It was a beautiful picture. Lady Jeanne Galway, in a shimmering gold gown to complement her 18-carat gold Nagahara flute, taking the stage at Boettcher Concert Hall alongside her world-renowned flautist husband, the inimitable Sir James Galway.
The America-Irish duo, who reside in Switzerland, played to a substantially full house last night. First up – after a wonderfully breezy and nimble reading of Mozart’s sweet-tempered overture to his opera “The Marriage of Figaro” – was the Galways’ promenade through David Overton’s “The Magic Flutes,” a variant on Mozart’s beloved opera by nearly the same title.
Under the regal manner and assured approach of Viennese- born guest conductor Christian Arming, the performance nevertheless endured some uneven moments in the first movement when soloists and orchestra seemed to march to different drummers. By the second movement, however, musical synchronicity came back into focus – no matter that the orchestral interpretation was arguably rigid and lacking dynamic subtlety.
The Galways’ combined clear, translucent sound easily surpassed the hall’s dull acoustics, keeping the audience rapt. Nowhere was their combined artistry and skills more apparent than in their perfectly paced cadenza in the final movement.
After intermission, the impish entertainer returned as the musical aberration of the timelessly sexy, raven-haired gypsy Carmen, in Georges Bizet’s popular opera. In Sir James’ hands, the Bizet-Frances Borne arrangement of an arrangement, “Carmen Fantasy, Op. 25,” maintained its musical authenticity. The wow-factor of Sir James’ crackerjack technical aptitude further lent itself to depict the sultry, tragic temptress and the zealous passion of the Matador Escamillo who sings the famous “Toreador Song.”
On the heels of a standing ovation came a flute arrangement of Joaquín Rodrigo’s “Fantasía para un gentilhombre.” Sir James was at his finest in the multifaceted, dancelike work, as was the rich, refined sound induced by Arming and the Colorado Symphony Orchestra.
The festive evening closed with a generous helping of what Sir James described in his side-splitting commentary as “lollipops” – a sequence of crowd-pleasing, toe-tapping favorites from Mozart to Bach, as well as an Irish jig and a powerful, prayerful reading of “Danny Boy.”
Also on the program was the CSO’s fluid, buoyant reading of Bizet’s “Argonaise” under Arming’s crisp command. The debonair 35-year-old conducts again this weekend in a program featuring CSO concertmaster YuMi Hwang-Williams.
