10 Questions for Stewart Goodyear

Posted on May 15, 2012 by barczablog

Born and raised in Toronto, Canada, pianist and composer Stewart Goodyear began his training at Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto, received a bachelor’s degree from Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia and completed a Masters Degree at Juilliard School of Music in New York. Now calling New York his home, Goodyear has performed with the major orchestras of the world, including the New York Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, Toronto Symphony Orchestra, and the Philadelphia Orchestra, among many.

Beethoven CDWith a repertoire that includes Bach, Beethoven, Chopin, Liszt, Gershwin, and Messiaen, Goodyear is also known as an improviser and composer.  Goodyear’s composition, the fanfare entitled “Count Up”, was performed by the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra in Spring 2011.  Goodyear has released recordings of many of Beethoven’s best known Sonatas on Marquis Classics: Late Sonatas (numbers 28-32)   | Middle Sonatas (including the “Moonlight,” “Pastorale” and “Tempest” sonatas) .

Goodyear’s current project is his “Beethoven Marathon,” to be presented as part of the Luminato Festival.  In a single day Goodyear will play all 32 Beethoven piano sonatas, which means that between 10:00 in the morning and 11:30 pm at night on June 9th, Goodyear will play for over 10 hours, a feat that as far as I know has never been done before.

I ask Goodyear 10 questions: five about himself and five about the Beethoven Marathon.

1) Which of your parents do you resemble (what’s your nationality / ethnic background)?

The parent I resemble the most is my grandfather on my father’s side. I am a Canadian pianist of British and Trinidadian heritage.

Stewart Goodyear2) what is the BEST thing / worst thing about being a concert pianist?

The best thing about being a concert pianist is doing something that I love and that I have been passionate about since I can remember.

3) who do you listen to or watch?

If he were alive today, I would love to be at a Ray Charles concert. How he combined seemingly unrelated styles of music and created an entirely new music called ‘soul’ is an example of how anything is possible.

4) what ability or skill do you wish you had, that you don’t have?

If I was not a pianist, I would love to have the skill of directing films. I admire each director and how he/she tells a story.

5) When you’re just relaxing (and not working) what is your favorite thing to do?

When I have a little down time, I watch a few scenes from my favorite movies, drink a cup of coffee, and chill to Frank Zappa and Miles Davis.

Five more concerning the Beethoven Marathon.

1) How does the act of playing all of Beethoven’s piano sonatas in a single day challenge you?

The challenge of playing Beethoven in general is to be 200 percent in the emotional zone. Beethoven’s music possesses me to such a degree that I am only aware of my surroundings after the performance is over.

2) what do you love about Beethoven’s piano sonatas?

I love how free and boundless Beethoven is as a creator. He is always challenging expectations and convention.

3) Do you have a favorite sonata?

It is almost impossible to choose a favorite sonata from these 32 gems. If I had to pick one, it would be Beethoven “Funeral March” sonata.

4) How do you relate to Beethoven’s piano sonatas as a modern man?

Beethoven’s sonatas, to me, will always be contemporary and timeless. Every second of his music goes beyond convention of any kind. It goes beyond romanticism, surrealism, minimalism, jazz, pop, and rock. Even in the last sonata, he goes beyond where boogie-woogie would take the listener.

5) Is there anyone out there who you particularly admire, and who has influenced you?

