A Dangerous Method is David Cronenberg’s recent film concerning a fascinating triangle. The two men are analysts Sigmund Freud & Carl Jung. And then there’s Sabina Spielrein, who was both patient & lover of Jung. While there’s a domestic triangle that concerns Jung’s wife, the professional conflict between Freud and Jung is perhaps the greater conflict than the domestic one. Cronenberg & Mortensen are again wonderful together, in a film that bears repeated watching. But I am particularly interested in Shore’s work on the music for Cronenberg’s film.
The storyline of Wagner’s Ring Cycle furnishes a key chunk of subtext. Spielrein and Jung are both interested in Wagner’s Ring operas. Spielrein argues for the consummation of their forbidden love (Jung being married), seeing the incestuous behaviour in Die Walküre as a kind of model, although she could just as easily have cited Wagner’s own life choices.
While that much already can furnish a template that would encourage Shore to draw upon Wagner’s music as a kind of metaphorical backdrop for the modern story, there are several additional layers.
While both Spielrein & Freud are Jewish, Jung is Aryan. It’s no surprise, then that Shore often employs the music associated with the Nibelungen (the race of characters in the Ring most often linked to anti-semitic sentiment). Shore gives us an ostinato version for piano & orchestra of the motif as we hear it in the first act of Siegfried, largely associated with Mime the dwarf, whom Siegfried loathes. Note, I am not saying that this is what Wagner meant, so much as that Shore takes up the received association between Mime’s music and anti-semitic associations.
One of the greatest conflicts in this film is between unrestrained sexuality and bourgeois domestic bliss, a tension incidentally that echoes Wagner’s own life. And so Shore nicely captured this additional depth by utilizing a motif that appears in the Ring operas as well as in the Siegfried Idyll, a composition written as a birthday present for his wife, portraying their happy life on a mythic scale. The first time we heard this music, I was puzzled, because Jung was in the process of committing polygamy; and then I remembered that of course Wagner himself had done so: which is how he found Cosima in the first place. And so, as Jung & Spielrein blissfully lie together, Spielrein might well have seen herself as the next Cosima, who after all, found her way into Wagner’s bed as his lover, before he eventually married Cosima, allowing her to become the official guardian of the Wagnerian myth.
There is one marvellous sequence where Jung and Spielrein sit, playing Wagner for a group of listeners as if they were lab specimens. This is the one instance where Wagner isn’t just on the non-diegetic soundtrack (the imaginary space of the cinematic artefact), but for the moment, actually sharing the diegetic space with the living characters, via a Victrola. At this point just before the First World War, the music on the record is (excuse the pun) bastardized Wagner in some odd paraphrases that lend extra authenticity to the film precisely because they’re so unfaithful (whereas nowadays we live in an era of relative textual fidelity).
Most of Shore’s Wagner paraphrases are in a kind of piano-concerto format. For me this makes great sense. The piano—reducing these great orchestral passages to discreet notes on a keyboard—suggests the issues of repression & control of Freud & Jung, as well as connoting perfectly this era when Wagner (in his bourgeois parlour piano incarnations) was like a popularly sanctioned form of pornography, music about forbidden desires. In other places, the orchestra gently reconstitutes passages that are more dramatic in their original form, but are here reflected from a distance, as if in the recollections spoken in a session with a therapist, rather than lived in the here and now. Shore brings us back to the moments in Act II of Siegfried when the young hero soliloquizes on his parents, a moment that in many respects could have happened in a psychiatrist’s office.
I must see the film again. I confess I was often so busy trying to recognize the Wagner passages (there are more than what I mentioned) and find their subtextual significance, that I wasn’t always listening to the dialogue. This is a film of great richness, whose depths deserve further –if you’ll excuse the expression—analysis. While Hollywood seems to have underestimated the film (but then again I think I over-estimate Hollywood, when I think the Academy might honour a film that’s a great work of art), I am proud that at least at home in Canada, the film won Genies both for Howard Shore & Viggo Mortensen.
I had great expectations. I had driven to Barrie for the latest Talk is Free Theatre (“TIFT”) show at the Mady Cenre for the Performing Arts adapted and directed by Richard Ouzounian from Charles Dickens’ novel, none other than Great Expectations.
TIFT are ardent champions of challenging drama such as
Their co-production of Sondheim’s Assassins mounted twice
Dani Girl, a musical about children with cancer
Bulgakov’s Moliere, a complex play about politics & theatre
Ouzounian is usually a reliable bet from what I’ve seen recently, including Dani Girl and Jerry Springer The Opera.
I was mostly spellbound. The task of whittling a novel down to a single evening is not one undertaken lightly, and my hat’s off to those who have been part of this process, including earlier incarnations of the adaptation, alluded to in the Director’s notes.
For most of the performance I was thrilled. Ouzounian places Dickens’ novel in the hands –that is, the bodies and voices—of four actors. We’ve seen how theatrical Dickens can be in films and stage adaptations of the novels (such as the Royal Shakespeare Company’s Nicholas Nickleby). This is a novelist whose phrases can work beautifully in the mouth of a skilled actor, arguably better than Shakespeare considering he’s usually more intelligible to the average modern ear.
Ouzounian the adapter hands his work to Ouzounian the director, knowing that the ebb and flow can be respected, honoured, and properly championed by his cast. For most of the play we’re in the presence of a virtuoso ensemble, including stunning moments that will bring tears to your eyes for all the right reasons.
Alex Poch-Goldvin has to be seen. As Jaggers the lawyer he’s funny but crisp & precise. As Magwitch, the beneficent deus ex machina, he’s able to scare us, then suddenly win us over with his essential goodness. And then from time to time his ghostly presence appears in what must be a dream role for a mature actor namely Ouzounian’s fascinating take on Miss Havisham (darker than Lady Bracknell). For most of the performance I was so hypnotized I’d forgotten I was watching a man portray a woman.
Carson Nattrass inhabits two vastly different yet completely lovable figures from the novel, namely Joe Gargery and Herbert Pocket. In both cases his portrayals are as much a product of physical eloquence as vocal skill, such lovely work that I couldn’t take my eyes off him in either part.
Alicia Toner’s to do list is simply to be all cornerstones of femininity in Pip’s world: his mother-figure (Joe’s wife), his ideal woman (Estella), and the good girl he’s too dazed to notice (Biddy), and if that weren’t enough, she plays the violin too. As with Poch-Goldvin and Nattrass, the portrayals are varied, powerful, moving, and must be credited as much to the tag-team of Ouzounian the adapter + Ouzounian the director, as to the skilled actor.
