10 Questions for Norine Burgess

Posted on April 15, 2012 by barczablog

Norine Burgess’s stage presence and elegant singing keep her busy in opera houses and on concert stages around the world.  Recently she was heard in Beethoven’s 9th (Vancouver Symphony), Clairon in Strauss’s Capriccio (Pacific Opera Victoria), as Annio in Mozart’s La Clemenza di Tito (Opera Vancouver), and in recital in her native Calgary.  An extended run as Miss Mary Lloyd in the Vienna Volksoper’s production of Kálmán’s Die Herzogin von Chicago earned her rave notices: “she is so perfect in the role that it is almost impossible to imagine a production without her.” (MusicWebInternational). She debuted at the Salzburg Festival in 1997 in Die Zauberflöte, and has worked with such notable conductors as Sir Charles MacKerras, Manfred Honeck, and Helmuth Rilling.

Her extensive discography includes the Healey Willan Requiem with the Kitchener-Waterloo Philharmonic Choir (EMI); Mendelssohn’s Symphony No. 2, “Lobegesang”, with the Internationale Bachakademie conducted by Helmuth Rilling; a Christmas CD Michael Schade for the Canadian Musical Heritage Society; and a DVD of the Vienna Volksoper production of Die Herzogin von Chicago, which was featured as DVD of the Month in Gramophone: “A strong cast headed by the attractive Canadian soprano Norine Burgess…tremendous fun!”

Muse of Fire, to be presented this coming week in a co-production of Talisker Players and members of Groundling Theatre Company, a celebration of Shakespeare, via six composers: Igor Stravinsky, Howard Blake, Jean Coulthard, Alexander Rapoport, Mark Richards, and Antonio Vivaldi.  Five of the six compositions in Muse of Fire are for mezzo-soprano & instrumentalists, so in a very real sense Norine Burgess will be playing The Muse.

I ask Burgess ten questions: five about herself and five about Muse of Fire.

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

Norine Burgess

Mezzo-soprano Norine Burgess (photo credit: Johannes Ifkovits)

When I was a toddler, I looked exactly like my dad; but now, not only do I look very much like my mom, I apparently sound exactly like her on the phone; people can’t tell us apart. My family tree is rooted mostly in England, with a Scottish branch thrown in for flavour.
2) what is the BEST thing / worst thing about being a singer?

The best thing about being a singer is the emotional connection the human voice has for people; unlike an instrument, we all have a voice, so it seems to go straight to people’s hearts & emotions. Of course, that’s the worst thing too, because whatever I am affected by in my life tends to show up in my voice, sometimes making performing challenging.

3) who do you listen to or watch?

I listen to Ella Fitzgerald, the Barenaked Ladies; I watch Smash, because I love the process of building a musical (that’s where I got started)

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

The ability that I wish I had? well, to be honest…. (I have kids, & I’ve read & watched Harry Potter a LOT)… I wish all that magic were possible, & I could use a wand!

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

I love to do yoga, read, garden, hike… paint (but that requires more time than I usually have)

Five more about Muse of Fire

1) How do the songs in Muse of Fire challenge you? 

The songs challenge me, each group in a different way: Stravinsky is especially tricky because it is so sophisticated & intellectual, especially the first piece. It has taken a little while to find the tunefulness. The Couthard was also a challenge in terms of pure mechanics–counting & intervals. It took awhile to find the melody & the arc of the song. The other groups were perhaps less challenging in that respect, but had other challenges of fitting the ensemble together, or vocal technique, dealing with high notes, long-held notes, etc. Of course, singing in English, the challenge is always to make the words as clear as possible, & infused with meaning.

2) what do you love about Muse of Fire

I always love working with the Talisker Players–I feel like it’s a team effort, a discovery together, rather than an instrumental group with the addition of a vocalist. I always learn a great deal (shifting! who knew?), & I enjoy the rehearsal process almost as much as the performances.

3) Do you have a favorite number or moment in Muse of Fire?

I think my favourite piece is the whole group of Blake songs, perhaps the final one most of all.