Leonard Bernstein is the classical musician of the 20th century I admire the most. He was inspired by all styles of music, and, just like Beethoven, he defied convention, created his own music, and communicated to audiences of all demographics.

~~~~~~~~

June 9th Stewart Goodyear will be playing all 32 Beethoven piano sonatas as part of the Luminato Festival:

PART 1
(10:00 AM – 2:00 PM)  4 hours, with intermission.
Sonatas No. 1 through 11, as well as No. 19 and No. 20, including the “Grand Sonata” and “Pathétique.”

PART 2
(3:00 PM – 6:30 PM) 3.5 hours, with intermission.
Sonatas No. 12 through 23 (except Nos. 19 and 20), including the “Moonlight,” “Pastoral,” “Tempest,” and “Appassionata.”

PART 3
(8:30 PM – 11:30PM) 3 hours, with intermission.
Sonatas No. 24 through 32, including “Les adieux” and “Hammerklavier.”

Luminato has commissioned internationally acclaimed Indonesian performance artist Melati Suryodarmo to create an on-stage performance piece that will continue throughout Stewart Goodyear’s marathon of 32 Beethoven sonatas. Suryodarmo’s three performance sequences will provide subtle, almost motionless visual enrichment that heightens the listening experience.

Find out more by clicking here.

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Jane Archibald as Semele

Posted on May 12, 2012 by barczablog

You never can tell.  I would never have predicted which opera would be my favourite of the seven operas programmed this season by the Canadian Opera Company.  Both the adventurous staging and the consistently brilliant singing make Handel’s Semele by far the best opera production I’ve seen from the COC.

Luckily I had my backstage preview of the opera that gave me a chance to wrap my head around this most original approach to Semele in the piece I posted a few days ago.  My expectations were confirmed, the production doing pretty much what I’d expected.  I had wondered if the COC would allow the liberties with Handel that (director) Zhang Huan took in the two previous incarnations (in Belgium & later China).  They did indeed.

I am going to explain where I am coming from.  Opera purists who come to a performance expecting –or demanding—that the usual procedures be followed might take issue with this production, as they have in New York with the Lepage Ring cycle.  Just as Lepage strove to get back to the original text –albeit via an expensive modern production—so it would appear do Zhang.and his team.

But how, you may wonder, can a production using a dancing horse, a Tibetan singer, sumo wrestlers, puppets and finishing with a version of the Internationale, be in any sense faithful?  I think the problem is in how we understand the work.

Semele began as a Lenten oratorio, making it a bit of an oxymoron if one considers that this erotically charged work was fashioned to premiere in the season of restraint.  It’s in the most curious balance between the rational and the passionate, frequently stepping back to make detached commentaries about its action through its chorus, then giving one of the principals the opportunity to explore their feelings.  The schizophrenic push-me pull-you style of baroque oratorio (or opera) is hyper-repressive, in the way that action moves in discreet chunks, followed by a lengthy exploration of a passion in the stasis of an aria.  To a Martian –or come to think of it, a Chinese installation artist such as Zhang—Handel’s oratorio would seem very odd.   It doesn’t really have a native performance style, having been uprooted from the beginning, in the almost immediate rejection of this style by the London public, a kind of exile that’s never really had a proper home, but was always something of a fish out of water.  The worst thing one could do is stage it as though it were realistic, as some have attempted.

In the 18th century, opera was a very different experience from what we get now.  If you had Juno & Semele onstage together they would both be dressed in lovely attire, but without any clear indication what century they were to portray, let alone the kind of precisely coded costuming and set one frequently encounters nowadays.  I believe that were a baroque performer suddenly resurrected in Toronto and shown the three operatic programs currently being staged, they’d find Zhang’s approach – where the set is merely a context rather than an attempt to simulate a world—highly congenial and recognizable, while feeling a bit odd on a set from a specific time (as you find in Gianni Schicchi or Contes d’hoffmann).  I believe this production is far more congenial to the work than the conventional / purely representational approaches.

That Zhang chose to substitute parts of the opera might also upset purists, but in the 18th century it was the way opera was done.  I’m not saying Zhang read about suitcase arias, but I applaud his choices on the grounds that any purist defending Handel on grounds of textual integrity needs to remember that such principles are always relative to the century you’re working in.

Sigh.  I did run into a couple in the elevator who left at the intermission.  Of course I was grinning like a 5 year old and said “how did you like it,” not expecting that anyone felt different than I did (and the house had erupted in applause at the end).  When I talked to them they were pleasant but seemed mystified by the production, which mixes serious (a 450 year old Buddhist temple, a tale of gods and mortals) and silly (an inflatable puppet, a dancing horse, sumo wrestlers), and couldn’t understand my enthusiasm, which I was unable to conceal.

For me, Zhang’s production feels like a production from first principles, addressing fundamental questions about what it is to be human or immortal, to be incarnated in a body or concealed in another form (and this is true of both of the gods as well as the temple that is the set).  Those thoughtful arias and choruses that seem too rational for real life make sense in this inter-life place, a temple where souls come to be incarnated, or comment afterwards (as Semele does).  The odd mix of styles and cultures–of Handel in English, a Tibetan song, a pair of sumo wrestlers, and to finish, the Internationale—are properly multi-cultural, as if in a magical place that is all cultures and no cultures, a forgiving mix that is a reflection of this oddball opera.

In a more typical production of Semele I’d be feeling a bit strange about Juno, Jupiter and Semele, who would look like opera singers onstage, even though one purports to be mortal, while the other two are supposedly gods.  If, however, we’re in this odd space suggesting souls seeking peace, the abstract conversation makes much more sense.  I no longer mind that a god and a mortal are side by side, because they’re in a virtual space for the incarnation of souls, as we might see for example in Noh theatre.

This is the most sensual opera I have ever seen.  There’s more touching, more allusions to sexuality, more pure passion than I’ve ever seen in a production of Tristan und Isolde (Wagner lovers take note).  The chorus were often pressed into service as if they were illustrations in a sex-ed textbook, or failing that, used for their voyeuristic potential when Jupiter & Semele were at it.

Where e'er you walk

“Where e’er you walk”: Jane Archibald as Semele and William Burden as Jupiter in the Canadian Opera Company production of Semele, 2012
Photo Credit: Michael Cooper (click photo for photo gallery on COC website)

Tenor William Burden was a very believable Jupiter, singing the opera’s best known tune, “Where e’er ye walk”, a concretely sensual exploration of Semele, massaging and washing the feet of Jane Archibald as she lay on her back before him.  Elsewhere, his cadenzas were opportunities to teasingly manhandle her, the god bewildering her with his physical dominance.

Semele is also very funny.  Juno is jealous of Semele, and because we’re seeing a production unafraid of the text, the humour is very close to the surface.  Allyson McHardy has no remorse leading Semele to her doom, gleefully celebrating.  The voice reminds me of Janet Baker, with consistent richness well below middle C, and wonderful musicianship.  I would have been happy had she been the star, thrilled by her singing.

The cast is one of the strongest seen at the Four Seasons Centre in recent years, with no weaknesses,  Semele was especially strong, as played by Jane Archibald.  There are several arias that stop the show, particularly the third act aria “My self I shall adore”.  A disguised Juno presents Semele with a mirror that makes her ever more vain & self-loving.  The set design made the entire stage a colossal mirror, reflecting the theatre back to itself.  Archibald coyly played to this huge mirror, never seeming at all taxed in this most difficult of arias.  I suddenly remembered: they premiered the opera two nights ago, yet Archibald was singing effortlessly, popping out what sounded like a high F above a couple of Cs in that aria, a D in another aria, and showing several different types of singing.  Archibald all by herself is actually better than any opera presented this season, perhaps the best coloratura in the world right now, a gorgeous, witty actress playing the part with such complete ease that we get lost in her humour or her pathos.

Archibald and McHardy are still quite young, so that we can hope to see their talents re-united again.  They sound wonderful together.

The COC orchestra played like a period ensemble due to the leadership of conductor Rinaldo Alessandrini.  There was a time that the only way to get a particular timbre was with one of the historically informed performance ensembles such as Tafelmusik.  While there’s no real substitute for the gentle sounds of such an orchestra, conductors are now able to bring their scholarship to the performance of modern instruments.  The COC orchestra had a previous experience like this with Harry Bicket leading them in Orfeo ed Euridice a couple of years ago.  Then as now, you might have wondered whether they were playing on different instruments.

I am thrilled that I already have tickets to another later performance.  You must see this, if only for Archibald’s heroics in that amazing aria, but also for the lovely sound of Allyson McHardy, the playing of the COC orchestra, the COC chorus’ outstanding performance, and the beautiful set.

The Canadian Opera Company production of Semele continues until May 26 at the Four Seasons Centre in Toronto.

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10 Questions for Attila Keszei

