Cloudy with a chance of Meatballs II continues more or less where the first left off. The story resumes a short time after the end of the first film, that I saw (and reviewed) just a little while ago. I was right to obtain the video to the first film, as there’s a lot in the second film that isn’t easily intelligible without the first one.
As with the first film, yes there’s lots for children to enjoy. But there’s also a great deal that likely goes over their heads, subtle meanings making reference to other films & aspects of modern culure, including products & logos.
Where the moral of the first film seemed to promote sustainability while decrying the excesses of our commercialized civilization, Meatballs II seems to go in a different direction.
Yes there’s symbolism. But there’s a very specific target of the satire, and it’s no longer about our excesses. Instead the film targets a particular corporate culture.
I am mindful of Jobs, another film celebrating a particularly nerdy flavour of the American dream. You’ll recall that Meatballs I concerned an inventor whose creations backfire. Technology in that world is a mixed blessing that (literally) promises pie in the sky unless all that pie buries us when it falls on us.
In Meatballs II we see a different understanding of technology & invention. Where the first film is an inspirational tale of pure nerdiness & creativity, the second film is much darker, suggesting heroes & villains, good guys & bad guys.
And the bad guys are clearly a recognizable brand, namely Apple & their guru Steve Jobs, shown as a phony new-age guru who may mouth “Namaste”, but doesn’t walk the talk. Oh no. He’s evil through and through. We see a kind of idea factory that recruits our inventor hero Flint Lockwood, but only for the purpose of stealing his ideas.
The sneaker’s on the other foot now.
We see visual flamboyance as in the first film, but the humour is often lame. And yes, there’s this odd attack on Apple. If I didn’t know better I’d be wondering: who stands to benefit from this. If the film had been made by the competition (HP or Microsoft) it would be totally explicable, a cartoon version of an attack ad. I am reminded of Apple’s ads mocking the PC. Perhaps this is karma?
The thing in the film that I liked best is a tune by Paul Mccartney. And yes, the film is flamboyant visually. But where the first film had an integrity that made it feel like a healthy meal, this time my tummy doesn’t feel quite so good.
Sigh, so maybe I shouldn’t have asked for seconds. I had more than enough meatballs the first time.
Mark Shulgasser is a librettist especially known for his collaborations with composer Lee Hoiby. They created several operas together, until Hoiby’s passing in 2011. One might call Shulgasser a champion for Hoiby’s work, except that I believe Shulgasser is still adjusting to the double trauma of losing his beloved life partner & his great artistic collaborator. Considering how recent his loss, I feel very privileged that he’s able to talk at all.
I was intrigued that although produced by Des Moines Metro Opera, Dallas Opera & Pacific Opera in Victoria BC, it wasn’t the Hoiby/Shulgasser adaptation of Shakespeare’s The Tempest that was produced at the Metropolitan Opera, but a newer one by Thomas Adès.
Here’s a performance of the aria “Be not afear’d”, an aria called “the finest tenor aria of the last 50 years” by the Opera News critic on the occasion of the Dallas Opera production in 1996.
As you can hear, Hoiby’s voice is tonal, in the tradition of composers such as Gian-Carlo Menotti & Samuel Barber, and has been championed by such artists as Leontyne Price.
Hoiby has a substantial body of work, including several collaborations with Shulgasser. Some are full-length adaptations, such as The Tempest or Romeo and Juliet, their last work together. Others are short monodramas, such as The Italian Lesson or Bon Appetit.
On the occasion of Diva Lounge Productions remount of The Italian Lesson at the University of Western Ontario starring Sonja Gustafson next week, I ask Mark Shulgasser ten questions: five about himself and five more about collaborating on The Italian Lesson.
1) Are you more like your father or your mother?
Physically I see both of them, a touch more my mother, I suppose. Temperamentally I’m more my mother, and I felt closer to her, but then my father was rather aloof (tho gregarious, a seeming contradiction.)
Once in my twenties when I was in San Francisco, separated from Mother by a continent, at dawn following a harrowing night, I saw her tear-streaked face look back at me in the mirror. I was in love with one of the Cockettes, a San Fransicso drag collective; he was preoccupied with a heroin addict named Daniel. So I rang Mother up and woke her from a dream. She had entered a church (a holocaust survivor, when awake she had an aversion to churches). The church was full of naked men whose bodies were covered with boils. One of them turned around. It was me. She lit a candle and left the church.
I try not to think about her too much. She had a great sensitivity to music and art, but she didn’t find them important. She had a propensity to lateness which I share and many times together we slipped into concert seats at the last second, with practiced poise: Emil Gilels in Carnegie Hall (Mozart, Chopin, Liszt), Carlo Bergonzi at the Four Arts in Palm Beach, with Lee in tow, incredulous). Sometimes the artist would acknowledge us before beginning to play. She had been seriously scared as a child at her first opera, Faust. Once we drove behind an ambulance to Lincoln Center. Once in Paris an international flight was held for us.
Did I mention that she was terribly well-dressed? And frankly stunning as you can see from the picture, in Europe often taken for Anouk Aimee. Also, she had real style as an interior decorator and was a regular client of Herman Miller and the Eames, both in our home furnishings and for friends, and she even had her own clients. Until she realized that she knew nothing about business. That’s another way I resemble her, and became briefly a clueless gallerist.
She could have been a handful; unfortunately she came up against an assortment of chronic illnesses. Nor did she ever say goodby to Paris, where she & my father lived from 1945-47. (I was conceived in Nice.) So thru Mums I grew up Francophile. Don’t get me started on my mother’s childhood. She had a nurse named Juzefa. Bialystock, on the Lithuanian border, the most jewish city in Europe, population 100,000 one half Jews imagining themselves to be Polish, even Franco/Polish,. She lived among crystal rosebowls on mahogany tables, oriental carpets, and periodic trips to spas in German and France all the while being mildly kosher. The family, with a branch in Czechoslovakia traded in lightbulbs and glass fixtures. Her father was handsome, of somewhat mysterious origin, and unfaithful.
Dad, on the other hand He relished a jewish Lithuanian shtetl identity with its rabbinical depth, as well as Russian culture, and he had no trouble maintaining his identification with the best of German culture in spite of the war. (Mums on the other hand, hated to hear the language). His mother was literary and twice a year he would accompany her to the Deutschesbuchhandler, who received her privately in someone’s salon and brought out the newest arrivals that might interest her. Dad had 13 years on Mums, the decade of the thirties spent traveling Europe commercially. A natural linguist, he became cosmopolitan.
He gave me the bible, Goethe, Thomas Mann, and the example that reading continually is a proper activity. He especially read modern European history as if researching his own past, and he told me often, admiringly, that his family had supported numerous scholars who had no responsibility but to study torah, including most of his own male relatives. (That seemed to me to be a nice alternative to many of the behavioral models of the time.) My mother designed a beautiful library den for him.
He was completely tone deaf with absolutely no interest in music of any kind (tho he liked Doris Day). We had a baby grand piano and my mother and I both took lessons, first from a Mrs. Bay, who was the sister of Emanuel Bay, Heifetz’s longtime accompanist. Mother got to the point of playing those annoying Clementi sonatinas and then gave it up; I perservered to not much greater attainment, instructed by a magical woman, a hunchbacked dwarf with a red bouffant hairdo, who at lessons rarely touched the keyboard, but, just on occasion, she would play a simple scale with one hand and it was an aria.
And one day Father sat down at the keyboard and played a few licks with such style, nuance, charm and tone I couldn’t believe my ears. He grinned sheepishly and refused to ever do it again!
2) What is the best thing or worst thing about being a librettist ?
What IS a librettist? It sounds like a little figurine on a glass shelf.
Ideally, or classically, an original librettist is a poet for whom the writing of material to be set to music is a sideline at best. He may also be a writer of prose and plays. He was often the dominant member of the partnership, but unless lucky enough to hook up with a composer who lasted, his opera have been forgotten.
Most often, however, a libretto is merely an adaptation, requiring no more than an editorial hand, so many good libretti come from the stage-struck, including producers, directors, conductors, dramaturgs and patrons. (Rarely from critics, however; Andrew Porter’s dreadful Tempest, for instance.) Of course adaptations can be quite plain, or free and imaginative, and here the most evanescent of arts, the genius of theater, comes into play. In fact, if ideally the librettist is a poet, usually he is any sort of ‘homme de theatre’or ‘boulevardier’. Many a lighting designer and props person has a stab at a libretto in a drawer somewhere.