Finally, the cornerstone of this foursome is the very likeable presence of Justin Goodhand as Pip. If we’re in awe of the men and women around Pip, the reason we care about any of them is because of Goodhand’s wide-eyed wonderment.
Excellent as those performances are they deserve better. The finished product is marred by a couple of features that prevent the audience from exploding with wild applause that’s properly deserved for these brilliant performances.
1) In his Director’s notes Ouzounian explains the rationale for a series of voice-overs attempting to encompass the two hundred years since Dickens’ birth: to commemorate the novelist’s bicentennial. But the voices were a digression that simply interrupted the flow of the show, adding little or nothing.
2) The show contains a very undistinguished series of songs. The hymn tune (I am not sure if it’s original or an existing tune) sounded lovely, while ‘London Pride’ didn’t sound too bad, although I think the arrangement needs work. The other songs? I am not sure if they serve their purpose.
The show has the dark ending from the earlier version of Dickens’ novel, a choice that’s completely workable so long as it seems to be decisive and intended, rather than a boat suddenly adrift. After an hour and forty-five minutes of brilliance the work ends not with a bang but a whimper. Perhaps my operatic tastes are showing, but I think Ouzounian is very close: needing a dramaturg and/or a composer to pull it all together. Notwithstanding the many instances of brilliance, maybe someone else should direct, as the additional set of eyes & ears could be helpful.
One song that recurs could pull it all together, although that might make the show unbearably commercial, and no I don’t pretend that this would be an easy task (dare I say it: something about Pip’s expectations?). But instead of the digressive entropy that those unhelpful historical voice-overs contribute –pulling us out of the hard-won illusion created by these wonderful actors—how about a series of interludes that are connected to the novel? Songs, musical interludes, dances, poems: but let them be Dickensian, not digressions into our own century. The energy is so intense that even if we had four or five opportunities to hear some instrumental music while watching a character respond or simply pose, it might be enough.
I remember hearing that songs –especially in musicals—should begin at the moment when they’re inevitable, when one can’t express the thought any further without the use of music. If the song isn’t necessary, then one shouldn’t do it. This show manages to fly even while carrying the dead weight of superfluous songs & voice-overs. That’s an amazing achievement.
There’s much to admire in this show. Go see TIFT’s Great Expectationsat the Mady Centre for the Performing Arts in Barrie, until April 14th.
Canadian dancer and choreographer Jeannette Lajeunesse Zingg has performed internationally in classical ballet, modern dance and national/historical dance. Her training took place at The Royal Academy of Dancing in London, England and in Copenhagen, Denmark.
Jeannette Lajeunesse Zingg, with Marshall Pynkoski, are the founding directors of Opera Atelier, now a respected opera and dance company on the world stage. In her role as choreographer and dancer, Jeannette Lajeunesse Zingg has created a body of work unique in its historical authenticity and detail, and has introduced modern audiences to the beauty of 17th and 18th century dance forms.
Zingg choreographed and danced in all of Opera Atelier’s productions in Toronto, New York, Cleveland, the BBC Proms in London, England, the Royal Opera House at Versailles, France, the Houston Grand Opera, and on tour in Switzerland, Germany, Italy, Singapore, Japan and Korea, reviving important historical dance works by Handel, Mozart, Lully and Rameau, in collaboration with such conductors as Andrew Parrott, Marc Minkowski and Hervé Niquet.
April 14-22 Opera Atelier will premiere their production of Lully’s Armide at the Elgin Theatre in Toronto, before taking the production on tour, first to France (Versailles Theatre) and then to the USA (Glimmerglass Festival near Cooperstown New York).
I ask Zingg ten questions: five about herself and five about Armide.
Jeannette Lajeunesse Zingg
1) Which of your parents do you resemble (what’s your nationality / ethnic background)?
I am definitely a mix of both: mother’s bone structure, father’s colouring.
My ethnic background is Swiss.
2) what is the BEST thing / worst thing about being a choreographer?
The best thing is endless creative possibilities which arise when working in
a classical form with excellent music and excellent dancers. The worst
thing? There is never enough time to realize my ideas.
Choreographer & dancer Jeannette Lajeunesse Zingg
3) who do you listen to or watch?
I love to watch the choreography of George Balanchine. I enjoy listening to Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra.
4) what ability or skill do you wish you had, that you don’t have?
I wish I had a better accent when speaking foreign languages.
5) When you’re just relaxing (and not working) what is your favorite thing to do?
I enjoy reading pre-twentieth century literature; from Greek myths to
Dickens and Thackeray.
Five more about choreographing Armide
1) How does choreographing Armide challenge you?
As in all my creative work, choreographing “Armide” challenges me to make interesting, dynamic, varied dances which reflect Lully’s music.
2) what do you love about Armide and this type of opera?
I love that there is so much beautiful music to dance to, and that the dancing is so well integrated into the narrative.
3) Do you have a favorite number or moment in the opera?
I love all of the dances – but musically, I think perhaps the final Passacaille is my favourite.
Marshall Pynkoski, co-artistic director of Opera Atelier
4) How do you relate to Armide as a modern woman?
Armide shares with all of us the incredible poignancy of being human – that
we love and cannot keep the beloved with us forever.
5) Is there anyone out there who you particularly admire, and who has influenced you?
I admire my husband and founding co-director for his complete and unflagging dedication to excellence.
There’s a first time for everything. I visited the Air Canada Centre for the first time today. I’ve only seen the Maple Leafs at Maple Leafs Gardens. In most cities where the “new” arena opened in the last millennium, one would pity me; but in Toronto perhaps it’s merciful. The Leafs are a train-wreck, the quickest cure for a losing streak (ask my friends in Boston). The sign above the door to the players’ quarters should be “abandon all hope ye who enter here”.
Air Canada Centre: an amazing venue for a sporting event
Toronto is an odd town.
Many still worry about being world-class, even as polls & stats regularly place us among the top few places to live. If they’d only stop worrying about being great, we’d actually be the best. But never mind, I suppose those anxieties are a sign of humility. When I visit NYC I enjoy a few things about the city, then start to get homesick; and by the time I get home I am becoming ecstatic, thrilled that I live in an amazing place. We are so lucky here.