4) How do you relate to Shakespeare & the presentation of his works in Muse of Fire as a modern woman?

Shakespeare wrote clear, beautiful, evocative words which we still find touch our hearts even now.

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

So many people I admire & who have influenced me–dear friends, singing teachers, my children (parenting is an amazingly life-changing experience!)… too many to name.

Muse of Fire
A celebration of the Great Bard of Avon, William Shakespeare

Tuesday, April 17 & Wednesday, April 18, 2012 at 8 PM
Pre-concert chats at 7:15 pm
Trinity St. Paul’s Centre, 427 Bloor Street West

Norine Burgess, mezzo soprano;
members of Groundling Theatre Company
The Talisker Players Email: words.music@taliskerplayers.ca

TICKET INFORMATION
Individual tickets:  $30 / $20 (seniors) / $10 (students)
Tel: 416-978-8849 ~ General information: 416-466-1800
http://www.taliskerplayers.ca/

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CAGE MATCH (!)

Posted on April 14, 2012 by barczablog
Tom Allen

CBC broadcaster & trombone player Tom Allen

The title, all in caps, is meant to invoke the voice of Tom Allen from CBC, as he used to say it on a program, that, alas is no longer part of Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC)’s schedule.

CBC keep changing and re-tooling their programming.  A few years ago some big changes led to the departures of some much-loved hosts, to be replaced by a new younger cohort.  Ironically I am now going to celebrate one of those “new” shows that was in turn swept aside in another subsequent re-tooling.

Once I got over the frustration of the changes –which as always seemed to lead to more popular music, less classical, and in general, the dumbing down of CBC—I started to notice some things I liked.  Please note: this is past tense.  I am remembering what was, not what is.

Tom Allen hosted a morning show (damn I can’t recall what it was called!!).  I listened to it regularly.  I was going to say “Disc Drive” but no, that was one of the cancelled shows, hosted by Jurgen Goth (hope i spelled that right).  The chief thing I recall about it was a most post-modern idea in the midst of this classical music show.  Allen would have a weekly feature called “Cage Match”, presented complete with smack-down intro music and a nasty macho voice.  This was all parody of course, which means you do it with a straight face.   Allen would say “CAGE MATCH” as if we were about to hear a wrestling competition on the radio.  Two pieces of music would in effect have a cage match: a kind of fight to the death.  Monday we’d hear the two pieces, and then we’d be invited to comment via email or telephone, phoning in our preferences (i once or twice sent comments and heard my name on air at least once).  Friday we’d find out who won.  In so doing, Allen would deconstruct some of the pomposity that is usual in classical music discourse, mocking the seriousness of the pieces & their performers.

Of course Allen’s a trombone player so this is natural.  I sat beside the trombone players (euphonium & tuba here, in the UTS band of yore… George Stock, wherever you are, you were the funniest trombonist i ever met God rest your soul), the vaudeville comedians of any band.  Same with double bass I think. When you’re far from the boss at the front you can heckle quietly, while you’re counting the zillions of bars of rests until your next entrance.

And so…. I’d like to imagine a few possible cage matches of my own.  Yes I am vicarious, wishing I had been able to do such a show of my own.  Well done Mr Allen, I know I am not presumptuous in saying that we miss Cage Match (although please note, the CBC had the good sense when re-tooling to keep their best tools: such as Mr Allen).  I can’t be alone in missing this wonderfully unpretentious breath of fresh air.

And so, without further ado, here are Cage Matches we might have seen, which I will call Virtual Cage Matches: because we’re going to have to imagine them without any voters.

Virtual Cage Match #1: big vs small

One of the big questions for me is the matter of big vs small.  Has anyone ever really shown which is “better”?  Sometimes an unaccompanied little tune is better than hours of grand opera.  Some people might say that this is ALWAYS true.

