Whose dream?

Posted on August 5, 2013 by barczablog

We’re in the summer of Wagner’s Bicentennial.  Frank Castorf’s new Ring cycle has opened at Bayreuth, which led to the inevitable boos from the audience.

Inevitable?  Two of the greatest Bayreuth productions of the past few decades were booed at first.  If Chereau & Kupfer were booed –and later embraced—what is one to make of Castorf’s new Ring production being booed? I wish I had a sense of whether it’s any good.  We seem to be in a kind of critical no-mans-land, at least those of us unable to see the production.  I don’t trust most critics.  I have to wonder whether Castorf deliberately sought controversy, given that Anthony Tommasini wrote the following in his NYTimes review, “the entitlement and hostility that Mr. Castorf conveyed while staring down the booing Bayreuth audience seemed revealing: this was a director who wanted to get a reaction. He got it.”

click image for more info about Susan Froemke’s documentary

Coincidentally, PBS broadcast Susan Froemke’s documentary Wagner’s Dream, concerning the Robert Lepage / Ex Machina Ring Cycle at the Metropolitan Opera, tonight in the Toronto-Buffalo area.  The gossip I have read suggests the production won’t be revived anytime soon:

  • Because the tickets didn’t sell well for the last Cycle
  • Because some singers are allegedly resistant to participating

And that’s too bad.  When I posted the broadcast time on Facebook, a friend showed no compassion whatsoever in observing the disconnect between the claims of the documentary (doing it Wagner’s way) and the critical reception for the production.  Canadian Wagnerians I know seem very supportive of the production, whereas Americans seem much less willing to meet the production on its own terms.

On one side of the Atlantic Regietheater is the norm.  On this side, there seems to be less readiness to use imagination to meet a director half-way.  I was charmed by Lepage’s choices, often made from between a rock and a hard place.  I think the director under-estimated the willingness of singers to take physical risks onstage, a mistake that drives the surreptitious refusal of singers to appear in future cycles.

There’s so much that’s new in this interpretation I don’t think the production has had a fair hearing.  Lepage’s understanding of the Cycle is fascinating to me still, and much clearer from this documentary.

I understood that the “machine”, an ever-changing contraption of huge planks that is both a set and a kind of sculptural installation, represents the world.  Its malleability and changing shape is daunting because it’s more than just a backdrop.  Lepage spoke of two aspects of the Ring, that his set is emulating:

1) the source tales for Wagner’s Ring are the Icelandic Eddas.  Lepage saw Iceland as a kind of landscape of tectonic upheaval, perpetually changing & malleable.  His set echoes this, the planks being something like tectonic plates

2) the leit-motivs in the score, too, appear, combine, and then change.  Lepage spoke of the set as a kind of visual echo of the motives of the score.

And as I said more than once (I wrote a ton about this production), Lepage captures the essential cosmology of the Ring in his set.  The world changes, new powers overthrow the old ones, and this too is reflected in the set.

While it’s not literally what Wagner wrote, Lepage managed to stage a great number of moments in the cycle that usually are omitted, from Rhine-Maidens who seem to swim at the beginning, to Grane & Brunnhilde riding onto the pyre at the end.  It’s very ironic to me that one of the biggest problems with the Lepage Ring is Wagner: that instead of heavily glossed productions we see just how little is really there.

As for Lepage’s direction, I saw little or nothing by way of acknowledgement that whatever else you might say, Lepage is a terrific director.  There were complaints from people upset that the set compelled people to play in a narrow space downstage, or perhaps some other locale on the stage.  I don’t understand this kind of objection.  When you come to opera, you don’t expect movie or TV acting, you don’t object to characters singing rather than speaking, so why make other stipulations?  I did not see comments about the many marvellous moments in Lepage’s conception, the character relationships elucidated as never before.

The thing i love most about Froemke’s documentary is how well it seems to capture the adventure of this Ring, including a willingness to show us the many challenges backstage.  We see Debbie Voigt fall in rehearsal, and even saying “i’m not going up there again, you heard it here”.  But she does, and she recants.  This is not whitewash, but a very brave and truthful documentary, or as truthful as you can expect under the circumstances.

Here in Toronto, as we wait for the Girard Parsifal to come to town, we may be wondering if we’ll see the COC Ring anytime soon.  The imported Sellars/Viola Tristan production did very well at the box office last season, but I believe that’s due more to Ben Heppner than anything on the stage (just as the Met’s difficulties likely have more to do with musical issues than what they put onstage).  Even so I suspect a Ring could be very good at the box office, especially if the Met has decided to mothball their Ring for awhile.

Forgive me if i didn’t answer the question that’s in the headline.  I think that if one really engages with the works, one embraces alternative interpretations, even if these are uneven.  That is my dream, as i believe it’s the dream of anyone who loves Wagner’s operas.

I believe the Met will eventually revive the Lepage Ring, perhaps in a few years time, as they have too much money invested in it to simply mothball it.  Perhaps the use of doubles needs to be stepped up, possibly to the exclusion of singers onstage for anything potentially risky.  I’d like to see what the production can do when it isn’t being held back by technical limitations, when singers feel safe; that may only be possible by turning it into a lip-synch extravaganza, at least in the scenes where singers were fearful.  I wonder what it would look like.

In closing, i recall one of pianist Stewart Goodyear’s Facebook statuses from May 2012:

“First, it is ridiculed….; Second, it is violently opposed; Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.” -Arthur Schopenhauer

The Lepage Ring took the same sort of abuse as Chereau & Kupfer.  I wonder if the interpretation will ever get a chance to become “self-evident”?

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What a concert is supposed to do

Posted on August 2, 2013 by barczablog

Too much fun in church means that at least one person will guiltily look over their shoulder.

The church was Koerner Hall, and the fun was The Minimalist Dream House Project from Toronto Summer Music, Katia and Marielle Labèque plus several additional players.  At intermissions (yes there were two: at this massive concert) I kept hearing incredulity, joy, wonderment.

Of course in classical music circles “new music” has often mean “dissonant” or “atonal” within living memory.  A concert of recent compositions that’s tonal?

