I had an extraordinary experience recently at the Lied Center of Lincoln, Nebraska on Wednesday evening, Feb. 14. It was the Les Grands Ballets Canadiens’ (LGBC) performance of “Dancing Beethoven”, which involved ballet performances supported by the Lincoln Symphony Orchestra (LSO). Both performed utterly extraordinarily! The ballets were performed for the full versions of Beethoven’s 5th and 7th symphonies, played elegantly by the LSO.
When I first heard of this upcoming performance, I was very skeptical. Beethoven’s 5th symphony has extraordinary personal importance to me (I won’t digress, but if so inclined see my Musings “My Bromance with Beethoven”
https://tsshores.com/my-bromance-with-beethoven/
to see why!)
Beethoven’s 5th with ballet? Impossible! Even the 7th (anyone seen the movie “The King’s Speech”? It was about King George VI, his unexpected ascension to the throne of the British Empire in 1936, and the speech therapist who helped the unsure monarch overcome his stammer in an extraordinary speech to the British nation about the declaration of war with Germany in WWII.) As I watched this movie, the speech and the profound music played as he gave his speech rang a bell with me: It was from the second movement of Beethoven’s Symphony 7! ). So what did LGBC do with it? To my surprise, the entire 7th was eminently choreographical, and this superbly elegant ballet group danced to it beautifully! The 5th was another story, but LGBC handled it sublimely: They did not so much dance to the music as interpret it — profoundly, as it well deserves.
So my takeaway? Lincoln, this Nebraska town of about 186k when I took my first and last position as mathematics professor at UNL in January 1968 (when everything would shut down at around 9:00pm) has become this superb cosmopolitan center of about 330k and organizations like the Lied Center deserve their full support by its citizens!! So thank you, LSO, LGBC, the Lied and Lincoln, Nebraska!
Tom Shores: Ends and Odds 