Leonard Meyer in his wonderful –if self-important—book Music, the Arts & Ideas wanted to argue that Beethoven’s Ninth is a better piece than Debussy’s Prelude to the Afternoon of the Faun (and i think his reasoning is pompous nonsense… to fasten to a dart board alongside Joseph Kerman’s nonsensical dismissal of Tosca).  I would have liked to have heard such a cage match, taken to its extreme, perhaps pitting something short & tiny against something long and massive & pompous.  Is Mahler’s 8th Symphony really better than one of Satie’s Gymnopédies?  I suppose some might say, that’s why we need Cage Match, to get CBC listeners to call in and vote.  Then again, –like my hero Claude Debussy—I mistrust the voice of the people.  Does that make me an elitist jerk?  I worry sometimes that market forces are not to be mistaken for truth.  I prefer water to cola (or heavens diet cola), and drink carrot juice whether or not the majority like it.  Of course I am a bit leery of the taste of the majority: because I am an opera lover after all.

Virtual Cage Match #2: funeral music

I grew up hearing Chopin’s  funeral march in its cartoon parody version.  But it’s a splendid tune when you finally hear it (or play it!… but that’s rather hard to do if it’s your funeral, right?). 

And then there’s the music for Amenhotep III (I hope I have the right Pharaoh….) in Philip Glass’s opera Akhnaten. 

Which music would YOU rather have at your send-off to the after-life?

Virtual Cage Match #3: morning

Another piece I grew up with is Grieg’s music for Peer Gynt (and boy was I amazed when years later, I finally encountered the play…but that is another story entirely).  “Morning” is a sunny pastorale that never fails to make me smile.  In the other corner? Let’s spin between any of the three acts of Wagner’s Götterdämmerung, each of which gives us an evocation of something like the morning.

Virtual Cage Match #4: The meaning of life

Okay, why not let cage match answer some really deep questions? No wait.  If we put it to a vote, I might find myself against my will in a faith group I don’t recognize.  But even so, it’s rather intriguing to imagine pieces of music as advocates for a position or doctrine.  Come to think of it, that’s one of the brilliant implications of the original Cage Match: the recognition that music exists in context, and is never just music.

So imagine the following ways of determining the meaning of life.

  • John Lennon singing “Imagine” 
    vs the soprano of your choice, singing Handel’s “I know that my redeemer liveth” 
    What do you believe?  I love the simplicity of both compositions.
  • Does either of these compositions work for you
    “Stairway to heaven” via Led Zeppelin
    vs Mahler’s 4th last movement: Bernstein and the radiant Edith Mathis…(sigh)
  • And finally (a slightly different way of asking the question posed by John Lennon), do you accept Queen’s assertion that “nothing really matters” as we hear it in “Bohemian Rhapsody”? 
    or do you accept Handel’s glorious statement “Worthy is the Lamb that was slain”?  

Thanks CBC for a wonderful idea, thanks Tom Allen for a terrific program, gone but not forgotten.

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Met Walküre

Posted on April 14, 2012 by barczablog
Robert Lepage

Robert Lepage (Canadian Press photo)

Before I begin this review, I want to give a quick shout out to my pal Robert.

“Salut Robert.  Oui je sais que je suis “easy”, ou, comme on dit  “You had me at “Wes Herd dies auch sei/ hier muss ich rasten.” (ou l’opera commence).  Bravo.  N’écoutes pas aux idiots. You rock!“

And so, after having seen the four Ring Cycle operas in High Definition broadcasts (including the encores of Rheingold & Walküre) I had a chance to see the Lepage – Metropolitan Opera Die Walküre tonight in person.  I had a decent if not outrageously good seat –which is to say in the middle of Grand Tier—that allowed me to see how the spectacular design effects of this production look and feel inside the theatre.

I repeat the assertion I made earlier, that “the machine” (as the elaborate set for Lepage’s Ring is often called) is miraculous.  We see mountains complete with avalanches, trees, snow, flying horses… yet at the same time we’re watching a high-tech robot creation that moves and responds to the music-drama unfolding before us.  When Siegmund pulls the sword out of the tree, not only does the music give us an eargasm, the set moves into a kind of parallel sword shape, a harmonious moment of exquisite beauty.  We’re watching something real enough to easily signify the various moments of this magical tale, even though we get the contrary signals reminding us that this is entirely artificial.  When the vertical shapes of the machine somehow become trees in a forest, through which Siegmund runs to escape the pursuit, the illusion is spectacular even as it is patently arbitrary.  The machine is a protean shape-shifter, able to signify anything. I believe we’re seeing the world in microcosm, a world whose most fundamental characteristic is change.  Things change, the old order passes away.