No wonder the audience was buzzing with pleasure.

Photo Credit (from left) Katia and Marielle Labèque. Photo by Umberto Nicoletti.

Photo Credit (from left) Katia and Marielle Labèque. Photo by Umberto Nicoletti.

Too bad the younger audience I’d hoped to see never materialized.  Maybe they didn’t hear about it or perhaps they were out of town (Toronto does feel relatively empty this week).  I had the surreal –and thoroughly exhilarating—experience  of watching a classical concert hijacked, as if a rock band hiding backstage took over partway through.  We started with the Labèque sisters, Satie & Pärt, Duckworth & a powerful piece by Philip Glass.

But after the first interval? Terry Riley’s In C, employing two guitars, pianos, electronic keys & percussion provided a pretext.  The guitars, synth & percussion stayed, and more or less took over, as we heard Brian Eno, Radiohead, and Sonic Youth interspersed with minimalist compositions executed with the same orchestration, and often the same edgy delivery of rock music. Where the first part was often very quiet, the second part was often quite loud!  The passionate explosion of this section was phenomenally cathartic after the relative stasis of the first hour, blowing the lid off the place.

While I’d bravo’d in the first section, in the second part it felt more appropriate to scream and shout.  I wondered if dancing would have been possible, perhaps with a moshpit in front.  Even so,  inhaling the delicate fragrances of Koerner Hall’s wood finishes, I didn’t lose all sense of decorum, especially with a grinning Douglas McNabney (the Artistic Director of TSM) sitting ten feet away. If the balance in the audience had been a bit younger, had those of us hooting and hollering been more than a handful, this would have been perfect.

But even so McNabney had reason to be pleased, in programming that is at least experimental if not downright edgy.  He’d introduced our evening with his usual studious talk, this time giving us some ideas about minimalism.

He reminded me of something I’d almost forgotten, namely that some people dislike minimalist music & composers, something that’s hard to believe after a night like this one.  There’s a knock knock joke starring Philip Glass for instance, where the people who tell it usually think they’re making a clever remark, in pointing out that his music repeats frequently.,.. I suppose it was funny: in 1980. Or 1990 then?  But by now i hope Philip Glass isn’t unknown.

But I was put in mind of the whole context when Minimalism arrived on the scene, that some people were tired of dissonance, of the complexity of modernist composition.  I only wish that concerts like this one became the norm rather than the exception.  Throughout the audience was silent with wonder, in awe of the beauty they were hearing, including the quirky beauty of some of the compositions in the final section of the evening, experimental sounds that straddled the boundary between a classical concert and really exquisite rock music.  David Chalmin, Nicola Tesscari, Alexandre Maillard & Raphaël Séguiner brought virtuoso chops to their instruments, but also a willingness to let their instruments wail when necessary.  The concert at times had a decidedly experimental -exploratory feel to it, as though we were watching something being created afresh, and as though the players weren’t sure what was going to come out of their instruments.

This is what concerts are meant to do.  The audience was challenged, provoked, moved, and yes, shown all sorts of beautiful sounds [and let me add –the morning after–that there was a moment that had me thinking of the premiere of Le Sacre du Printemps, when some in the audience were overwhelmed and resembling tired old folks, while others stood and cheered… i wondered if we might have a riot, except that the assembled conflict was between the youthfully inspired and the old and tired. No chance of a battle. But “Dream House” is indeed an epithet to be explored… oh how i wish i could ask Katia and Marielle about their dream]. At times it resembled a happening as much as a concert.  It’s the best concert I’ve been to this year.  Bravi!

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Perpetual motion and minimalism

Posted on August 1, 2013 by barczablog

It’s time.

Katia et Marielle Labèque (photo by Brigitte Lacombe): click on photo and then click “The Labèques’ Minimalist Dream House” for more information

Recently I wrote about minimalist music in anticipation of Katia et Marielle Labèque playing Toronto Summer Music’s August 1st concert: The Minimalist Dream House project.  While I titled that piece The Geneology (sic) of Minimalism I was not suggesting an evolutionary pathway so much as family resemblances.  The metaphor of evolution for artistic forms is one I am very hesitant to invoke.  Sometimes composers are amenable to influence, but there’s never a smoking gun.

I am sure someone must have connected the romantic virtuoso perpetual motion showpiece to minimalism, although I can’t recall reading about the link.  The long compositions of regular patterned eighth notes surely anticipate the pattern music of more recent composers.

So let’s listen to some examples, first from the classical realm, and then from the world of popular music, with minimalism in mind.

Beethoven? While several movements from piano sonatas have perpetual motion qualities, the purest example –that is, the one without the gripping drama of the last movement of the  Appassionata sonata or the beautiful melody found in the last movement of the Tempest sonata—is the finale to Op 54, a pure display of movement as an end in itself.

Schumann’s Toccata is very much a virtuoso display piece, with only a few moments of actual melody & accompaniment, suggesting the sort of figure-ground relationship I alluded to before: where the quick pulsing notes that might be an accompaniment take over, to become the raison d’être of the piece. 

Rimsky-korsakov’s Flight of the Bumblebee is another example of the genre.

Are any of those influential? I don’t know, only that they showed other composers that music didn’t really have to devolve into melody + accompaniment, that they could be exhibited in one complex pattern.

Here are some more recent examples that take these patterned compositions in a new direction, especially celebrating rhythm in their textures & shapes.

“12th Street Rag”, written by Euday L. Bowman in 1914 is highly influential, in taking a syncopated pattern of notes that is almost anti-melodic, and making that the central feature of the piece.  Listen for it 37 seconds into the piece, a tune that’s very familiar even if the composer is comparatively unknown. No it’s not minimalist; but other compositions that are minimalist emulate the style of composition.

“Fascinating Rhythm” by George Gershwin dates from 1924, and isn’t minimalist either; but it does the same sort of thing with its melody as what we see in 12th Street Rag.

Fast forward to 1959, when Dave Brubeck’s “Take Five” appeared.  This begins to sound minimalist.