Myself as a librettist – well I’ve only ever made adaptations, and only for Lee Hoiby, so I hardly have a well-rounded experience of the terrain. For me the personal relationship with the composer was the principal experience, shared enthusiasms, explorations, readings of wonderful literary properties.
[Leslie, this leads to so many thoughts, for later . . .]
3) Who do you like to listen to or watch?
I make a selection of what I like to listen to on my radio show “Music of the Spheres” which broadcasts live from noon to two on WJFF Radio Catskill. It streams at WJFFradio.org. Chamber music and piano music have always been primo for me, more so than opera. This week I’ll be highlighting Jeremy Denk, as he’s playing a recital locally on Sunday.
But my other side, you might call it, is my passionate interest in the Zodiac. I’ve always kept up my astrology. So often one hears that astrology is misconstrued unless one goes beyond the simple sun-sign stuff, but it’s really only the sun-signs that interest me. I’m a cultural sun-sign spotter. I collect some observations on an intermittent blog: astrodreamer.squarespace.com.
Check it out.
4) What ability or skill do you wish you had, that you don’t have?
I wish I played the piano better & could accompany singers. I wish I had more earth in my chart.
5) When you’re just relaxing and not working what is your favourite thing to do?
Reading, of course.
My library is unusual in being, to the extent possible, organized by the astrological sign of the author or subject.
I have polymathic leanings, and was as a child very much torn between scientific and artistic interests. That developed into a fascination with astrology, as a practicum of the continual contest between imaginative and scientific creation. I compulsively embellish my experience with astrological observations, but have learned to keep quiet about them, as they tend to make the impression of ostentatious jewelry or heavy perfume. I’ve been digitizing fragments of my collection of disturbing astrological coincidences at http://astrodreamer.squarespace.com. It’s fallen behind as another astrological writing project is in the works.
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Five more about being the librettist of Lee Hoiby’s The Italian Lesson.
1) Please talk a bit about your process writing a libretto, and how you approach it.
I don’t claim to be the librettist of “The Italian Lesson”. [Leslie at this point admits he may have made an error..? perhaps because the libretto adapts someone else’s words? but nevermind!]
Composer Lee Hoiby and his partner/collaborator Mark Shulgasser at The Falls, Long Eddy, New York.
At times Lee allowed that I was, which surprised me. It was a slight move of his I think to get me blanket credit for all literary and drama-turgical aspects of his work. So at your invitation I will just ramble on with anecdotes librettistical.
I helped out that way, dramaturgically, for instance, when a version of Summer and Smoke had to be created for the Chicago Opera Theater. It had to play half an hour shorter to be videocast. Lee threw up his hands at the task. The opera had a considerable history of reshaping throughout its development and Lee didn’t want to go back to it.
I had no trouble doing this – and 20 of the cut 30 minutes were decided to be improvements and were incorporated into the published score. (The original version still exists in the full orchestration, and was recently performed, but the published vocal score corresponds with the reduced orchestration, which Lee came to prefer for the intimacy.)
Oddly enough, much that I judged excessive turned out to be material that Lee had added at the request of the director of the premiere, Frank Corsaro. For instance a rather overblown funeral procession with black umbrellas. Lee admitted he never really liked that music, but “Frank said it needed it.” I was not too happy when Lee told me that, because I was already embarrassed about having dropped Corsaro’s HB Studio opera-direction class after one session, without a word of apology.
If I could influence a subsequent production of Summer and Smoke I would jettison the Prologue as well. Beginning with a flashback of amplified, recorded children’s voices, for me that’s really like chalk squeaking across a blackboard. The play itself is a problem play in Williams’ output; he wrote three versions, one titled. Eccentricities of a Nightingale”. None really works. Williams offered Lee any play he wanted to set – he chose S&S and was often asked why on earth? Basically Lee would rather write about a nightingale than a man in a wife-beater yelling “Stella!”.
I also got Lee to add a scene which, to my knowledge has never been performed except in the production I directed at USC years and years ago. It’s a telephone conversation between a giddy Alma and a monosyllabic, hung-over John, accompanied only by a piano trio, onstage (using the piano in Alma’s parlor, where she gives a voice lesson later – it works.)
I’d like to see Summer and Smoke set in the 30s. There’s no reason why not, and I hate all that southern gingerbread. I think when the opera is properly done it transcends the deficiencies of the play through music and holds its own. Of all of Williams’ anatomies of female humiliation, Alma’s is the least squalid, Alma is the most dignified, her long decline the most musical and controlled, and in fact this is really the soprano’s opera. The role requires the combined heft and delicacy of a Butterfly, but Lee said Pelleas was his strongest influence. (Pelleas and Figaro being his opera ultimates.)
But I digress. Back to Frank Corsaro. Of course Lee was often asked why he didn’t choose The Glass Menagerie. I myself made a stab at an adaptation, but Lee turned it down. He flatly refused to devote two years or more of musical abilities to making the humiliation of a weak-minded, crippled girl as excruciating as possible. After The Tempest he often said from now on I only want to set Shakespeare.
Plus, we believed that the rights to The Glass Menagerie were unobtainable, having been so informed when Lee wanted to make a setting of Amanda’s “Jonquil” speech for soprano, saxophone and piano. So we were surprised when Frank Corsaro called one day to say that he could obtain the rights to the Menagerie, and would Lee write the music to Frank’s libretto? A substantial commission would be involved, no doubt, and much attention. I think this would have been for Juilliard. Not the sort of thing that comes one’s way very often.
I didn’t actually hear the conversation between Frank and Lee, but it must have included “not really attracted to the play”, and “Mark’s already done a libretto . . .” but the upshot was Frank sputtering, “You know, Lee, you could be doing great things, but you have this reLAYtionship . . .”
I have only one more Frank Corsaro anecdote: we obtained a room at Juilliard in order to drive down to town and play The Italian Lesson for Frank. I was page-turner. Frank was in obvious pain, in the midst of a lower back crisis. He walked with a wince, and squirmed continuously in the metal folding chair, as Lee sang and played. Frank was writhing about, leaning the chair backward on two legs or one leg; I couldn’t have possibly enjoyed listening to a new work or any work in that shape, but Frank is a trouper.
At a certain point in The Italian Lesson, Mrs. Clancy is speaking to her ineffably boring husband on the phone, repeating by rote certain tedious instructions he’s giving her to be conveyed to the chauffeur about golf things and suddenly she exclaims “Look out! Billy! Get off that chair! Look out, darling, you’ll fall!” And there was a crash and Frank and his folding metal chair went over in a tangle!
Lee owed a great deal to Frank Corsaro. First, Frank’s revivification of La Traviata at NYCO with Patricia Brooks won Lee over to Verdi. Then Frank put much of himself into Summer and Smoke, and directing it first in St. Paul before bringing it to NYCO. But a triumvirate of Williams Corsaro and Hoiby was not to be. My fault, apparently.
Ruth Draper’s performance of The Italian Lesson was recorded (along with much of her work) in 1954 when she was 72 (she died 2 years later). It was generally considered her masterpiece, and one reason to set it to music was to preserve the work of a remarkable and unique artist, and to expand the circle of her dwindling coterie.
The late recordings have been released on CD and I quote from the website where they can be obtained, & which is full of info about her : http://www.drapermonologues.com/
“Fans of her original “monodramas” included European royalty and U.S. presidents, and such stage legends as Sarah Bernhardt and George Bernard Shaw. Henry Adams considered her a genius; Henry James wrote a monologue for her (she never performed it); John Singer Sargent sketched her; and John Gielgud declared himself “infinitely fortunate” to have both known her and seen her onstage. “
She was the daughter of a cultured uppercrust New York family and she began to write and perform her monologues for family and friends only. One family friend, as mentioned above, was Henry James. Leon Edel, James’s biographer, writes: “When James first saw Draper do some of her characterizations and sketches she had not yet embarked upon her professional stage career; she had appeared in London, in a few private salons, always writing and developing her own material. Miss Draper talked to James of her plans. She wondered whether she should go on the stage in plays, devote herself to writing, or do the unique type of sketch she later made famous. She has quoted James as saying to her, “”My dear young friend you have woven yourself a magic carpet—stand on it!”
