While the audience for Puppetmongers’Bed & Breakfast includes children, the play contains plenty of adult laughs of which the kids are blissfully unaware. Originally a one-person show written by and for Ann Powell (if it’s accurate to call something a one-person show when that one person impersonates a houseful), its current incarnation, directed by Sue Miner, employs both her and brother David Powell. There’s so much to look at –beginning with the delightful little figures in a luscious little home—that there’s no chance a child would be bored.
While Bed & Breakfast is over twenty years old (in various productions), Puppetmongers are in their thirty-seventh season.
Teaching about puppets, teaching with puppets
Ann and David Powell are so much more than puppeteers, whether writing, designing, building, manipulating their creations, or taking acting parts in their plays. Afterwards, in the face to face encounters with their young fans –eager to see their magical creations up close—they also take on roles somewhere between teachers and evangelists.
While the theatrical world is supposedly cyclical, fashions regularly coming and going, puppets seem to be everywhere lately:
This afternoon I listened to the Metropolitan Opera broadcast of Anthony Minghella’s production of Puccini’s Madama Butterfly, remarkable for its use of a puppet playing Butterfly’s young child.
This past year I finally saw the manipulated artificial wildlife populating the stage in Julie Taymor’s production of Lion King (admittedly a show from several years ago).
As I type this I am listening to a Saturday Night Live sketch about War Horse, another play using puppets.
Perhaps puppets are now making a kind of transition, from a separate category, to a regular part of the theatrical toolkit, alongside lights, sound, and projections (which at one time were also considered radical). From now on, don’t be surprised when you see puppets at the theatre. They’re not just for children, and indeed are turning up in decidedly serious and adult situations.
But whether puppets take over the world or not, Puppetmongers will continue to quietly work their magic, whether in Toronto or possibly touring elsewhere in Canada. Ann & David Powell will beguile your children, and if you choose to accompany them –for instance to Bed & Breakfast –chances are you will find yourself laughing your head off with all the other adults.
Bed & Breakfast can be seen at the Tarragon Extra Space, 30 Bridgman Ave, Dec 18th, a break for Christmas, then resuming Dec 26th until January 1st 2012. For more info call 416-531-1827 or go to www.puppetmongers.com.
If it’s Advent season–the time immediately preceding Christmas–then it’s time for ballet companies to erase their deficits with the help of Tschaikowsky and The Nutcracker. It’s time to shop for presents, time to eat drink and be merry.
Balthasar Denner's portrait of Handel
And –in Toronto at least–it means many versions of Handel’s Messiah.
The Toronto Symphony presents something they call “Toronto’s Favourite Messiah” possibly based on ticket sales (five performances in a bigger venue)
Aradia ensemble’s “Dublin Messiah“
Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra and Chamber Choir (four performances plus an additional sing-along Messiah).
In preparation I thought I’d pull out my three historically informed performance (aka “HIP”) Messiahs. Handel’s great oratorio is in three parts, the first of which pertains to Christmas. With the seasonal connection in mind, I’m going to briefly compare Part One in those three recordings.
Whose recordings?
1) Trevor Pinnock leading The English Concert & Choir in 1988, with Arleen Auger, soprano, Anne Sofie von Otter, contralto, Michael Chance alto, Howard Crook Tenor and John Tomlinson, Bass. I obtained this in my first blush of HIP-ness, around 1989, when I went a little nuts for this kind of performance, also buying all of Norrington’s Beethoven & Schubert symphonies, works by Schumann & Mendelssohn and Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique.
2) Paul McCreesh leading the Gabrieli Consort & Players, recorded in 1996, with Dorothea Röschmann soprano, Susan Gritton, soprano II, Bernarda Fink, Contralto, Charles Daniels, tenor and Neal Davies, Bass. I’d heard excerpts of this on CBC, and needed little persuading. Previously I’d bought multiple versions of Wagner’s Ring, and now it seemed I was likely to do the same with Messiah
3) Nikolaus Harnoncourt leading Concentus Musicus Wien in 2004, with Christine Schäfer soprano, AnnaLarsson, Alto, as well as Canadians Michael Schade, Tenor and Gerald Finley, Bass. I only heard of this in 2010, so I’ve lived with this one for only a few months.
I assumed I’d remain loyal to Pinnock no matter who else came along. I’ve seen this phenomenon before –perhaps most tellingly with Solti’s Ring—where people become attached to the first version they encounter. I think the same thinking is behind the disrespect current casts get on Saturday Night Live, compared to the first cast who, after all, were part of a cultural happening. But never mind, the relative merits of different SNL casts is a topic for another post.