Let’s digress slightly, to include Bernard Herrmann’s film music for Fahrenheit 451 that appeared in 1966.  The prelude to the film is also minimalist by the way, but roughly a minute and a half into the clip he creates odd-numbered rhythms, a perverse march for the firemen sounding a bit like goose-stepping.  Did Herrmann have Brubeck’s happier piece in the back of his mind?

And finally let’s listen to King Crimson’s 1974 Fracture by Robert Fripp.  

I’m looking forwared to the TSM concert.

The Minimalist Dream House
Thursday August 1, 7:30pm
Koerner Hall

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Exoticism –The Music of Karol Szymanowski

Posted on July 31, 2013 by barczablog

Earlier this summer I let someone pick the play I saw, observing how it’s valuable to let someone else choose what one will see and/or hear.  We circumscribe ourselves with our menu choices, our viewing habits, our purchases, boxing ourselves in through a series of assumptions based on our past experiences with a broad class of choices, such as “pastry”, “Russian piano music” or “dance-theatre”.

Sometimes our beliefs are vitally important (for instance, to avoid food past its best-before date).  But how often are preferences a matter of life and death?  Rarely.

Today’s adventure was Exoticism—The Music of Karol Szymanowski, a new CD from Marquis Classics, pairing violinist Jerzy Kaplanek with pianist Stéphan Sylvestre.

I don’t know Szymanowski.  While I’ve heard good things about his opera King Roger –a work that’s produced rarely—I don’t know this composer’s voice.   My preamble is another way of saying that I wish I had investigated Szymanowski’s music sooner and that I feel embarrassed to admit this.  I’d like to think I am a voracious reader, listener, player, and yes, recalling the meaning of the word when it’s not just a metaphor, eater.  While I pride myself on broad musical taste (hip hop, country, classical, opera, music-theatre, operetta, contemporary church music, old-time hymn-tunes…you name it), clearly Szymanowki somehow fell through the cracks of my prejudices & choices.

As I listened to the disc I tried to understand why the composer isn’t better known.  The title of the CD is—pardon my French—weak. Is that perhaps part of the problem, that the conventional musicological wisdom has never properly appreciated the breadths of Szymanowki?  Are we listening to “Exoticism” on this CD, or romanticism…? Or something else?  I am reminded of my delight in listening to Poulenc earlier this year, another composer who doesn’t fit into any neat category.  Pigeon-holes just don’t work for any decent composer of the past hundred years.

Ah but maybe that “exotic” title choice is a reflection of how difficult it is to understand Szymanowski, how challenging to market this composer so deserving of being better known.  I feel sympathy for the person coining the name, and indeed, sympathy for anyone marketing this wonderful record.  I can’t help feeling a bit of the pride that any Pole (such as our violinist Kaplanek) must have for Szymanowski, a composer whose importance is surely about to rise, as people get to know him better.

The CD might explain my bewilderment, music of varied styles (for violin & piano):

  • Sonata in D minor Op 9
  • Nocturne and Tarentella
  • “Roxane’s Song” from King Roger, transcribed for violin & piano
  • Mythes
  • Prelude, transcribed for violin & piano

The concluding Prelude reminds me of an adventurous Chopin in its lyricism.  The Sonata sounds more genuinely 20th Century but with the boldness of an Eastern European virtuoso (thinking of Rachmaninoff, Shostakovich or Bartók).  The rhythmic vigour of the Nocturne & Tarentella suggest other slavs and their culture.  The Mythes evoke their subjects, as identified in the titles of the three movements: “La Fontaine d’Arethuse”, “Narcisse” and finally “Dryades et Pan”.  I am sure it’s no coincidence that the titles are in French, given the echoes one hears of Ravel or Debussy; but in fairness the Mythes are phenomenal jewels and in no way derivative or imitative. They’re the likely inspiration for the title “Exoticism”.

Violinist Jerzy Kaplanek

Violinist Jerzy Kaplanek is well-served by this recording, capturing his rapturous playing, wonderfully idiomatic.  I did observe that he’s treating Szymanowski as a modern, omitting the schmaltzy portmantos one gets from violinists such as Isaac Stern or David Oistrakh (that is, artists from earlier generations).  Glorious as his sound is, t times I believe the balance feels a bit too generous to the violin, considering how complex Stéphan Sylvestre’s piano part is in the Mythes, as though he were merely accompanist and not a proper collaborative pianist; but then again maybe it’s just my pianistic prejudices showing, Szymanowski’s piano writing sounding wonderfully original.

We really need to listen to more Szymanowski, a composer who—like Bartók– sometimes displays folk influences, sometimes the lure of the virtuoso impulse, sometimes something more complex and ambiguous.  And like Bartók, Szymanowki died young, when he surely had a great deal more to offer.

This new Marquis disc deserves to be heard.  I am persuaded.  I love Szymanowki, and am thrilled with the interpretations from Kaplanek & Sylvestre.

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The End, Mr Trotsky

Posted on July 28, 2013 by barczablog

I went to see This is the End, a very funny movie about the end of the world.  It’s full of famous actors I know and love:

  • Seth Rogen, of Funny People, Superbad and Knocked Up
  • James Franco, of the Spiderman franchise, several other films I never saw
  • Jonah Hill, of Superbad, Cyrus¸ Moneyball… and a few other films I loved.

They’re all playing versions of themselves.

And right smack dab at the centre of the plot of This is the End, the one actually carrying the film among all the famous funny men, is another Canadian actor (Rogen is a Canadian too), namely Jay Baruchel.  When Baruchel and Rogen arrive at Franco’s house for a party, we’re told about Baruchel as though he were somehow the peer of Franco, Hill & Rogen, the one moment that might strain credibility.

I had no idea who he was, and I’m pretty sure that was the truth for everyone else.

Many times in this film I was scared and burst out laughing in terror.  Of course I came home smiling after a very funny very scary movie.

