Commedia dell’arte tomfoolery, I suppose, could have a tenuous connection to Hallowe’en, with its masked stock characters (figures such as Harlequin, Scaramouche, Pulcinella, etc.) all up to some sort of trickery. But comparisons end there, as the Princeton Symphony Orchestra presents a commedia-heavy concert this Sunday.

Rossen Milanov will conduct Stravinsky’s “Petrushka,” a ballet about a lovelorn puppet who meets a violent end, only to return commedia-style and jeer his tormentors, and William Bolcom’s “Commedia for ‘Almost’ 18th Century Orchestra.” In between, Natasha Paremski will be the soloist in Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1.

The concert will take place at Princeton University’s Richardson Auditorium this Sunday at 4 p.m., with a pre-concert talk at 3.

A post-concert reception will be held for ticket-holders at the Princeton University Art Museum, at which commedia-related prints will be displayed.

You can read more about it in my article in today’s Trenton Times:

http://www.nj.com/times-entertainment/index.ssf/2014/10/classical_music_princeton_symp.html

PHOTO: Antic Arlecchino (a.k.a. Harlequin)