“When you’re in the little land
They fill your hands with gold
You think you’ll stay
For just a day
You come out bent and old …”
— Malvina Reynolds, The Little Land
This month’s concerts by the Santa Barbara Symphony take place at 8 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 17, and 3 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 18, both in the Granada Theater. Maestro Nir Kabaretti has called upon the talents of the great actor Christopher Lloyd, the dancers of the State Street Ballet, and actors from the Ensemble Theatre Company, for a unique performance for which we can all, apropos the season, give thanks.
The program will consist of two milestone works by Igor Stravinksy: “L’Histoire du Soldat/A Soldier’s Tale” (1918), with Lloyd and the other guest artists; and “Le Sacre du Printemps/The Rite of Spring” (1912).
Curious, is it not, that, a century or so after their respective first performances, it is “The Rite of Spring” — whose premiere was disrupted by a riot — that has been domesticated on our concert programs and has become an undisputed fixture in the cannon, while “A Soldier’s Tale” — whose premiere aroused only discontented muttering — remains an outrider on the circuit, with a reputation for being cryptic and baffling — completely undeserved, since nothing could be more clear, and unambiguous than Stravinsky’s music.
Despite having the word “soldier” in the title, and despite having been written in the midst of the most destructive conflict in European history (World War I), “L’Histoire du Soldat” has absolutely nothing to do with war, being a soldier, or army life (all three subjects being terra incognita to Stravinsky).
In fact, it is, as one writer put it, “a cheeky retelling of the Faust legend.”
And for the purposes of the story, it matters far, far less that the main character is a soldier, than that he is a fiddler — for the Devil’s addiction to the violin, both as a taste and as a weapon, is a tradition that goes back many centuries.
Single tickets to this concert are $29-$135; they can be purchased at the Granada box office, 1214 State St., by phone at 805-899-2222, or online from www.granadasb.org.
— Gerald Carpenter covers the arts as a Noozhawk contributing writer. He can be reached at gerald.carpenter@gmail.com. The opinions expressed are his own.