Circus set to music still a thrill

It doesn’t matter how many times you may have seen a certain type of circus act, be it someone juggling on the ground or soaring through the air. These feats can still bring a smile to one’s face, even a thrill down the spine.

Cirque de la Symphonie is a company specializing in presenting cirque-style acts of strength, balance, agility, flexibility and a general disregard for the laws of gravity and physics in conjunction with symphony orchestras.

Four of its performers were the guests of the Signature Symphony at Tulsa Community College for the orchestra’s first concerts of its 33rd season. And before the show was over Friday night, artistic director Barry Epperley promised the capacity crowd at the VanTrease PACE that Cirque de la Symphonie would be back.

Epperley said that even when Vladimir Tsarkov, a mime, juggler, clown and magician, apparently made off with Epperley’s wallet in the course of a magic trick. Tsarkov did the most in the evening, beginning with demonstrating a number of innovative ways of keeping first three, then four, then five, then six hoops in the air. He then assisted Elena Tsarkova in her series of quick-changes — gloves, then dresses that got increasingly lighter in color and longer in length.

Then came the magic act, where Epperley was coaxed into a large sack with a ropebound Tsarkova. After a few seconds, the sack was dropped — and Epperley’s tuxedo coat was under all those ropes around Tsarkova.

Tsarkova on her own performed a series of acrobatic moves and contortionist poses on a pair of tall stools.

Alexander Streltsov performed a kind of juggling act, spinning a large cube made of metal bars around the stage. He and fellow aerialist, Christine Van Loo, were featured in the show’s finale, weaving themselves in two long red silks high about the stage.

Everything was done with understated grace, precision, even humor — as when one of Tsarkov’s hoops got away from him, and he was able to make it a part of the act. And no matter how familiar the various acts were, they were still remarkable displays of human ability.

The soundtrack to all these goings-on was a good deal of Tchaikovsky, a bunch of Bizet and a sampling of Saint-Saens and Rossini.

In order to accommodate the cirque acts, the Signature Symphony was moved to the very back of the stage. Epperley and guest conductor Pete Peterson, who divided the conducting duties for the night, had all the strings to one side, all the winds and brass to the other.

It might have been because of this physical arrangement, but the orchestra’s sound was wildly unbalanced — the opening piece, Dvorak’s “Carnival Overture,” sounds like a carnival that had been touring too long through some pretty rough towns.

It wasn’t until the final piece of the first half, the Bacchanale from “Samson et Delilah,” that the orchestra’s sound really came together. The medley from “Scheherazade” was maybe the best performance of the evening, with fine solo work by concertmaster Maureen O’Boyle, principal oboist Lisa Wagner and principal bassoonist Jim Fellows.