Concerts to celebrate French sense of fun, fantasy

Catherine Kautsky became an avowed and persistent Francophile during a sabbatical to Paris about a dozen years ago.

“I love France: the food, the wine and, most of all, the people for their generosity and enormous interest in all the arts,” says Kautsky, professor of music. “When we lived there, we were lucky enough to have in the apartment below us quite a famous writer who worked with Jean Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir. Getting to know him and reading his books made us feel very privileged to have a close connection to French cultural history.”

That connection will be playing itself out this semester in Kautsky’s series, “Paris in Performance: Music, Ballet, Poetry, Lectures and Art Recreating French Political and Artistic Visions From 1870-1920.” The series is the result of the Creative Arts Award Kautsky received from the Arts Institute in 2005.

“I got the idea for the series, which eventually will include the cities of Vienna and New York as well as Paris, because I so often found myself speaking about and comparing the work of the composers Debussy, Schoenberg and Ives. They all wrote at approximately the same time, and each is in part responsible for the atonal revolution that occurred in music during the early decades of the 20th century,” she says.

Kautsky says that she is especially intrigued by and delighted with the flights of fantasy and fun she has found in so much of the French musical canon.

“The Ravel opera L’enfant et les sortileges, about to be performed at UW–Madison, is utterly enchanting. Colette’s story tells of a very naughty boy whose toys turn on him to teach him a lesson,” Kautsky says. “It’s full of hilarious sounds, like the unmistakable yowl of a cat. The whole premise is both fantastical and endearing. I see this series as a reflection on the idea that music need not always be serious and for adults. It can and does invoke games and jokes and very much inhabit the unpretentious world of a child.”

The UW–Madison Symphony Orchestra and University Opera will present a concert version of the opera on Friday and Sunday, Oct. 27 and 29. The Oct. 27 performance will begin at 7:30 p.m. The performance on Oct. 29 will be at 3 p.m. Both will be in Mills Concert Hall of the Mosse Humanities Building. Tickets, $10 general, $5 UW–Madison students with ID, are available through the Vilas Hall Box Office, 262-1500.

Kautsky says she is so taken with this opera that she planned the first phase of her Paris-Vienna-New York triptych to highlight the work. However, she is quick to add that she has other goals for the project.

“I want to show audiences what an incredibly rich period this was for French music. There are so many different strands, ranging from the games in Bizet’s Jeux d’enfants to Debussy’s fairies to Ravel’s waltzes to Satie’s take on the Dada movement,” she says.

What attracts her most, though, is that the music connects so many different arts and artists, she says.

“I love it that Debussy wrote a piano prelude with a title taken from the Baudelaire poem Harmonie du soir, that Virgil Thomson wrote musical portraits based on the work of Gertrude Stein — who, in turn, based her literary portraits on Picasso’s painted portraits. And Parade — Satie wrote the music for this ballet based on text by Cocteau. Picasso did the scenery, and Leonide Massine the choreography. It must have been such an exciting time! I hope audiences see that these artists did not work with blinders on. They had their eyes and ears wide open and were enormously influenced by the artistic world around them and by the historical circumstances of that world,” she says.

Kautsky says that Debussy in particular was quite partial to visual art. English book illustrator Arthur Rackham was a special favorite.

“Rackham was known for his children’s book illustrations and ‘fairy art.’ Debussy loved him, so being able to see Rackham art on exhibition gives us insight into the inspiration for some of Debussy’s music,” Kautsky says.

The show to which Kautsky refers is scheduled for the ninth floor rare books collection of Memorial Library from Monday, Oct. 23-Friday, Dec. 1. The exhibition is free and all are welcome.

At 4:30 p.m. on Thursday, Oct. 26, on the ninth floor of Memorial Library, Kautsky will illustrate these points as she performs works by Debussy and Poulenc, demonstrating that “The Fairies are Exquisite Dancers.” Along with the music will be selected readings along the theme of childhood fantasy by David Furumoto, an associate professor of theatre and drama.

Other events in the series this fall include:

• “Le Bal,” games and spoofs for piano four hands, at 12:30 p.m. on Sunday, Oct. 15, at the Chazen Museum of Art. Works by Faure, Satie, Chabrier and Bizet.
• Debussy’s children’s ballet La Boite (a joujoux and other French music of childhood), at 3 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 28, in Mills Hall. Members of Dance Wisconsin will perform. Kautsky says that French artist Andre Helle’ illustrated the score, “Though normally the audience wouldn’t see the paintings, they’ll be projected at the performance,” Kautsky says.
• “Sounds and Perfumes Turn in the Evening Air”: Gertrude Stein’s Paris, at 7:30 p.m. on Monday, Nov. 6, in the Memorial Union’s Main Lounge. Waltzes and songs by Debussy, Ravel and Satie. Susan Sweeney, a professor of theatre and drama, also will present readings from Stein’s work.
• “DADA — Cabaret Voltaire on Lake Mendota,” at 7 p.m. on Monday, Nov. 20, at the French House. Dadaism, described as artists enjoying the absurdities of life in poetry, film, visual art and music.

Kautsky says that these events can serve to broaden artistic and intellectual sensibilities of all attending: “It’s so easy to get caught up in our own small corners of the universe… but so much fun to burst out!”

All the above are free and open to the public. For more information, visit http://www.music.wisc.edu.