Walter Piston / Triumph of Love

On this day in classical music: Paul Paray and the Detroit Symphony Orchestra gave the premiere of Walter Piston’s “Three New England Sketches” in Worcester, Mass. in 1959. The “Three New England Sketches” were commissioned by the Worcester County Musical Association for its 100th annual Music Festival and is dedicated to Paray. The work’s three movements are titled “Seaside,” “Summer Evening” and “Mountains.” Despite the work’s titles, Piston claimed the “Three New England Sketches” had no programmatic inspiration. Listen to the University of Chicago Symphony Orchestra perform Piston’s “Three New England Sketches.” Barbara Schubert conducts. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-aYhrqPisYA

On this day in the musical theatre: “Triumph of Love,” a chamber musical based on Pierre de Marivaux’s 1732 commedia dell’arte play “Le Triomphe de l’Amour,” opened on Broadway in 1997. The Spartan princess Léonide disguises herself as Phocion to gain access to the palace where Agis, the object of her affection, lives. Both he and his uncle Hermocrates soon discover her secret. Featuring a score by Jeffrey Stock and Susan Birkenhead, “Triumph of Love” featured Susan Egan as Léonide, Christopher Sieber as Agis, F. Murray Abraham as Hermocrates and Betty Buckley as Hesione. The musical had a brief run of 84 performances. Listen to Buckley sing “Serenity” from “Triumph of Love.” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUp3GUA4OEw

Musical musings: Something shocking happens toward the end of the endless-seeming first act of “Triumph of Love,” the new musical that opened last night at the Royale Theater. By that time, if you’re lucky, your feelings have graduated from irritation to numbness before the flat-footed parade of raunchy double-entendres and double takes that give new meaning to the phrase “low comedy.” How many botanical puns about sex organs can you take, after all, before your theatergoer’s response system shuts down in self-defense? And then, against all expectation, lightning strikes. Your emotions are stirred, you sit up in your seat and you may even discover tears in your eyes. In any case, if you’re human, you’ll probably find yourself delivering a silent prayer of thanksgiving for Betty Buckley, that fine musical star whose penetrating trumpet of a voice always seems directly and paradoxically linked to a fragile soul. Ms. Buckley, the original Grizabella of “Cats” and the much-admired successor to Glenn Close in “Sunset Boulevard,” is the only thing triumphant in “Triumph.” For what it’s worth, she definitely owns the show. But isn’t it time someone gave her a more valuable piece of property all her own? – Ben Brantley in The New York Times

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