But there is one aspect of this town that’s troubling, and that’s our experience of team sports. No, this isn’t important. Team sports are just slightly less important than what happened on the last episode of Coronation Street: which is to say, absolutely unimportant.
So tonight I caught up somewhat with the way sports are presented in big arenas. I recall when I last saw the Leafs back in the 90s, I was already irritated by the incessant music every time the play stopped, the apparent lack of faith in the product on the ice, or perhaps their lack of faith in our ability to concentrate on the game being played.
Now? I guess it’s what I see in our post-convergence world. Content can be re-purposed on any platform for any audience, which means it’s all carefully constructed to offend no one, to work for any demographic, with a slick edge, a caffeine buzz, and nothing under its surface. Music plays throughout the game, and I have to say it’s so good that at times the game’s on and nobody seems to notice or care.
Which is idiotic considering the quality of what i saw. For a first basketball game in person, this game will be hard to top.
I saw Lebron James and Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh and Andrea Bragnani, and was totally blown away by the skill level in front of me. Thank goodness Miami tussled with Dallas last night, a game likely meant as a kind of pre-playoff statement game. I was hoping the Heat would be drained emotionally from their major smack-down + their travel. A guy in the john was joking that maybe Lebron would be exhausted from his exploits with various ladies last night.
At times in the first half they did look tired. In the first… minute? Miami popped 10 points in before the Raptors even seemed to get into gear. Wow.
I felt the difference was simply talent. Or maybe the Miami coach knew his team was coming off this major game and were tired and needed to start fast, to break the youthful Raptors’ confidence. By halftime, the Raptors were fighting back, likely because the Heat were tired from last night’s battle. At times Bosh and James seemed rubber-legged, as they let the Raptors claw back to a tie and even to get a few points ahead. One, two, three? I think that was the largest margin they achieved.
And then James & Wade & Bosh took over. Never mind the questionable calls (and i doubt they mattered). The talent level on the Heat, the manifest sense that at any time they could move the ball and wipe the court with the Raptors, gradually became so clear that the contest was no longer a contest. I found myself applauding Lebron’s drives, his soft touch around the net, Wade’s moves…
Perhaps the oddest moment was in the last minute. Bosh gets booed in Toronto by some of the crowd. Not me, not anyone I respect, perhaps some kids who don’t know better? I say that because the older Toronto fans wouldn’t do that: the ones who remember that Toronto fans applaud when an opposition player goes down, because to do so is simply honourable. Bosh had every right to leave Toronto. On one of his last touches –after an impressive basket—was to mouth “boo yourself” at the crowd. Of course that drew an even bigger crescendo of boos.
Bravo Bosh!
Here’s an irrelevant irreverent little bit of video featuring Bosh and Lebron.
I suppose the part that’s odd about Toronto as a sports town is that we don’t have the usual male ego madness. If we win, great. If we lose, that’s okay. I think it’s kind of weird when I think about it, that winning is such a big deal. I had a great time watching the Raptors lose, watching Calderon & Bargnani make good plays, while Lebron & Dwayne and Chris blew me away with their talent. The booing of Bosh is part and parcel of the neurosis some in Toronto feel because our teams haven’t won anything in ages.
Are people nuts to be frustrated? That’s not me out there playing hockey or basketball, it’s a hired entertainer. And whether we lose or win, I am genuinely entertained. Those aren’t us out there playing so why is so much ego invested in the outcome? Those are paid millionaires, wearing costumes, in some strange ongoing tournament. Who cares if they lose?
Now I have another problem. It’s 11:30 pm, and I am hoarse. I have a musical to see tomorrow afternoon, then a hockey game Saturday night. Chances are I will have even less voice available for Palm Sunday.
The cheering is cathartic, but I have to figure out how to do it without losing my voice. A couple of days ago I was writing about stamina, thinking about how Stewart Goodyear might play all 32 Beethoven sonatas in one day. Speaking of stamina, how am I going to get through this weekend?
In June, Stewart Goodyear will be performing all 32 Beethoven piano sonatas in a single day, under the dual auspices of Luminato & the Royal Conservatory of Music. I heard about this undertaking on Karenoke , where the pianist has inspired a parallel (if smaller) mountain-climb on the blog.
Karen is listening to each of Beethoven’s 32 piano sonatas and blogging about her own trip through the cycle. Her blogging feat reminds me of Julie & Julia: where the writer undertakes a big job that’s run in parallel to that of someone more famous.
When you write that many of a certain type, there’s bound to be some ups and downs. I am tempted to say “YMMV”, short for “your mileage may vary”: as testimony to the astonishing range among those 32.
Today, just to get a tiny sense of what’s involved in Goodyear’s task, I pulled out my sonata book and played through a few. I skipped the first one because I don’t like it very much. I went to the second one, I guess partly because Karen had expressed misgivings about it. I studied it with a teacher long ago, a teacher who –curiously enough—spoke to me in defence of a sonata I didn’t like very much at first glance, the very sonata Karen didn’t like either.
Ha. As I said to Karen yesterday on her blog:
“…don’t feel bad if you don’t love all of Beethoven, particularly not the Beethoven pieces that have never really been very popular. At this point –funny as it sounds–Beethoven wasn’t Beethoven yet.”
That’s what I guess I am thinking about as I post this to the blog. Who says all 32 are all awesome masterpieces? I have some I love dearly, and others that I am still learning to like.
So today, while bouncing back and forth to the laptop –to give my eyes and neck a bit of a rest on a day when I was working really hard—I went off to the piano for breaks in the afternoon.
#2 was harder than I remembered—that is the opening movement was hard—because I hadn’t played it in many years, yet I dove into it without any caution whatsoever.
The second movement? Largo appassionata. Wow I’d forgotten how much I love this one. I realized as I started playing this, that there’s been a revolution in Beethoven. Roger Norrington, John Eliot Gardiner, Bruggen, plus assorted locals of the HIP (historically informed performance) persuasion have completely seduced me away from decades of pathos & gravitas. I was once a follower of Klemperer and his ilk, whereas now I am at least conflicted, enjoying the options, between slower and (HIP)faster, heavier and (HIP) lighter.
So I played it way way faster than I’ve ever played it before, enjoying how fresh it felt. Of course it should feel fresh when I hadn’t played it in a long time, and had never tried to re-think the tempi of the sonatas. Hm… It’s a huge question. Omigod, it’s as though these pieces that I thought I knew: are suddenly new. Why didn’t think of this before?