“There was a long time when no one knew who she was,” says Kate Draper, one of Paul Draper’s three daughters, and once a Broadway actress herself, “but she’s always been very popular with gay men. It was always gay actors that found her appealing. I could mention my name, and they’d say ‘You’re not a relation of Ruth Draper’s by any chance?'”
Uta Hagen, who estimated that she saw Draper perform some sixty times, said she never would have considered her own interpretation of a Draper monologue. “I wouldn’t even know where to start,” she said. Neither would Lily Tomlin: “That would be sort of sacrilegious.” Asked if she would ever try her hand at a Draper sketch, Julie Harris responds emphatically, “No! God save us! She was so unique.”
While working as a director at Britain’s National Theatre in the 1980s, Simon Callow attempted to stage a tribute to Draper with five actresses each doing a different monologue. Though initially enthusiastic, the actresses—Dame Peggy Ashcroft and Anna Massey among them—all came back to Callow with sincere regrets. Draper, a memory onstage for some, a recorded voice for others, was too much to live up to. “That’s the real tribute,” he notes.
If no actress alone could entirely reinhabit Draper’s texts, perhaps music could play a helping role. In so far as there is a libretto structure it is this:
1. Introduction: Signorina
2. Mabel Norton
3. Jane
4. Miss Pounder
5. Puppy
6. Count Bluffsky
7. . . . Miss Swift a
8. Camilla
9. Miss Swift b
10. The Lover
2) what do you love about The Italian Lesson?
Leslie: May we rephrase the Q? I’ll answer it in Q. 3, no? Here I will address something I like about The Italian Lesson because of astrological associations.
Henry James suggested Draper’s gift was her magic carpet. Draper chose, in the service of her art, continually and extensively to tour, to spend much of her life as a woman travelling alone, a one-woman show, a self-transportable objet d’art. Now her Sagittarius is the sign of flight and traveling, and tends towards bachelorhood, a temperament that thrives on distance rather than intimacy. (“The Pilgrim’s Progress”, “The Sentimental Journey”, “Gulliver’s Travels” are each by Sagittarians.) Draper had only one significant romantic relationship, and it was a characteristically long-distance one. She fell passionately in love with a dashing Italian poet 17 years her junior. His name was Lauro de Bosis. He died in 1931 when his plane crashed after a daring solo flight distributing anti-Mussolini leaflets over Rome. Three years earlier he had written a premonitory verse drama called “Icaro”. Draper translated it and had it beautifully published. I have a copy.
Oh, and de Bosis was also a Sagittarian.
I can fill out the picture by mentioning that the wonderful poet and Sagittarian James Tate’s first book is called “The Lost Pilot” with reference to his crucial relationship-in-absence with his father, a pilot shot down in WW2, whom he never met. Then there’s the bachelor composer Beethoven, author of Les Adieux and An die ferne Geliebte (To the Far-off Beloved), whose Pastorale Symphony was interpreted by Walt Disney, another Sagittarian, as a tale of centaurs and flying horses. I’d better stop.
3) Do you have favorite moments in The Italian Lesson?
That would have to be when Mrs. Clancy says to her secretary-helper Miss Swift: “And then what have I? Oh! The Philharmonic?! It seems to come so often. Does anyone really like music? Everyone says they do but I never believe them. Oh, I know who does, my old piano teacher, Miss Hattie Tush, she has a friend, and they stumble in together, and they enjoy it more than anyone I know, so send the tickets to her. . . “
4) How do you relate to The Italian Lesson as a modern man?
“The Italian Lesson” is certainly a very niche-y piece and perfect for the kind of singer that Sonja Gustafson is, who blurs the border between cabaret and opera. (I can’t actually remember when it was last done with orchestra.) Several of Lee’s songs do this and I’ve been promising Ms. Gustafson to send them to her. I believe a new collection of Hoiby songs is on the way; he left behind a good deal of unpublished music.
As a “modern man” (as opposed to a medieval ghost haunting our day) my relationship to the Estate of Lee Hoiby, which encompasses works like the operas “The Tempest” and “Romeo and Juliet” in which I had a substantial hand, and music written before I even knew him, all of that, comprises my sole source of income, as a modern man, who would like to remain so. I find it not only a pleasure but a necessity to encourage people to enjoy Lee’s legacy and perform it. I might add here that those like myself who have the misfortune not be in London, Ontario next week will be able to see it performed in New York City, USA on Dec. 6-8, by Darynn Zimmer, accompanied by Ted Taylor, directed by Beth Greenberg. (http://eastharlempresents.org)
Due to this terrible thing called political borders Lee’s work is less known in Canada. Timothy Vernon lit a torch for us with an exceptional production of the Tempest in Victoria. We always regretted missing Barbe et Doucet, who had to leave before we saw the show. I remember Lee and I being sadly resigned to the news that the second act was to be performed without the orchestral prelude, because of time. B&D invented a delicious coup de theatre to replace it.
Marc Edmund Jones
5) Is there anyone out there who you particularly admire, and who has influenced you?
Marc Edmund Jones, Dane Rudhyar, Charles E. O. Carter, Charles Fort.
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Lee Hoiby’s The Italian Lesson will be presented Friday October 25th at 12:30 pm, at von Kuster Hall, University of Western Ontario’s Don Wright Faculty of Music, London Ontario by Diva Lounge Productions.
It’s a truism that some artists are different in live situations than on record. The presence of an audience can inspire & illuminate a performance in a way that doesn’t happen in a studio.
That’s what I experienced tonight. When I met Beatriz Boizán a few days ago –a chance encounter at a concert, after interviewing her—she very kindly gave me a copy of her CD, knowing I’d be coming to see her play at Gallery 345 tonight. That CD gives me a wonderful gateway—and a good excuse—to explore her music further. I’ll talk for now about the adventure of tonight’s concert, and delve deeper when I speak of the CD in a few days.
Forget your usual assumptions. We associate big loud piano sounds with big guys like Garrick Ohlsson. When you see Beatriz Boizán as I first saw her (at a concert), she’s simply a charming woman, not very big, but pretty. One might be lured into patronizingly thinking “oh yes she’s pretty and her music will be pretty”. The photos give you an idea of course. Boizán wore Rosemary Umetsu couture, a different gown for each half of the concert.
Pianist Beatriz Boizan in one of her Umetsu gowns (photo by Elizabeth Bowman)
But the concert was physically demanding, a lot of pianistic heavy lifting. Boizán has a powerful sound that she unveils at times when she’s not employing one of the cleanest staccato deliveries I’ve ever heard. Her line is pristeen, notes perfectly separated. She is a player of power & wonderful stamina, so that I realize that she was very much like an athlete in her Umetsu couture, effortlessly hurdling the challenges in her virtuoso program (and forgive me if the V word is so overused as to be meaningless).
It was a mostly Latin-themed program, a reflection of allegiances & cultural heritage. Closest to home for Boizán? How about Ignacio Cervantes, a Cuban composer that I feel I should know better, and one that I am looking forward to exploring further (he’s new to me). We heard six charismatic Selections from Danzas Chubanas, including “Los muñecos”. How have i lived this long without hearing this fun piece? There are several versions on youtube, none of a virtuosity to match what we heard from Boizán. This little clip gives you an idea (although I prefer the sound of her two hands to their four, charming as they may sound).
Boizán also gave us Albéniz, Lecuona, her own dazzling transcription of de Falla’s “Ritual Fire Dance” and as an encore, Ginastera’s “Danza Del Gaucho Matrero” (if I got the name right), a wonderfully dissonant piece that sounds like something Debussy would have written had he been kidnapped by gauchos.
The concert opened with Haydn’s last piano Sonata, played with great lucidity. The last movement was especially original, offering us an approach to the voices that brought out their song-like quality in spite of –or at the heart of—the counterpoint. I love that she compels me to go back to the piece, now that i’ve heard it in a completely new way.
To close the first half of the program Boizán gave us a pair of well-known showpieces from Franz Liszt, namely his “Sonetto #104 del Petrarca” and the “La Campanella” etude, not as the usual show-off show-stopper, but in both cases with more genuine emotion and love than i’ve ever encountered in those pieces.