Posted on May 8, 2012 by barczablog

After thirty-three years working at the University of Toronto in various roles that placed him in the forefront of sustainability at the University and the country, Attila Keszei is at a cross-roads.  Keszei is an engineer and a painter, sculptor & writer, an activist both in his role at the university and as a concerned artist.  The awards (for example the Chancellor’s Award in 2010 and Excellence Through Innovation in 2011)  only hint at Attila’s influence & mentorship of the next generation.

Faludy

Faludy György (1980), bronze by Attila Keszei

The entire time of his work at the university, Keszei was also working in several disciplines: sculpture (some wonderful bronzes), ceramic, painting, and installations.  At times art rather than sustainability was the medium whereby Keszei sought to make a difference in the world; but –recalling Pablo Picasso, whose big show has recently opened in Toronto–Keszei also can play the more conventional role of artist, including a striking portrait in bronze of the Hungarian patriot poet Faludy.

As the door closes at the end of one sort of career, another door opens for the creative artist.  At this transitional moment I’ve asked Attila ten questions: five about himself and five more about his upcoming work as an artist engaged with his society.

1) Which of your parents do you resemble (what s your nationality / ethnic background)? 

Attila Keszei

Attila Keszei, c. 1995

Father was coming mainly from a straight Hungarian stock on his mother’s side and from his father s side, my fatherly grandfather who was born in 1867, was a mixed race. I heard on a few occasions from my father that grandfather was born out of wedlock from a Catholic chambermaid and a rich Jewish merchant. Is there a truth to it? I do not know. But I was told that my big nose and my name Klein or Kiss as it was changed to sound more Hungarian came from that branch of the family tree.

My mother on the other hand came from a very straight German family line. Her parents  were descendent of the seventeen century Schwaben migrant people, her parents  family names were Volkesinger and Finster. In the 1930s mother’s father changed his name from Finster to Faskerti to blend in more into the Hungarian society. It was interesting that after the Second World War my motherly grandfather’s two brothers, who did not change their names, were displaced back to, what was then called, West Germany.

I think I am like those mixed race dogs. Not pretty or noble but the one which can learn now tricks. So that  is what I am, a half-bred.

2) what is the BEST thing / worst thing about being an artist?

Let’s face it, art is not a necessity. A baker, cobbler or an engineer always needed. But a painting or worst, a sculpture, are most cases are not the most needed list. The best about creating something tangible is that at that few occasions when some art is getting to someone’s house, get purchased, it must give a real pleasure on an ongoing manner.

3) who do you listen to or watch?

When I was in the army I had an experience that had a life time effect on me.

I was part of sixteen of us, who were sent out to an ammunition depot to protect it. It was a 24 hours duty which was for some solders the most frightening experience. One was out on the post for two hours then he was replaced  and went back to the resting area where he has to be on ‘alarm duty’, meaning could not go to sleep for the next two hours. Then after that the next two hours he could sleep until he was awakened to go to replace same other guy on the patrol. I liked to be on those duties. I knew that no Americans would come to steal our few grenades or whatnot hidden in the concrete bunkers, so I was studying the trees, the bees, the ants or simple sad Nature during the daytime and the sky, the Universe  during the night. I learned the location of the major constellations and listened the noises of the night. I was day or night dreaming and only by the noises of the replacement soldiers brought me back to the reality to the present.

One of this occasions when I was on ‘alert duty’ at 2:00AM in the resting area and was quite tired but I was not allowed to sleep, I had realized that I was listening to the music that was played in the radio. I was half tuned out, kind of half-awoken-half-sleep, in that gray area of consciousness, I felt that the music was pumping in my veins  I become aware of the beauty of its sound and harmony.

I never in my life before really listened to classical music. I grow up on folk music and the operettas of the forties. The radio, which we had during my childhood, had only two channels and both were controlled by the communist government. Classical music was played quite frequently but I did not hear it, until that moment.  The emotional strength of the music had such a strong affect on me that I could not fall asleep when finally I was allowed, I was too alert. Later that day when we went back to the barracks I looked up the radio program and figured it out what could have been that music.

It was the New World Symphony by Dvorak.

I went to the library where there were a LP player and many LPs and find the vinyl. I put it on and a ‘new world open up’ to me by the ‘New World Symphony’.

After that experience I started to go back to the barracks’ library and by the time I got to the University I built up a passion for classical music. When I got into the man’s dormitory my first purchase was a record player. Five years later I left the University with a diploma of “Mechanical Engineer’ and  I had close to 100 classical LP in my personal collection.

4) what ability or skill do you wish you had, that you don’t have?

One of my friends asked what was my handicap? He was thinking about the Scottish shepherd game, golf, but I pretended misunderstanding the question and answered: My English!

Yes, I would love to be able to express myself better and use the full extend of this beautiful language.

5) When you re just relaxing (and not working) what is your favorite thing to do?

I cannot relax in the true meaning of the word. I like to work being that engineering, renovations, painting, sculpting or writing. Reading, as many people consider it as relaxation, is not my approach. I read few books a year but those are usually ‘heavy’ not entertain but rather reference type of publication. So to answer the question my favorite relaxation is working.

Five more about being an artist / activist

1) Having formerly divided yourself between art and your daytime career at the university (as an agent for sustainability), how does your new life (devoting yourself fully to your creative projects as an artist with an activist sensibility) challenge you?

I strongly believe, if in the meantime the radiation from Fucoshima will not kill me/us, that I have a few more sculpture that I have to make. It is not because I want to make money but because I have an inner need to express myself and hopefully with that I can add some pleasure or points to think of, to my fellow human beings.

2) what do you love about making art, especially art that has some sort of political message?

In my view, the artist’s dedication having been filtered through his emotional and mental make-up dictates his actions, finding expression in literature, painting, sculpting, music and other art forms. This artistic expression becomes fruitful and meaningful only if it has an objective significance for the observer.  This is my artistic belief, that guides my work.

Now I know that someone may think that I am full of hot air but I feel that with an empty mind no meaningful outcome could be achieved.

So the subject matter of my art come from Judeo-Christian religion, the Greek-Roman teaching and the present-day events that surround us.

Showing Moses’ anger when he returns from the ‘meeting with God’ or showing Aphrodite/Venus with the golden apple and anxious face, knowing that giving Helena to Paris will not go down without a war, showing the very first moment when the man-made sun lighted up the desert in New-Mexico, the morose face of a blue collar worker when the factory he worked for years/decades close down due to ‘Globalization’ or the peaceful demonstrators’ shocked by the reaction of the establishment.

In Memory of JR Oppenheimer

“In Memory of JR Oppenheimer” (1997), raku fired ceramic. 36″H x 72″W x 8″D See also the companion mural: “In Memory of Leo Szilard”.

That is the reason that I started a new art form which I call the “Concerned Art”. If you go to my web site you will know what I meant (www.artterrastudio.com).

3) Do you have a favourite piece or type of art that you’ve created?

I am with my art as with my children. There is no favorite. All of them are/were a part of me, my thinking, my expressions. Yes, there are some less successful interpretations then the others, but in the eyes of the observers make one work more attractive then the others.

4) How do you relate to the geophysical and geopolitical realities of 2012  as a modern man?

If there are intelligent beings ‘out there’ and they look at us, humans, then they can see what pathetic, inferior creatures we are. Because of the color of one’s skin or the religious dogma one is born into, the gender one turns out to be makes us hateful, malicious, non-intelligible beings.  We did improve technically but the species did not develop at all. The reptilian part of our brain always take over. Our species’ history continuously repeats itself.

5) Is there anyone out there who you particularly admire, and who has influenced you?

It would be easy to say: Gandhi, Einstein, Mother Theresa, Some of the great painters sculptors, like Velasquez, Vermeer, Raphael, Michelangelo, etc. but all of them have some angle that is better left alone.

If anything I admire the female gender.

All religions are placing the women behind the men and in reality the male species’ reptilian brain is  responsible for most, if not all, the problems of our time and in the past. I would hazard a guess; we would not be in such a mess if women would have an equal say in all matters.

Attila more recentlyMaybe even for God it is true that repetition makes better: “The second , modified/improved version of our species  – the women – are better”!

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Attila Keszei continues his work as sculptor, ceramic artist, painter & writer.
http://www.artterrastudio.com/

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Rheingold in person

