'Cirque' Pops provide big tent
Concert review
By PAUL CLARK

TAMPA - The creator of Cirque de la Symphonie said orchestras around the country like booking the show because it sells tickets, adds substance and sparkle to pops performances and draws younger people.
Friday night, the performance of Cirque de la Symphonie with the Florida Orchestra succeeded powerfully on two of those levels.
The idea is to add a visual boost to orchestral concerts by adding world-class "cirque" acts, which basically means acts that combine circus skills with a fine art sensibility.
Carol Morsani Hall was packed, and if anyone was disappointed it didn't show. They audience regularly erupted into applause.
Five cirque acts appeared, at different points through the show, and most were stunning. Aerialist Alexander Streltsov provided a melancholy work of poetic fluidity, floating above the stage with grace and real drama. Juggler Vladimir Tsarkov offered comic counterpoint without diminishing the artistry. Contortionist Elena Tsarkova did things that humans shouldn't be able to do, and she did them with style and beauty.
Behind them, the Florida Orchestra played beautifully, conducted by Michael Krajewski of Cirque de la Symphonie. The orchestra also played several selections without the cirque acts.
Musically, the first was more successful by far. The orchestra played 45 minutes or so of classical music, including pieces by Dvorak, Khatchaturian, Rimsky-Korsakov and Saint-Saens. It was mostly excerpts, but a full set of classical music is a rare treat in a pops concert.
After intermission, the music selection regressed into standard pops territory, including music from Star Wars and Harry Pottermovies. Considering how well the classical selections worked, and how heartily they were received, it didn't seem necessary for the orchestra to play popular music. But it still sounded great.
One goal of the show, which will come to Mahaffey Theater tonight and tomorrow, did not accomplish was to attract younger people. At Friday's show, the demographic appeared about the same as that of standard pops concerts.

Cincinnati Pops maestro Erich Kunzel played ringmaster over the weekend on behalf of “Cirque de la Symphonie,” a two-in-one program that might as easily be called “Symphonie de le Cirque.”
The concept, and a crowd-pleasing stunt it was, aimed at synergy of orchestral accompaniment to the spectacle of cirque, itself a hybrid of circus tricks and fine art: Ringling Brothers gone to finishing school.
The Pops and eight veteran cirque artists held up their respective ends. A program thick with movie themes provided sound for flawless exhibitions of aerial performance, juggling, hoops and other intricate tricks that often owed as much to Balanchine as to Barnum.
The music and acrobatics could have delighted the crowd separately, but the synchronization proved admirably adept. A highlight of that convergence came as Cirque du Soleil aerial hoopist Aloysia Gavre vamped to the sultry suite from “A Streetcar Named Desire” even while dangling 20 feet above the stage.
Two of the guest acts, aerial artist Alexander Streltsov and the hand-balancing team Jarek & Darek are familiar to Pops audiences from previous appearances. Joining Gavre as newcomers to the Music Hall stage were hoop artist Irina Burdetsky, handstand acrobat Vladimir Malachikhin, juggler Vladimir Tsarkov and his contortionist wife, Elena Tsarkova, who provided dazzling twists and turns on a pair of bar stools.
The orchestral program selected from a big tent of genres including the jazz-flavored “Streetcar” and big-band sounds of “From Here to Eternity,” along with an obligatory John Williams power-pick (this time from “Harry Potter”).
The Pops displayed particular mastery with Bernard Herrmann’s challenging score to “North By Northwest,” while the only underwhelming moments came via “On the Waterfront,” pocked with Leonard Bernstein passages more suited to fumigation than to humming.
All that felt missing from the evening was a calliope, but the suite from Alfred Hitchcock’s “Spellbound” did include a theremin, an electronic instrument whose eerie sounds are familiar to fans of ’50s science fiction movies. The introductory demonstration of its capabilities produced a deliberately blunt note which elicited from Kunzel a flatulence joke, that perennially popular device nevertheless withered from neglect on the American concert stage.