I suppose I should return to the idea with which I open, concerning live vs recorded. Boizán defies expectation, even after you’ve heard her crystal clear playing on the CD, because in person her passion infuses the music –especially the Latin themed compositions that are close to home—with additional life. I’ve never heard so much power from such a sweet little person, sometimes playing with her eyes closed for long periods of time. And then her emotion bursts out at the keyboard. “Feral” was a word that came up in the enthusiastic conversation afterwards, as we tried to understand what we’d experienced, as though we’d heard someone whose energies have not yet been tamed by the normal expectations of concert routine, as though her wild passions had just been brought back fresh from the wild. It’s a silly metaphor in some ways because Boizán plays with amazing precision. Of course: her live performance is energized by an audience, the undeniable chemistry we feel in the presence of true charisma. I feel very fortunate to have experienced this concert from an artist new to me and apparently new to the Toronto scene, someone who sends me reeling back to old words I have over-used, such as “magic” and “overwhelming”. The cynic in me wants to say that this comes from youth, that with maturity we’ll get mere music rather than shamanic energies opening doors. But another part of me suspects that this is the nature of her art, that the doors are open for her and she can take us through.
I look forward to hearing Boizán again. Trust me, if she’s playing anywhere around here I’ll write about it and let you know so you get a chance to hear her for yourself.
Tonight I saw the Canadian Opera Company production of Benjamin Britten’s Peter Grimes. I’m late getting to the party for a production that opened on October 5th, but I was out of town that weekend. Regular readers of newspaper reviews will likely have heard of the opening night drama due to the indisposition of Ben Heppner in the title role & his late replacement by Anthony Dean Griffey. Perhaps my timing is good, considering that Heppner is now healthy.
The COC have already commemorated Verdi (Il trovatore) & Wagner (Tristan und Isolde) in this year of Centennials, and now it’s Benjamin Britten’s turn, even if he’s only 100 rather than 200 years old.
The program called Britten the “leading opera composer of the 20th century”. I like Britten but would call him “a”, not “the” leading opera composer of the 20th century, partly because I prefer Richard Strauss & Puccini to Britten, partly because such preferences are shared by a great many people (for example, if you read the statistical website operabase).
Some operas are such a good match to the strengths of certain companies that they serve to bring out the best in that ensemble. Such is the case with Peter Grimes. I’d go so far as to say that this is the kind of opera that the COC should be producing, because it shows off everything that’s good about this company
The opera is full of choral work, meaning not just singing but acting
The orchestra gets moments to shine playing difficult music
The opera is full of smaller parts that draw upon the talents in the COC Ensemble Studio
Peter Grimes is a kind of template, matching excellence we’ve seen before. One of the high-water marks for this company in recent years was their production of Prokofiev’s War & Peace, another 20th century work requiring choral & orchestral brilliance, and an abundance of small parts to create a gripping piece of music-theatre. While the principals—whom I’ll speak of in a moment—were also good, that’s not really what makes this opera fly (nor War & Peace). I hope General Director Alexander Neef notices how well the company responds top to bottom, when confronted with a challenging work. The orchestra, especially when led by Johannes Debus, seems to get better every year. They seemed to make a quantum leap last year, sounding phenomenal in Tristan und Isolde and in Poulenc’s Dialogues des Carmelites. Hm, I think the Poulenc also matches the template somewhat—20th century, dramatic, wonderful chorus work & ensemble work—although if we push the idea too far it becomes so tenuous as to be meaningless.
Ben Heppner (photo: Michael Cooper)
As I mentioned, Heppner’s back in form after whatever ailed him on the 5th, nearly two weeks ago. I can’t get over how wonderful it is to again see a Canadian star repatriated after a magnificent career abroad, his Toronto appearances a tiny bit of icing on his cake. Perhaps we’ll see him again in this city, now that he seems to be settling into his other role at CBC radio.
I can’t rely on my memory to properly contextualize Heppner’s achievement. I saw Jon Vickers sing Grimes here in Toronto in the 1980s, (a rare visit by the Metropolitan Opera at a festival) an interpretation that was ground-breaking in its brave transgression of the composer’s own idea of the role. While I recall Vickers giving us something like madness, a desperation in his repeated lines of “I’ll marry Ellen”, Heppner proudly sang the same lines to the rafters. Heppner’s reading is romantic, a man who has a strong vision but who simply seems to make mistakes, a tragedy tripped up by fortune and his headstrong ways, where Vickers’ Grimes seems like a more genuinely dark & troubled soul. I think Heppner’s reading is a valid alternative, that maybe we don’t need to see madness.
Neil Armfield’s decision to set the production in times contemporary with Britten is not radical by usual operatic practice, especially given his self-reflexive reading centred on Doctor Crabbe, the figure whose writings are the source for the libretto. The focus on the doctor is fascinating, but I did not find anything particularly illuminating in this interpretation. What’s more, the updating (from 1830s to the 1940s) makes some of the story more troubling. The rough treatment meted out by Grimes looks very different set in the 1830s, when the boys came from workhouses, than if it suddenly becomes a 20th century story. By updating I was troubled, applying more modern standards of behaviour for Grimes (especially when the boys are shown as children allowed to play, not refugees from workhouses lugging coal or performing child labour). When we add in the framing –with Dr Crabbe—I found I was simply confused, unclear as to whether I should think of Grimes as a modern or not. None of this detracts from Heppner’s work, but it did serve to distract me in places as I struggled to decode the reading. Armfield gets wonderfully light ensemble work from his company in places, especially at the beginning of the last act, to counter-balance the tragic story arc for Grimes. Perhaps I should allow that Armfield creates a densely woven social fabric, where almost everyone is likeable at some level, where there are no blatant villains or cardboard characterizations, and where one’s emotions may be deeply conflicted.
The other leads were strong. Alan Held, who has had several excellent roles with the COC over the past two years (Kurwenal, Gianni Schicchi and Jochanaan) was a suitably powerful presence, one of the two key moral reference-points in the opera. The other was the Ellen Orford of Ileana Montalbetti, very believable in her embodiment of Grimes’ fondest dream of happiness.
Jill Grove, a powerful Amneris a couple of years ago, gave a colourful portrayal of Auntie, with a voice as powerful as her presence. I found myself constantly watching Robert Pomakov throughout, a suitably rough-edged Hobson. In addition, Owen McCausland (the reverend), Tom Corbeil(Swallow), and Claire de Sévigné & Danielle MacMillan (as the wacky pair of nieces) were standouts. Should I name everyone? Okay. Peter Barrett, Judith Christin, and Roger Honeywell all had moments to shine, and no one was less than compelling.
The COC production of Peter Grimes continues until October 26th at the Four Seasons Centre. It’s a brilliant piece of theatre that is not only worth seeing, but –if I get my wish—is worth emulating in future seasons.
Ileana Montalbetti and Alan Held (photo by Michael Cooper)
“Press releases and announcements” are presented verbatim without comment.
David Eagle and the Art of Interactive Electronics
Friday, November 1 at 8PM at Betty Oliphant Theatre Traditional instruments make music with computers,
iPhone and Kinect sensor
For Immediate Release – Toronto, October 15, 2013: For the second concert of its 43rd season, New Music Concerts’ artistic director Robert Aitken asked Calgary-based composer David Eagle to curate a concert showcasing some of the most exciting young composers working in the field of electroacoustics and interactive media. The concert will include recent works byJimmie LeBlanc, Anthony Tan, Anna Pidgorna, Hans Tutschku and a New Music Concerts commission from Eagle himself for voice, ensemble and live electronics. Guest artists Xin Wang (soprano), Julia Den Boer (piano), Katelyn Clark (harpsichord) and Rachel Mercer (cello) join the New Music Concerts Ensemble and Robert Aitken (solo flute and direction).
Curator David Eagle (b.1955 Canada) is Professor of Composition and Electroacoustic Music at the University of Calgary. He is represented by two works on the program, Fluctuare for solo flute and electronics written for Robert Aitken in 2009 (first performed at the Happening New Music Festival in Calgary of which Eagle is the director), and the world premiere of the commission Unremembered Tongues noted above. The new work features texts in various languages including Latin, Blackfoot, Basque, Hawaiian, Cree and several indigenous Australian dialects. The composer will use a Kinect sensor to shape the music through physical gestures and an iPhone to trigger the programmed changes in the processing. Soprano Xin Wang is the soloist.