This world of Wagner’s requires several astonishingly difficult feats from the set designer, such as lightning, flying horses, nymphs swimming in a river, magic fire… It’s so difficult that we usually go to see Wagner’s Ring operas with low expectations.

In the HD broadcasts, where one sees mostly close-ups of the singers, one can’t always tell how the effect works in the house.  As I alluded above, I may not be the right person to judge.  I love Wagner’s operas, and simply wanted someone to give me a way to enjoy them.  I don’t think I am picky.  Just don’t give me too much stupidity, and I’m there, eagerly gobbling it up.

So let me be honest.  I love the Ring and first came to Wagner via Die Walküre.  The very first opera I saw at the Met was a Walküre starring Rita Hunter as Brunnhilde when I was in my teens.  While I was star-struck, and a complete Wagner nerd (you know the way kids know every single line of Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings?  I was that way with the Ring Cycle… still am by the way) this is the way I once used to listen to this opera:

  • Eat up every second of Act I, especially scene iii
  • In Act II? different story.  I’d devour the opening scene between Wotan & Brunnhilde as a display piece of the soprano’s voice, nothing more… then reluctantly dig in for Fricka’s abuse of Wotan in scene ii, and Wotan’s slow introspection with Brunnhilde in scene iii, because those were usually static discussions, before we get to the really good stuff, namely the scenes when Siegmund appears.
  • For Act III roll my eyes while the Ride of the Valkyries plays famous tunes over an impossible scene to stage, followed by the wonderful scene with Sieglinde, and the scene between Wotan & Brunnhilde.

Okay, now I’m older.  I’ve seen several approaches to Walküre over the years.  Lepage  scrambles my expectations, by making some parts of the opera work better than I’ve ever seen before, in effect re-writing the way I listen to the work.

  • (as I mentioned in my review of the HD broadcast)The Ride of the Valkyries: it’s something of a set-piece, really a bit of comic relief between two ultra-serious scenes.  How do you show valkyries riding horses to gather the dead?  Usually they don’t, because it’s a strangely silly scene (Wagner wrote it that way) calling for effects that are beyond most designers.  Lepage gave us something quite believable, considering.  It serves as a wonderful setup for the arrival of Brunnhilde & Sieglinde, a shift in tone that –for once—means something.
  • The opening of Act II, where Wotan and Brunnhilde have a brief exchange before Fricka’s arrival is usually a moment where the soprano shows off her high notes and not much more.  Bryn Terfel as Wotan & Deborah Voigt as Brunnhilde begin to show us the astonishing chemistry between them.  It was already beginning to be there last season, but now has grown.  Tonight Terfel’s playful teasing of Voigt actually caused her to miss a line –because she was laughing—in a way that I believe Wagner would have forgiven.  Their relationship seems so genuinely loving that it makes their later schism –when Brunnhilde underestimates the seriousness of Wotan’s command that she abandon Siegmund and blithely proposes that she will disobey her father—not just credible, but nearly inevitable.  We’ve always heard that Brunnhilde is Wotan’s favourite, but with this opening scene, we see it and believe it.
  • The two best scenes in Walküre? Surely not the scenes one would expect.  Looking back with the benefit of hindsight from having seen the rest of Lepage’s Ring, I believe I can say these scenes need to be this good, because they’re the emotional centre of The Cycle, namely the second and third scenes of Act II.  While I always understood that from the libretto, I had never seen anyone who could make it work: until now (let me elaborate).

Having begun Act II with that wonderful little scene between Wotan & Brunnhilde, Lepage raises the stakes in each of the next two scenes.

