George Cleve, who started his Midsummer Mozart 39 years ago, on his 39th birthday, with Mozart's Symphony No. 39, is getting ready for the season with the number Jack Benny made famous.
The very idea of the festival came to Cleve during an Abduction from the Seraglio rehearsal, so the first of the 2013 season's two programs, July 18-28, will recall that genesis with the opera's "Ach, ich liebte" aria, performed by Rebecca Davis. The soprano will also sing the concert aria "Bella mia fiamma," K. 528.
Pianist Audrey Vardanega, championed by Cleve since she was a 12-year-old student at Crowden, is the soloist in the Piano Concerto No. 14, in E-flat, K. 449, regarded by Mozart as "one of a quite peculiar kind," which does not belong in the same category as concertos he wrote before and after. Vardanega, now 17, is also "peculiar," being am Oakland Chinese-Italian pianist-violinist-composer-poet-community activist. (Her only weakness: an outdated website.)
Mozart didn't elaborate on the peculiarity of No. 14, and asked to explain, Cleve spoke of Nos. 13-14 as "concerti written for a piano quintet or, with the addition of wind instruments, as a piano concerto," and mused about No. 15 being uncharacteristic with a different opening signature, and finally settled in describing No. 14 as "first aggressive, then gentle, with a pixie-ish finale." Still nothing peculiar, and it's time to move on.
Program 2, July 25-28, will have Symphony No. 31 in D Major (Paris), the Violin Concerto No. 5 in A Major, (Turkish) K. 219, and the rarely performed Rondo in B-flat for violin K. 261, both with Mayuko Kamio as soloist, whereby hangs a tale.
Cleve heard Kamio play in San Jose, and the two wound up together in the audience for the second half of the concert. Cleve, who knew nothing about the violinist, told her how much he liked her performance and asked: "Two questions: do you like Mozart and how expensive are you?"
Kamio said she likes Mozart, of course, and — let's hope her agent doesn't read this — she joked: "I can be very cheap." Based on only that, Cleve hired her, to find out only later that the Osaka-born, Swiss-trained violinist with a 1727 Stradivarius previously owned by Joseph Joachim, won first prize in the 2007 International Tchaikovsky Competition.
After the festival, Cleve embarks on a road not taken, conducting Die Fledermaus with the Lamplighters, returning to normal, leading Opera San Jose's season-closing Don Giovanni.