So when I came to Sonata #3 in C major, I played as fast as I could possibly manage in the outer movements. Good thing nobody else was home to hear the train-wreck. There’s no substitute for actual practice, and that includes brazenly trying to play through pieces at full speed. In the inner movements –two of the most amazing things one finds in Beethoven’s single-digit opus numbers—the melodies work at any speed, really. I wonder, with all the attention that’s been paid to symphonic music over the last few decades, whether I simply snoozed through a comparable controversy over the performance of piano sonatas.
For Sonata #4 in E-flat I tried to keep the lightness of the last movement of C major, but without quite so much speed. And then I noticed that I wasn’t loose anymore, as my forearms were starting to tighten. Aha. I stopped trying to force things, and tried to relax as I played (easier said than done). But I managed to get through the first movement.
And so I had a bit of a revelation of how it’s likely going to be for Mr Goodyear. As I started the dramatic second movement of sonata #4, I felt the delicious opportunity to rest, as my arms had a breather, my shoulders and neck luxuriating in this slower movement. Here I was, not yet halfway through the fourth sonata –in other words, not yet even one eighth of the way through the cycle—and I was seizing up. Mind you, I had jumped in without any real warm-up, seduced by the smell of the old book and the familiar feelings it aroused. Even so, I have to think that the cycle calls for a different approach. I felt myself so infatuated with the loud passages in a few places, that I was totally airing it out without any restraint. If this were a marathon, that’s the equivalent of getting so carried away with the view on the waterfront that you forget to pace yourself and start to sprint in your first half hour.
Not a good idea.
But I did keep playing, getting to the end of sonata #6 (having skipped #1) out of 32. I don’t know that sonata at all, but it’s not horribly difficult: which is another way of saying that it was okay for sight-reading but a lame read-through and nothing more. Wow, how cool to discover a movement I’d never really noticed before –the f-minor Allegretto—that finishes with an effect off the beat very similar to what we find in Op 27 #1; in both pieces we meet the melody in unison the first time, whereas the second time it’s as though there’s an echo a half beat later as one hand is out of synch with the other. Perhaps there’s a technical term for this, but I don’t know what it is. It’s humbling in so many ways, starting with the discovery that every one of these sonatas is worthwhile in its own way.
And so, let me think again about Mr Goodyear. I am reminded of other pianistic feats I’ve seen lately. Watching Christopher Mokrzewski play La Boheme in a bar for Against the Grain Theatre, I knew he’d had at least one beer. More recently –playing difficult pieces by Reich & Adams—I understand he (playing with partner Daniel Pesca) abstained until the end of the show. But I recognize that the Puccini that he was able to play effortlessly even with beer is for me still something that I’d be afraid to play after having a drink. I am trying to imagine what kind of energy Goodyear will have available for each sonata, when he has to conserve his energy for the full set…? I am trying to imagine playing the really massive sonatas –the Waldstein, the Appassionata, and especially op 106—as part of a larger cycle where one is somehow expected to keep something in reserve.
Okay let’s have a peek: and so I found this sample, perhaps the most difficult thing to play in context with the marathon. Let me add a parenthetical “Oh my God” (listen and see what you say…now imagine this near the end of the marathon).
I am reminded of a workshop back in 2005, where we tumbled around the floor and still tried to sing with support. You think you have energy, you think you have technique: and then someone comes along with a scenario to make you wonder whether you really know anything at all. If you’re playing correctly and not fighting yourself with bad technique, those hours could be exuberant & transcendental for the player. And if there’s anything wrong with your technique, you’ll know.
I have to think Goodyear already knows his strengths & weaknesses, knows that he’s up to the challenge, having proposed to scale this particular Everest. The more I think about it, the more it makes me curious.
June 9th? I suspect I will have to be there.
• Karenoke writing about her preparation for the marathon (not the only relevant piece she’s written please note)
• Luminato’s page for Stewart Goodyear’s marathon:
No this isn’t an exposé (in case anyone in my family saw the title). Nor is it a confessional, although I am talking about myself. I might be a bit whimsical in my use of the word “Madman,” still in the metaphorical shadow of Melancholia, a film whose madness is infectious.
Nietzsche: spectator
Nietzsche could have been talking about hockey or football (meaning the American variety, although perhaps Friedrich might also have nodded to that other football, the one called “soccer” in North America) when he spoke of the Apollonian and Dionysian tendencies. For anyone reading this, if you are noticing that your mouth is taking on a condescending sneer of dismissal, quick now. Did you know that Nietzsche said all this in admiration of the operas of Wagner? Before you toss my analysis aside, remember that Friedrich’s analysis—so useful in the theatre world—wasn’t really meant for some discussion of Arthur Miller or method acting. Nietzsche was a died-in-the-wool Wagnerian, looking at opera as a (or should I say “the”?) successor to the Athenian tragedies of Aeschylus & Euripides. If you –those of you who hate opera—can use Nietzsche to prop up your ideas about a theatre devoid of music (surely a wacky idea), you probably should hear me out as I contemplate another kind of theatre, admittedly populated by muscular dudes in helmets. As soon as i typed that i was struck by the resonance with the popular (and maybe erroneous) image of Wagner: big men and women in another sort of helmet. But if we think of ancient Greece and the Athenian theatre, the faces are covered and identities masked in ways very similar to what we get in football or hockey.
Sure, I’ve long felt that pleasures of sports are not so different from the pleasures of the arts: a position that is much easier to state in the presence of other die-hard sports fans. For those who abhor violent sports as mere expressions of testosterone, the notion that sports are art will elicit laughter. There’s no point trying to persuade those who have no interest in these sports, although it is fun, sometimes, to make people laugh. While i didn’t write this big long looping essay to make people laugh, i’m happier with that reaction than indifference.
Forgive me, I am veering off topic, a bit self-conscious in this forum where I usually address artsy issues among fellow artsies. But what I want to say about football and hockey is also a commentary on performing arts, and a back-handed stab at something similar to Nietzsche’s theorizing of human tendencies.
First, as I praise one sport I will complain about the other.