Stephanie Blythe arrives as Fricka exactly as stipulated, namely in a chariot drawn by rams.  But more importantly, she sits as if on a throne in the middle of the stage.  Wotan attempts to avoid her powerful critique, which means he dances around the entire stage, while she remains stationary in the middle of everything as if on a throne.  Lepage gives us a simple eloquent image that is the most important thing we will see all night.  As Shakespeare showed us in Richard II in the deposition scene, the one with the real power (whether it’s Bolingbroke or Fricka) stands still, while the one who is insecure (Richard or Wotan) moves.  Power confers the right to be still, even if Fricka seems to regret her power, seeing the estrangement from Wotan that ensues.    That Blythe is also stunningly good in her vocal portrayal, capturing the nuances of insult & thwarted love is icing on the cake.

The next scene can be tough sledding.  Lepage knew that, creating a wonderful visual image.  We know that Wotan gave up one of his eyes in a bargain for insight, wisdom & power.  In this scene we’re looking at images of the world Wotan is describing in his conversation with Brunnhilde, projected onto the eyeball.

In the HD broafcast I could see the centre of the eyeball & some of the projections; but from my seat tonight I could se so much more, including the lovely curvature of the scarlet tinged cave enclosing that eyeball, as if to suggest an eye in its socket.  At the beginning of this scene Terfel sang the lowest notes very softly. As the part changes from bass-baritone to baritone, in the growing agitation, Terfel seized those moments.  When Voigt as Brunnhilde innocently decides to honour the rapport she felt from her father, Terfel’s sense of pain makes wonderful sense.  The character’s arc is fabulously detailed in the last act as we see him begin to soften in the presence of the Valkyries, and finally relent in his one-on-one conversation with Brunnhilde.

Maestro Fabio Luisi

Maestro Fabio Luisi

I was very moved by Voigt & Terfel tonight, particularly in combination with Fabio Luisi, the conductor on this occasion.  When it was still James Levine –and the tempi were much slower—the roles required an entirely different approach.  Luisi’s pace makes many of the scenes astonishingly direct.  The opening of Act II had me bouncing in my seat with the raw energy of the Met orchestra’s playing.   In the last act, because of Luisi, the pace isn’t just energizing, but transforms the way the singers have to work.  At one point Wotan has a series of lines summarizing the change in his relationship to Brunnhilde due to her betrayal.  When conducted at Levine’s pace it’s perhaps a bit easier to enunciate; at this pace, Terfel had to really work to get all the syllables enunciated.  But wow, he was so electric at this moment, the lines flying out of his mouth, his body bouncing around the stage:

Wunschmaid /warst du mir:
gegen mich doch hast du gewünscht;
Schildmaid / warst du mir:
gegen mich doch hobst du den Schild;
Loskieserin / warst du mir:
gegen mich doch kiestest du Lose;
Heldenreizerin / warst du mir:
gegen mich doch reiztest du Helden.

Debbie Voigt added something new that I didn’t see in the HD broadcasts: several times she cried out –in joy, later fear, and anguish –animating her scenes.

Stuart Skelton was new to me as Siegmund, with a voice reminding me vaguely of James King (which is to say, a complimentary comparison).  Eva-Marie Westbroek benefitted from the presence of Luisi & his quick tempi.  I’d found her approach –targeting a note somewhere between a tone or two south of the correct pitch and then pole-vaulting up via that lower note—totally irritating.  But with Luisi’s fast tempi she didn’t have time and so was forced to sing the notes as written.  When she had time –as for instance on the paused climactic high A when she names her brother—then she reverted to form, and sang first a G then clicked up to the A, a moment later.  But for most of the evening I believe the tempi helped her to sing better.

I am usually a sucker for this opera, but for me this production is a better experience than ever before.  The visuals are powerful, stirring, and completely relevant.  The performance was more thrilling in person than I expected.  Where I shouted myself almost hoarse at the first two intermissions, at the end I was so moved (tears etc) I couldn’t find my voice to bravo until just before the applause ended.

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Tina Fey — Bossypants

Posted on April 13, 2012 by barczablog

Don’t trust a man who claims to be writing about feminism.  We have agendas.  Now of course sometimes I fool people because they see “Leslie Barcza” and think I am a girl.