Composer and guitarist Jimmie LeBlanc was born in rural Quebec in 1977. He composed Lignes d’ombre (Shadow Lines) for harpsichord, piano and electronics for the Contemporary Keyboard Society in 2011. Katelyn Clark will reprise her role at the harpsichord and Julia Den Boer will be the pianist.
Anthony Tan is a Chinese-Malaysian composer born in Canada in 1978 now residing in Germany. On the Shadows of Ideas for piano and electronics (2013) was commissioned by the Experimental Studio SWR, Freiburg. Julia Den Boer who premiered the work is the soloist.
Anna Pidgorna (b. 1985) is a Ukrainian-born Canadian composer and media artist who combines her interests sound, visual art and writing to create works that are dramatic and picturesque. She is currently based in Vancouver, BC. The Child, bringer of light for solo cello with optional amplification (2012) was inspired by Carl Jung’s archetype of the Child. Rachel Mercer is the cellist in this Toronto premiere.
Hans Tutschku (b.1966 Germany) is the only non-Canadian on the program. His work, “behind the light for string quartet and electronics (2011) is a reflection on reflections. What surfaces are capable of reflecting incoming light? How does this alter color and how do the qualities of the reflections change the visual atmosphere? behind the light is an exploration of the relationship between source and multiplication.”
David Eagle and the Art of Interactive Electronics
November 1 at Betty Oliphant Theatre (404 Jarvis Street).
Introduction 7:15 | Concert 8:00
Xin Wang, soprano; Julia Den Boer, piano; Katelyn Clark, harpsichord; Rachel Mercer, cello;
New Music Concerts Ensemble, Robert Aitken, solo flute and direction
New Music Concerts gratefully acknowledges the support of The Canada Council for the Arts; Toronto Arts Council; The Department of Heritage through the Canadian Arts Presentation Fund; The Province of Ontario through the Ontario Arts Council and the Ontario Arts Foundation Endowment Fund; The Mary-Margaret Webb Foundation; The Koerner Foundation; The McLean Foundation; The SOCAN Foundation; The Amphion Foundation Inc.; Stefan Wolpe Society; Music Toronto; The Royal Conservatory; Roger D. Moore; Edward Epstein and Gallery 345.
Canadian soprano Ileana Montalbetti has been one of the standouts in the new Canadian Opera Company production of Peter Grimes. The Toronto Star’s review, for instance says
“when we start to consider Ileana Montalbetti’s saintly Ellen Orford, we are in the realm of greatness. The heartbreaking emotional openness of her voice and the wealth of feeling she gives every moment mark her as the beating heart of this production.” (Full review)
Ileana Montalbetti (photo: Bo Huang)
Last season included debuts with Edmonton Opera as Antonia in The Tales of Hoffmann (Offenbach) and Michigan Opera Theatre as Leonore in Fidelio (Beethoven).
Montalbetti is a graduate of the COC’s Ensemble Program & the University of Toronto’s Opera Program, a winner of the 2012 New York District Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions and a 2012 Encouragement Award from the Sullivan Foundation. She placed second in the 2011 Christina and Louis Quilico Awards and was nominated by the Canadian Opera Company to compete in the 2011 Stella Maris Vocal Competition.
I’m looking forward to seeing Peter Grimes for myself this week. In anticipation I ask Montalbetti ten questions: five about herself and five more about her portrayal of Ellen Orford.
1- Are you more like your father or your mother?
Ileana Montalbetti (photo by Chris Hutcheson)
My mother is a trained singer and the Artistic Director of Saskatoon Opera and my father is a trained stage actor. For the obvious reasons, I would say I am a good mix of the two. I have always been drawn to performing and I completed a year of theatre studies before switching to voice performance. They are both artistic, independent, free thinkers and I know I have these traits from both of them. They followed their dreams and spent the majority of their 20’s living, studying and working in Vienna. This has prompted me to always follow my dreams, to work as hard as possible and never give up. They are extremely supportive but never led me to believe that this career is easy. Having such wonderful examples has helped form me into the artist I am today.
2- What is the best thing or worst thing about being a singer?
To be a singer is to be an eternal student which is wonderful but also challenging. Musicians are perfectionists but the job is never and will never be done and this is where the frustration and challenges lie. Our career also requires a lot of sacrifice and there is quite a bit of instability, one must be very flexible and adaptable.
And even though there are times when I am missing friends or family and I am alone in a hotel room I feel very lucky to have acquired these skills and traits through being an opera singer. One of the best things about being a singer is the opportunity to travel and meet people from all over the world. I feel incredibly blessed to have close friends on many continents and to feel love and support from so many people and places!
3- Who do you like to listen to or watch?
My iTunes consists mainly of opera and the singer I listen to the most is Adrianne Pieczonka. I have looked up to her for many years and consider her one of my role models. She is extremely kind and generous and one of the most genuine artists I have ever seen perform. I have been lucky enough to coach with her and to get to know her a bit on a personal level and she is incredibly supportive.
Aside from opera I really like the group Pink Martini. When I worked at the Music Store at Roy Thomson Hall we listened to their CD’s all the time and I own all of them. When I am walking around the city that is what I’m usually listening to.
4- What ability or skill do you wish you had, that you don’t have?
I wish I could fly! That would make all my traveling MUCH easier and it would also allow me to sneak visits in to my loved ones whenever I wanted!
5- When you’re just relaxing and not working what is your favourite thing to do?
I watch a lot of TV; Downton Abbey, Breaking Bad, Mad Men, Grey’s Anatomy, Game of Thrones, Scandal and (I may regret saying this) but I am a bit of a reality TV junkie – it’s my guilty pleasure! I’ve also taken up knitting! I learned to knit for the role and it has now become one of my hobbies! I really enjoy it!
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Five more about playing Ellen Orford in Neil Armfield’s production of Peter Grimes for the Canadian Opera Company
1-How does portraying Ellen Orford challenge you?
Ellen is an extremely complex character and it has been a challenge, as an actor, to find the core of her character. She is a school mistress in a village full of narrow minded people and being an educated woman and a free thinker has led her to be a bit of an outcast along with the fact that she has aligned herself with Peter, who the whole town is very sceptical of. Vocally there are many challenges in the role as well. Britten’s music requires a lot of concentration and I feel like I always need to be counting. Also, the duet with Peter in the Prologue is unaccompanied and, basically, the first music I sing so that is always a bit of a nail bitter!
2- What do you love about your role?
Ben Heppner (photo: Michael Cooper)
I love Ellen’s strength and fortitude and playing this amazing character has helped to develop my own strength and fortitude, not only as a singer but as an artist and person. I am surrounded by an amazing cast of colleagues, including the phenomenal Ben Heppner. Watching him and my colleagues fully embody their roles has pushed me to dig deep inside of myself and discover who Ellen truly is. The learning curve on this contract has been steep but the growth I have made as an artist is priceless. It was, of course, a bit nerve wracking on the first day, especially being opposite Ben, but they have all been incredibly generous and supportive and have always made me feel like I belong.
3-Do you have a favourite moment in the opera?
The opera is full of amazingly dramatic and intense moments and there are many that grab me. I would have to say my favourite is near the end of the opera where the entire chorus and most of the principals come right down to the front of the stage and sing “Peter Grimes” three times. The silence between each reiteration of his name is spine chilling. Our chorus is one of the best, if not THE best, in the world and to hear them in this moment but also in the entire opera is absolutely phenomenal.
4- How do you relate to Ellen Orford & her relationships to Grimes & the town, as a modern woman?
I relate to Ellen in many ways and I think she is a very progressive and modern woman in her own right. She stands up for what she believes in and for the people she cares about. Her relationship with Peter is challenging as she sees someone who is hurting and wants to save him. I care very deeply for all of my friends and family and want to be there for them all the time so I relate to her in that way. I also relate to her very directly in her love for children as I nanny for many of my friends and colleagues between gigs. I have always loved children and being with them and, I believe, Ellen does too! They teach us so much about ourselves, especially about honesty and being in the moment. Being both an opera singer and nanny has provided me with a wonderful life balance.
5-Is there a teacher or influence you especially admire?
I have the deepest admiration and respect for both of my teachers; Mel Braun and Wendy Nielsen. They both have a tireless work ethic and commitment to their teaching and the craft of singing. They have stuck with me through thick and thin and have always believed in me and encouraged me to work hard and dream big. They have taken countless hours to work with me on honing my craft. I would not be here without them!