Posted on May 6, 2012 by barczablog

While there’s still a controversy about Robert Lepage’s production of Wagner’s Ring Cycle at the Metropolitan Opera because some people don’t like it, it seems to be a success.

I was at the Das Rheingold that opened the third cycle, after seeing the DieWalküre in the first cycle.  I don’t believe the critical voices matter when the tickets are all sold to happy satisfied patrons.  The discouraging words come from people who presumably would like to see a different approach; but there are other possible approaches, including the one taken by Lepage and his Ex Machina team.

I had already seen all the High Definition broadcasts (that is, two broadcasts of the first two operas, plus the last two without any encores).  While I was happy with the production as it appears on a movie theatre screen, it’s totally different inside the theatre.  I saw Walküre from the Family Cicle, while I was in the Orchestra for Rheingold.

The most common complaint I’ve heard against Lepage concerns Lepage’s machine, which sometimes makes noise, and often calls attention to itself.  True.  It’s big, and in fact at times it’s scary.

And why not?  The machine is a big part of the show when you’re in the theatre.  We’re watching the forces of nature enacted before us.  I love the carnivalesque element: that the gods entry into Valhalla, or the descent to Nibelheim requires doubles on strings, that Loge (who is called “the lie“) walks backwards up the wall.

After having seen Götterdämmerung it’s interesting to note that the cycle ends the way it began.  The machine executes undulating wave motion.  While it may seem like a little thing, I wonder if any cycle has ever opened with exactly the same image as seen at the beginning?  No, it’s not profound.  But this Ring doesn’t present itself as being profound.

There are a few changes this time around.

  • Richard Paul Fink took over as Alberich from Eric Owens, offering a more conventional portrayal (given that Owens has a voice that sometimes overpowers that of Bryn Terfel as Wotan), but as strong at the end as at the beginning.
  • Adam Klein

    Adam Klein, a revelation in the role of Loge

    Adam Klein sang a wonderful Loge, enlarging the physical aspect we’d already seen from Richard Croft in the earlier version of the opera last season.  Not only did Klein walk backwards up the wall using wires, but turned it into a part of his characterization.  At times he posed defiantly (sideways), at other times he struck a more ironic attitude.  For me Loge is a bellwether of the production, which might explain why I loved this show so much. Klein made magic from his first appearance to his last: a revelation.

  • Franz-Josef Selig as Fasolt and Wendy Bryn Harmer had already created an off-beat relationship in their portrayals of Fasolt & Freia.  You may recall that the deal between the gods and giants made Freia the payment for the building of Valhalla,a match that usually means the goddess resists the unattractive giant.  Last year we already saw Harmer making eyes at Selig, at least showing some conflicted tremors in recognition that the giant genuinely loved her. This time they took it even further, Selig reluctantly releasing Harmer when her ransom is paid.
  • Fabio Luisi

    Maestro Fabio Luisi

    The pace from Fabio Luisi, who has replaced James Levine as conductor of the Metropolitan Orchestra, is a breath of fresh air.  I prefer Luisi’s fast Wagner, which to my knowledge is more authentic than the slower pace taken by conductors such as Levine.  Even so, for the first time I began to understand some of the complaints, given that the orchestra didn’t manage to play as loudly as I would have expected in several key passages, fluffing several times in the second scene.

Bottom line?  While Lepage’s Ring is recognized for the obvious elements recognizable from his work in the circus-aerial realm, I haven’t seen proper credit for what he’s brought to the Ring’s human relationships.  In Rheingold, this is most obvious in the chemistry between Fasolt & Freia, but also seen in the details of Stephanie Blythe’s portrayal of Fricka and her relationship to Bryn Terfel’s Wotan.  It’s vivid without any concept overlaid.  Perhaps this is disappointing to those who think Wagner should have those extra layers.

Finally, I must say how much I love the machine that is at the centre of this production.  To me it’s a symbol, and a powerful one at that.  The Ring Cycle is about change, about the succession of power, so to have a set that is as protean as the world itself, that changes into everything and anything makes terrific sense.  Erda warns Wotan, saying “Alles was ist, endet.  (Everything that is, ends)”  The cyclical nature is right there in the set, which changes endlessly, looking exactly the same at the end as it will at the beginning.

I’d see it all again at Lincoln Centre in New York if I could possibly afford it.  But there’s another option in the movie theatres.  The cycle is back this week, including an introductory film, Wagner’s Dream on May 7th, followed by encores of the cycle operas:

  • Das Rheingold May 9th
  • Die Walküre May 12th in Canada (May 14th in USA)
  • Siegfried May 17th in Canada (May 16th in USA)
  • Götterdämmerung May 19th
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“First, it is ridiculed”

Posted on May 3, 2012 by barczablog

Stewart Goodyear posted the following quote on Facebook today:

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

Goodyear probably meant to speak of his Beethoven Marathon but I am borrowing it to speak of the Met Ring Cycle, directed by Robert Lepage.

The second of three Metropolitan Opera Ring Cycles concludes Thursday with Götterdämmerung, followed Saturday night by Das Rheingold to kick off the third cycle.

Robert Lepage

Quebec director and actor Robert Lepage, shown in Toronto in 2009, is revamping the Met Opera’s entire Ring Cycle. Die Walkuere will follow in the spring. (Darren Calabrese/Canadian Press)

In Canada Lepage’s star shines as brightly as ever, whereas in NY, the response to the Ring is decidedly equivocal.  Lepage has been on the defensive, after attacks in the press.  The most strident of these was Alex Ross’s piece in New Yorker including this much-quoted paragraph:

“Götterdämmerung,” the final installment of Lepage’s “Ring,” arrived in January, rounding out what must be considered a historic achievement. Pound for pound, ton for ton, it is the most witless and wasteful production in modern operatic history. Many millions of dollars have been spent to create a gargantuan scenic machine of creakily moving planks, which have overshadowed the singers, even cowed them, without yielding especially impressive images. “

But this is par for the course.  Although greeted with boos & cries of outrage at its premiere, Patrice Chereau’s 1976 Ring Cycle for the Bayreuth Festival Centennial has become an influential classic.

I am not going to argue that Lepage’s Ring will be as influential (I don’t read the future): but I wouldn’t be surprised.  But the outrage in both cases –1976 & 2012—arises from a defence of a kind of orthodoxy, not because of anything specific in the new interpretation.  It’s especially ironic that the standard procedure in the 21st Century is essentially to emulate Chereau: to make a subtle commentary on Wagner’s Ring.

Entrance of the Gods

Entrance of the Gods into Valhalla in Robert Lepage’s staging of Richard Wagner’s Das Rheingold at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. (Ken Howard/Metropolitan Opera/Associated Press)

The big irony is that Lepage has dared to stage the work as written.  Where Chereau staged ironic subtexts & deconstructions, often ignoring Wagner’s stage directions and leading a generation of directors to walk all over Wagner, Lepage has come back to the text in an almost literal manner.

If there were only one possible audience, the furor (or the impression thereof in the press) might be a problem.  Yet Lepage seems to have found a new audience, which likely was the idea in the first place.  If an older cohort of audience members were to stomp their feet and say no to Lepage, a newer group would likely take their place.

But the truth isn’t so black and white.  Some people will come for the music while tolerating a staging they don’t like.  Some people actually do like the staging, although the size of this group is anyone’s guess, given that the complaints in the realm of social media may simply be a small but vocal group.

Me?  I don’t understand.  I have seen all four operas in the High Definition broadcasts, and was able to attend Die Walküre at Lincoln Centre during the first cycle.  In person, the set is magnificent.  Some have spoken about the noises Lepage’s machine makes.

So?

I am in the audience, watching a mountain move.  I am watching a forest of trees.  Why would such a miraculous effect be silent?  It’s imposing, and indeed a bit scary.  When Bryn Terfel climbs upon the surface of this set, the set is like a wild creature, moving as he walks upon it.

If I were at a circus I would be marvelling at the movements of acrobats or the animals or the aerialists.  That Lepage has brought some of that excitement to the opera is a good thing, I believe, even if some narrow-minded people seem to believe opera sets should be silent.

I used to dislike broccoli when I was a kid, but eventually I tried it and discovered I like it.  Some people are obstinate.

Their loss.

While these operas may not deliver the expected result –especially for those arriving with a rigid list of criteria for what might constitute a successful presentation of Wagner’s Ring Cycle–that does not mean there’s nothing worth seeing, let alone hearing.  I am frankly embarassed, considering how tame these productions are, how tiny the “challenges” being imposed upon the audience.

The New York opera fans upset about Lepage’s Ring remind me of spoiled customers in a Starbucks, demanding that the Manager fire the barrista for messing up their order.  Opera may sometimes resemble a product, especially when the audience passively refuse to meet the work halfway.  Had Wagner encountered such an audience he would never have written anything.

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Handel and Zhang: great minds thinking alike

Posted on April 28, 2012 by barczablog

I’m writing about two men who made some odd choices, showing a parallel brilliance even though separated by centuries.