The big news in the football world this week? A coach whose team was on top of the world recently was brought down to Earth in humiliating fashion. Sean Payton of the National Football League’s New Orleans Saints has been suspended for the entire 2012 season –an unprecedented penalty as far as I know—because of a system of “bounties”. While the news is probably shocking to some (that players on the Saints were paid to deliberately hurt opponents), I am thrilled & delighted with the news. The penalties imposed by the NFL commissioner attempt to bring some order to a chaotic game.
I say this as I watch the National Hockey League, who lack the decisiveness of the NFL. While rules are changed from time to time, hockey referees seem to cave in partway through the season, allowing the game to again be captive of its macho thuggish culture.
I am conflicted about this, which is where the title comes in. Last season I thrilled to Boston’s victory in the Stanley Cup final, yet I was simultaneously troubled by a key absence.
Sidney Crosby was en route to one of the greatest season in NHL history. Crosby can be abrasive at times, but he’s a creative artist with the puck. Unfortunately the artist was knocked out of the NHL for most of the past year. And so, when Crosby should perhaps have been crowning his season for the ages with another Cup, he was instead on the sidelines, wondering if he’d ever play again.
In fairness, both the NHL and NFL have been struggling with the head injury problem. Struggling because their games seem designed to reward dangerous behaviour. The bounties that came to light –leading to several penalties imposed on the New Orleans Saints—helped the Saints win a Superbowl. Brett Favre was one of the players targeted, a key player for an opposition team. The NFL can’t tolerate the practice of rewarding players who deliberately seek to injure, because to do so would de facto condone the practice.
Violence and brutal physical contact is the obverse side of the elegant plays in hockey or football. A quarterback carefully times their throw to arrive in the hands of a receiver when they arrive at a precise point. Disrupting this perfection is the job of the defensive players, who do so in acts of wilful chaos. One tries to obstruct the ball, the players, the view… One distracts or delays. The enemy of order is disorder, like a wooden shoe sabotaging a machine. More fundamentally, the order of precise timing falls apart in the presence of fear induced by intimidation or even insults.
Hockey is a faster game than football because it’s on skates. Because the top speeds are higher, and because the pucks are insanely fast when shot at a goalie, sometimes smacking players in delicate places, the possibilities for accidental injury are immense. As the players get bigger and stronger it seems inevitable that hockey’s balance must tip ever further in the direction of chaos.
I recall the paradigm shifting shock when Canada faced the Russians in their summit series in 1973, on those big Russian rinks (with a larger ice surface). When players are forced into a smaller space, as they sometimes were in a few arenas with smaller surfaces (the old Boston Garden for example), there was even more likelihood of physical contact, while the more spacious rinks helped pure skating teams like the Soviets.
We could conceivably re-invent the sport. I recall seeing an article in the Toronto Globe and Mail by John Allemang, a very courageous attempt to propose rule changes. The comments to this article were often unpleasant, reminding me that the fans for the NHL are simply not as ready to change as the NFL, who have often changed their rules with wild abandon.
My favourite idea among Allemang’s proposals is good because it not only improves the game but could rescue teams in financial trouble. Imagine a rule-change that could save the ownership money! Here it is: reduce the number of players on the ice.
It’s been done before. At one time hockey was played by seven players, whereas it’s now played by six. What if instead of six, we put five on each team (like basketball)? Rosters could be smaller, and the ice surface would seem bigger without necessitating any construction projects. If five is good, why not four? From time to time penalties leave us with four a side: usually the most exciting part of that game, as players skate freely without any obstruction. What we’re seeing is the removal of friction –entropy—and an injection of creativity, order, and dare I say it, beauty. If a man can skate without being obstructed chances are it’s better than having him stopped. The only good thing about the obstruction is how it helps mediocre teams compete against talented ones. But if talent were rewarded? I can dream.
Never mind Apollo & Dionysus, gods Nietzsche would associate with order & intoxication, respectively. Art –and sport—are much more than celebrations of our Apollonian & Dionysian tendencies. They are a constant battle between two much more fundamental principles, namely order & disorder.
Chaos and Order wear many guises. We may see characters in a play or film who embody the conflict, one figure rebelling (think of Carmen or The Wild One) against the order signified by the other(s). Sometimes they inhabit the same moment, in voices that are simultaneously musical and noisy. When I think of Maria Callas or Janis Joplin, and their relationship to more harmonious approaches to vocalism in their chosen idiom (compare Callas to Joan Sutherland, or Joplin to Joni Mitchell), their struggle is personal as well as the one they perform. Every physique trained to dance, to fight, to run, to skate, to play the piano, to sing, or just to stand in front of a camera & look gorgeous faces the ravages of age. Each of us, regardless of our sport or art, fights off the encroachment of physical and mental limits.
I am conflicted about the physical side of hockey. Watching all the collisions, I identify naturally. I may dream of order, but I also revel in disorder. There is something Dionysian in the pure mayhem of body contact on the football field or hockey rink. Part of me craves order, part of me loves to see disorder thrown into chaos by the subversive violence of defensive players. We have both tendencies, and as an aging man, I sometimes envy the fluid skating of youthful players, even as I admire their grace.
At times, though, human beings enjoyed watching bears baited, bulls speared (still done in places), cockfights, dogfights, and assorted barbarity. I have dreamt of hockey where the only contact is clean: hip checks rather than sticks swung at heads. In the meantime, players are getting horrible head injuries, due to the unavoidable consequence of immense speed and size, in small confined spaces. There are limits to what protective equipment can accomplish.
And so, while one part of me dreams of an ideal form of the game, the other part of me loves these savage sports just as they are. At one time I thought sport could be a substitute for war, a safe place to act out our aggression. OR maybe we need to learn to outgrow those impulses, both on the pitch and in every other part of the world. Ha… talk about the impossible dream. No wonder i need to watch sports.
In the meantime, the spectacle in the stadium or arena might make Wagner grin with a kind of satisfaction. The music at the kickoff or the ritualistic playing of Freddy Mercury tunes such as “We Will Rock You,” bring the crowd into a kind of unified exaltation that may not be so different from the ancient Athenian Festival of Dionysus.
I am watching Melancholia for the second time. Had I been able to get tickets when it came to the Toronto International Film Festival I would have seen it on a big screen. Even on a small screen it’s quite powerful.
I go in circles making sense of its microcosm and macrocosm, the two senses of the title, as indications of what does and does not matter.
