Landmarks, Boston Ballet pairing up on the Esplanade

August 26, 2011|By Jeffrey Gantz, Globe Correspondent

Music director Jonathan McPhee conducts a recent rehearsal at the Boston… (Yoon S. Byun/Globe Staff )

BOSTON BALLET AT THE HATCH SHELL Presented by Boston Ballet and the Boston Landmarks Orchestra

At: Hatch Shell, Esplanade (rain venue: Hynes Convention Center), Aug. 31. Free. 617-987-2000 (for weather alerts), www.bostonlandmarks.org, www.bostonballet.org

Free Tchaikovsky on the Esplanade is a Boston tradition. What would the Fourth of July be without the “1812 Overture’’? But free Tchaikovsky ballet - with dancers and a live orchestra - hasn’t been seen on the Esplanade in decades, if ever.

That’s due to change next Wednesday. Weather permitting, Boston Ballet and the Boston Landmarks Orchestra under Boston Ballet music director Jonathan McPhee will present dance excerpts from “The Nutcracker,’’ “Swan Lake,’’ and “Sleeping Beauty,’’ along with orchestral interludes from those ballets and, as a straight-up orchestral chaser, the kinetic march movement from Tchaikovsky’s Sixth Symphony, the “Pathétique,’’ at the Hatch Shell.

It turns out that Boston Landmarks Orchestra founder Charles Ansbacher, who died last September, had been hoping for this collaboration for some time. “It was actually something that Charles and I had discussed several years ago,’’ McPhee explains. “He said, ‘I’ve always wanted to see Boston Ballet on the Esplanade.’ And we looked at it year after year, but it was so difficult to have both live music and live ballet.

“Then Landmarks got hold of me about seven months ago and said, ‘You know, this was one of Charles’s big dreams, and it was never fulfilled, and is there any way we can make it work?’ So everybody put a lot of thought into how we could leave the orchestra where they are and build a separate stage between the orchestra and the audience, which is a little backwards from the way we normally do things, and we just kept solving problems.’’

That doesn’t mean there aren’t any left. The dancers won’t be able to try out the stage until Wednesday afternoon. And there will hardly be any time for orchestra rehearsals. But the players already know the music, because 80 percent of the Boston Landmarks Orchestra members perform regularly as part of the Boston Ballet Orchestra. McPhee recalls that back when Harry Shapiro - a French-horn player for the BSO who went on to become its assistant personnel manager - was asked to form an orchestra for Boston Ballet, he made one out of the Boston Pops Esplanade Orchestra musicians he was using. Then in 2001, when Ansbacher wanted to form the Landmarks Orchestra, he decided it made sense to have musicians who were already playing together, so, McPhee explains, “he basically hired the whole [Boston Ballet] orchestra, lock, stock, and barrel.’’