Imagine my surprise when there he is again –Jay Baruchel—starring in a movie on TV.  But CBC happened to show The Trotsky tonight, a drily funny Canadian flick, a social comedy set in Montreal serving as a chaser to my comedy full of big names.  Baruchel plays a young man believing himself to be a reincarnation of Leon Trotsky, bouncing back and forth between moments of pathos & comedy with unerring skill.  Colm Feore does a very stylish turn as a school Principal with an uncanny resemblance to Lenin.  Saul Rubinek plays the dad to Baruchel, Genevieve Bujold is wonderful in her brief appearance, while Ben Mulroney turns up as himself on E-Talk.

It’s a funny coincidence, given that the best thing about This is the End is that each of those stars also does a version of themselves.  Franco & Rogen are hysterical playing off what we know about them, while Michael Cera does an over-the-top version of himself.

Or maybe it’s just that the SNL-flavoured style of comedy (in This is the End) clicks when making references to what we know from history or popular culture.

It’s been a Jay Baruchel kind of day.  Based on these two outings –the small-scale Canuck ensemble piece and the big-budget film I saw (and many of you have seen, surely…!)—Baruchel deserves to be known.  He’s a special talent.

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Diva distress

Posted on July 27, 2013 by barczablog

Nothing is quite so delicious as a delicacy imperilled.  We love our rare wines, cheeses, hard to find films & DVDs.  Part of the enjoyment is in boasting of your exclusive enjoyment.

It’s summertime, when some go to see operas in Europe,  describing what they saw, and watching the body language of the envious, pretending to be indifferent (when we’re really jealous: I won’t deny it!).  Some of the enjoyment can be shared online but it’s not the same as being there.

We watch divas imperilled onstage –and often killed in the course of the opera—but nowadays there are new dangers.  There are two that I’d like to address.

One is old, while the other is new, via a couple of social media posts from artists.  Lorin Maazel and Edita Gruberova have recently sounded off.

Maazel’s piece, titled “Opera Staging Madness“ says:

The roles of both stage director and conductor are essentially custodial, bringing into play only those actions which heighten and make clearer the intentions of librettist and composer, actions which at every turn must respect and honor the librettist and the composer. To do otherwise is to pervert and despoil the work of masters. The egos of stage director and conductor (and his/her psychological problems) are never ever to come into play.

Gruberova’s piece takes a slightly different direction.  She also alludes to the pressure singers face, saying “my colleagues did not dare to take action against disfiguring costumes or wigs since they feared dismissal from the production.”

But there’s a new concern I am hearing about.  Gruberova says

In a six-week rehearsal period, the director’s ideas come into practice after two weeks in most cases. The subsequent rehearsals are very tiring for all people involved. Conductors tend to only join the ensemble rehearsals and only then does it comes out that often the scenic concept does not match with the musical concept. Four exhausting weeks of scenic rehearsals are followed by musical rehearsals which are also attended by the conductor for the first time.[my emphasis] By the opening night all participants are exhausted and are only back in perfect shape after a few performances after the opening night.

By coincidence, in the past week I have heard three separate anecdotes of singers who are being exhausted by the rehearsal process.  In one case the singer was asked to sing with his full voice for the entire rehearsal period.  Marking –where you hold back—is now frowned upon in some circles.  In another such tale, my friend –who reported the travails of another singer in Europe—advised the singer to hold firm against the pressure of the staff and to mark anyway; they did so and apparently it worked well, but the whole time the threat of dismissal/replacement hung over them.

I can’t help thinking that part of the problem is caused by directors, particularly those who come to opera from other kinds of theatre, who may resent what they interpret as a “diva” attitude, after countless shows with actors: people who are one tiny step above slave labour.  As any director will tell you –if you say no to them—“we can always find someone else to do this job for half what we’re paying you.”

I think this also explains why the comprimario parts are sometimes over-developed, because the singer who has 3 lines will comply with the demanding director, and in the process upstage everyone.

Is opera in peril? Surely it’s always in danger—because it’s expensive, because the world economy is going down the toilet, because of Regietheater, because singers are too fat, because singers aren’t fat anymore –and the danger becomes part of its allure, the precious delicacy.

We’re so accustomed to watching opera divas in distress, that we ignore their genuine calls for help.

Edita Gruberova at her Lieder recital on July 23, 2013 at the Salzburg Festival © Silvia Lelli

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Ai Weiwei Never Sorry

Posted on July 26, 2013 by barczablog

How apt that I begin writing about this film with an apology.

I went looking for Ai Weiwei Never Sorry when I heard of this film, that had been shown at TIFF.  I sought an introduction to the artist, because of course Ai Weiwei has a big show coming to AGO next month.

I found the DVD.

Spoiler alert.  I am being bad, breaking all my rules in this one.  I don’t like giving away parts of films.  You should expect that Ai Weiwei Never Sorry records both the creative & political voice of that dissident artist, a powerful film you’ll only dislike if you’re an apologist for Communist China or possibly if you hate art.   There, forewarned? Read on if you will, and don’t be surprised if I’ve given something away.

I can’t help myself.

Sorry.

*******

Cats & dogs….?

Our first images in Ai Weiwei Never Sorry, Alison Klayman’s documentary film about Chinese dissident /artist Ai Weiwei, show us cats & dogs.  I’m maybe over-sensitive because I lost my own, put down at the beginning of the week.

We see a few dogs & lots of cats.  If we judge a society –or a person—by how they treat their weakest members, as Gandhi purportedly said, how do we judge Ai Weiwei at the outset?  One of his associates gets testy with a cat that’s playing with something made of pieces of wood (perhaps a piece of art? hard to say).

Ai Weiwei gently stops him from interfering in the cat’s gentle play, saying “he’s not going to destroy it”.

The cat rolls around with the objects, while the artist rubs his ears affectionately.

We see a non-judgmental response from the human. What’s more, the destructive impulses of the animal (chewing, knocking down) seem very natural.  If this were his installation, and the cat really destroyed it (notwithstanding the first line of the film), maybe he’d like that.