Pinnock continues to wear well, even though the sound is better on the two more recent recordings. When it comes to the final two numbers—“Worthy is the Lamb” and the Amen—I am still very loyal to Pinnock, whose grandeur and clarity slays me. While I am wandering in the other parts of Messiah, my single favourite chorus –”Lift Up Your Heads”—is given its most persuasive performance in McCreesh’s reading, a stunning piece of drama as one part of the chorus interrogates the other (and sorry I cannot show these to you via youtube).
But wait, I’m only supposed to talk about Part One!
I am briefly going to puff out my chest as a Canadian, concerning the men on the 2004 recording conducted by Harnoncourt.
Michael Schade’s English is wonderfully peaceful in expressing the sentiment “Comfort Ye”. As an ambassador for peace, he is wonderfully tranquil. If I were carrying weapons I would have laid them down in homage. In the aria that follows he proclaims the good news of “Ev’ry Valley”.
Canadian Gerald Finley
The other Canadian? Gerald Finley is completely believable portraying God. I never really bought those lines until now: when the bass sings “Thus saith the Lord” and then proceeds to speak as though he were the Lord. Finley’s God is not one of those pompous thunderers I’ve heard elsewhere, self-conscious or grandiose. Finley is fearless and direct, and as a result scared me more in these passages than I would have thought possible.
But wait. Whereas my other two recordings are from English ensembles & choirs, Harnoncourt works with two European women soloists & a European choir. How do they fare? Astonishingly well, it turns out. This choir is clearer in some of the truly difficult numbers than either of the other two ensembles.
Exhibit A: “For Unto Us a Child is Born” is deceptively difficult (I recall a conductor telling us, his choir, to beware of the temptation to sing “for unto WUSS a child is born”). Every syllable is clear.
Exhibit B: “And He Shall Purify”. Harnoncourt had a rather clever idea, which is to say, he takes this chorus at a slower pace than what I am accustomed (either in the two recordings or in live performances I’ve been to). The chorus articulates the coloratura flames as exquisitely as if they were truly flickering tongues of fire, undulating with perfect clarity. I was prepared to dislike what Harnoncourt was doing, not least because of his foreign-born chorus, but came around in spite of myself. This is the version of this chorus that I now prefer, startlingly original and yes, very very beautiful.
There’s something wonderful in each of these recordings, each of which has held my attention for awhile. But recently, in an interview with Kevin Mallon, I realized –oh no– that there are other recordings I need to obtain, given that I don’t own either of his two favourites (John Eliot Gardiner & Christopher Hogwood). I suppose that will have to be remedied at some point.
I posted a piece about painter Brian Wyers November 29th, and knew I’d have more to say. This is a continuation.
I am again fascinated by a Wyers painting that’s unlike anything I’ve ever seen. Perhaps painters or art-critics would look and be more blasé. I think it’s every bit as wacky as the fish-bicycle painting I spoke of last time, possessed of a surreal quality, although I feel that the use of that word is a cop-out because there’s so much more to this painting than just taking us out of this world and into another. Perhaps I should describe it first.
This painting is, first and foremost, a kind of tour de force. Any painters reading this likely know better than I what constitutes a real technical achievement, or in other words, whether this is a genuine achievement, or just a painting that managed to impress me, who is perhaps not sophisticated enough to know. Virtuosity is sometimes an illusion created by a level of sophistication –or the lack thereof—in the viewer. Just yesterday I was playing a Scarlatti Sonata, lots and lots of fast notes, that elicited a comment of admiration from someone who didn’t realize this was precisely what Scarlatti was aiming for (and it wasn’t especially difficult to play). Sometimes a viewer in a particular place/context may be impressed by something that would not impress those in another place; if you go to another historical era, the skill level is so different that the standard for “excellence” is substantially different, the unspoken benchmarks of the spectacular for the audience having changed many times over. And so, after saying this, I believe this painting should be recognized as spectacular even if the average viewer might not get that they’re looking at something magical, nor even be aware that their perceptions were being teased.
The painting is called “To Gilda”. I had no idea what the title signified until I asked Wyers, who explained that it’s short for “to gild a lily.” It reminds me of one of those cute song names by Frank Zappa such as “The Ocean is the Ultimate Solution”, where the title doesn’t really tell you anything (no offense Frank: wherever you are)
In the foreground (back to Wyers’ painting) we are either looking at an immense white flower, or perhaps a normal sized flower in such an intimate close-up as to seem to be impossibly close to your face, foreshortened by the uncommon perspective. Behind the flower? A wall with gold-leaf wallpaper decorated with flowers. In some respects the wallpaper is banal, something we’ve seen before and perhaps never noticed. For some reason Wyers has juxtaposed his outrageous white flower with the wallpaper. Some reason? It’s a brilliant choice, as we look at this super-flower in front of the floral illustration on the gold-leaf wallpaper. By using the gold-leaf Wyers creates a really bizarre effect of the light, illuminating the room indirectly. Any light bounces off that wallpaper in the most lurid fashion. And that wall’s surface is so hyper-real that one can feel its smoothness. The effect on my eye is what blew me away, the unexpected illumination it brought into the room because the gold leaf seems to amplify the light.