Cirque de la Symphonie means a lot of clowning around at Seattle's Benaroya Hall.

Performance review
There was an awful lot of clowning around Friday night at Benaroya Hall. And the capacity crowd that turned out for "Cirque de la Symphonie," the Seattle Symphony Orchestra's unexpectedly illuminating collaboration with circus artists, could not have been more pleased.
A mime, aerialists, strongmen and more: Benaroya went truly big-top as world-class performers achieved the seemingly impossible and a black-tie orchestra kept up a three-ring atmosphere. The Seattle Symphony played no less than a dozen selections of music reflecting the many moods of a typically eclectic circus bill, from the delirious (Khachaturian's "Sabre Dance") to the pastoral (moments in Dvorák's "Carnival Overture").
Guest conductor Carolyn Kuan, as fun to watch as she was dynamic, was fully engaged in the show's spirit despite having her back to every breathtaking feat of strength and agility.
But she also led the orchestra through five pieces (including Franz von Suppé's familiarly galloping "Overture" to "Light Cavalry"), scattered through the program, where no performers appeared.
It was at those times when the real point of "Cirque de la Symphonie" kicked in: a symphony orchestra has a lot in common with circus acts. Both involve developing and maintaining suspense. Both involve spectacle and modulating emotional pitch, capturing the rapt attention of an audience willing to surrender to every nuance or peak.
Whenever the orchestra and artists were working together, those principles were obvious. But when the circus folk took a break, one realized those effects were still in play, in the music. The clearest sign that "Cirque" was working was in the way kids in the audience were just as absorbed by the stand-alone musical portions of the program as they were by the ones featuring the performers.
Still, the artists provided some great thrills. Vladimir Tsarkov, accompanied by Bizet's "Danse Boheme" from "Carmen," looked like he was barely moving while juggling multiple hoops, pins and day-glo balls in the air.
Elena Tsarkova, a contortionist, caught the magic of Tchaikovsky's "Waltz of the Flowers" (from "The Nutcracker") in her nimble act.
But it was strongmen Jarek & Darek — in bronze body makeup, their movements reminiscent of languid reptiles under a hot sun — whose weirdly compelling, proto-human vibe captivated the audience. (To the tune of Shostakovich's finale from Symphony No. 5 in D minor, Op. 47.)
The vision of a slight Kuan taking her bow between the near-nude, copper-colored Jarek & Darek was the perfect, surreal note to end this successfully dreamy evening.

The circus comes to town with the Seattle Symphony in a show unlike any other

By R.M. CAMPBELL
P-I MUSIC CRITIC

If the Seattle Symphony sought new audiences in its inaugural SummerFest, it succeeded Friday at Benaroya Hall.

However, the program is not readily duplicated: a parade of hits with circus acts. The capacity house expressed open admiration for everyone, including jugglers, contortionists, aerial artists and strongmen. There was humor and magic as well.

Pushed back from the apron of the stage to allow the performers room to maneuver, the symphony played overtures of Dvorak, von Suppe and Glinka and dances of Bizet, Tchaikovsky, Khachaturian, Borodin and Saint-Saens. An excerpt from John Williams' film score for "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" and the final movement from Shostakovich's Fifth Symphony ended the evening. Sometimes the musicians played alone or as an accompanist and sometimes they just watched the proceedings. Carolyn Kuan, SSO associate conductor, held forth on the podium with her usual aplomb. Many of the musicians were substitutes for regular SSO members, away on holiday.

The performers, several of whom are Russian, are part of a company that has appeared with orchestras for more than a decade, thus the name Cirque de la Symphonie. Among the most notable is Vladimir Tsarkov, a mime artist who juggles and does magic acts. He was funny and endearing and very deft. Among the most unusual was Alexander Streltsov, who spins a large metal cube. The finale was the pair of strongmen billed as Jarek and Darek (born Jaroslaw Marciniak and Dariusz Wronski), former Polish national hand-balancing champions. They were astonishing.