I also owe a lot to the Canadian Opera Company and Alexander Neef. Alexander has become an incredible mentor to me. Being a member of the Ensemble has shaped and formed me into the artist I am today.
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Ileana Montalbetti continues her portrayal of Ellen Orford in the Canadian Opera Company production of Britten’s Peter Grimes until October 26.
Ileana Montalbetti and Alan Held (photo by Michael Cooper)
Known across Canada and the US for her vocal music, Cecilia Livingston is deeply involved in Toronto’s choral and opera communities, with a special focus on writing music for women’s voices. She looks forward to projects in 2014-2015 in collaboration with Opera 5, FAWN (Toronto), Young Voices Toronto, and the Hamilton Children’s Choir. She received Honourable Mention in the 2013 Karen Kieser Prize in Canadian Music, and is a prizewinner in the 2013 Toronto Harp Society Composition Competition. Her music has been heard at Eastman’s Women In Music Festival, the Vancouver International Song Institute, the Scotia Festival of Music, the ACDA’s Summer Choral Composers Forum, Tapestry Opera’s Composer-Librettist Laboratory, and the Canadian Contemporary Music Workshop. She also has a keen interest in composing for percussion, and is (very slowly) learning to play the marimba.
In addition to her music, she is also known for her teaching and writing: her articles have appeared in Tempo and in Canadian Music Educator. Her creative and research work was funded by a CGS scholarship from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, an Ontario Graduate Scholarship, and the Theodoros Mirkopoulos Fellowship in Composition at the University of Toronto, where her graduate work is supervised by Christos Hatzis.
October 27th Opera 5 present In Pace Requiescat, a program of three short operas, including the world premiere of The Masque of the Red Death by Cecilia Livingston. With that in mind I ask Livingston 10 questions: five about her and five more about creating the new work for Opera 5.
1-Are you more like your father or your mother?
Composer Cecilia Livingston
With both my parents very much alive, this may require some diplomacy! I think I can say that I’m a fairly good mix of their better and worse traits. I’ve a great deal of respect for their values: joy in hard intellectual work, a ferocious attention to detail, and endless curiosity about how anything works. They are both quiet people who think and feel very deeply: quite a beautiful worldview for a composer who is interested in things we used to give capital letters to (Truth, Beauty, the Sublime, etc.). I’m told I’m a fundamentally serious person, which isn’t a surprising result. Mind you, I’m quite serious about being silly, quite a lot of the time.
2- What is the best thing & worst thing about being a composer?
The best: connecting with other people through music, in a way that words (talking, writing, what have you) simply cannot achieve. It’s a profound, and very scary experience – and a very beautiful one. Music goes where words fall short, and those are the places that interest me. I also just love the social element of music making – working with performers is such a joy. I learn so much from them, and musicians are some of the most fun people around. I enjoy being a music nerd with other music nerds.
The worst: the hours at the computer. No musician’s life is 9-5 and so much of a composer’s life is spent at a computer. With a big project, those hours alone really add up, and many of them are spent on tech hassles rather than music.
3- Who do you like to listen to or watch?
Cecilia Livingston (click for another interview)
I love opera, although I find I usually don’t listen to whatever area I’m working in, so lately I haven’t been listening to much opera! I tend towards music that has a certain quality – perhaps “stark” is the right word. Non-classically, I love Radiohead and have a surprising collection of bad pop and good hip hop. I respect excellent craft regardless of genre. The deeper I am into a piece I’m writing, the “lighter” all my other activities become: lots of Michael Connelly novels, and large doses of embarrassing TV shows. I may or may not watch a certain Real Housewives franchise with religious devotion.
4- What ability or skill do you wish you had, that you don’t have?
I wish I were a better pianist, one who could really improvise. I injured myself during my undergrad, after fighting through my ARCT, and have never really recovered the technical facility I lost at that time, which is limiting. I’m teaching myself to improvise, but I will always run up against the old pain. But I can’t rue that entirely – that silencing pushed me towards composition, and that’s where I belong.
I’d also like to better at fixing my car. I’m sure my father wishes this too.
5- When you’re just relaxing and not working what is your favourite thing to do?
I’m something of a workaholic, but when I’m not working I’m a true homebody: I like to get all the people I love in one place and hang out with them. My husband is an amazing cook, so I always look forward to the end of the day. A good meal, a glass of wine, a little Downton Abbey perhaps…
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Five more about composition & premiere of The Masque of the Red Death with Opera 5
1- Please talk about the challenges in creating your adaptation of the story, and getting it produced.
Follow link for the Edgar Allan Poe society (including texts)
It’s been a very intense process: really three months from first note to last draft, with a chunk of time “off” for Tapestry’s LibLab. My husband and I wrote the libretto, I wrote the main theme, and then basically chained myself to my desk for the next weeks. Opera 5 trusted me with a lot of compositional and dramatic freedom, which I find very liberating: I love getting an idea and just running with it: nothing makes me happier than the extreme concentration of composing when it is going well.
The principal challenge in adapting Poe’s Masque to the requirements of drama, and opera specifically, is that Poe’s work typically has very little dialogue or ready-made mise en scene. There’s a great deal of narrative description, but what really struck me was the world implied beyond the story. It’s easy to imagine Poe’s Prince Prospero as the ruler of one of the smaller principalities that used to dot Italy’s political landscape. And so the story becomes one of narrowing and separation: the little fiefdoms recede from one another as they begin to die; then Prospero seals himself inside the castle, and the story narrows even further; the population of his little nation-state begin to collect outside the walls; then we see him moving room by room, until the whole story condenses down into the final confrontation in a single room: as our Prospero says, paraphrasing another prominent Italian (and an Italian-Canadian no less), “The world’s a little smaller every day.” In that sense, it’s a very contemporary story: we have something of a current obsession with apocalyptic narrative, and in particular with the dissolution and recession of society and civility in the wake of catastrophe.
The Prospero of the story is a sort of hubristic peacock, strutting around his quarantine. The immediate question for us was why someone would behave this way. If a ruler has the presence of mind to institute a quarantine – and this was a brand-new civil technology in the 14th century – and in particular, a very modern inverse quarantine that attempts to preserve the leadership while leaving the population to fend for themselves, would he really be this callow? The only plausible answer, I think, is that Prospero is attempting to distract his courtiers from the realities of the plague. His bizarre performance in Poe’s story is exactly that: a performance, designed to keep everyone’s mind on the party and off what is happening outside the walls.
2-What do you love about Poe and especially his story The Masque of the Red Death?
Composer Daniel Pinkham
I have mixed feelings about Poe as a writer, but as a provider of dramatic material with operatic potential, he has left a great legacy. When Opera 5 told me that they wanted a new Poe-based opera to go along with Debussy’s Fall of the House of Usher and Daniel Pinkham’s Cask of Amontillado, I immediately started looking for parallels in his other stories. What struck us particularly about Masque was the way it echoes those two. Like Usher, it’s about the demise of a dynasty; like Cask, it’s fundamentally about imprisonment and the fear of it. Yet in Usher, what kills the family legacy is time and neglect, and in Cask, the imprisonment is a punishment; and so Masque is an interesting microcosm of some of Poe’s most powerful themes, done in a rather unusual way for him.
3- Do you have a favourite moment in the opera?
Now that I’ve heard it in rehearsal, I love it all! There’s a moment early in the second act when Prospero turns away from the party and his true desperation, fear, and guilt are revealed: I love the music here. It’s a moment of sublime despair, and David Tinervia does a remarkable job with it: he has made a great study of the character.
4- How do you relate to Poe as a modern reader, adapter & composer?
There are two major concerns with Poe: his diction, which takes place in a register of language that we’ve more or less abandoned; and his sense of humour, which is very odd and very tightly bound up with his language. Poe started out writing absolutely straightforward satires of Gothic horror-romances; it was only later, maybe with Ligeia, that he realised he could move satire to a new kind of modern horror. But he never really lost sight of the fact that horror and humour, like the grotesque and the sublime, are ideal if uneasy partners. Much of Poe is like the Porter in Macbeth: a narrator joking before a scene of unimaginable brutality. So this operatic Masque blends the burlesque and the Baroque (it parodies Baroque opera in several ways) to intensify the agony of fear these characters endure, and their hideous end.