George Frederic Handel was simply trying to make a living, a composer whose works were sometimes welcomed, sometimes not.  Semele, with its story of marital infidelity and amorous gods with a libretto from William Congreve was originally presented as an oratorio during the Lenten season in London in 1744: when such matters were indecorous.  While the work was written in English (and is for all intents and purposes an opera, given the flamboyance of the material, notwithstanding its initial presentation as “oratorio”) it seems to have been a victim of the same change of fashion that saw Handel’s Italian operas falling from public view for roughly two centuries.  Yes Handel’s operas are being produced nowadays, Semele included…

Flash forward to the 21st century, as explained in this quote from a NY Times review that could serve as an explanatory preamble to what we’re to see when the Canadian Opera revives a production previously seen in Belgium and China:

This “Semele” is the upshot of an unusual co-production between La Monnaie and — in lieu of another opera house — the fledgling KT Wong Foundation, whose mission is to stimulate Chinese-Western cultural interaction. In the foundation’s most ambitious project to date, its chairwoman, Linda Wong Davies, conceived the idea of uniting Western Baroque opera and Chinese stagecraft, then proceeded to act as matchmaker by bringing together a major European opera company and an innovative Chinese artist.

Zhang

Artist Zhang Huan

The innovative artist is Chinese performance artist Zhang Huan.  The result is a curious inter-cultural response to Handel’s work.  Zhang’s production is in a very real sense

  • An installation as much as a production
  • A site-specific production (normally impossible in an opera house).
  • A definite parallel to what Handel himself did originally (in premiering his opera as a Lenten oratorio)
Zhang's temple

Zhang's temple in the 2009 La Monnaie production of Handel's Semele (photograph Karl Forster)

We’re told that Zhang has found a 450 year-old Buddhist temple, that was concealed inside a house, a house with a relevant back-story.  The house was owned by a couple with their own tale of infidelity.  The husband discovered his wife was cheating, killed the lover, and was subsequently executed.  The wife, who still lives, comes to the theatre where that temple is reconstructed, herself a kind of ghost who lives on, while the two men who longed for her do not.  She is a curious mirror image to Semele herself (in case you don’t recall the story, Semele was Jupiter’s lover, who is incited by the jealous wife Juno to ask to see the great god in all his glory, when he had promised to grant any wish: which of course mortal Semele could not survive), being the one mortal survivor, where in the ancient tale only the object of desire perishes.

It’s a brilliant story and the sort of metaphor that installations employ.  Pierre Louys put out the Chansons de Bilitis originally on the premise that they were genuine ancient artefacts, a piece of gloss that changed the way we read those songs; they were of course his original creation.  George Faludy made his reputation in Budapest for his translations of songs by François Villon: again a bogus historicity that served mostly to make Faludy (my favourite Hungarian poet) famous.

And so, we have the story of a temple concealed within a house.  What a beautiful image, when you think of it.  And whether the “temple” we see before us is truly 450 years old or not, the stage for Semele becomes a kind of historic site of infidelity, and also a temple to desire.  That it is a Buddhist temple is somewhat ironic, considering that the usual Buddhist goal is to transcend desire rather than celebrate it (for further study next season, come see the COC production of Tristan und Isolde, to see whether Wagner under the influence of Schopenhauer genuinely seems to overcome or celebrate desire).

I think I am going to love this.  It’s being assistant directed by Allison Grant, who recently directed the Roméo et Juliette at Vancouver Opera.  The NY Times review of the original version from La Monnaie calls attention to a few things Zhang did, that may or may not survive in the Toronto production:

The joyful conclusion of Act I is undone when followed by an unaccompanied Mongolian song. More damaging is Mr. Zhang’s decision to end the opera prematurely with Semele’s death; thereafter, in a kind of funeral procession, men of the chorus hum — of all things — the Communist anthem “International.” Instead of leaving the theater elated by Handel’s final chorus, one goes away perplexed.

But I WANT to be perplexed.  I love that sensation, and what’s more, I recall reading somewhere that Zhang likes that experience too.  Being lost is something I adore.  I wrote a paper about it long ago, and I think it’s something very spiritual.  We live in a culture where people are never lost, always knowing where we are with our GPS’s, our mobile phones, a web of technology all around us.

I believe Zhang did his homework.  The oxymoronic quality of the Buddhist temple of desire matches Handel’s amatory opera during Lent perfectly.  While Handel’s choice (putting this sizzling story on during Lent) may have been ill-advised, Zhang’s choice seems apt.

Okay, so you can probably tell I am going to love this production, with its puppet dragon, sumo wrestlers, (hopefully including the Mongolian song and the Internationale as well) and the temple, whether or not it really is 450 years old.

And as David Feheley, COC’s Technical Directory explained, Semele will be a technical tour de force from the COC backstage staff.  Neither of the previous incarnations of this Semele were staged in rep, which is to say, requiring the temple to be assembled and then taken down for the other operas (Tales of Hoffmann and the Zemlinsky/Puccini double bill reviewed earlier this week).

The temple weighs 17 tons.  Perhaps that doesn’t seem like much when placed alongside such behemoths as Lepage’s 45 ton set for the Ring cycle at the Metropolitan Opera in New York.  But large as that set is, it was built all along as a set, to be assembled and taken down.  Zhang’s temple –real or otherwise—has none of the usual characteristics of a set.  It’s not a synecdoche or incomplete image of something.  It is complete.  It’s not made from materials designed for use on a stage.  It looks real.

This temple has been assembled and won’t come apart because it’s on a solid wheeled platform that can slowly be removed for one of the other shows.  Lighting is built right into this unit.

archibald

Soprano Jane Archibald

As if that weren’t enough to attract an audience, the COC have assembled a wonderful cast, headed by soprano Jane Archibald in the title role, she of the Juno award winning CD of Haydn arias, and the wonderful coloratura voice we encountered last season as Zerbinetta.  Her rival –for Jovian love if not for vocal honours—is Allyson McHardy, so passionate as Dejanira in Hercules with Tafelmusik just a few weeks ago.

Allyson Mchardy

Mezzo-soprano Allyson McHardy

When I jokingly alluded to the stories of divas upstaging one another, McHardy & Archibald mugged outrageously for me, clearly a pair who enjoy one another’s company and are having fun in this production.

The icing on the cake of their happy collaboration is supplied by the conductor, baroque specialist Rinaldo Alessandrini, who brings an authenticity to Semele (at least by reputation) comparable to what Harry Bicket brought here with his Orfeo ed Euridice a couple of years ago.  Here’s an example where you can see what a wonderful conductor Alessandrini is.   While the pronunciation is perhaps not ideal watch how he follows the young singer…AND notice the wonderful tempo in the middle –scourging—section .

The Canadian Opera Company production of Semele opens May 9th at the Four Seasons Centre in Toronto. I’m looking forward to it, a wonderful update on the little bit of Semele i encountered when i was young; here’s the one really famous piece of music from this opera in a famous old version.

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Two from Florence

Posted on April 27, 2012 by barczablog

The double bill of Zemlinsky’s A Florentine Tragedy with Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi, currently being presented by the Canadian Opera Company, is a marriage made in heaven, a pair of complementary opposites who seem to belong together.

They’re alike in some key ways…

  • Both operas are set in Florence
  • They are roughly contemporary in composition from around 1917-1918
  • Both operas have plots driven by avarice and disparities of wealth

Yet even so, …

  • Zemlinsky is not well-known, while Puccini is arguably the most popular composer of the 20th Century
  • A Florentine Tragedy is dark, while Gianni Schicchi is a comic masterpiece
  • Notwithstanding the date of composition, Zemlinsky’s music is often dissonant and disturbing, whereas Puccini’s occasional dissonances are usually zany rather than disturbing, and serve to set up the luscious melodies he spins.  But Zemlinsky does offer a few wonderful climaxes.

Conducted by Andrew Davis, I believe this is the largest COC orchestral complement we’ve seen in a long time, at least in the Zemlinsky.  Huge as the assembled forces may have been for most of the work, Davis held them delicately in check, swelling only occasionally, particularly at the volcanic conclusion.  The Zemlinsky work sounds a lot like Richard Strauss, with the expressionist flair we find from operas such as Elektra or Salome.

Wilson Chin’s set design captured these two very distinct worlds, allowing them to cohere wonderfully as a satisfying evening of opera.  The dark work (called a “tragedy” but maybe not so tragic) unfolds as a love triangle on a big bare stage, while the light comedy takes place in a cramped space full of junk.  Although they’re different the worlds of both are so preoccupied with property and materialism that it’s manifested in the physical environment of the set.

Bass-baritone Alan Held had a busy night.  As Simone in the tragedy he’s singing a great deal, much of it in a high register, followed by the role of Gianni Schicchi, which isn’t much easier, also lying high.  The teutonic style of the Zemlinsky seems to be a better fit for Held’s voice than the Italianate comedy, although true to his name he more than held his own.

Gun-Brit Barkmin as Bianca, Michael König as Guido Bardi and Alan Held as Simone (background) in the Canadian Opera Company production of A Florentine Tragedy, 2012. (photo by Michael Cooper)

