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Review: “Impacto” A Performance of Latin American Dance and Classical Music Made with Exquisite Aplomb at the Met Museum
The Metropolitan Museum of Art recently presented a beautiful night of music in Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium as part of their lineup of live performances. After a delay due to multiple events, including the president’s motorcade interrupting traffic and shutting down 5th Avenue, while audience members rebelliously clapped to encourage the musicians to perform and not wait for latecomers, Catalyst Quartet arrived to appease eager spectators. Taking their seats on the stage to begin Impacto with American Ballet Theater dancer/choreographer Herman Cornejo. All the chatter stopped, and suddenly, listeners sank into their chairs, lulled into the elegant melodies of two violins, one viola, and one cello played by Karla Donehew Perez (violin), Abi Fayette (violin), Paul Laraia (viola), and Karlos Rodriguez (cello). The synchronicity between these four exquisite musicians was personified by their focused intensity at its most rigorously realized expression. The fluid balance and absolute brightness of each note was perfection incarnate for these classical Latin American jewels such as Sonata par Cordas “O burrico de pau” (The Wooden Donkey) by Antonio Carlos Gomes (1836–1896). The sound was incredible magic from Allegro Animato to Vivace, wonderfully executed and distilled in each musical note.
Later Catalyst played String Quartet in B minor by Teresa Carreno (1853–1917), which rounded out this melodious garden of music with broad, rich rhythms tightly woven into a unique pattern of sweet, brilliant sound falling on the audiences ears like flower petals.
Subsequently, Herman Cornejo’s absorbing dance The Apartment set to music by Astor Piazzolla (1921–1992) Suite del Angel revealed a passionate intimacy and hope between two lovers danced by impressive Herman Cornejo and his lissome wife, Erica Cornejo. “I thought of the Suite del Ángel in terms of an internal struggle of someone who is in Buenos Aires. But it could also be in New York. These big cities are where people usually come to fulfill their dreams, many alone, and end up having to face the challenges of a competitive, sometimes impersonal society. Short-cuts, bad decisions, the fine line of what is good and what’s not, appear in the background.”
–Herman Cornejo
Dramatic and compelling, this work ended the evening on a high note with a standing ovation at the met museum.
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