But I can’t be trusted.

There are several different struggles all going on at the same time.  Who’s to say which one is the most urgent?  I felt that when Obama faced off with Hillary Clinton –and what does it say that I had to give you her first name? —that it would have been a bigger deal had Hillary won the Democrat nomination & then the White House.  In most families, however emancipated they may seem, there is still that permanent underclass known as female.

I have a selfish take on feminism.  Every struggle is much broader than merely the fight of a class against its adversaries.  Women’s liberation is male liberation as well.  It’s the same with gay rights.  While I am as hetero as they come, I am outraged that I don’t have the right to be gay if I want.  Why should I have to show solidarity with morons who are homophobic? No way.  That’s like the coercive dialectic of fascism, where you had to shut up while Jews or gays or communists were beaten by thugs on the other side of the street.

Women’s liberation is my liberation as well.

It may not be news that Tina Fey’s book Bossypants is a wonderful piece of work.  The book came out in the middle of 2011, and i’ve only had the good fortune to find it this week, so absorbed reading it on the airplane today that i kept reading even when the turbulent ride was giving me motion sickness.  Laughter is a great cure for nausea.

I frame it with this feminist preamble, typing this with Bridesmaids playing in the background, occasionally yanking me away for a quick guffaw. I recently saw Young Adult, a film that has me thinking about the conversation surrounding women and success in western society, enjoying the discursive space won by the unexpected images we encounter in both Young Adult and Bridesmaids.  When we talk about one gender, we’re inevitably talking about both, in the same way that women’s liberation liberates me.

I’m not saying Tina Fey is a liberator, but as much as anyone can be said to be carrying the feminist banner within mainstream media, Fey is a fabulous candidate.  This is humour that makes me feel good about humour… is that an odd idea?  How delicious to read something that makes me want to think, pulling me out of the despair I sometimes feel when confronted by….

  • Attack ads
    they have the dual effect of both destroying the credibility of the target candidate, while turning us into cynics who stop voting and become passive & fatalistic
  • Social Media
    Shouldn’t they call it “antisocial media”? There was that party for instance when, about 40 minutes in, I noticed that the room was almost silent as most of the guests retreated into their Iphones, trying to figure out whether they were having fun or not.  I would not have been a very gracious guest, but I almost shouted “hey.!. Remember conversation?”
  • CBC
    There’s the ongoing conversation about the CBC here in Canada, in the face of a Conservative Government that doesn’t seem to believe in what they offer.  While we still have a CBC –and Americans may think that the CBC is still a big deal—the CBC keeps getting smaller and smaller.   In the meantime, CBC brass seem determined to turn a unique and irreplaceable service into a bad copy of what’s already available from other media.  Something good may still be worthwhile diluted; hm, but i am drinking my Dalwhinnie neat.

Fey is adept in every arena (meaning not just films & TV but also, the varying types of writing she undertakes), with a sure touch.  Yet she is completely vulnerable, without any pretence.  Bossypants may not set you free, but it will set you laughing, and at this crucial time in our history it feels legitimate to say she’s fighting the good fight.

Thank you Tina Fey.

Posted in Reviews | Tagged , | 1 Comment

Young funny adult people

Posted on April 10, 2012 by barczablog

When you run into a film unlike any you’ve ever seen before, there’s a temptation to attempt to make sense of it through other films one has seen.   How else would we know a unicorn, except by our previous experience of the horse + a horn?  Newness is so rare in the film business that perhaps we don’t respect the challenge posed by originality, both to the perceptions of the viewer, and more particularly, to the money that would make a leap of faith to back such an original beast.

In Robert Altman’s 1992 film The Player we get a glimpse at the process whereby films are pitched in Hollywood.  Everything seems to be sold on the basis of what’s come before.  We hear pitches for films that (for example) are described as follows:

“It’s like The Gods Must Be Crazy except the coke bottle is an actress.
Right. It’s Out of Africa meets Pretty Woman.“

OR (and this one is even more twisted)

“It’s a cynical, political thriller comedy… he has an accident. And he becomes clairvoyant, like a psychic.  So it’s a psychic, political, thriller comedy with a heart. not unlike Ghost meets Manchurian Candidate.”

