Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra and Pittsburgh CLO gather dozens of performers for a production that speaks to the heart
By SHARON EBERSON
It takes a balancing act of faith, talent and chutzpah to create a nontraditional Fiddler on the Roof, a concert version, featuring dozens of musicians and chorus members, a cast of two dozen actors, a Fab Five of Tamburitzans, and one virtuoso fiddler on the roof.
The latter, Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra’s Jeremy Black, symbolizes that balance of talent and realized ambition, stationed above the swirling, soaring action of Fiddler on the Roof in Concert, a resplendent re-staging of the musical at Heinz Hall this weekend.
The collaboration of the PSO and Pittsburgh CLO, featuring an adaption of John Williams’ Oscar-winning score of the 1971 film, is led by director/choreographer Gustavo Zajac, who worked on the most recent Broadway revival of Fiddler, alongside music director and conductor Andy Einhorn, whose Broadway credits are a mile long.
Tony Award-winner Shuler Hensley has gifted his rich bass-baritone, inherent wit and palpable empathy to the role of Tevye, the long-suffering father of five daughters who made his first appearance in the stories of Sholom Aleichem. The character became a musical theater icon, courtesy of songs by Sheldon Harnick and Jerry Bock, and Joseph Stein’s libretto, and Tevye’s original interpreter, Zero Mostel.
Tevye’s Jewish faith is sorely tested by the “modern” world – in the early 1900s – with generational challenges to long-held traditions on the one hand, and czarist Russian crackdowns vs. the seeds of revolution on the other. The fate of his family and his town unfold to a lush, lively, evocative Bock score, with lyrics by Harnick, that is among musical theater’s most enduring songbooks.
(Image: Pittsburgh CLO)
In my family, Fiddler on the Roof was the musical theater bible. It was the first album I can remember my parents playing, and the first two Broadway shows I attended. I don’t remember a time when I didn’t know every word to every song in the show that arrived 60 years ago, at a time when the British Invasion had just begun to overtake music tastes. Even so, there was always a place for Fiddler on our turntable, and I can only imagine that it was embraced in many American Jewish households like mine, where we embraced the echoes of our heritage.
Fiddler, for me, is personal. And if ever there was a show to be taken personally, not just by Jews who know their history, but by any religious or ethnic people who have been forced to seek asylum far from their homelands, it is the one at Heinz Hall through Sunday.
I have rarely felt that connection more so than during the opening night on Friday.
The terrific and timely – has there ever been a time when Fiddler is not timely? – adaptation, at two hours plus intermission, is awash in subjects that could be ripped from current headlines.
For example, the fate of Putin rival Alexei Navalny comes immediately to mind when young Perchik, speaking out against czarist oppression, is sent to Siberia, with his steadfast bride-to-be Hodel to follow.
Christian Engelhardt and Kyra Klonoski are among the standouts as Perchik and Hodel, in a concert that includes more props and staging than anticipated, but also allows voices such as Lee’s to soar, on the tear-jerking “Far From the Home I Love.”
Other favorites are Hensley and fellow Broadway star Anne L. Nathan bringing depth and flair to the duet, “Do You Love Me?,” and Travis Roy Rogers, as Motel the tailor, overtaken by the joy of “Miracle of Miracles.”
Another highlight is members of the Duquesne University Tamburitzans perfectly executing “The Bottle Dance” – with bottles placed precariously on the dancers’ hats, and nothing to keep them there but balance, skill and, originally, the genius of Jerome Robbins’ choreography.
in Fiddler on the Roof in Concert at Heinz Hall. (Image: Pittsburgh CLO)
The staged concert begins with the brilliant company in lockstep to deliver one of musical theater’s great prologues, “Tradition.”
Act II opens with Black, the PSO’s principal second violin since 2017, coming down from his loge perch to front his fellow musicians in a “wow” rendition of the show’s “Entr’acte” – fittingly bestowed with one of the night’s loudest and longest ovations.
The Hamlisch-Page Student Choir, made up of dozens of high school and college students from our region and directed by Christine Hestwood, give voice to the overall majesty of the production.
The collaborators on this show reach into the deep local talent wells of Carnegie Mellon School of Drama and familiar faces from the region’s stages. To name just a couple, Justin Fortunato, Lincoln Park Performing Arts Center‘s artistic producing director and a PCLO regular, is a memorable Lazar Wolf, and Stephanie Maloney, who got her start at Pittsburgh Youth Ballet and the Pittsburgh CLO Academy, kvells and yells as you might expect of Yente the Matchmaker.
If I were to quibble about the production, there were times when the staged concert could have used less staging. Hensley has the stature and comedic chops to deliver “If I Were a Rich Man” without having to climb atop a bench, and fussing with both books and a blanket during “The Dream” seemed unnecessary. Volume within Heinz Hall, as you might imagine with so many moving parts, was not always equal to the task.
by Kristiann Menotiades as Fruma-Sarah in “The Dream.” (Image: Pittsburgh CLO)
However, those are minor asides for an emotionally resonant theatrical event that was first announced just a few weeks ago.
Fiddler on the Roof in Concert has come together with apparent PCLO-caliber speed not only to revive a classic, but also, in the tradition of two giants of Pittsburgh culture – the PSO, founded in 1895, and the 78-year-old Pittsburgh Civic Light Opera – to mine its depths and speak directly to our hearts.
TICKETS AND DETAILS
Fiddler on the Roof in Concert will be at Heinz Hall, Downtown, February 23-25, 2024. Tickets: visit the Heinz Hall Box Office at 600 Penn Ave., Downtown, or pittsburghsymphony.org, or call 412-492-4900.
I think you meant Hodel with Perchik. Chava goes with Fyedka.
Correction s made, thank for pointint this out