Alisa's glass harmonica performance

Not your usual musical biography, which has the composer as its central subject, "Mesmeric Mozart," written by CMP artistic director Harry Clark, is a staged dual portrayal of Dr. Franz Mesmer and his young patient Maria Theresa von Paradis.

Both were contemporaries of Mozart, each shaped and influenced by the composer - and vice versa. Mesmer, we are told, introduced the young prodigy to the glass harmonica, an instrument Mozart would write for, significantly, late in his life. Von Paradis was a promising pianist and composer to whom Mozart dedicated one of his piano concertos.

Mesmer and von Paradis, played crisply and convincingly by actors Ron Leibman and Jessica Walter, alternately recite accounts of important events in their lives.

These include their individual acquaintances with Mozart, their own first encounter, Mesmer's treatment of von Paradis' psychosomatic blindness, and subsequent personal successes and travails. Though he is not portrayed directly on stage, Mozart's influence looms large in the story, just as he did ostensibly in these people's lives. Musical interludes of Mozart's keyboard and vocal music interspersed in the action of the drama further make his presence felt.

"Mesmeric Mozart," with its mélange of biography, theater and music, serves the worthwhile purpose of exposing the audience to Mozart's genius. Unfortunately, the musical performances that make up the program's interludes (lieder and piano chestnuts such as the D minor Fantasia and Rondo "Alla Turca") did not always rise to the occasion. Too often, soprano Priscilla Gale and pianist Sanda Schuldmann lacked the required refinement. For Gale, there were moments of questionable intonation. Schuldmann frequently played with a Romantic impulsiveness at odds with the natural grace of the music.

In more ways than one, the series name, Chamber Music Plus, is a misnomer. Technically speaking, all the performances are by soloists, not ensembles, as the name implies. And if truth be told, the evening comes across to the average audience member more as a piece of theater with intermittent musical moments than as a genuine musical performance.

The one truly poignant performance was Alisa Nakashian-Holsberg's rendition of Adagio in C for glass harmonica - sadly, the only performance of this rare and mesmerizing instrument. With its haunting, transcendent tone, it worked successfully as both music and theater, unifying a plot strand established in the story's beginning. It seemed the perfect wedding of music and theater that one wished Chamber Music Plus could have captured more of.

Copyright 2002, Hartford Courant