If this is how it works –and it’s so disgustingly corporate that one can’t help but believe it—then no wonder the industry is so derivative, no wonder films are all spin-offs, sequels and imitations.  And how could the money help itself, but to conservatively work from existing models that have worked..?

Sure, Altman was after laughs –and got them—but this is an edgy satire precisely because it contains more than a grain of truth.  Genres can be many things, but in my opinion the key part about genre is that they furnish a way to help us understand what we are seeing and what to expect.  When those executives describe films based on what’s been made before –naming lists of films, no matter how comical—they are only seeking to understand the unknown.  If they were scientists staring at a newly discovered life-form on the Martian surface, you’d hear hypothetical possibilities based on what we know.

“It’s insect-like” (if it has multiple legs and/or an exoskeleton)
“It’s quasi-reptilian (if we see the appropriate structural features of a reptile)

And so, silly as those descriptors sounded in The Player, you can’t blame them for trying to make sense of the unknown.

I am remembering Altman’s generic hypotheses today because I saw a film whose plot superficially resembles another, yet in so many ways is so unique as to be very difficult to describe.  I am less inclined to see Altman’s dialogue as comical, feeling far more sympathetic to that sense of being lost in a strange place.

Young Adult first caught my attention because of its talent.  Directed by Jason Reitman, written by Diablo Cody, and starring Charlize Theron, I was thrown completely by its trailer.  WTF? The film is presented as a very dark comedy.   The stats I saw online suggest that it cost $12 million to make, earning $20 million worldwide.

Does Young Adult really resemble any film I’ve seen?  There are a couple that come to mine.  I am embarrassed that I have to resort to plot templates as if I were one of Altman’s pathetic pitchmen in The Player.  but in so doing I am not so dismissive as I once was.  Perhaps I underestimated Altman in seeing only comedy in those lines.

Speaking of comedy, I am finding the boundaries of the genre are changing.  When someone speaks of an “edgy comedy” that’s another way of saying that the material challenges the usual boundaries of what’s acceptable.  Perhaps the plot is so serious that some won’t see the humour, or the laughs are dark at best.

Young AdultEarlier this decade we saw comedies showing off darker shades of the male American psyche, such as The Hangover (which recently saw its sequel), Superbad, and Wedding Crashers.  Films from such talents as Ben Stiller, Will Ferrell, Judd Apatow and Adam Sandler have all made money, while celebrating variations of male dysfunction & failure.

With Bridesmaids, the male neurotic comedy of post-adolescent anxiety was successfully cloned in female form, and was not only every bit as profitable, but perhaps even edgier because the situations and characters are still too new to be conventional.  That’s another way of saying that one doesn’t really know what to expect.  Enjoy the freshness while it lasts.

Young Adult is much more than a clone.  I had the magical experience of being truly disoriented, unable to orient myself according to precedents.  The only film I can easily compare it to is Funny People, Judd Apatow’s lengthy exploration of the comic sensibility starring Sandler opposite his wife Leslie Mann.  The lead in each film is a narcissistic egomaniac, each egomaniac seeking to revive a hopelessly failed relationship.  The key difference between the films is simply the difference in our society between men and women.  Where we seem to love charming male egomaniacs, when that strutting ego is female, it’s very threatening.

By reversing the genders everything becomes problematic.  Is Young Adult even a comedy?  I was blown away by Theron’s work, Cody’s writing, Reitman’s direction.  Without giving anything away, I believe the ending problematizes the kind of ending we see in Good Will Hunting.  Where Apatow lets us down gently in Funny People, Cody, Reitman & Theron take us deep into the heart of the American soul at a time when success has never seemed more elusive.

I am looking forward to seeing it –and them—again.  The fertile ground for the next decade is not so much in the cross between existing genres, as in crossing genders.  I think the new formula (or one of them) is to take an existing template, and then giving us its mirror image using females instead of males.