Running through the film like a leit-motiv are images of Weiwei holding up his middle finger.  The Studies in Perspective give us a succession of iconic images –such as the Eiffel Tower or the White House—with a middle finger in the immediate foreground. They are studies in perspective alright, but much more than just camera angles & focal lengths. He takes a Han Dynasty urn and dispassionately lets it fall deliberately for a camera.  At one point, when he poses for a photo with some young women, one of them immediately makes a finger for the camera, as though it were his theme-song: and he jubilantly does so as well.  At another point –as Weiwei nurses injuries from a beating by a policeman—he makes a film with his collaborators, each saying “fuck you motherland” in a variety of dialects.

Weiwei seems to cherish rebellion & chaos, and not just his own.

We’re told that of the 40 odd cats in Weiwei’s home, only one knows how to open a door.  And unlike humans, that cat never closes it after going through.  I sense his enjoyment in the resistance to conformity & the roles imposed upon us.

One of the first artistic remarks we hear from Weiwei is something that may come as a surprise.  The subtitle (now that we’re functioning mostly in Mandarin rather than that opening sentence in English) says “I prefer to have other people implement my ideas”.

We then hear from one of the artists working for him, Li Zhanyang who made “Zodiac” (i wonder, is this the same as what can be seen in Nathan Philips Square…? i will have to go see…):

“I’m just his hands.” (laughing) “I’m like an assassin,  He tells me ‘Here’s some money, go kill this person.’
I wouldn’t ask him:
‘why do you want him killed?’
…That’s silly. You just get it done. We’re just hired assassins.”

A critic in the film points out that Weiwei has surpassed the role of artist, that he’s more than just an artist.

Indeed.  Weiwei became famous at the time of the Beijing Olympics, designing the birds-nest shape of the stadium, even though he would eventually make a bold repudiation of the event as a “fake-smile” to the world.  His art & his politics are usually inextricably connected & intertwined, the stadium being a singular anomaly.  Looking online one finds many explanations, but the one that works best for me is the statement he offers that at one time the stadium symbolized freedom.

That makes perfect sense to me.

Weiwei was still able to function in China because this early act of dissent was only broadcast abroad, and not in his own country.  His responses to the Sichuan earthquake, particularly the deaths of school children in shoddily built schools, were another matter entirely, on his blog and on film.  With the help of many volunteers he documented the names & birthdays of children killed in such schools.

In shedding light on the lies told by the government he ripped the cover off their fakery, the false pretense of modernisation and openness that had at one time led people to be optimistic about China.  Having used his blog as a medium for dissent on the first anniversary of the disaster, the authorities shut down his blog, and put surveillance cameras in his studio.

With blogging denied to him Weiwei turned to Twitter.

No wonder that he was arrested.  The official charge was tax evasion, although no one doubts that taxes were simply being used as a tactical form of harassment.

Some of the film goes into the past.

We see his father, poet Al Qing, who had been something of a critic, even though he’d been a loyal communist.  And we hear of the brutal treatment he received for the crime of being an intellectual, an artist.  For at least seventeen years (I’ve seen higher numbers in other reports) the family was exiled, roughly when Ai was just a one year old baby.  This experience only served to harden him, not unlike Nelson Mandela’s incarceration.

We watch segments from Weiwei’s own films, responding to events surrounding the earthquake.  After having been lulled by the illusory friendliness of China, I am still jolted by the thuggery on display, a flashback to Soviet-styled repression and police brutality.

It’s not so much about his stature as an artist, so much as his stature as a human being.  Any art he creates gains weight from the gravitas of his positions in opposition to the Communists.  I want to hear what he has to say, and I believe I’m not the only one.

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Tickets for Ai Weiwei and David Bowie at the AGO

Posted on July 24, 2013 by barczablog

“Press releases and announcements” are presented verbatim without comment.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: JULY 24, 2013
Tickets for Ai Weiwei: According to What? at the AGO go on sale Saturday, July 27

First block of tickets for David Bowie is to be released in special combo package on same day

TORONTO—Heralded as the “the most powerful figure in contemporary art today” by ArtReview, Ai Weiwei makes his Toronto exhibition debut at the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) on Aug. 17, 2013. Comprising more than 40 large scale works of art including sculptures, photographs and video and audio installations, Ai Weiwei: According to What? blends the artist’s activism with traditional Chinese materials and symbols to present a compelling vision of his everyday world and his ongoing fight for freedom of expression in the face of Chinese government censorship. Tickets for the exhibition, which runs to Oct. 27, 2013, go on sale on July 27, 2013.

Timed-entry tickets for Ai Weiwei: According to What? are $16.50 for youth ages 17 and under, $21.50 for seniors and $25 for adults. Admission is FREE for AGO members and for children ages five and under.

Also, beginning on July 27 ticket buyers will be offered a special opportunity to upgrade to a combo package that includes early access to the first block of tickets for the highly anticipated exhibition David Bowie is, which starts its world tour at the AGO on Sept. 25, 2013 after finishing a successful run at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. Combo tickets—which offer timed-entry access to any time slot for Ai Weiwei: According to What? and the first month of David Bowie is—are $31.50 for youth ages 17 and under, $36.50 for seniors and $40 for adults.

Single tickets for Ai Weiwei: According to What? and combo tickets can be booked in person, by phone at (416) 979-6655 or online by visiting ago.net/aiweiwei. Single tickets for David Bowie is go on sale on Aug. 23, but early purchase via the combo package is encouraged as quantities are limited for high-demand time slots. AGO members can book single tickets for David Bowie is on July 27, 2013. For more information on becoming an AGO member, please visit ago.net/membership.

Ai Weiwei: According to What? is curated by Mami Kataoka, the chief curator of the Mori Art Museum (MAM) in Tokyo. A specialist in Asian contemporary art, Kataoka first presented this exhibition in Toyko in 2009. “Ai Weiwei is best known as a dissident artist whose works give insight to not only his political criticisms but also his fierce commitment to Chinese traditional culture,” said Kataoka. “His art transcends borders and compels viewers to examine issues of fundamental human conditions, values and freedoms.”

The installation of the exhibition will be overseen by Kitty Scott, the AGO’s curator of modern and contermporary art. “As the only Canadian stop on a hugely successful North American tour, the AGO’s presentation of Ai Weiwei: According to What? offers a rare opportunity for Canadians and visitors to be transfixed and transformed by the exceptional talents of one of the most prolific and provocative contemporary artists in the world,” said Scott. “Toronto is the perfect destination for this exhibition; the positive reception of Circle of Animals/Zodiac Heads in Nathan Phillips Square has shown that our city is eager to experience more of Ai Weiwei’s groundbreaking art.”

