In memoriam: Robert Cole

Robert Cole in Zellerbach Hall, with the set from Mark Morris's The Hard Nut onstage. Set designed by Adrianne Lobel after Charles Burns. Image source: Cal Performances

On 16 July I learned of the death of Robert Cole at age 95. As the director of Cal Performances from 1986 until 2009, and the founder of the Berkeley Early Music Festival and Exhibition in 1990, Cole had a huge role in shaping my tastes in opera, music and dance.

It was Cole who brought the White Oak Dance Project to Berkeley in 1991. It was only the second time I'd seen Mikhail Baryshnikov perform (the first for my partner), and it was our first encounter with choreographer and dancer Mark Morris. The following season Cole invited the Mark Morris Dance Group to give only their second Bay Area performances (the first had been a part of Cole's 1987 Cal Performances season).

Seeing Morris's company for the first time was, for us, a life-changing event. As I wrote in my appreciation of his biographer Joan Acocella, "We were astonished by the range of tone, movement, and music represented in his dances, from the urgent questioning of Gloria (set to Vivaldi) to the funny, lewd, and touching Going Away Party (set to the music of Bob Wills & His Texas Playboys). Morris immediately became our favorite living choreographer."

Mark Morris Dance Group in Gloria. Photo credit: Stephanie Berger. Image source: MMDG.org

I wasn't aware that this was a moment of crisis for MMDG. Morris's three-year contract as the Director of Dance at Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie in Brussels had not been renewed at the end of the 1990–91 season. At La Monnaie, Morris had expanded the scale of his works and the size of his company. Its ability to perform the works he had created in Belgium, and indeed its very survival in its present form, were at stake. Cole began making MMDG performances annual (and often biannual) features of the Cal Performances season, and commissioning new works. Those bookings must have been a lifeline for the troupe.

Beginning in 1994, in three successive seasons Cole brought to Berkeley each of the three evening-length masterworks that Morris had created during his time at La Monnaie: the joyful L'Allegro, Il Penseroso ed Il Moderato (to Handel's oratorio); a danced version of Henry Purcell's opera Dido and Aeneas, in which Morris played both the tragic Carthaginan Queen Dido and her evil nemesis the Sorceress; and The Hard Nut, "Morris's highly entertaining—and funny, lewd, and touching—version of The Nutcracker" (a quote from the Acocella post), for which Cole himself took the conductor's podium. We quickly realized that we needed to get tickets to two different performances for each MMDG program in order to fully grasp what we were seeing and hearing.

Guillermo Resto as Aeneas and Mark Morris as Dido in Dido and Aeneas. Image source: Stage and Cinema

Dido and Aeneas was our introduction to Baroque opera; the pit band was the period-instrument Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra under its longtime conductor Nicholas McGegan. Afterwards we immediately sought out the PBO/McGegan recording of the opera, still my favorite of the work, which featured the matchless Lorraine Hunt as Dido. This led to our discovery of the series of Handel operas and oratorios recorded by PBO under McGegan with Hunt as soloist, and then to the music of other Baroque-era composers: Monteverdi (Lorraine Hunt appeared in SF Opera's 1998 production of L'Incoronazione di Poppea), Gluck (in 1996 Cole presented Morris's production of Orfeo ed Euridice), and Rameau (in 1998 he presented Morris's production of Platée). Cole and Morris opened up the whole world of opera to us, which we continue to explore and delight in.

Cole commissioned many world premières from the company, and sponsored many West Coast premières as well. Among the latter, Mozart Dances deserves a special mention, and for a fuller description you can read my post on the performance. For the former, I should mention in particular Falling Down Stairs, Morris' choreographic response to Bach's Third Suite for Solo Cello, with the cello accompaniment played live by none other than Yo-Yo Ma. Here is the Prelude from this work:

https://youtu.be/CUkLdATMx58?t=1944 [Prelude ends at 35:40]

Remarkably, in the second half of this program Yo-Yo Ma went into the pit as just another of the musicians accompanying The Office (set to Dvorák) and Rhymes with Silver (set to Lou Harrison, another world première).

Another choreographer with whom Cole formed a lasting association was Merce Cunningham, whose regular visits with his company (generally accompanied by his life- and creative partner John Cage) we looked forward to eagerly. Especially memorable were Ocean (presented in the round in the university basketball gymnasium, music by Cage) and the computer-enhanced BIPED (music by Gavin Bryars).

Lyon Opera Ballet in Merce Cunningham's BIPED. Photo credit: Agathe Poupeney. Image source: The Dance Enthusiast

Cole also gave us the electrifying experience of seeing mezzo-soprano Cecilia Bartoli perform live; the punk-rock Italian Baroque ensemble Il Giardino Armonico (who accompanied Bartoli on one tour); stunning recitals by Lorraine Hunt Lieberson and Philippe Jaroussky; concerts by gambist Jordi Savall and his wife and musical partner, the plangent soprano Montserrat Figueras; and many, many other memorable live performances. As with Morris and Cunningham, once an artist appeared on the Cal Performances stage they often returned in later seasons. Clearly Cole inspired a strong sense of loyalty among many of the artists he sponsored.

Jordi Savall and Montserrat Figueras in concert. Image source: RadioFrance

I vividly remember the annual excitement surrounding the first day of Cal Performances season subscription sales: people used to line up hours in advance, because the time stamp on your order (along with the size of your donation) determined the priority with which it would be filled, and your chances of getting your preferred seats. We were made to feel as though it was Cole and Cal Performances who were doing us the favor by allowing us the privilege of purchasing tickets. Of course, it was true.

The performing arts climate has changed since Cole's heyday. For many organizations subscriptions are declining sharply, and the cost and difficulty of the logistics of sponsoring international artists have grown significantly. It's unlikely that we'll see another impresario in the Bay Area who combines Robert Cole's excellent taste, keen eye for emerging talent, and both the drive and the seemingly limitless resources to realize his ambitious vision. It's our great loss.