Strange and Beautiful “Preludes” Enchants at the Lyric

Cast of “Preludes” at Lyric Stage

by Michele Markarian

‘Preludes – Music, Lyrics, Book and Orchestrations by David Malloy. Directed by Courtney O’Connor. Music Direction by Dan Rodriguez. Presented by The Lyric Stage Company of Boston, 140 Clarendon Street, Boston through February 5.

Where does creative inspiration come from?  The heart?  The mind? Are artists the instruments, or merely vessels for what can only be called divine? A blocked Rachmaninoff (the excellent and brooding Dan Prior) is told, “Virtuosity has its moments, but if you want to be truly great, use more…silence.”  Silence and its space create room and stillness for ideas to flow through the subconscious.  If you’ve ever wondered about the nature of creativity and the role of the artist, this is the play for you.

Dan Prior, Aimee Doherty

Rachmaninoff is greatly troubled, as he has been in a three-year dry spell, failing to reach the creative height of his worldwide success at nineteen with “Piano Concerto No. 1 in F-sharp Minor”. (When asked where the inspiration for this came from, he hangs his head and says he doesn’t know.)  He struggles between grandiosity and humility; whenever he bemoans his fate (“So many composers die poor and alone”) he is reminded that “So many people die poor and alone”. In short, despite his renown, he is just one more morsel of humanity who will die like everyone else. Ego, we are reminded, is not the best thing to bring to the table when trying to compose. 

To help him out of his depression, Rachmaninoff has turned to Dahl (Aimee Doherty) , a hypnotherapist who is also a musician. Slowly, in his hypnotic state and with emotional support from his cousin and fiancée Natalya (Kayla Shimuzu), his opera singer friend Chaliapin (Anthony Pires, Jr) and a host of famous figures, including Tsar Nicholas II, Chekhov , Tolstoy and Tchaikovsky (Will McGarrahan), Rachmaninoff gets his mojo back. “Somewhere deep inside, God is hiding” Tchaikovsky sings, and luckily for Rachmaninoff, God comes through in the end. It’s a combination of “Sunday in the Park with George” and “Franny and Zooey”, and in this reviewer’s opinion, David Malloy’s best work.

Prior, Will McGarrahan

Prior manages to be both brooding and appealing as Rachmaninoff, no easy task. Shimuzu is appropriately sweet as Natalya.  Pires, Jr. is magnificent as Chaliapin. His solo turn in “Loop”, which opens Act II, is well worth the price of admission – he brings down the house, with Karen Perlow’s gorgeous purple lighting providing a psychedelic groove behind him.  McGarrahan excels in all of his roles, including the drunken conductor, Glazunov, whose mishandling of Rachmaninoff’s Symphony No. 1 in D minor Opus 13, was the catalyst for Rachmaninoff’s depression and subsequent hypnotherapy.  When Doherty, as Dahl, finally sings “Hypnosis”, it is proof that the divine indeed moves through the artist.  For more information and tickets, go to: https://www.lyricstage.com/show-item/preludes/

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