If during the next seven weeks you find yourself craving an antidote to the stress of shopping for the latest bank-account-breaking gadgets and taking your credit cards to the limit, "Holidays at the Mansion" at the Victorian House Museum in Millersburg could be just the right medicine.
"Holidays at the Mansion" opens with a lighting ceremony and tours from 7 to 9 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 19, and runs through Saturday, Dec. 31.
For the past nine years, the 28-room mansion, completed in 1902 and featured in Victorian Homes Magazine and on HGTV's "Victorian America," has been swathed in holiday splendor thanks to Millersburg-area decorators.
The original character of the mansion -- glowing hardwood floors, fanciful fireplaces and old-fashioned lighting -- gets done up to remind us of children nestled in their beds with visions of sugarplums dancing in their heads, figgy pudding, carolers and other romantic images associated with Christmases of old.
When: The event begins with a free lighting ceremony and tours, 7-9 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 19. After that, the mansion is open daily for self-guided tours, 1-4 p.m. Monday-Thursday and 1-8 p.m. Friday and Sunday, through Saturday, Dec. 31. Closed Thanksgiving and Christmas.
Admission: $8, adults; $7, seniors 65 and older; $3, students; free; children 12 and younger.
"This started out small and has grown over the years," says Mark Boley, director of the Holmes County Historical Society. The society owns the mansion, which was built by steel industrialist L.H. Brightman, a father of 12 who had 56 patents when he passed away.
Each room will have a unique holiday flavor. The ballroom will feature the ceramic Santa collection of Greg Oswald of Millersburg. For many years Oswald's father, Marvin, hand-painted themed ceramic Santas as a hobby.
"They are very intricately painted," says the younger Oswald, who is a pharmacist. For example, he adds, the Scottish Santa wears plaid, and painting the kilt required a steady hand.
Every year his father painted custom Santas, from 7 to 12 inches tall, as gifts. There will be about 40 of them displayed in the ballroom.
"I know I'm a little prejudiced," Oswald says of the Santas painted by his father. "But everyone who sees them is impressed by them."
2011年5月29日星期日
RLPO Orchestra/Vasily Petrenko, Philharmonic Hall, Liverpool
In the five years since Vasily Petrenko became chief conductor of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra they have together demonstrated rare finesse and confidence in a wide repertoire. Music from Petrenko’s native Russia has understandably done well, but he has also proved a natural Elgarian. Now he adds another string to his bow: Mahler.
Sir Charles Groves stamped the composer on to Liverpool’s consciousness in the 1960s with a pioneering cycle of symphonies that had the impressionable young Simon Rattle smitten. Petrenko has taken advantage of the 2010-11 Mahler double anniversary – 150 years since Mahler’s birth (1860) and 100 since his death (1911) – with a similar marathon, and if this account of the Seventh Symphony is any guide, he has given Liverpool something more to be proud of. Like the music itself, it was a mercurial, multifaceted performance, full of deftly sketched colours and moods, and all the more potent for the orchestra’s characterful playing – never blowsy or undernourished, and always alert to Mahler’s quicksilver inspiration.
But the most notable quality was Petrenko’s seamless grasp of tempo, managing the myriad transitions with a fluency that eludes many more experienced conductors. That, and his flexibility of phrasing, tapped into the music’s gut – a wonderful marriage of head and heart, freedom and control. The interpretation was very much in the Classical-Romantic mould, promoting the symphony’s structural integrity and lyrical inspiration over its garish, episodic qualities.
The best came first, in an opening adagio-allegro movement that built an unstoppable head of steam, underlining how skilfully Petrenko places his crescendos. The first Nachtmusik showcased the orchestra’s softer edges, the scherzo its unshowy virtuosity. Petrenko’s only misjudgment was his neutral tempo for the second Nachtmusik, which sagged, but he compensated with a firecracker finale, the graveyard of most performances of this work.
Before the interval Alina Ibragimova, a Russian-born violinist increasingly noticeable on the UK concert scene, was soloist in Mozart’s Violin Concerto No 4. She lent it her sweet, slender, feminine tone in a typically unmannered performance that did not have quite enough to say.
Sir Charles Groves stamped the composer on to Liverpool’s consciousness in the 1960s with a pioneering cycle of symphonies that had the impressionable young Simon Rattle smitten. Petrenko has taken advantage of the 2010-11 Mahler double anniversary – 150 years since Mahler’s birth (1860) and 100 since his death (1911) – with a similar marathon, and if this account of the Seventh Symphony is any guide, he has given Liverpool something more to be proud of. Like the music itself, it was a mercurial, multifaceted performance, full of deftly sketched colours and moods, and all the more potent for the orchestra’s characterful playing – never blowsy or undernourished, and always alert to Mahler’s quicksilver inspiration.
But the most notable quality was Petrenko’s seamless grasp of tempo, managing the myriad transitions with a fluency that eludes many more experienced conductors. That, and his flexibility of phrasing, tapped into the music’s gut – a wonderful marriage of head and heart, freedom and control. The interpretation was very much in the Classical-Romantic mould, promoting the symphony’s structural integrity and lyrical inspiration over its garish, episodic qualities.
The best came first, in an opening adagio-allegro movement that built an unstoppable head of steam, underlining how skilfully Petrenko places his crescendos. The first Nachtmusik showcased the orchestra’s softer edges, the scherzo its unshowy virtuosity. Petrenko’s only misjudgment was his neutral tempo for the second Nachtmusik, which sagged, but he compensated with a firecracker finale, the graveyard of most performances of this work.
Before the interval Alina Ibragimova, a Russian-born violinist increasingly noticeable on the UK concert scene, was soloist in Mozart’s Violin Concerto No 4. She lent it her sweet, slender, feminine tone in a typically unmannered performance that did not have quite enough to say.
订阅：
博文 (Atom)