Ai, who is under constant surveillance at his home in Beijing, has been unable to leave China since the government confiscated his passport in 2011. As a political activist and champion of freedom of expression, Ai has been publicly critical of the Chinese government’s reported human rights violations.

Chronicling his work from the mid-1990s to the present, Ai Weiwei: According to What? presents works that are in turns solemn, contemplative, humourous and witty.

The exhibition at the AGO follows a successful run at the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, D.C. and at the Indianapolis Museum of Art. After its run at the AGO, Ai Weiwei: According to What? will be presented at Miami’s Pérez Art Museum and the Brooklyn Museum in New York.

As part of the City of Toronto’s Scotiabank Nuit Blanche, a new edition of Ai’s Forever Bicycles (2013) sculpture will be installed at Nathan Phillips Square as part of this year’s celebrations on Oct. 5, 2013. This complex and abstract sculpture, consisting of 3,144 bicycles, is curated by Ami Barak. Further details will be announced by the City of Toronto later this summer.

AGO extends invitation to Chinese-speaking community members
The AGO is undertaking several initiatives this summer to draw attention to Ai’s ongoing campaign for greater freedom of expression within China. Working with Toronto artist Gein Wong, the Gallery invites members of the GTA who speak a Chinese dialect to participate in Say Their Names, Remember, a live reading of the names of the thousands of schoolchildren who perished in the devastating earthquake in China’s Sichuan province on May 12, 2008. This initiative was inspired by Ai’s powerful artworks Remembrance (2010) and Names of the Student Earthquake Victims Found by the Citizens’ Investigation (2008-11). Those who wish to participate in a reading of the names on Aug. 18, 2013, can register at www.ago.net/aiweiwei-names.

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ABOUT AI WEIWEI
Ai Weiwei (b. 1957, Beijing) has been the recipient of numerous grants, honours and awards, most recently in 2012 the inaugural Václav Havel Prize for Creative Dissent of the Human Rights Foundation; the International Center of Photography Cornell Capa Award; an honourary fellowship from the Royal Institute of British Architects; an Honourary Degree from Pratt Institute; and a foreign membership in the Royal Swedish Academy of Arts. Other honours over the past five years include a Chinese Contemporary Art Award for Lifetime Achievement; an International Architecture Award for Tsai Residence; Das Glas der Vernunft (The Prism of Reason), Kassel Citizen Award; The Bianca Jagger Human Rights Foundation Award for Courage; the Skowhegan Medal for Multidisciplinary Art; Wallpaper Design Award Best New Private House for Tsai Residence; and a Wall Street Journal Innovators Award (Art). Ai Weiwei is consistently included in top artist and human rights lists, including GQ Men of the Year in 2009 (Germany); the ArtReview Power 100, rank 43 in 2009; the ArtReview Power 100, rank 13 in 2010; the ArtReview Power 100, rank one in 2011; Foreign Policy Top Global Thinkers of 2011, rank 18; and runner up in Time’s Person of the Year in 2011. Ai Weiwei helped establish Beijing East Village in 1993, co-founded the China Art Archives & Warehouse in 1997 and founded the architecture studio FAKE Design in 2003. He studied at the Beijing Film Academy, Parsons School of Design and Art Students League of New York; upon returning to China he collaborated with Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron as the artistic consultant on the Beijing National Stadium for the 2008 Olympic Games.

Ai Weiwei: According to What? was organized by the Mori Art Museum, Tokyo and the Art Gallery of Ontario. It is curated by the Mori Art Museum’s chief curator, Mami Kataoka.

Leadership gifts in support of the exhibition from Emmanuelle Gattuso and Allan Slaight and the Hal Jackman Foundation. Additional generous support from The Delaney Family Foundation; Donner Canadian Foundation; Partners in Art; and Francis and Eleanor Shen.

Assistance from media partner The Globe and Mail. Contemporary programming at the AGO is generously supported by the Canada Council for the Arts.

The installation of Circle of Animals/Zodiac Heads was made possible in part by AW Asia, New York.

ABOUT DAVID BOWIE IS
This fall the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) offers North America its first chance to take an exciting odyssey through the world of pioneering artist David Bowie—musician, performer and style icon—in the acclaimed exhibition David Bowie is, direct from the Victoria and Albert Museum, London (V&A). Spanning five decades and featuring more than 300 objects from the David Bowie Archive, the multi-media show exposes the groundbreaking artist’s collaborations in the fields of fashion, sound, theatre, art and film. David Bowie is opens on Sept. 25, 2013, and runs to Nov. 27, 2013, giving Toronto two full months to experience it. The AGO is the exhibition’s first stop on its world tour. Acclaimed by the New York Times as “united in sound and vision in a way rarely seen in a museum,” David Bowie is marks the first international exhibition devoted to the British-born musician and performer (born David Robert Jones in 1947), who has sold more than 140 million albums throughout his genre-defying career. Organized thematically, the show immerses visitors in a spectacular and interactive trip through Bowie’s numerous personae and legendary performances, with particular attention paid to his artistic influences. His experiments with surrealism, German expressionism, music hall, mime and Japanese kabuki performance are all explored in an explosion of colour, light and sound.

David Bowie is was organized by the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. www.vam.ac.uk

Sound experience by Sennheiser.

Leadership gifts in support of the exhibition from Emmanuelle Gattuso and Allan Slaight; Maxine Granovsky Gluskin and Ira Gluskin; and Robert and Cheryl McEwen.

Assistance from government partner: Government of Ontario.