It’s not so new as to be unrecognizable, but new enough to be truly explosive.  In case it’s not clear, i totally love this film. I think it’s the most original film I’ve seen this year, a film with important lessons. See it while it can still disorient you.

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The voice among the corn

Posted on April 5, 2012 by barczablog

In big cities development & culture seem to be big powerful forces, beyond either our understanding or control.  Plans are made, enormous amounts of money are committed & spent, and the buildings go up.

It happens in smaller towns too, but because of the size, the process seems less daunting.

In spite of myself, I got a glimpse of urban renewal on a recent trip to downtown Barrie Ontario.  Barrie is a town about an hour away from Toronto, only recently wearing the “suburb” label, having simply been a cute little town on Lake Simcoe.  Maybe I shouldn’t call it little anymore, given that Google says their population is over 125,000, “one of the fastest growing towns in the area.”

Some of you may recall that a major fire destroyed some landmarks downtown in 2007.

It was quite traumatic for residents.  While there was no human loss of life the historical part of downtown Barrie was heavily damaged.

But as I said, Barrie is growing.  The town is small enough that one can observe the drama of loss and subsequent regeneration.

Last week I visited the new Mady Centre for the Performing Arts, to watch Great Expectations, presented by Talk is Free Theatre (TIFT).  It’s quite a lovely little theatre, situated at one of the main intersections of Barrie, in fact right beside the area that was hurt by the big fire in 2007.

Opened just last fall, it certainly feels new. 

After the show we strolled around a bit downtown, noticing that there were people hanging around the downtown.  We drifted over to a nearby restaurant recent enough that it doesn’t yet appear in Google’s street view.

“Si Senor” calls itself “Barrie’s only authentic Mexican Restaurant”.  The tortillas filled with spicy fish were unlike anything I’ve encountered in Toronto, followed by fried ice cream.    The inside of the restaurant was gleaming almost as brightly as my smile after I’d had my dessert, which left me wonderfully buzzed.  As we surveyed the traffic in the heart of Barrie I was thrilled to see the natural regeneration taking place before our eyes.

Richmond Hill Centre

Richmond Hill Centre for the Performing Arts

Speaking of tortillas, I was reminded of a voice in the corn.  In the film Field of Dreams a voice whispers from amid a field of corn “if you build it he will come”.   Something similar seems to be at work in any community.  Just as in the film, they don’t know why they’re coming, but they come, perhaps to hang out, maybe to meet their friends.  It’s very healthy, and wonderful to see.  In recent years we’ve seen theatres go up in the small towns that ring Toronto (Richmond Hill & Brampton come to mind, but there are others of course), reflections of a growing sophistication.

“Great Expections” is a perfectly apt title under the circumstances.  Nevermind Dickens or Pip, this is a town with Great Expectations.

Great Expectations

Posted in Personal ruminations & essays | 1 Comment

Freud & Jung, Shore & Wagner

Posted on April 2, 2012 by barczablog

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.

A Dangerous Method: soundtrackI 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.

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TIFT Great Expectations

Posted on April 1, 2012 by barczablog
Great Expectations

Great Expectations

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 Expectations at the Mady Centre for the Performing Arts in Barrie,  until April 14th.

TIFT

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10 Questions for Jeannette Lajeunesse Zingg

Posted on March 31, 2012 by barczablog

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

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.

Jeannette Lajeunesse Zingg

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

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.

April 14-22 Opera Atelier present Lully’s Armide at the Elgin Theatre in Toronto.

Saturday, April 14, 2012, 7:30 P.M.
Sunday, April 15, 2012, 3:00 P.M.
Tuesday, April 17, 2012, 7:30 P.M.
Wednesday, April 18, 2012, 7:30 P.M.
Friday, April 20, 2012, 7:30 P.M.
Saturday, April 21, 2012, 7:30 P.M.

Posted in Interviews, Opera | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Rapt

Posted on March 31, 2012 by barczablog

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

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?

Perhaps I should take a vow of silence.

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