While I laughed throughout the Puccini I enjoyed the dark opera more.  For me it’s a brand-new work, full of wonderful moments, luscious orchestral sonorities, unexpected emotional turns, and a wonderful concluding five minutes.  Director Catherine Malfitano is to be congratulated for shaping this complex and ambiguous work successfully.  Bianca, Simone’s wife, is shown with her husband in an oversize portrait centre stage (you can see it in the photo) with her husband’s hand in a controlling position on her neck.  In their first encounter he gently seizes her –if that isn’t a complete oxymoron—by the back of the neck.  While this may seem obvious, the story is anything but.  Held’s physical presence is threatening even though he is subservient to the Prince, who is busily cuckolding his subject right in Simone’s own home.

Gun-Brit Barkmin makes a wonderfully complex Bianca, surrendering to Michael König’s Prince, yet seemingly in thrall to her husband’s complex dominance.  It should be no surprise that this twisted tale comes to us from Oscar Wilde.  Malfitano’s conclusion to A Florentine Tragedy provided a wonderful echo of the cloak from one of the original Puccini triptych, namely Il Tabarro ; where the cloak in the Puccini shocker conceals a dead body, in this case the cloak leads to an unexpectedly loving and sensual embrace.

Wilson Chin's complex set for Gianni Schicchi (Photo by Michael Cooper)

While I found the Puccini a huge relief after the darkness of Zemlinsky, I wasn’t sure about the updating.  Instead of Medieval Florence we get something closer to Jersey Shore: which is apt I suppose considering that Malfitano is both American and Italian.  Sometimes the updating was very good, as for instance when René Barbera as Rinuccio sang his big paean to Florence from atop a pile of junk.  I worried for his safety –and no this isn’t to be mistaken for Spiderman—with the young tenor perched easily twenty feet above the stage floor.  I reminded myself that while the set appeared rickety of course it was carefully constructed to support him.  Overall I found that the modernization made the show warm & fuzzy rather than edgy, defusing some of the laughter that the opera can sometimes generate.  It’s still lots of fun though and especially delightful after the Zemlinsky.

Barbera’s singing was one of the highlights of the evening, along with the Lauretta of Simone Osborne, singing “Oh mio babbino caro”.  I felt Davis was channelling Toscanini, imbuing the operas with wonderful pace & verve, but also sometimes challenging the singers to perhaps sing faster than they might have wished.

Held, Barbera & Osborne make a loveable family unit, in this crowd-pleaser of an opera.  I hope no one is scared off by the opera composed by a guy whose name starts with a Z.  This double bill deserves to score well with the Toronto audience.

The Canadian Opera Company production of A Florentine Tragedy and Gianni Schicchi continue at the Four Seasons Centre in Toronto until May 25th.

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Picasso in Toronto

Posted on April 25, 2012 by barczablog

When we come into contact with a great figure in the world of art we’re bound to be confronted with the great questions.

  • What is art?
  • What is culture & what is its relationship to citizenship & society?
  • How should one assemble great works to best advantage?
  • And what—if anything—can criticism offer?

This is perhaps more applicable to Pablo Picasso than any other artist: because of his lengthy career, his protean nature, reinventing himself over and over, and his centrality in the art world over the past century.

I am pondering such questions after seeing the preview at the Art Gallery of Ontario of Picasso: Masterpieces from the Musée National Picasso, Paris.  I don’t believe we’re expected to decode the lost mysteries of art, even if that’s sometimes the way criticism is presented, as for example in Woody Allen’s recent Midnight in Paris.

Whether you laugh or not, I hope the lesson is clear:

  • that criticism is not just an activity but an industry (ie the pompous guy who gives the first opinion about the painting: completely wrong by the way), and at times a big business
  • that the truth –especially the relationship between a life and works of art—is an elusive mystery
  • that art itself is largely independent of such issues (which may be one of the conclusions Woody Allen wanted to show, in a film that casts any notion of a “golden age” in a most ironic light)

This new Picasso show moves me to think of a series of questions at the same time.  I saw Picasso and Man at the Art Gallery of Toronto (as AGO was then called) in 1964, as a child.  I can’t help thinking about a few inter-connected issues:

  • In 1964 Picasso was still alive (75 years old), sufficiently current to be provocative if not revolutionary
  • 48 years later Picasso has become something of a classic
  • 48 years before Picasso and ManI? Surrealism & dada had not yet reared their heads, let alone the abstract style of a Jackson Pollock (just four years old in 1916).
  • One of the great lessons of this glorious sprawling show is to see how styles change from generation to generation, and to be humbled by how much can change in a lifetime.
Matthew Teitelbaum

Matthew Teitelbaum, the Michael and Sonja Koerner Director and CEO of the AGO

In his welcoming message, Matthew Teitelbaum spoke to the connection between the two shows, hinting at the changing role of the AGO, and a vision for the future.  We heard of a program whereby children would be given the free audio guide for shows: a forward-thinking idea.  I am reminded of the way the Canadian Opera Company –arguably the ne plus ultra of arts marketing in this country, if not on the continent– has built its audience and subscription base through its long-time policy to bring opera to children & students.

Part of the enjoyment of eating is in imagining how to recreate the meal; similarly as I consumed decades of Picasso, I marvelled at how the meal was assembled.  We’re told that art was like a diary for Picasso, so that his art is his story.  The organizing principle –the logic of chronology—while deceptively simple, conflates painter and painting.  But when we consider the complex issues one would otherwise encounter –if for instance, we organized the work around the various “isms” or movements whereby the art might be organized—the mind reels at the prospect, particularly considering how daunting such a task might be.  In other words, I’m thankful that the exhibition seems to be as amenable to analysis & criticism for those who work that way, or simply as a panorama of an artist’s life.  And recalling the clip from Woody Allen’s film, it’s as though we’re free to have it any way we wish ( with as much or as little analysis as we want).

Portrait of Dora Maar

Pablo Picasso (Spanish, 1881-1973) Portrait de Dora Maar (Portrait of Dora Maar), 1937, Oil on canvas, 92 x 65 cm
Pablo Picasso gift-in-lieu, 1979, MP158, Musée National Picasso, Paris, © Picasso Estate SODRAC (2012) © RMN/Jean-Gilles Berizzi

Moving from room to room, we stride with seven-league boots from decade to decade, from era to era, and implicitly, from movement to movement.  We detect the successful flavours of expressionism, cubism, surrealism, abstraction.  We observe another current, namely the political surge in the 1930s, in a series of paintings of searing power.  For me one of the climaxes (among several) was not a painting at all, but a series of photos by Dora Maar, Picasso’s current muse/mistress, showing the creation of Guernica.

I admit, my thinking has recently been influenced by what I’ve seen/heard:

  • Stewart Goodyear’s upcoming marathon of Beethoven piano sonatas (and my own miniature survey of those same sonatas on my own piano at home) has me looking at patterns in the complete cycle of sonatas.
  • The collaboration  of Talisker Players & Groundling Theatre in Muse of Fire presented several musical approaches to Shakespeare, encouraging a synthetic view across multiple plays.  Jane Archibald’s Juno award winning CD of Haydn arias also had me thinking about the composer –whom i don’t pretend to know very well– across decades.
  • The experiences I’ve had recently looking at attempts to build culture using theatre in small towns (Barrie, Richmond Hill and Scarborough) has me thinking about AGO as part of a cultural project, particularly considering the way Teitelbaum spoke (looking back at the Toronto of 1964, when we were smaller & less sophisticated: like me come to think of it)

Just as one experiences the emergence of new stylistic traits playing one sonata after another in historical order, so too when going from room to room in the Picasso show (also organized chronologically), one sees the development of new styles and tendencies.  And when one surveys one of the truly great artists one can’t help thinking about the pure essence that is “Picasso” (or Beethoven or Shakespeare or Haydn), even if in truth their work changed over the course of their life. Perhaps it’s a colossal fantasy to attempt to abstract a creator into one image when they are really the sum of all their diverse creations; but such grandiose fantasies are given some momentum in the presence of exhibitions such as this one.

The excitement in the city’s cultural meeting place is part and parcel of a transformation of that place into something transcendental.  While the show is surely an exhibit of the works of Picasso in several media, in a curious way it’s also just a new look at the gallery itself.  I’ve never liked the space so much as now, as it happily holds such wonderful works.  There’s an especially beautiful composition in one of the rooms, comprised of bronzes (for example “Head of a woman” 1931) in front of paintings (a series of 1931 figures on the seashore).  There was no place in the room that wasn’t stunning, no matter which direction you looked.  How astonishing.  I couldn’t move, until I realized I couldn’t stand still.

I’m thinking this is part of a larger project, a programming choice something like the symphonies or operas or plays selected by performing arts companies in the search for an audience and the creation of an ongoing meeting place to renew our artistic dialogue.  With Picasso: Masterpieces from the Musée National Picasso, Paris, as with the earlier Marc Chagall show and the upcoming exhibit of Frida Kahlo / Diego Rivera, AGO are giving us good reasons to become members: to continue that conversation.