ABOUT THE AGO
With a collection of more than 80,000 works of art, the Art Gallery of Ontario is among the most distinguished art museums in North America. From the vast body of Group of Seven and signature Canadian works to the African art gallery, from the cutting-edge contemporary art to Peter Paul Rubens’ masterpiece The Massacre of The Innocents, the AGO offers an incredible art experience with each visit. In 2002 Kenneth Thomson’s generous gift of 2,000 remarkable works of Canadian and European art inspired Transformation AGO, an innovative architectural expansion by world-renowned architect Frank Gehry that in 2008 resulted in one of the most critically acclaimed architectural achievements in North America. Highlights include Galleria Italia, a gleaming showcase of wood and glass running the length of an entire city block, and the often-photographed spiral staircase, beckoning visitors to explore. The AGO has an active membership program offering great value, and the AGO’s Weston Family Learning Centre offers engaging art and creative programs for children, families, youth and adults. Visit ago.net to find out more about upcoming special exhibitions, to learn about eating and shopping at the AGO, to register for programs and to buy tickets or memberships.

Aug. 17, 2013 – Oct. 27, 2013: Ai Weiwei: According to What?

Sept. 25, 2013 – Nov. 27, 2013: David Bowie is

Nov. 30, 2013 – March 2, 2014: The Great Upheaval: Modern Masterpieces from the Guggenheim Collection

Contemporary programming at the AGO is generously supported by the Canada Council for the Arts.

The Art Gallery of Ontario is funded in part by the Ontario Ministry of Tourism, Culture and Sport. Additional operating support is received from the City of Toronto, the Canada Council for the Arts and generous contributions from AGO members, donors and private-sector partners.

Posted in Press Releases and Announcements | 2 Comments

Cat music

Posted on July 23, 2013 by barczablog

I’ve written about cats before in this space.  At one time there were two cats in my house, Tara & Scarlett.  They had been born feral but rescued, fixed and raised for years in our home.

Then one day Tara somehow ran through an open door.  I had hoped to see her again when I wrote about her leaving, first in context with the hopeful season of Advent, and then in trying to make sense of her life.  But I’ve given up on any hope of seeing her again.

And two became one.  Scarlett was our sole feline for the years since, contented, chubby, well-fed and yes, actually becoming enormous.  And she got sick, so that she had to be euthanized today.

As I drove home today, having heard the doctor’s verdict through the phone & knowing of the inevitable trip to the vet,  I was listening to Gabriel Fauré, who is already on my mind as one of the composers in Toronto Summer Music (for instance, the concert from last week).

This CD begins with Masques et Bergamasques, a favourite that alway reminds me of Domenico Pietropaolo, a scholar who has written & taught extensively about Commedia dell’Arte, and who had spoken so eloquently Saturday at Luella Massey’s funeral.  I was thinking of Domenico & what he might have said about the Belle Époque, their (mis-) understandings and misconceptions of CdA.  Verlaine’s fêtes galantes inspired both Debussy & Fauré.

And then serendipity brought me to of all things Fauré’s Dolly Suite, the Belle Époque’s answer to Cats.  How appropriate! Yet it was my own good luck, nothing more, that brought me to those tracks on the CD.  Speaking of what was shared by both Fauré and Debussy –such as Pelléas et Mélisande, or poems of Verlaine—their greatest love in common was, not surprisingly, a woman.  Emma Bardac was Fauré’s mistress before she found her way to Debussy’s side, and furnishes the curious answer to a nerdy trivia question.

“Can you name the woman who was lover of two different composers, each writing brilliant music dedicated to one of her daughters?”

And the compositions?

Before Bardac’s little Chou-Chou inspired the Children’s Corner suite by Debussy, her Dolly (the nickname of her girl) inspired several remarkable pieces from Fauré: the compositions now known as the Dolly suite.  Dolly is the little girl, while the feline association is perhaps a small part of this suite.  That didn’t stop me (perhaps erroneously, from the assumptions made skimming record jackets) from projecting & associating the whole thing with cats, when the feline is only a small part of Dolly suite.  No matter.

Partial as I am to Debussy, Fauré’s Dolly is just a little more sympathetic to the mind of the child, a little more universal, and a little less obstinately brilliant than Children’s Corner.  Debussy, who never suffers fools gladly, is not inclusive.

And so, as I drove along thinking of my cat’s imminent demise, I had the good luck to stumble upon Fauré’s invocations of feline cuteness.

If what I saw in Wikipedia is accurate (where the sequence of these compositions corresponds to chronology, as Dolly grows & matures), there is a subtext to the suite in the growing maturity of the child.  Fauré employs a technique I also saw in his Masques et Bergamasques (mentioned above), where a suite begins in innocence leading to a more complex ending suggesting the passage of time, growing sophistication & the nostalgia of mature retrospection. I’ll speak in detail of the Masques et Bergamasques–a suite i love dearly– another time.

Dolly suite has six movements, each of which appeared in a different year.

  • Berceuse is a cradle song, the most innocent piece in the suite (NB a suite originally for four-hands piano, but later orchestrated)
  • Mi-a-ou seems like a playful invocation of a cat, full of energy, syncopated and a bit unpredictable.
  • Le jardin de Dolly (OR Dolly’s garden) is a stunning piece, full of simplicity but also nostalgia & sentiment (presented here in an orchestrated version) 
  • Kitty-valse is another clever piece, transparent & shimmering with energy.  I may be projecting “cat” into this piece if –as some suggest—the music has more to do with Bardac’s pet dog than any cat.  It won’t stop me from enjoying the associations i’ve made with the music (presented here in a computerized version).
  • Tendresse is a glimpse of something more adult & sophisticated, complex & poignant. 
  • Le pas espagnol is an extroverted conclusion to the suite, after the introspection & vulnerability of the previous piece, perhaps a tonic to too much sentiment & too many tears. I can’t help remembering Nietzsche’s comments about Carmen as a tonic to too much Wagner. 

catsLater, I held my cat while she was injected.  I think she looked me in the eye in her last moments, although it’s really hard to know.

I’m keeping her ashes.

Posted in Animals, domestic & wild, Music and musicology, Personal ruminations & essays | Tagged , , , , | 3 Comments

The Geneology of Minimalism

Posted on July 21, 2013 by barczablog

A one word headline might be more minimalistic than this pretentious sounding title.  A friend cited Nietzsche’s Geneology of Morals, and it stayed in my head like a verbal ear-worm I suppose.  Or I could have emulated Darwin, to call it The Descent of Minimalism but I don’t want to sound positivistic. This is speculation, not science.

