The most impressive work on the program was Elgar's richly vivid portrait of one of Shakespeare's most beloved characters, Sir John Falstaff. The music was filled with bloated posturing and comedic thunder. And, although the debonair York is still a two-hour make-up session away from looking anything like the elderly buffoon he was playing, he was vocally convincing in the role. He also did an especially nice job of switching characters in this half-hour work.
The piece that worked best was the Tchaikovsky that closed the concert. Far and away the most familiar of the four selections played, the lushly romantic favorite was especially well-played. And York's reading of his lines with the music, rather than before or at breaks in the score, worked beautifully.