Justine (Kirsten Dunst) is getting married, and she is depressed. If this had been the 1950s she would have simply taken some pills to fight off her moods. Nowadays there’s an entirely different set of meds that are prescribed for what’s ailing Justine; but this is a movie and not to be mistaken for a realistic tale. Lars von Trier’s world is mythological, its characters at times larger than life. Neither Claire (Charlotte Gainsbourg) nor anyone else has a solution to her melancholia, given that it’s writ large, an emotional landscape that we are exploring as if it were another planet.
Hm, was that a strange segue? But in fact, there is a second sense of “Melancholia”. The film tells us of a new planet that is coming into the solar system, Melancholia. Lunacy was the old notion that you could become mad if you looked at the moon too much. By those standards, the arrival of a new planet in the solar system would be an occasion of emotional upheaval if not wholesale madness. When John (Kiefer Sutherland), a wealthy man who dabbles in astronomy, speaks glowingly of how “Melancholia will pass right in front of us”, it’s hard to know whether he means the planet or the mood.
The first time through I was thoroughly frustrated at the use of music, largely because I have a lifelong relationship with the music from Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde. Any Wagnerians coming to this film might be frustrated that the film doesn’t work in the expected ways with its music. The large composition (the three act music-drama) avoids cadences, remaining in a state of suspended desire, just like the protagonists of the opera. But over time Wagner does release the tension. Von Trier’s use of Wagner, however, denies us even those satisfactions, often stranding us high and dry. But this music is not a music drama, as it’s underscoring something entirely different. When we hear that music we’re inside Justine’s pained sensibility, stuck in a place without any possible satisfaction.
Melancholia begins with some amazing images, the opening a surreal series of compositions whose context only unfolds for us in subsequent viewings. Second time through (and likely every subsequent time I see this film), it’s deeper. The opening images are like a prelude accompanied by the longest chunk of Wagner, from the Tristan prelude.
Then we watch “Part One: Justine”, concerning her bizarre mess of a wedding, a conspicuous display of wealth to no purpose, even if we didn’t have the twin spectres: killer planet and mad bride. At one point John explains why he paid for Justine’s extravagant wedding. He offered it to her as a deal. He’d pay if she would agree to be happy (and you may wonder: “which one is really mad?”).
In “Part Two: Claire”, we’re at the big estate of Justine’s wealthy sister. John and Claire have lots of money and a son, and are taking care of Justine. As the planet comes closer, scaring anyone who is “sane”, Justine finds a kind of lucidity. The planet Melancholia is in some respects the love of her life, the objectification of her condition.
In our time of social inequity & conspicuous displays of wealth this film feels very relevant. Whether the world ends or not (and this kind of big bang threat seems like another kind of madness…It’s vanity. Eliot had it right, that we’d end not with a bang but a whimper), the film is like a colossal set of symptoms.
Against The Grain (“AtG”) Theatre’s production The 7 Deadly Sins (and Holier Fare) resists easy categorization. As I ponder this question (what is this show?), and try to stifle the impulse to classify, I can’t help noticing that the question in the microcosm (“what is this show—what did I see tonight”) is a nice mirror of the macrocosm (“what is this company?—how does it relate to the rest of the city?”).
It’s a question one wouldn’t have encountered a generation or more ago. In the days when groups stayed within their disciplinary boundaries (dance companies doing dance, opera companies doing opera), you more or less knew what you’d get. Theatre was less likely to surprise or shock you because by and large you were never stopped from knowing where you were. And so long as companies had their funding and their audiences there was no reason to break that contract.
Those occasional adventures are becoming the norm:
The Toronto Symphony projects pictures while playing Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition
A concert of Liszt last month from the Neapolitan Connection included a tableau vivante based on a painting from the 19th Century.
Tafelmusik have been creating concerts with elaborate concepts, such as their Galileo Project
Canadian Stage adds dance (Kid Pivot last month) & music-theatre (Queen of Puddings Music Theatre) to their programming
In other words everyone’s breaking that conservative contract: the one where you think you know what to expect. In some cities that can be trouble, as for example in the boos Robert Lepage heard in New York for his Ring Cycle production; edgy productions from the Canadian Opera Company, however, have been winners at the box office. In this city at least, there’s an appetite for daring productions.
And I think that’s the context for 7DS by AtG. They’re not a conservative company taking a little walk on the wild side, before they go back to their usual programming. The part where they disorient you (making you figure it out) is part of the process and also part of their charm.
Perhaps the most daring thing about AtG is that they’re allowing their mandate & their style to take shape organically, led by their interests & skills. I don’t know much about their artistic director, Joel Ivany, except that his input & direction seems to be almost ideal.
Having seen AtG’s La Bohème –putting a modern version of a popular opera into a pub in English—I thought they’d try something similar. Boy was I wrong.
Pianist Christopher Mokrzewski
7DS showcases two of the great talents in Bohème, namely soprano Lindsay Sutherland Boal and pianist Christopher Mokrzewski, teaming up with Daniel Pesca. There are four items in a mixed evening of music-theatre:
Piano Phase by Steve Reich
Canticle II: Abraham and Isaac, Op. 51 by Benjamin Britten
Hallelujah Junction by John Adams (followed by an intermission)
The Seven Deadly Sins by Kurt Weill, libretto by Bertold Brecht
The Weill piece to close the evening is roughly half the program, and the only one of the four that seems to be staged with costumes and some props. Lindsay Sutherland Boal used many different approaches, sometimes dripping with irony, sometimes very soft, and showing a full palette of vocal colours. Boal as Anna-I had most of the lines, sung in German with subtitles, while Tina Fushell as Anna-II was a complete contrast with her calm dead-pan. The family, comprised of Graham Thomson, Derek Kwan, Andrew Love and especially Giles Tomkins, sang with great clarity and precision, a strange group who were very funny.
Kurt Weill is a composer who’s had an enormous influence on what we hear in music theatre (it’s impossible to imagine Kander & Ebb without Weill & Brecht). Coming from a time of harsh economic circumstances that we almost cannot conceive (wheelbarrows full of money to buy a loaf of bread?), there’s a grittiness to this music that is sometimes over-emphasized, to the exclusion of the romance and sweetness lurking in every phrase. Boal with Mokrezewski & Pesca had a subtlety perfectly attuned to the room, enough voice but often teasing us with delicate sounds. I think they’d adapt beautifully to a recording or (better) a DVD.