Composer Christos Hatzis
5- Is there anyone out there who you particularly admire, and who has influenced you?
Operatically I’m in awe of Adams, Britten, and Glass. But closer to home, I’ve a huge respect for my teacher, Christos Hatzis. His enthusiasm and energy are astonishing – he lives a true musical life. More generally, I really admire singers. I find what they do nothing short of miraculous – it requires such skill, courage, and honesty. Singing is something all of us understand with such immediacy, and yet the work required to be a truly remarkable singer is beyond understanding. I’m fascinated by the voice, and I’m so happy to see my vocal writing deepen and mature as I move into opera.
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Opera Five present “In Pace Requiescat”, a program of short operas October 27, 30 and 31 each night at 7:30 at the Arts & Letters Club, 14 Elm St (ring bell for entry):
Cask of the Amontiallado by Daniel Pinkham
La chute de la Maison d’Usher by Claude Debussy
The Masque of the Red Death by Cecilia Livingston (a world premiere)
Sometimes we grab onto something in a name, think we know what we have, and miss something else through our assumptions. We’re so enamoured for instance with the mystique of the rose, but we don’t usually talk about the nasty injuries those thorns inflict. I sometimes forget about the hidden peril because of the sweet smell.
Names can be misleading.
Then there’s Debussy, a composer pianists may cosy up to because he can be very gratifying, often remarkably playable, at least in his earlier compositions. His orchestral compositions connote warm & fuzzy.
But Debussy as a purveyor of horror? It’s not the first thing that pops into the mind, at least until you look a bit closer. Debussy actually attempted to set two of Edgar Allan Poe’s stories as opera:
The Fall of the House of Usher
and
The Devil in the Belfry
La chute de la maison Usher and Le diable dans le beffroi were to be a double-bill, a commission from New York’s Metropolitan Opera. Debussy accepted an advance even though he never finished. But the fragments are still fascinating…(!)
Composer Cecilia Livingston
Opera Five are taking us into that realm with “In Pace Requiescat”, a program of operatic tricks & treats in the days before Halloween (Oct 27 & 30), with a final performance October 31st:
Cask of the Amontiallado by Daniel Pinkham
La chute de la Maison d’Usher by Claude Debussy
The Masque of the Red Death by Cecilia Livingston (a world premiere)
Before we had psycho-therapy and psychologists we had literature exploring deep primal terror. In Opera’s Second Death (Zizek & Dolar) the suggestion is made that before we could go to a shrink, we could always go to the opera. While they would suggest that opera is dead, replaced by psychiatry, maybe it also means that perhaps opera is still –as ever– tied into our collective unconscious, a powerful well of primal imagery to delight us or drive us mad. In other words, even if we’ve turned to other forms of therapy opera is still there as powerful as ever.
If you’re as old as I am, you recall the derisive laughter that greeted the French response to Jerry Lewis: a comedian they hailed as a genius. Bu Lewis is only one in a long series of artists. The French –especially the Symbolists—appreciated Edgar Allan Poe & Richard Wagner before anyone else noticed them. Another such discovery in France was Alfred Hitchcock. I’ll leave Wagner aside for a moment, to point to the two purveyors of suspense, namely Poe & Hitchcock. There are several similarities to explore between them in their methodology, something I believe someday will result in a book from somebody (me if no one else can be bothered).
I am immediately intrigued with musical treatments of these materials. Regular readers of this space will have seen the correlations I’ve drawn between Bernard Herrmann –one of Hitchcock’s greatest collaborators—and Debussy. The erudite Herrmann was so well-read in classic orchestral scores by the great masters as to emulate famous passages so perfectly as to suggest inter-textual references. I spoke of how in Psycho Herrmann cleverly combines Debussy’s Nuages (a skyscape) and Wagner’s prelude music for Act III of Tristan und Isolde (Tristan’s sexual desperation, but also, a moment when Kurwenal & the shepherd are watching the horizon for a sail on the horizon:in effect they’re watching the sky/horizon awaiting Isolde’s return) at the beginning of the film, a long shot showing clouds & sky.
Even in Debussy’s symbolist opera Pelléas et Mélisande we have beauty alongside suspenseful portents & brutal acts of violence:
Golaud (whom Mélisande had thought might be a giant) has been tender & loving, but when he notices that the ring he gave her is missing off her finger he turns abruptly, sending her out harshly in the darkness to find it
When Golaud notices the closeness between his wife & his half-brother Pelléas, he threateningly takes the latter into the dark cavern under the castle. He says that he’s seen their closeness: and that it must stop.
In one of the most violent scenes in any opera, Golaud (mad with jealousy) drags his wife around the floor by her hair
Later we see Pelléas with what might be blood on his face without explanation just before he announces his intention to leave that very night.
The lovers meet, aware that Golaud is stalking them in the dark, and kiss even though a moment later Golaud strikes Pelléas down
And then in the last act Mélisande dies mysteriously.
Those realms of suspense & horror still seem fertile territory for exploration. Do you dare? I’m going there in a few days, hosted by Opera 5.
Marshall Pynkoski is one of Toronto’s greatest artists, even if he has been completely misunderstood. Since its inception in 1985, Opera Atelier has been a kind of lightning rod in Toronto for the conversation about historically informed performance. With co-artistic director Jeannette Lajeunesse Zingg and in collaboration with Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra & Choir, their growing body of work has articulated a recognizable style.
The conversation hasn’t always been friendly nor appreciative. I recall critics who were very negative about OA’s productions. The question of authenticity was sometimes such a focus for the conversation that Pynkoski’s skills as a director were lost in the shuffle. I regret that we’ve so often been worrying about history that we miss the excellence in the here and now, so busy with history that the direction, the drama, the originality are somehow forgotten. Pynkoski is a very good director, yet because of this focus on history –which was central to the company’s history–his talents are overshadowed. And because of their unique movement vocabulary, which is unlike any other opera company in this country, they’re sometimes misread, appreciated less for what they achieve than for their divergence from what people usually understand as “opera”.
I expressed faith in Marshall’s brilliance after seeing their most recent Don Giovanni, a production that seems breath-takingly original even as it honours history. Last season we were tantalized, first by the first historically informed Der Freischutz in North America, and then with Pynkoski’s announcement that this was merely the beginning, as new horizons were being opened by the company:
This evening we are taking what is perhaps an even more thrilling leap into uncharted territory. Our production of the first Romantic opera—Weber’s Der Freischütz –boldly redefines the very parameters of what constitutes period performance. We are not merely drawing a line in the sand; we are stepping past the line in saying all periods are fair game to be reinterpreted in historically informed productions. Our hearts are still firmly grounded in Baroque repertoire, and this will be reflected in our programming in the years to come, but we also look forward to the potential of re-examining masterpieces by composers such as Debussy, Bizet and even Wagner.
The company he’s built is an important creative voice in this country, and now internationally as well. I’m proud of everything they do, and delighted that their latest production opens soon, namely Mozart’s The Abduction from the Seraglio on October 26th. In anticipation I ask Pynkoski ten questions: five about himself, and five more about the opera opening October 26th.
1-Are you more like your father or your mother?
It is difficult to say which of my parents I take after – if either! I seem to be something of a throwback and from my earliest years had interests and obsessions which left my family utterly flabbergasted, sometimes concerned, and frequently annoyed. There are no artists in my family, nor are there any people I know of with a particular interest in the arts in general or the performing arts in particular.
Marshall Pynkoski, Opera Atelier’s Co-Artistic Director
I was, by the way, raised in an intensely religious, fundamentalist atmosphere, which is not without a theatrical side. I have no doubt this played a major – albeit somewhat subversive! – role in my development.
2-What is the best thing or worst thing about being a director, particularly in the realm of historically-informed period performance?
Jeannette Lajeunesse Zingg
I feel like the luckiest person in the world. Because I am co-artistic director of a company which was founded by my partner Jeannette and me, I have the luxury of only producing work which I adore. We have made a conscious decision to produce only twice a year, which means we are never choosing a show to fill out a season or to act as a cash cow. Our obsession with Mozart is real, as is our fascination with French Baroque opera and ballet. Because we gravitate toward many of the same artists from season to season, we enjoy the added bonus of having made close and lasting friendships within the arts community.
