We have seen quite a few Hershey Felder solo shows in his Composer Series. There is always a grand piano in the middle of the stage and Felder thinks of a story pertaining to the composer's life, around which he can hang as many musical interludes as possible. He is a magician, one of a kind, a brilliant pianist and actor who has figured out how to play a complex piano repertoire while telling a story at the same time. This is a feat unmatched by anyone else.
Felder's latest show, "Rachmaninoff and the Tsar,"which had its Regional Premiere last night at Mountain View Center for Performing Arts, is a two-hander. It describes a fevered dream occurring to Sergei Rachmaninoff as he awaits his death from melanoma in his adopted home of Beverly Hills, CA. The year is 1944, and the composer looks back on his life which, in his mind, was uprooted by the unconscionable incompetence of Russia's last Tsar, Nikolai Romanov. Jonathan Silvestri plays the Tsar, who, though long dead, having been assassinated by Bolsheviks twenty-six years earlier, dialogues back and forth with Rachmaninoff, as the composer seeks to find a way to forgive the long-dead Russian leader.
The story is historical and accurate, since Felder never makes things up. OK, except for the Dead Tsar Walking.
Musically, Rachmaninoff's compositions shine, with melodies we have all loved whether or not we knew where they came from. If you can't hum the theme to Rachmaninoff's Rhapsodie on a Theme of Paganini -- DA DA DA DA DUMMM! then your hummer needs time in the shop.
For us, we feel as we often feel as the curtain falls -- we wish we had seen a little less talk and a lot more music, less Hershey and more Sergei, less kvetching and more shpieling, as my grandmother, a Russian immigrant in Southern California herself, may have said. Don’t listen to the two aristocrats, Rachmaninoff and Tsar Nikolai, but dear old Gram, who always loved a good melody.
RATINGS ★★★★
The San Francisco Theater Blog Awards Division grants Four Stars to Hershey Felder's "Rachmaninoff and the Tsar." He gets one star each for writing, acting and playing, and another for what is now a tradition: the question/answer session at the end of the show. This gives us a real view into Felder as Felder, a brilliant, engaging guy, not anything like, say, Rachmaninoff, Chopin, Liszt, Mozart, Beethoven or Irving Berlin. OK, we said it. Mr. Felder: please do Irving Berlin again?
Hershey Felder: "Rachmaninoff and the Tsar"
Mountain View Center for Performing Arts
500 Castro St., Mountain View
Through Feb. 9, 2025
$64-$114