Piano Phase plays with our perceptions. The Reich composition features phrases played with great care, but slightly out of phase with one another. During this hypnotic piece, we watched Matjash Mrozewski and Kate Franklin dance close up against the back wall. The patterns with their bodies & the shadows on the wall often paralleled the phase effects in the music.
The Britten piece is a very powerful work invoking the Mystery plays of the Middle Ages. Erin Lawson & Christopher Mayell as Isaac and Abraham, respectively, enact a drama of great power.
Closing the first half of the concert was Hallelujah Junction by John Adams, a work requiring every bit as much precision as the Reich piece that began the evening. Whereas the other items had dancers or singers, this was the sole item presented in concert without any embellishments: the most dramatic part of the evening. Pesca & Mokrzewski are a duo who’ve served notice that they’re as good as any in the world.
The two Steinways were wonderfully in tune, and a good match for the intimacy of the Gallery 345 space, never overwhelming the singers (due to the restraint of Mokrezewski & Pesca), while filling the space with a very warm sound. I believe the arrangement of Seven Deadly Sins may be original, a version for two pianos that gave richness at the bottom, lovely tinkling colouration at the top, but without falling into the trap of being too loud, as might happen with a solo piano (and which i knew only too well when i tried playing through it). They always found the music.
And so, AtG’s 7DS is a curious mix, part concert, part cabaret, part dance, a mixture not easily reconciled with simplistic definitions. Unfortunately there’s one more performance on Saturday March 17th. There aren’t many tickets left. I hope they will revive this program so I can have another listen.
Opera Atelier’s production of Lully’s Armide is coming back to Toronto, the first stop in an international tour. After a week in Toronto, May takes them to Royal Opéra, Versailles, followed by a summertime sojourn at Glimmerglass Festival in New York state.
Here’s a statement from Marshall Pynkoski about the upcoming co-production.
Pynkoski explains why it should be better this time.
Below I repost my November 2005 review of the production in its first Toronto incarnation. At that time while it wasn’t perfect, we were treated to a wonderful theatrical adventure. Knowing Pynkoski and Opera Atelier, I believe it will be even better this time.
Photo: Bruce Zinger (2006) / James Leja, Stephanie Novacek and Curtis Sullivan
Opera Atelier are currently in the middle of the Canadian premiere production of Lully’s Armide, an ambitious yet problematic affair that probably will be much better next time. In a couple of years they will revive it, ironing out inconsistencies and removing weaknesses. Such has been the remarkable pattern for the scholarly talents of Opera Atelier, who always improve upon the operas they bring back.
There are several great things one can say about aspects of the production, even though the end result still has not quite gelled. Or is the problem mine, in not knowing how to listen and watch? All the hallmarks of Opera Atelier—now a recognizable brand-name—are present in this their latest adventure.
We are again presented with the most excellent musical performance one could find. I wonder whether people recognize how good Tafelmusik is, re-inventing for us the forgotten sounds of Louis XIV’s court? One needs to forget what one knows about opera coming to Lully’s masterworks. Voices do not strive for the kind of virtuosity we encounter in Italian operas, not showing off their prowess in florid singing. There are no cadenzas, no high notes, at least, in the usual sense, but instead there is a seamless relationship between the music and the drama, voices releasing the passions of the story. Phrases are exquisitely contoured to express nuances of pain and pleasure, love, fear and anger, in the most economic manner.
We are again presented with a stage picture comprised of attractive bodies, historically informed costumes and elements of baroque movement vocabularies, re-framed within a modern rationale for the staging. The amount of dance Opera Atelier usually offers may already be jarring for anyone believing opera is an artform of stationary bodies interrupted by divertissements, a form primarily for singers, employing dancers as an afterthought. But Lully has always seemed like the promised land for Opera Atelier, a dance-master whose operas were filled with lithe bodies in motion. The productions that seemed to best suit Opera Atelier personnel and style have been French works such as Charpentier’s Medée and Actéon, or Lully’s Persée.
Let’s be fair. Nobody has ever staged Armide in North America before now. When it was new – in the 17th century(!)—its plot contained elements normal for its time. The prologue (cut for this production) paid the standard compliments to the King by foregrounding his virtues. The story that followed illustrated the conflict between Glory and Wisdom. A virginal Christian knight is tempted by a virginal warrior maiden against the backdrop of the Crusades in the Holy Land. While the maiden is from the other side –and therefore implicitly a follower of Mohammet—her language and that of her magician father invokes not the name of her God but demons and devils as her inspiration.
Whereas this tale was exotic in its time, it carries a curious resonance with current events. As a result, Marshall Pynkoski, the Co-Artistic Director of Opera Atelier and the director of Armide felt the need to deliver a lecture on opening night, asserting that Lully (composer) and Quinault (librettist) did not favour the Christians over the Muslims in their adaptation of an episode in Tasso’s renaissance epic Jerusalem Delivered (a work spawning many operas). He says this, even though throughout the surtitles one reads Armide’s invocations to demons and devils, as indeed, she is inspired not by her God Mohammet but by Satan (Canto IV of Tasso). In fact Pynkoski’s interpretive decisions–portraying Armide’s passions as a mirror to those of Renaud, her Christian adversary—elevate and dignify the action, emphasizing the psychology of passion. It’s too bad that his speech does not properly acknowledge the courage and creativity of his interpretation, but was likely intended as a nod in the direction of political correctness. I believe the truth is that Pynkoski has preserved the essence of the tale, making it relevant to a modern audience without modernizing it unduly.
There are so many glorious and beautiful moments, that it is with regret that I report the curious buzz in the audience who seemed genuinely perplexed to discover that the opera was over on an anticlimax. Whereas the earthly delights of the temptation scenes are compelling, the conclusion seems inadequate, as though there are loose ends that need to be tied up. The character of Armide is in some respects another Medea: angry, rejected, and a sorceress whose destructive powers are conflated with her erotic appeal. But whereas Stephanie Novacek’s Medée was suitably angry (in what is virtually a two-dimensional character), and made a glorious flying exit in that opera, her Armide is far subtler, particularly at the end. Perhaps what we need at the end of the opera is something simple and unequivocal, a clearer statement than what we received. I don’t think it’s Novacek’s fault, particularly because the mise-en-scène fails to deliver anything as flamboyant as what we’ve seen several times throughout the opera (Renaud’s temptation or the ranting of the figure of Hate). But this can easily be remedied in the next revival.
