The pandemic has shuttered in-person performances of holiday classical music events, but don’t worry, local music groups have found a way to ring in the music of season.
Already available is Hawaii Opera Theatre’s film of “Amahl and the Night Visitors,” the popular children’s opera about a youth’s encounter with the Three Kings, streaming now at hotdigital.vhx.tv ($25). HOT artistic advisor Jamie Offenbach came up with a “Brady Bunch” presentation of singers appearing in individual squares, but updated it with a dynamic presentation, in which the boxes will move, grow and shrink on the screen, showing images related to the songs rather than just the singers.
“For example, in the very beginning, Amahl is looking at the stars, so I found this book with a beautiful image of a little boy looking at the stars at night,” Offenbach said.
Offenbach set the story in modern times, with Amahl (Jayne Lau) and his mother (Leslie Goldman) living in a dark, hostile city after Amahl’s father has died from COVID-19. Kenneth Kellogg, Chung-Wai Soong and Adam Flowers play the Three Kings. Offenbach had them tone down the traditional theatrics, focusing on facial expression and small gestures. “You really do get to see the expression on the individual faces,” he said.
Symphony performs
The Hawai‘i Symphony Orchestra continues its Sounds of Resilience series of livestreamed chamber music concerts at 7:30 p.m. Saturday on myhso.org ($20). The concert features selections from Handel’s “Messiah” with local soprano Martina Bingham soloing, and Mozart’s fourth horn concerto featuring principal hornist Anna Lenhart.
“The exciting thing about that is that we’re going to have five woodwind players onstage, which is really dipping our toe in the water. We’ve mostly been focused on the strings at this point,” said Dave Moss, the symphony’s executive director.
The ensemble will also perform Piazzolla and Vivaldi and back up Pomaika‘i Lyman, a member of the Keawe musical ohana, in several Christmas tunes, with Kanoe Miller dancing hula. Concertmaster Iggy Jang leads the orchestra.
The symphony’s livestreams, created by sound engineer Bob Dickerson and videographer Donard Sonoda, have featured excellent “surround-sound” effects and entertaining visuals, making viewers feel like they’re sitting in the middle of the ensemble.
“We’re really trying to create this cinematic experience, where what you see on screen matches what you hear,” Moss said.
Sing along
Fans of Handel’s “Messiah” can sing the praises of Susan Duprey, director of the Windward Choral Society and the Kona Choral Society. She has organized a “singalong” production of the work, to be presented at 4 p.m. Dec. 13, via Zoom. Contact windwardchoral society@gmail.com for a link to the free Zoomcast.
Zoom in and you’ll hear the music, with the words crawling along the bottom of the screen for you to follow and sing. Maybe no one else in your house will understand what’s going on, but people around the world will.
“We have people joining us from time zones in Germany, from Japan, East Coast, West Coast. We have one in Mexico,” Duprey said. “They’re all wanting to join in, so even though we can’t hear each other, we will come together as a community and join in this tradition.”
To give the experience that “live” sensibility, the soloists will be performing live, three in Kealakekua, Hawaii island, and one from Alaska. Instrumentalists are also invited to join in.
‘The Nutcracker’
Fans of “The Nutcracker” need not despair. A “made-for-TV” version of Ballet Hawaii’s popular production, which sets the story at an 1858 Christmas party at Washington Place and features Hawaii-related costumes and scenery, will be aired on KITV at 7 p.m. Dec. 19 and Christmas Day, and at 3:30 p.m. on Dec. 26. Amanda Schull, who studied dance in Hawaii and went on to a successful acting career, will narrate the production, which will consist mostly of archival footage, along with a few new scenes recently recorded at the Hawaii Theatre Center.