Picasso: Masterpieces from the Musée National Picasso, Paris opens May 1st at the Art Gallery of Ontario, and runs until August 26th.

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Seek Haydn

Posted on April 23, 2012 by barczablog

At one time, the pathway to success for a virtuoso was simple.

  • Sing what everyone else sings
  • Sing it better than anyone
  • …and by doing so, prove that you’re the best
CD Haydn Arias

Haydn Arias: Canadian soprano Jane Archibald in her first solo recording.

The game has changed.  I own several CDs that follow the model listed above: and I rarely listen to them all the way through.  While such recordings do establish a performer’s credentials, they don’t necessarily serve the listener.

When the primary market for opera recordings consisted of the knowledgeable buyer wanting to sit in judgment of that virtuoso dynamic, there was always a limit to what you could accomplish even with an amazing voice.  Within each Fach you’re only going to have so many touchstones of excellence.  If it’s agreed that there are five to ten key arias whereby one shows one’s mastery, either you undertake those same arias –showing us how you measure up—or you sidestep the question by performing something else.  It means that the competition between the singers –the game of demonstrating virtuosity –is in some respects alien or counter-productive to the goal of entertainment.

We won’t even mention “art” because a CD of excerpts lined up in this way is an affront to the idea, arguably an exercise in bad taste.  While you’re at it, imagine a meal consisting of 10 different types of cupcake, or 10 different types chocolate truffle or 10 different full fat cheeses; ask yourself how you’d feel after devouring the entire meal, and whether you’d want to repeat the experience even once.

Got that visceral image in your head?

I bring this up because a singer who could probably prosper at the old game –of showing off her voice—has taken a different path.

Last season I saw Jane Archibald’s Zerbinetta three times at the Four Seasons Centre, in a Canadian Opera Company production conducted by Andrew Davis.  More recently I saw her –in a different costume in the same role—on medici.tv in a more recent production from Baden-Baden with Christian Thielemann, where –in the old fashioned dynamic of the virtuoso—Archibald very sweetly blew her Ariadne (Renée Fleming) completely off the stage.  Admittedly Archibald had ridiculous advantages:

  • While both women are beauties, Archibald is younger
  • Archibald was wearing a revealing outfit
  • And –the coup de grace—Archibald was aggressively taking the stage as Zerbinetta, a character who usually steals the show, when it’s not pre-emptively handed to her on a silver platter

I say this as preamble to Jane Archibald’s award –winning CD of Haydn arias from ATMA.

Instead of showing us that she’s the best at the old game, by singing the same arias everyone else sings, Archibald does something rather different.  Yes we get high notes ( for example, several glittering examples of the same high E that Zerbinetta sings, in the very first aria, “Al tuo seno forunato” from L’anima del filosofo).

But we also get a CD full of music that is largely unknown.

Haydn?  While his symphonies are regularly programmed, his operas still haven’t penetrated into standard repertoire as one might expect.  Il Mondo della Luna, Haydn’s 1777 opera with libretto by Carlo Goldoni deserves to crack that charmed circle of popular operas, a wonderful creation that will likely be seen more and more in the years to come.  Archibald gives us two delightful arias from that work.

ATMA have created a wonderfully harmonious CD that reminds me a bit of their CD for Michael Slattery singing Dowland, in the combination of instrumentals with vocals.  Instead of giving us a dozen or more tracks that are all essentially the same thing –that deadly array of sweets I was describing in the old-fashioned CD from a soprano or a tenor—the brains at ATMA thought to show some variety.  Where the Dowland CD includes Dowland instrumentals to go with his songs, the Haydn CD gives us Haydn operatic Overtures to broaden our enjoyment.  Orchestre Symphonique, Bienne conducted by Thomas Rösner have an edgy historically informed sound (the kettle drums sound fresh from the Napoleonic Wars) even though they use modern instruments.  But the lessons of period performance have informed the approaches of studious musicians regardless of the kind of instruments they play, as we saw when Harry Bicket conducted the Canadian Opera Company production of Orfeo ed Euridice.

The CD recently won the Juno (Canada’s “Grammy”) as best classical CD: deservedly.

I heartily recommend Archibald’s CD as a window on Haydn, even as I look forward to her return to Toronto as the title role of the upcoming COC production of Handel’s Semele, opening May 9that the Four Seasons Centre.

Soprano Jane Archibald

Soprano Jane Archibald and l’Orchestre symphonique Bienne under Thomas Rösner, has won a 2012 JUNO Award for Classical Album of the Year: Vocal or Choral Performance

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The healing power of Beethoven

Posted on April 21, 2012 by barczablog

I am writing after the fact, a little shocked by something I lived through, and want to testify to the healing power of music.  It shouldn’t be a surprise.  Conductors & musicians live remarkably long lives, likely rejuvenated by the music swirling around them like the waters of a fountain of youth.

I feel sanest at the piano.  It’s a place where irrational and rational coexist side by side.  Apollo and Dionysius have to make peace with one another, for better or worse, if they’re to co-exist inside the same skull.

This past week was very draining for me, disorienting because my usual schedule was turned upside down.  I made a family trip to NYC, including Die Walküre on Friday the 13th (lucky for me as it turned out) , coming home to a busy week partway through Monday.  Each of Tuesday & Wednesday entailed a day of work, a show at night and a review afterwards.  While this regular pattern of a full day of work, a show at night plus writing a review after midnight doesn’t leave much time for sleep, it was complicated by my excitement, which had me awake at odd hours like a kid waiting for Santa the next morning.

Thursday night –exhausted and mentally drained– i sat down at the piano at about 8:30 pm.  I had my old Beethoven sonata book out.  While I own another set (beaten up from years of play, particularly when one turns the page a bit too enthusiastically) I found this marvellous old set in a used book store: all 32 sonatas in one book.  The Schirmer or Schnabel sets are in two big volumes, whereas this one is the same size as a single volume from either of those.  How?  I suppose the text is smaller, the pages are thinner.  It’s an asset because it means fewer page-turns.

Goodyear in the piano

Goodyear: a man who gets into the piano

I pulled out this beloved book (and as I think of healing, the presence of such a book generating warm thoughts is probably a good thing) when I heard of Stewart Goodyear’s plan to play all 32 Beethoven piano sonatas in a single day.  I blogged a bit about it, playing through the first few sonatas, (except I skipped the first one)  ). Karen Lin led me to these questions, on her blog, reminding me of Julie & Julia, the film showing two parallel quests.  Just as Julie is the average person re-tracing the epic steps of Julia Child, Karen seems to be taking the small steps as a listener that would parallel the giant steps of Goodyear.  In the same (copycat) vein,  I as an amateur piano-player am also making my own parallel journey on a much smaller scale.

I wondered at 8:30, as I started playing opus 101 whether I could play to the end of the book.  I was tired and dazed, but would let the music lead me.  These are pieces I’ve played a lot, with the exception of one movement that I don’t pretend to really understand.  (more on that in a moment).  Fortunately I was alone and wouldn’t likely be disturbed.  If the phone were to ring I wouldn’t pick it up.

Op 101? A first movement that’s Wagnerian passion, all appoggiaturas and sighing incomplete phrases that anticipate Tristan und Isolde, but on a delicate and intimate scale.  It’s sexy music, and an enormous privilege to play.  Second movement?  Masculine crisp energy, a piece I only really “got” after hearing Anton Kuerti play it on his landmark recording.  The piece has the qualities of a small-scale blitzkrieg, of armies marching across the keyboard in perfect formation, tortured energies repressed to keep the goose-stepping perfectly in line, the delicate ornaments like the gleam of helmets and bayonets.  There’s a sweet little interlude in the middle, as if the soldier took off his clothes to swim in the pond of the farm he’s invading, perhaps with the farmer’s daughter.  But moments later, his uniform is back on and POW the army is on the march again.  Tired as I was, I surrendered to the demands of the piece, like a conscript marching in time with his comrades, unaware of how tired I was supposed to be. Third movement? Languid thoughtful, profound, one of the movements when Beethoven throws you a curve, surprising you with the last thing you would have expected.  It’s so tranquil and respectful, one can simply breathe and let one’s arms sink into the wonderful chords.

Finally, there’s a transition towards the end.  We get a lovely recap of the opening, perhaps a bit like what we have at the beginning of the last movement of the 9th Symphony, when snippets from previous movements take us back to earlier sentiments.  And then the last movement…   I wish I could say this was my insight but I am pretty sure I read somewhere that the last movement is like the gates of heaven opening.

Was it Kuerti again?… he is responsible for one quote that is especially memorable, when he said –in this paraphrase—“to play Beethoven one must become Beethoven,” an elegant way of understanding romantic identification, and indeed a handy justification for interpretative excess (not that Kuerti was guilty… his was a very polite Beethoven when I think back, with no fists shaken heavenwards that I can recall; but I will happily wear Kuerti’s dictum on my sleeve, to justify the mistakes I make, when Dionysius momentarily gets the better of Apollo).