My objections are arguably anachronistic, from someone conditioned to 21st century performances. In Lully’s time I suspect that excellent performances by the subordinate players could upstage the leads, whereas nowadays we are conditioned differently. The most memorable performances came from Monica Whicher (Phénice) and Curtis Sullivan (Hate) rather than either Novacek’s Armide or Colin Ainsworth’s Renaud. James Leja, the dancer portraying Love makes an unforgettable appearance, contrasted wonderfully by the raucous Sullivan, who is an Opera Atelier stalwart. Sullivan is particularly impressive both vocally and physically with a strong dramatic presence resembling a wrestler rather than an opera singer.
Trained as an operatic soprano, Lindsay Sutherland Boal began her career on Canadian and international stages singing the roles of the Countess in La Nozze di Figaro, Papagena in Die Zauberflöte, Zerbinetta in Ariadne auf Naxos and Madame Silkberklang in Die Schauspieldirektor. A two-time regional finalist of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, she also performed extensively in operetta and musical theatre, and as a concert soprano with the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra, the Nova Scotia Symphony Orchestra, the Rainer Hersh Symphony Orchestra in the U.K. and the Vancouver Art Gallery Concert Series.
Following several successful cabaret performances, Boal changed her focus from traditional operatic repertoire to music from the Weimar Republic. This led to the creation of her first self-produced project: a one-woman, critically-acclaimed and award-winning show entitled Purely Cabaret. Subsequenty she earned an invitation to perform the work at the International Cabaret Conference at Yale University, where she was broadcasted internationally on National Public Radio and Voice of America. In 2011 she headlined A Little Nostalgia Cabaret with Against the Grain Theatre, singing the works of Kurt Weill as well as other cabaret favourites.
Boal recently returned to the operatic repertoire to sing the role of Musetta for two sold-out productions of Against the Grain Theatre’s La Bohème. You can read more at www.lsblive.com.
This week Boal will make another appearance with Against the Grain Theatre in a concert presentation entitled The Seven Deadly Sins (and holier fare).
I ask Boal ten questions: five about herself and five about Seven Deadly Sins (and holier fare).
Lindsay Sutherland Boal, who looks like her mother.
1) Which of your parents do you resemble (what’s your nationality / ethnic background)?
I am the spitting image of my mother but I have my dad’s feet. I am 4th generation Canadian but before that my great-grandmother hailed from Wales and my great- grandfather England.
2) what is the BEST thing / worst thing about being a cabaret chanteuse?
There are so many “best things” about being a cabaret singer. I love the intimate nature of the cabaret setting. The audience is so close; it’s casual; I often feel like I’m having a conversation with my audience. I also find that I can express things through lyrics that I, for whatever reason, don’t have the courage to say in my daily life – I can safely hide behind a great line. I haven’t discovered a “worst thing” yet, which must be a good sign!
3) who do you listen to or watch?
I listen to all kinds of things… it depends on my mood. Eartha Kitt, Julie Wilson, Ute Lemper, Margaret Whiting are my favourites from the cabaret type world. I love the way Jean Stillwell uses text. I love the way Ute Lemper uses her body. I love watching Bernadette Peters talk to an audience. From the classical world I love Renee Fleming and Anna Moffo. I could listen to David Pettsinger sing the phone book.
4) what ability or skill do you wish you had, that you don’t have?
There are quite a few!! I would love to speak every language of the world. I would love to be able to reach the full expression of standing bow pulling pose in my Bikram Yoga series… I wonder if I’ll ever be able to do the standing splits! I would also love to know how to apply the perfect “smokey eye”.
Lindsay Sutherland Boal – Photo by Nikola Novak
5) When you’re just relaxing (and not working) what is your favorite thing to do?
I love to practice yoga; I love to share a fabulous red wine and fabulous conversation with my fabulous friends; I love to be with my two nieces and I also love to bake bread… my best is a cranberry pecan loaf.
Five more about 7DS
1) how does Seven Deadly Sins challenge you?
The choreography – there is more than just blocking!! Also, we’re performing this in German (with English surtitles). While I spent a bit of time in Germany and have studied the language at some length, I was not able to understand the libretto in its entirety at first sight… so I’ve had to brush up on my German to effectively communicate the text.
2) what do you love about Seven Deadly Sins and this type of music theatre?
Brecht and Weill, in 1928 when they were rehearsing Die Dreigroschenoper.
I am a HUGE Brecht/Weill enthusiast. I love the fruits of all of their collaborations. I love the sound of Weill’s German works. But what particularly interests me about 7DS is the zeitgeist that was the 1933 premiere, both politically and within the relationships of the cast.
3) Do you have a favorite song or moment in the show?
Yes – from the first note to the last note. But seriously, I love the play out of Habsucht (Covetousness), the gorgeous melodies in Unzucht (Lust) and the intensity of Neid (Envy).
4) how do you relate to Seven Deadly Sins as a modern woman?
I think everyone can relate to 7DS as a man or woman living today, 50 years ago, or 50 years in the future. We all face circumstances that lead us to question two sides of an id/superego coin. What should I do versus what do I want to do? What can I get away with and what can I not live with myself knowing?
5) is there anyone out there who you particularly admire, and who has influenced you?
I’ve been very fortunate to have had so many amazing people come into my life. Tracy Dahl and Jean Stilwell in the classical world have been very influential, as have Pam Meyers, Tex Arnold, and Julie Wilson from the cabaret world.
~~~~~~~~~~
Lindsay Sutherland Boal appears with Against the Grain Theatre in The Seven Deadly Sins (and holier fare)
March 16 & 17 2012 @ 8 PM
Gallery 345
345 Sorauren Ave., Toronto
Music by Weill, Britten, Reich, Adams
Directed by Joel Ivany
Choreographed by Matjash Mrozewski
Music Direction by Christopher Mokrzewski
I must see the film again. I confess I was often so busy trying to recognize the Wagner passages (there are more than what I mentioned) and find their subtextual significance, that I wasn’t always listening to the dialogue. This is a film of great richness, whose depths deserve further –if you’ll excuse the expression—analysis. While Hollywood seems to have underestimated the film (but then again I think I over-estimate Hollywood, when I think the Academy might honour a film that’s a great work of art), I am proud that at least at home in Canada, the film won Genies both for Howard Shore & Viggo Mortensen.
barczablog 