It’s also particularly delightful to have such close interaction with artists from a variety of disciplines such as my very dear friend Gerard Gauci who has been Opera Atelier’s set designer since the company’s inception. And of course my partner in work and in life Jeannette Lajeunesse Zingg.
Set designer Gerard Gauci
3-Who do you like to listen to or watch?
I listen to classical music exclusively, simply because it is what gives me the greatest pleasure. That being said, classical music is a rather generic term. Renaissance, Baroque, Romantic, and early 20th century music all play an important part in my non-professional life. Jeannette and I are both particularly interested in the aesthetic links between French composers such as Debussy and Ravel, and their predecessors, the great giants of 17th and 18th century French music, including Charpentier, Lully and Rameau. Jeannette and I do not own a television and both of us are – thank God! – too busy to indulge in cell phones or personal computers.
4-What ability or skill do you wish you had, that you don’t have?
I wish I were multilingual. I also wish I were twenty pounds heavier and bristling with muscle!
5-When you’re just relaxing and not working what is your favourite thing to do?
I am a voracious reader, but also draw enormous inspiration from watching DVDs of great ballet performances particularly the repertoire created by George Balanchine when danced by New York City Ballet – to my mind, the greatest ballet company in the world.
When travelling for business or pleasure, we spend our time in museums and art galleries – another serious obsession.
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Five more concerning the production of Abduction from the Seraglio that opens the Opera Atelier season.
1-What are the challenges you face with Opera Atelier, a company with a history of period performance?
Jeannette Lajeunesse Zingg, Marc Minkowski, and Marshall Pynkoski, backstage after a Lucio Silla performance
Our biggest challenge is one of audience perception of what a period production is. We are eager for people to understand that Opera Atelier is not a museum and our productions are not artefacts. A period production is simply an opportunity for us to challenge ourselves in a new way as artists in the 21st century. We explore the aesthetics of other eras and cultures in order to help us look to the future. Our recent production of Lucio Silla for the Salzburg Festival was greeted as one of the most radical productions to take place in Salzburg for decades.
A period production is the new avant-garde of the 21st century.
2-What do you love about Opera Atelier?
I love the fact that our productions are built from the ground up and that every aspect of production is considered of equal importance. Like a great Broadway musical, an Opera Atelier production must be firing on all levels as a superb singing event, an orchestral event, a costume, set and machinery event, and a great literary event. This is the style of theatre that we are committed to and even when producing outrageous comedies like Abduction from the Seraglio we take our work and our commitment very seriously.
3-Do you have a favourite moment in Abduction from the Seraglio?
I adore the quartet for Belmonte, Konstanze, Pedrillo and Blonde, which begins with the men trying to ascertain if the women have slept with their captors, continues with the women’s outrage at the impertinence of the question and the final reconciliation between the four of them. I just don’t think opera or theatre gets better than this!
I also adore the entrance for Pasha Selim – a wonderful excuse to show off the Artists of Atelier Ballet dancing to Mozart’s “Turkish-inspired” music.
I think it’s important to remember that Abduction from the Seraglio has a classical commedia dell’arte plot. I do not take the grief and despair of Konstanze seriously, any more than I do that of the Countess in Figaro. These women are meant to be young, and they are indulging and enjoying the intensity of their emotions as only the young can. I find their “serious moments” by turns amusing, poignant and hilarious.
4-How do you feel about the relevance of period performance as a modern-day citizen?
Happily, we are generously supported at all levels of government, and it seems to have kicked in for our corporate supporters and individuals that period production does not preclude innovation, or social and political relevance. Fashions change, but people and their personal dilemmas remain remarkably consistent from one period to another. Period productions place history in a human context and enable us to focus on the story at hand rather than gratuitous special effects and theatrical distractions.
5-Is there a teacher or an influence you’d care to name that you especially admire?
I would not be doing what I am doing or enjoying the wonderful life I have without the input of my ballet teachers John Marshall, David Moroni from the Royal Winnipeg Ballet, Flora Lojekova, and Glady Forrester, as well as George Balanchine – the greatest choreographer of the 20th century, arguably the greatest choreographer in history. His company New York City ballet acts as a constant inspiration for Jeannette and me.
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Opera Atelier open their 2013-2014 season with Mozart’s TheAbduction from the Seraglio on October 26th at the Elgin Theatre, running until November 2nd.
It’s such a silly title that i couldn’t resist having some fun with it.
Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs is the best children’s film I’ve seen in a very long time, one of those films full of lines & overtones that a child won’t get, at least not until they’re much older. In other words it’s a full-length animated feature that’s probably more entertaining for adults than children.
I suppose I shouldn’t expect any adults who aren’t parents or grand-parents to bother with the film, but what I’m saying here is for adults, not children. If you have a chance to watch this film on TV see it. You won’t regret it.
Note, I am speaking of the first film, not the sequel (Cloudy with a chance of Meatballs II) that appeared in theatres last week. I knew that certain people in my life would be seeing that sequel, and so I went about getting my hands on the first film.
We bought it. And we watched it: twice (so far) and counting.
Who would expect a mainstream animated film to promote sustainability, in effect mocking our patterns of consumption and our aspirations as a society..? I understand there’s a book that came long before any film. I’d have to see it to decide whether the allegorical implications I’ve seen in the film are also present in the book.
Flint Lockwood is the protagonist, an inventor whose inventions keep misfiring.
As a child we see him come to school, announcing his solution to the greatest problem children face: untied shoelaces.
Instead? Spray on shoes. Brilliant except: you can’t take them off! He’s immediately ridiculed in class, as he discovers his spray-on-shoes are permanently attached to his feet (…even when he’s all grown up!).
He creates something called ratbirds. Are they supposed to be good for something? They are certainly scary.
His latest? a machine that makes food out of water goes haywire on national TV, destroying the town square before it flies off into the clouds. In the conversation between disgraced weather reporter Sam Sparks (she’s female by the way) and Flint (our despairing inventor) food begins to fall from the sky. The machine –which was fed on land by water—is much more effective when fed by the moisture of clouds.
Suddenly they are both heroes, as the town becomes a tourist mecca for its meteorological version of manna from heaven. And a romance might blossom between the two.
The mayor wants to exploit this of course. But isn’t that what mayors always do? I saw Jaws..!
Pardon me if I want to hold up a mirror. This is your life, Western World. We’re spoiled rotten, as though our riches were falling on us from the clouds, and we don’t appreciate it. Appreciate it? we are greedy for the next widget or flavour. The citizens of this animated cartoon world have so much that they simply heave the extra food that they can’t eat into a reservoir.
Nobody seems to notice any problem with this.
When things spiral out of control, when the food weather becomes dangerous, I love the catastrophe that follows. Masses of surplus food piling up in that reservoir reach the breaking point. As the dam bursts, the food simply floods the town in an avalanche of excess food, burying them in giant hamburgers and hot dogs. It’s a cute version of our society.
Talk about karma.
Sustainability isn’t merely a matter of waste management. Isn’t it curious that the story is all about weather & climate? I suspect I am reading an additional layer into the story, something never intended by Judi & Ron Barrett, the authors of that original book. But what could be more apt in our era of global warming than a story where a silly weather disaster is brought on by human hands, an inventor whose inventions keep having unforeseen consequences. That’s global warming in a parable for children: that our technologies have backfired upon us.
The ratbirds deserve a film of their own (perhaps Meatballs III, if there is one), a scary hybrid of parrot and rat. No we don’t hear about DNA or scientists who play God, or Frankenstein’s monster; but if you wanted a watered down cartoon version of such things? The ratbird covers it perfectly.
Even so, the film is full of positive images, and not just a study in sustainability:
Flint is a nerd. The film is very nerd-friendly, suggesting that it’s okay to be a scientist, that knowledge is powerful and that stupidity is dangerous.
Sam –a weather-person and the eventual cartoon version of a love-interest—is presented when we first meet her as aspiring to a kind of plastic fame on network TV, dumbing herself down in the process. Gradually she becomes herself, divesting herself of the artificial layer, wearing glasses instead of contacts, and allowing her true nerdy self to emerge.
I am now eager (hungry?) to see Meatballs II. But I’m planning to see the first Meatballs again, even though i already saw it twice. That’s not recycling, it’s simply fun.
barczablog 