PLZEN Alfonso Scarano, guest coming from Italy, presented himself like a highly competent conductor for the Pilsen Philharmonic Orchestra during its Christmas concert entitled “Fairytales”
Plzeň Philharmonic Orchestra given on the 17th December 2009 (…) beautiful melodies by master-composers like Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky (Ballet Suite “Nutcracker”) or by the Czech composer Oskar Nedbal (no fewer known ballet “From One Fairytale to the Other”) have been fit into the concert schedule. The program has been concluded by the dreamy music created by the French composer Maurice Ravel – his suite of fairy images entitled “My Mother Goose”. The composer has taken over this unusual title from the book written 300 years ago by Charles Perrault and entitled “Romances of My Mother Goose”. Dramaturgic contribution of this evening consisted in introducing the famous Scherzo for orchestra “Magician´s Apprentice” created by Paul Dukas. The composer found his inspiration in the contrasts of Goethe´s Ballad (…) This work has been presented very effectively. The baton was taken up by the Italian guest-conductor Alfonso Scarano, enjoying evidently the invitation of the Pilsen Philharmonic Orchestra to interpret those works. In conducting the Orchestra he presented his temperament accentuating evidently the brazen sound of brass-wind instruments and respecting at the same time melodious tunes of strings. The Orchestra presented this well-known music on a high level not only in its sound complexity, but also thanks to brilliant solo players and therefore it ingratiated by right thunderous applause by full audience. This concert has been another proof of the indispensableness of the Pilsen Philharmonic Orchestra for the City, standing recently for the honorary title of the European Capital of Culture 2015. Vlasta Borůvková