At one time I was not sure whether that image –heaven opening– would work for me, but I’ve tried to play the piece that way.  At one time I used to play it way too fast and loud, consumed by the counterpoint and the voices surging against one another.  I say this, by the way, mindful of the one movement among these last 5 sonatas that doesn’t hang together for me, that’s simply too big, too complex for me to grasp at an organic level and waiting around the next curve in the maze like the Minotaur: the vast concluding movement of op 106.  The heaven metaphor? It is helpful for one big reason: that I try to come to the the piece without the need to make drama full of conflict over several minutes seeking resolution & perhaps a catharsis (gasp…); instead it can be more of a piece that begins from a point of arrival, as a proclamation of release & liberation.  Think of the way the “Hallejah” chorus proclaims something, and takes its space precisely because it’s already confidently arrived at a place of grace: and you’d have an idea of how I think one should play that last movement.  And that means, too, that it doesn’t have to be as loud, just as recent versions of the Hallelujah chorus (thinking especially of Kevin Mallon’s reading at the Dublin Messiah last December) start happily but grow gradually throughout.  With every successive attempt I find i am more capable of making the opening of this movement a calm affirmation.

Okay, so I pump out the A major chords to end op 101, and think, yes I shall go on to play the beginning of Op 106 and see how far I get.  How amazing to hear the similarities between these.  We’ve slid a semitone up the keyboard, and here we are leaping upwards yet again.  For anyone doubting the validity or purpose of Stewart Goodyear’s ambitious project (and I heard of at least one simplistic damnation) the insights one feels going from one to the next, seeing the similarities & parallels –for  instance between the two colossal contrapuntal movements in adjacent sonatas as well as the similarities between these upward leaping figures—are impossible to valuate.  I like the way this project is pushing me to think of the sonatas as an ongoing essay, the way sketches or compositions will inevitably return again and again to similar material.

I confess that I do cheat: for unlike Mr Goodyear  I will not do the Op 106 repeats because it’s late and I wonder if I will make it through tonight.  I gotta hurry..! if I am going to get this through tonight, tired as I am, I play the second movement quieter than ever, perhaps again mindful of the time but also letting the large project and my limited reserves of energy steer me towards a more delicate reading of this big scherzo.  Hm, this is giving me new insights again.  I come to the big long slow movement thinking –as I did playing the early sonatas over a week ago—and remember the historically informed interpreters and their lessons on Beethoven.  I play it faster, thinking of the way Norrington does the slow movement of the 9th.  The way I’d seen it notated made it almost painfully slow, dripping gravitas and drama.  Maybe that’s another of those modern mistakes.  (how do you say “look what they’ve done to my song ma” in German?)

I feel like a fraud playing the last movement of op 106.  While I was blown away by the way Goodyear plays it, I don’t really like this piece, or more truthfully, I just don’t get it.  The themes swirl around, but mostly leave me cold.  I am playing notes, trying to play it right (ha… without conviction or insight).  The recent memory of how Goodyear plays this is in my head, as I play it slower, ham-handed and really just going through the motions, to get to the next one.  But I am surprised when I get to a part I forgot that I liked.  After a cadence of sorts on A, and a pause we get very quiet in D; and we get very easy to play for a change…! Thanks Ludwig, for throwing me a bone.  We’re turning for home, now, with the return to B flat, including some ponderous heavy ascending notes in the bass.  But at least it’s intelligible, especially as we get to the easy –and very loud –conclusion. I get a big rush on that cadence, almost tears.  But it’s truthfully relief as much as joy.

On the facing page is the opening of a sonata Debussy must have liked, for its arabesques, arching sequences of notes on the page that seem to make a graphic design, gently lyrical with very little struggle.  From time to time we have eruptions of passion in this movement, but they’re mostly under the hand and eminently rational, sounding like improvisations.  Oh this is so easy after the struggles of the previous movement.  I am smiling like a Cheshire cat playing this, realizing that so long as I relax I can play to the end of the book.  No, I haven’t accomplished anything Olympian, but I am realizing I feel less tired than I did when I began.  My arms are loose, my eyes aren’t hurting.  Indeed I know these notes (unlike the previous movement) well enough that I barely need to read.  The arching phrases are like a roadmap, with a subtle series of reminders of where I am supposed to let this composition take me.  And let’s be clear, it takes me rather than the other way around. That’s probably why I feel so good, so relaxed.  Yes, I think it’s the sense that Beethoven’s compositions are so brilliantly shaped that their flow is inevitable as my own involuntary processes.  I can just trust their elegant organic shapes to nurture and heal me.

I have to stop briefly at the end of the first movement for the telephone, which is just as well.   The second movement is a gallop –which is what I believe Ted Hughes called it in Gaudete –and the metaphor is apt.  Playing this passage I need to be mindful for a bit, and for these bars at least I can’t pretend to be the passive rider, but must beware lest I hit a tree-branch or indeed lead my steed wildly off a cliff.  But it’s playable, under the hand if one just remembers where one is going.  This one, thankfully, I’ve practised before, but it’s so well written—again—that it comes back to me like the rhythms of riding a bicycle.

Now we come to one of my two favourite movements in this latter series of sonatas, the sets of variations that conclude sonatas 30 & 32.  Variations on a theme, and a beautiful theme at that, afford the pianist lots of space to relax, enjoy the view, sink into the passionate moments, float on the waves of quiet tinkly notes that flow without any struggle.  I am surrendering to the piece, which is keeping me safe somehow.  The last variation of this sonata leads to another passionate explosion, and I find I have more energy and clarity than I have felt in days.   We get to a final soft statement of the theme.  Beethoven offers such moments of dignified elegance whereby one can feel as eloquent as if one were a Shakespearean hero.

Op 110 is even calmer than 109, without as many rough patches nor –in my opinion—as much passion either.  We get to the fugal parts –often where my wheels come off because I simply prefer passages that sing and have a single melody to ride, rather then the enforced logic of counterpoint—and I’m feeling home-free.

A moment later I am hitting those big intervals that open op 111, sonata 32, and playing it –again—softer than usual.  Once more, the long arc of playing multiple sonatas pushes me in a new direction.  I have to thank Goodyear for this lesson (among several).  This time it’s not so much the desire to conserve energy as the awareness that it’s 10:00 or so, and there are kids who might be sleeping next door.  But to my surprise I get compliments from inside the house, the first feedback I’ve had throughout.  Perhaps it sounds better than I thought…?

This two movement sonata is among my favourites, surely a fitting conclusion to the cycle.  Fatigue is actually helpful, as I feel loose, playing the fast passages in the first movement without tension or conflict.  I am surprised that the relatively uncomplicated call-and-answer phrases in this movement flow so nicely, after the complexities of the other contrapuntal movements in the previous hour.  My mind is clearer than it has been all day, resonating with the pleasure of playing through the sequence thus far, and eager to take it to its conclusion.  The theme and variations bring it home, swelling to that fast passage that anticipates boogie woogie piano.  I remember the first time I found this being blown away that Beethoven seemed to anticipate what our pop music might sound like.  In context it never fails to excite me, but in this five sonata mini-cycle, I find it especially ecstatic.  What a rush, especially when i negotiate it without a mistake (and if that sounds like faint achievement listen to Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli or Rudolf Serkin play it –the first two i checked just now on youtube…. Michelangeli makes at least two mistakes, while Serkin plays it like a European who can’t dance, rounding off the dotted rhythms). Do people know this music?  I never hear people talk about it, but this has to be my favourite thing he wrote (hm… well I guess there are several other things of Beethoven that I also love. Fortunately we’re allowed to be promiscuous in our musical love life).  And then it quiets down, and builds to another sort of climax on trills, wanders away from C major before that last wonderful gilt-edged reading of the theme, walking about in the garden after having come back from the dead.

So I don’t pretend that I am playing the whole cycle.  But I am so moved by the healing experience, the catharsis of coming home to the piano, finding my equilibrium playing Beethoven.  It leads me to believe that, first and foremost, the negative remarks by that fellow I quoted above, are short-sighted.  Maybe this is a good way to approach Beethoven, maybe we should be playing multiple sonatas on a regular basis, given that playing one barely gets us warmed up.  The virtuoso issue of whether Goodyear can achieve the 32? i think that’s perhaps a moot point by now.  If I can play through five sonatas after a hard day of work with no sleep and feel better afterwards, chances are that an accomplished pianist can ride those good vibes, the unexpected healing power of Beethoven.  I have no doubt Goodyear can accomplish the feat.

I am more curious about his interpretive choices, what his playing will sound like.  And I wonder what discoveries we will make hearing him play the cycle.  That’s why I want to be there.

Stewart Goodyear

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