TIMM ROLEK, CONDUCTOR
Critical Notices
Les contes d’Hoffmann
“Finally the crucially successful performance was Timm Rolek’s in conducting the excellent orchestra and everybody onstage with such steady strength and precision.”
“This Sacramento Butterfly is a miracle of casting and orchestral accomplishment. Timm Rolek, who is both artistic director and conductor, deserves the credit. In regional opera, you don’t get the big names, but for Butterfly everything is right. Rolek gives us vibrant singers and a beautifully balanced ensemble.”
“This production is full of first-rate singing, driven home emotionally by effective acting and direction, and illuminated and supported in the pit by the truly high-quality playing of some of the area’s best musicians. They are all led with fire and sensitivity by the company’s artistic director, Timm Rolek.”
“If artistic director and conductor Timm Rolek can muster all the elements demanded by this difficult and complicated art to assure a production this satisfying, and if enough people see it, then opera may really have a chance to not only survive but thrive…The singers compounded the intensity of these effects by their emotional (and vocal) power, and Rolek and the orchestra added their own force…Thanks to Rolek there were some extraordinary moments of dramatic power…”
“Conductor Rolek coaxed a lively performance from the orchestra, though the volume of the sound overmatched the singers in many instances — especially in key duets and trios. The problem of sound balance is an ever-present dilemma for any conductor who performs in the cavernous Community Center Theater…”
“Conductor Timm Rolek kept the chamber orchestra of 12 musicians on an even keel, and this gave the music a smooth texture. Throughout, the musicians played with sensitivity, and this added to the stature of Handel's great music.”
“Timm Rolek doesn’t stop with one grand operatic presence. Rolek’s leads were all well-chosen, with voices mostly able to rise above the acoustical problems of the not-built-for-opera auditorium, and the overall production has taste, wit, liveliness, color and good humor.”
“…the voluptuous musical approach of conductor Timm Rolek creates a thrillingly dramatic and superbly musical ‘Faust’…Rolek, who sees the opera in broad, sweeping terms, gives strong support from the pit. The conductor displays total commitment to Gounod’s lushly sentimental, often powerful score. His is a moving and entirely captivating interpretation. The orchestra responds in kind for a dynamic, if occasionally less than secure reading.”
“A superb strategist, Rolek made the orchestra’s “Sunrise” [Grofe’s Grand Canyon Suite] which needs good taste to work as well as it did (ditto, Ravel’s “Bolero”) a moment of excellent music-making…Much of the credit for the program’s unbroken fun (and glory) go to Rolek, who played himself down to serve the larger purposes of the program, one of the Midwesterner’s musical abilities which has gained international approval.”
Critical Notices
Les contes d’Hoffmann
“Finally the crucially successful performance was Timm Rolek’s in conducting the excellent orchestra and everybody onstage with such steady strength and precision.”
- William Glackin, Sacramento Bee
“This Sacramento Butterfly is a miracle of casting and orchestral accomplishment. Timm Rolek, who is both artistic director and conductor, deserves the credit. In regional opera, you don’t get the big names, but for Butterfly everything is right. Rolek gives us vibrant singers and a beautifully balanced ensemble.”
- Marilyn Mantay, Opera Enterprise critic
- William Glackin, Sacramento Bee
“This production is full of first-rate singing, driven home emotionally by effective acting and direction, and illuminated and supported in the pit by the truly high-quality playing of some of the area’s best musicians. They are all led with fire and sensitivity by the company’s artistic director, Timm Rolek.”
- William Glackin, Sacramento Bee
“If artistic director and conductor Timm Rolek can muster all the elements demanded by this difficult and complicated art to assure a production this satisfying, and if enough people see it, then opera may really have a chance to not only survive but thrive…The singers compounded the intensity of these effects by their emotional (and vocal) power, and Rolek and the orchestra added their own force…Thanks to Rolek there were some extraordinary moments of dramatic power…”
- William Glackin, Sacramento Bee
“Conductor Rolek coaxed a lively performance from the orchestra, though the volume of the sound overmatched the singers in many instances — especially in key duets and trios. The problem of sound balance is an ever-present dilemma for any conductor who performs in the cavernous Community Center Theater…”
- Edward Ortiz, San Francisco Classical Voice
“Conductor Timm Rolek kept the chamber orchestra of 12 musicians on an even keel, and this gave the music a smooth texture. Throughout, the musicians played with sensitivity, and this added to the stature of Handel's great music.”
- Edward Ortiz, Sacramento Bee
“Timm Rolek doesn’t stop with one grand operatic presence. Rolek’s leads were all well-chosen, with voices mostly able to rise above the acoustical problems of the not-built-for-opera auditorium, and the overall production has taste, wit, liveliness, color and good humor.”
- Marilyn Mantay, Enterprise music critic
- William Glackin, Sacramento Bee
“…the voluptuous musical approach of conductor Timm Rolek creates a thrillingly dramatic and superbly musical ‘Faust’…Rolek, who sees the opera in broad, sweeping terms, gives strong support from the pit. The conductor displays total commitment to Gounod’s lushly sentimental, often powerful score. His is a moving and entirely captivating interpretation. The orchestra responds in kind for a dynamic, if occasionally less than secure reading.”
- Jack Neal, Nevada Events & News
- Naomi Grady, Reno Gazette-Journal
“A superb strategist, Rolek made the orchestra’s “Sunrise” [Grofe’s Grand Canyon Suite] which needs good taste to work as well as it did (ditto, Ravel’s “Bolero”) a moment of excellent music-making…Much of the credit for the program’s unbroken fun (and glory) go to Rolek, who played himself down to serve the larger purposes of the program, one of the Midwesterner’s musical abilities which has gained international approval.”
- Harvey Hess, Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier
Thursday, 23 January 2020 10:21