I’m writing about a movement in music of the past century or so in anticipation of a concert at Toronto Summer Music.  In his recent interview Douglas McNabney said

I am particularly proud that we were able to manage to produce the concert with Katia and Marielle Labèque on August 1st entitled The Minimalist Dream House project.

Katia et Marielle Labèque (photo by Brigitte Lacombe): click on photo and then click “The Labèques’ Minimalist Dream House” for more information

Given that TSM’s program centres on “La Belle Époque” some may not see the connection.  Indeed, I was disappointed to see a reviewer who couldn’t see why Rachmaninoff’s 1893 Trio élégiaque should have been programmed even though its use of parallel harmonies & modulations resembled something a young Debussy might have written.  I see McNabney’s programming as creative and imaginative, but as with any art, we only get out what we put in. So perhaps in fear of that sort of negativity, and recalling the brutal literal-mindedness of some critics I want to offer my imaginative services, to attempt to help make the connection vis a vis La Belle Époque and minimalism.  The ambitious link McNabney and the Labèques are putting forward is the most exciting idea I’ve seen in a long time.  Would we call this “speculative programming”, wherein a hypothesis is put forward in music? What a lovely concept, whatever you think of the hypothesis.

I don’t pretend to know what the Labèques are actually playing.  I will simply make some connections, hoping they’re helpful.  I think it’s a very good hypothesis –connecting La Belle Époque and minimalism—and an idea whose time has come.

Let me simply put forward a series of compositions, as if to suggest a family relationship –as per the title—between composers & their ideas.

ONE: Erik Satie is not in my opinion a minimalist.  One might think of his quietly meditative piano music –such as his “Gymnopédies”—as prototypes for what came after.  I won’t quarrel with that.  I’d be more inclined to look at an obscure composition of his, a massive piece intended for an occult celebration, called Le Fils des Étoiles, or “the Son of the Stars”.  There are two aspects to this music that seem germane to minimalism:
1) Satie is known to have had metaphysical interests.  The spiritual aspect of
music is one I shall speak to later in this discussion, but please file that away in your mind.
2) Satie creates harmonic effects with no requirement of resolution, tonal ambiguities that are very advanced for 1891.  While Debussy would do much more with this concept, Satie was doing it first, and likely influenced Debussy (who was one of his best friends). At many points in this composition, the effect of the music is completely in the moment.

TWO: Claude Debussy is really where it begins in my opinion.  Debussy had heard gamelan music at the great Parisian exposition, music that would show him the same sort of thing his friend Satie was attempting, only better: music without any requirement of resolution or harmonic progression, music in the moment.

The two compositions that seem most pertinent to minimalism –and which sound very minimalistic in places—are the first two of his orchestral Nocturnes.  “Nuages” (clouds) is largely a series of patterns in eighth notes without any real melodic material; but it’s not Philip Glass, it’s Debussy.    This is such daring writing because there’s so little there, and yes, a fabulous invocation of its subject matter.

The next in the series, “Fêtes”, is as vibrant and energetic as “Nuages” is languid and, well, cloudy.   “Fêtes” may seem like an odd one to invoke as minimalist music.  There’s lots there.  But then again, what actually did Debussy give us? Mostly it’s energetic eighth notes, often as though it were accompaniment without any melody, resembling an abstract or even a Jackson Pollock.  If we’re to think of painting and figure-ground relationships, both of these nocturnes are all background-landscape with nothing in the foreground.

THREE: Bernard Herrmann? I mention him next, leaping ahead several decades because of his affinity –and let’s face it, imitation—of important composers. I love this guy, but his film scores are full of clear borrowings.  Herrmann’s not stealing, though, but being inter-textual: because his borrowings are referential and meaningful.  For example, when –after the opening credits—Herrmann paints the skyscape in Psycho he does so using something so similar to “Nuages” as to be a clear reference.  It’s not a happy place, as we’re to discover, a place of frustration, so the harmonies are skewed, as though the clouds were dripping with unhappiness & sexual frustration.

I wrote about Herrmann & Psycho before in detail.

But I can’t help hearing echoes of the second nocturne in Herrmann as well.  Think of all that energy, then listen to the opening credit music for North By Northwest. 

FOUR: After zipping from Debussy (late in the 1890s) to Herrmann (c. 1960) I’d like to backtrack a bit to pick up some Canadian content.  I wrote a bit about Colin McPhee, who’s recorded by Esprit Orchestra,  an under-rated composer whose influence is perhaps not as large as it could be.  But the Labèques have McPhee’s photo on their website promoting “The Minimalist Dream House project”; he’s the one in front of a British flag.  McPhee emulates some of those sounds Debussy heard in the 1890s, a bit of a throwback, but still worthy of mention.   Listening to that I already want to call it minimalism! …but he comes before anyone was using the word.

FIVE: Okay, since we reached 1960 with Herrmann, let’s jump another 20+ years to one of my favourite minimalist compositions, from Akhnaten by Philip Glass.

SIX: And now let’s incorporate another aspect of minimalism.  We’re thinking of music that isn’t driven to resolve –like Glass or McPhee or Herrmann or indeed, Debussy & Satie—but also that is reverent and even spiritual.  Recall the metaphysical aspect that Satie invoked.  If you go to a massage or aromatherapy session, the music you hear, invoking the “new age” is normally minimalist music.  It’s ambient, tranquil, and allows you to meditate readily.  What it does not do is insist that you decode its complexities.

Here’s a lovely example from Brian Eno, his Music for Airports.

I leave it to you to make conclusions & connections.  What minimalism does is leave space for the mind to create meanings & associations. In film scores composers such as Herrmann recognized that the older style scores –thinking of Steiner & Korngold for example—were full of thematic material that competed with the film.  From the beginning, Herrmann gets out of the way, as you can hear in his moody score for Citizen Kane.

Less is more.

Posted in Music and musicology, Personal ruminations & essays | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments