Royal Setting, Royal Music
Some 20 years ago, two of Spokane’s most notable musicians — Beverly Biggs and David Dutton — had a vision.
They wanted to perform music from the baroque period with a flair — by re-creating the ambiance of the 1749 event of Handel’s “Musick for the Royal Fireworks,” written to celebrate the end of the War of Austrian Succession.
After mulling this idea for a while, they realized Spokane’s “stunningly beautiful” Riverfront Park was the perfect setting, Biggs said.
And the Royal Fireworks Concert was born.
For two decades Biggs and Dutton — and their cadre of musician friends from Washington, Idaho, Oregon and Montana, with special guests sometimes arriving from other parts of the world have presented the concert.
“The first year, about 3,000 people came,” Biggs said, “and that was kind of nice. Then, over time, it grew like topsy until it’s (now) people as far as the eye can see.
“It’s such a thrill.”
The fireworks concert began under Connoisseur Concerts, but 13 years ago Biggs and Dutton left that classical music organization and formed Allegro Baroque and Beyond.
Not ones to rest on their laurels, or much of anything else, and driven by their pure love of period music, the two began talking with their board three years ago about how best to mark the concert’s 20th anniversary.
And a two-day festival was born: Allegro’s Royal Fireworks Festival & Concert, which will be this weekend in Riverfront Park.
From noon to 6 on Saturday and noon to 10 on Sunday, the park will be known as Riverdell, a 17th-century village with its residents re-creating activities of Handel’s day.
Staging today’s festival sounds as if it were nearly as time-consuming as the first event, when several European countries, including England, signed the Peace of Aix-LaChapelle Treaty.
Back then, in 1749, workers built an enormous set-piece to showcase a gigantic display of fireworks as part of the celebration, Biggs said. It stood 410 feet long and 114 feet high, complete with carved figures of Greek gods, a bas-relief of King George II, steps, pillars, passageways and a 200-foot pole bearing a representation of the sun.
It was the baroque period, after all, an era known for fussy ornamentation in architecture and highly embellished melodies in music - a time when things were “fantastically overdecorated,” according to one definition.
Spokane’s version of that event might not be quite as elaborate, but Biggs is hoping the festival will grow - like topsy - over the next couple years to become five times its originating size of 30 Riverdell Players.
Costumed players this weekend will portray Master Don of the Brush and Rainbow Colors and Thomas the Red, who will paint portraits of visitors; Mistress Judith, who will spin and weave, and Mistress Patricia, who will toil at lacemaking for the nobles.
Special frolics for visiting children have been planned, including a maypole dance and an egg roll and toss. Swashbucklers will swash their buckles, and fencing experts will ply their trade.
Riverdell will also have residents printing from woodcuts, and jugglers and villagers weaving their way amid the crowd.
Biggs has been told it should be illegal to have as much fun as she’s having planning the events.
Those plans have gathered energy of their own accord, with several arts organizations and businesses joining in to help make it all a reality.
Some planning has been serendipitous. Like the Spokane Arts Commission calling Biggs three months into the planning sessions to ask if Allegro might consider staging a festival to go along with their concert.
Funny thing they should have asked.
Jack Phillips, executive director of the Spokane Civic Theatre, got so enthused with the project that he collected a cast of actors to stage Shakespeare’s “Taming of the Shrew,” which he’s honed to a 90-minute production.
“I feel so fortunate to be able to do something like this,” Biggs said.