Later this month, theater actor-pianist-playwright Hershey Felder will return to San Diego’s Balboa Theatre to premiere his 12th play inspired by a composer — “Rachmaninoff and the Tsar.”
Besides the play making its first appearance in San Diego, it will also be the first composer play in which Felder will share the stage with another actor, British stage and film actor Jonathan Silvestri, who will play Tsar Nicholas II to Felder’s Sergei Rachmaninoff.
Felder’s play is set at the end of the composer’s life in the United States, where he resettled in 1918 following the Russian Revolution.
Felder, 55, premiered his new play earlier this month at the Broad Theatre in Santa Monica, just a few miles from where Rachmaninoff spent the final year of his life in Beverly Hills. He died in 1943 at the age of 69.
In the new play, Rachmaninoff reflects back on his life, his regrets, his compositions, his friendship with the Tsar, his financial and mental health struggles and his separation from his homeland.
A native of Canada, Felder started playing piano professionally at age 13 and some of the first pieces he played in public were Rachmaninoff preludes. He re listening to a cassette tape of Rachmaninoff’s second piano concert every night before he went to bed as a boy. It was only many years later he learned about the composer’s fascinating life and experiences.
The play will include Felder performing some of Rachmaninoff’s most famous music, including the Prelude in C sharp minor, the second piano concert and the famous 18th Variation of Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini (better known as the love theme from the 1980 Christopher Reeve movie “Somewhere in Time”).
Following his San Diego run, Felder will return to his home in Italy, where he moved permanently with his wife, former Canadian prime minister Kim Campbell, a few years before the pandemic. They make their home in Florence, where he has produced theater performances and a number of musical films he streamed for international audiences during the COVID-19 shutdown.
A few years ago, the owner of Florence’s long-shuttered Teatro Nazionale — built in 1720 on the famous Piazza della Signoria — asked Felder to consult on the building’s renovation. Felder’s expertise with every facet of theater-making from stage design and acoustics to selling tickets impressed the theater owner so much that Felder was hired to serve as general manager and artistic director of the theater, which will reopen after a 40-year closure in March 2025 under the new name Teatro Della Signoria.
Felder has also been appointed artistic director for the city’s oldest theater, Teatro Niccolini, which was built in 1648 but has been recently restored. Located near Florence’s famous Duomo, it’s a smaller theater with a mainstage, jazz club and two smaller presentation rooms. Teatro Niccolini’s first season under Felder’s leadership will kick off Sept. 20 and will feature a jazz concert by famed actor-pianist Jeff Goldblum, who also lives in Florence with his wife, Emilie.
To help run the theaters, Felder has assembled an international management team that includes both Italians and several former San Diegans who have worked for Felder for many years: Trevor Hay, Annette Nixon, Erik Carstensen and Jeff Baxter. The production company is called Firenze OnStage.
Felder said that even though running the theaters will keep him busy much of the year, he plans to continue touring the U.S. with his shows. He has also composed an Italian opera which premiered last summer in Fiesole, Italy, and will be reprised in Fiesole next month. Felder said a longtime friend once nicknamed him “hamster,” because he never slows down.
“I always have something going on,” he said. “I’ve realized that as I get older, it’s just the way my motor works. I’m not exactly sure about why, though it probably has to do with losing my mother when I was 13. She was 35, cancer-ridden from the time she was 27, and the acute awareness that what did not get done, might not get done tomorrow — or ever. It might not be ‘real’ per se, but our childhood experiences do shape us.”
In a wide-ranging interview, Felder recently spoke about his Rachmaninoff play and his new theater management jobs. Here are edited responses.
Q: Do you believe Rachmaninoff was the world’s greatest pianist? And is it daunting to portray him onstage?
A: I do believe that he was the finest pianist the world has known. Technically Rachmaninoff is superior to almost any recorded pianist. There is a reserved elegance, a charm, a perfectly even tone, a comprehensive unity in sound and style. Rachmaninoff’s recorded sound is stunning as is his shaping of the music itself, with each phrase, that then leads to a logical shape of the music in its entirety. Thankfully this play is about his composing, for after all, who could re-create that kind of playing live? No one.
Q: Why did you choose San Diego (and L.A.) to premiere your latest play?
A: San Diego has always been a theatrical home, and it is one of two cities in the country (including L.A.) where every single one of my plays has been performed over the years, the other being Los Angeles. I have presented more world premieres in San Diego than anywhere else, and of my theatrical production team all developed their theatrical skills in San Diego, one of the country’s leading theater cities.
Q: Why did you make this a two-character play and what can you tell me about your co-star Jonathan Silvestri?
A: The storytelling requires two characters to tell it. Inherent in the story was a relationship, in particular that of Rachmaninoff to Russia through tsar Nicholas II that was important to explore. This led to the necessity of being with another artist on stage, which is something new for the audiences who have followed my work over the years and something very exciting and enjoyable for me.
Jonathan is a remarkable artist who grew up in London’s theatrical environment with a British mother and Italian father. Fifteen years ago, he moved to Rome to work in the acting field in both English and Italian where he married and had children. During (my) COVID filmmaking period, he was recommended to me as a superior artist who acted in English and could fill the role of the painter Delacroix in the film about Chopin and Liszt. It took a whole minute on a Facetime “audition” to realize this would be an actor and artist that I would want to work with both on that film and on future projects.
Q: The last time we spoke, you talked about creating a fundraising tour program for U.S. theaters, where theater-lovers can travel to Florence for shows, behind-the-scenes tours and VIP experiences, with proceeds going back to the theaters. Is that up and running yet?
A: Indeed, we have already begun this programming. I am asking for a lot of favors in Italy so that I can donate as much as possible to the theaters. We already have such a program for TheatreWorks Silicon Valley. San Diego Theatres and Balboa (Theatre) will be announcing theirs very soon.
Q: Besides Jeff Goldblum and his Mildred Snitzer Orchestra, who are some of the other artists who will make up your inaugural theater seasons in Florence?
A: Still under wraps, but I have looked for a cross-section of the famous, the eclectic, the unusual, the new and the familiar … something for everyone I hope, and also celebrating Italian culture and heritage, as well, not just the international scene.
‘Rachmaninoff and the Tsar’
When: 7:30 p.m. Aug. 27-30; 2 and 7:30 p.m. Aug. 31
Where: Balboa Theatre, 868 Fourth Ave., downtown
Tickets: $75-$107
Online: sandiegotheatres.org