We are left in the curious position of sharing the subjectivity of that white flower, as if the flower were itself looking at the wallpaper and critiquing the two-dimensional ersatz flowers. Curiously, we’re looking over the flower’s shoulder: which shouldn’t be possible.
A flower with subjectivity?
I am reminded of a moment in the Muppets Christmas (from many many years ago), where Rowlf the Dog (from The Muppet Show) meets Sprocket, Doc’s pet dog (from Fraggle Rock). Whereas Rowlf talks like a human and plays the piano all Sprocket can do is bark, being a slightly more realistic puppet than Ralph. In a magically absurd moment Rawlf stares into the barking Sprocket’s barking face to which the cynical Rawlf replies, “yeah: bow wow”, a meeting of delicious absurdity. Just as dogs of different orders met one another in Jim Henson’s worlds, so too with the encounter of plants in Wyers’ painting.
Gold leafed Gilda, by Brian Wyers
And if that weren’t enough subjectivity –from the flower among the plants– I want to segue into a more human realm for two more paintings that are becoming a recurring pattern for Wyers, because there is at least a third painting using this trope… but although i know if it, i have not seen it so let’s just focus on these two for now. In each case he puts something intimate and perhaps even psychological on a kind of ideal beach. I think of these as self-portraits. One is a picture of a girl dancing; one is a picture of a person in ballet slippers (possibly a girl, but it’s difficult to be certain of the gender when we see only a little bit of him/her). Even if both of them are actually females you may think it odd of me that I would call these self-potraits given that Brian is a guy. But I am speaking in terms of paintings capturing a drama of the psyche or the soul, and those don’t entail a precise painting of our physical reality. No, the internal drama requires the imagination to portray what’s happening inside. While I don’t think that’s what Wyers thought he was doing that’s how I see them. I’d compare them to Mahler’s Song of the Earth, where he sets six songs alternately between male and female voice; just because three of the six call for a female voice doesn’t mean that they’re any less about Mahler’s soul. No, he brings out something different in the presence of the female voice, but it’s still essentially him.
This example –not a digression but an illustration– is the fourth song, “On Beauty”; the woman’s voice first situates us in a quiet place among girls observing flowers, but then a bunch of boys arrive on horseback about three minutes into the piece, a violent eruption in every sense of the word.
Just as Mahler wants us to experience both yin and yang, i think it’s the same for Wyers.
“Trip the light fantastic” shows part of a dancing figure. I find this to be a very inspiring image. While the space might be a beach I’ve seen sometime –perhaps Georgian Bay?—the choreography seems more internal and hypothetical than genuine. This is the sort of image that we’re told to picture when we confront something painful, when we seek to find our way through a struggle. We don’t see the complete girl, encouraging us to enter into her process as she dances, and as a result, to engage in her subjectivity as she dances. Banal as it sounds, the image is wonderfully inspiring. She dances without any sign of an audience, nor of music. Does there have to be a real beach? I don’t think so. And there doesn’t have to be a girl either, as I believe this is really Wyers’ spirit in the painting. As with Gilda, Wyers is again playing a bit in his title, as the word “light” has at least two meanings.
Trip the Light Fantastic from Brian Wyers
“Skywalker” is the name of the other incomplete figure on a beach, a very small part of a tightrope walker, balancing with exquisite care. The landscape reminds me of “Trip the Light Fantastic”, the same beach of dreams. For me, both the dancer and the tightrope walker enact internal dramas, evoking subtle questions. I think we saw similar landscapes in the meditative last portions of Mallick’s film Tree of Life, as we did in the early portions of Wenders Wings of Desire. I think it’s fair to say that these compositions are exploring a well-established trope, a kind of spiritual landscape. Because of the way the images are composed (in the films and in Wyers’ paintings) we seem to be viewing something abstract or something on another plane, something that is as playful as it is profound. While we are outside for both paintings, we are also inside: as we are reflecting upon something internal, subjective, and if you’ll excuse the Jungian overtones of this usage: archetypal.
We’re outside on the inside
Did Wyers know that we’d have this experience looking at his figures on the beach? I have to think so.
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Wyers art can be found in Ayrspace.ca –a group of painters showing in Ayr Ontario– and in Artspace in Oakville.
Kevin Mallon is the Artistic Director of Aradia Ensemble; he will be conducting The Dublin Messiah December 17th at the Glenn Gould Studio.
I ask Mallon ten questions: five about himself and five about his work.
1) Which of your parents do you resemble (what’s your nationality / ethnic background)?
Kevin Mallon, Artistic Director of Aradia Ensemble
Although I define myself as Irish and lived all of my young life in Belfast, I was actually born in Newark New Jersey! (This usually makes my American friends laugh for some reason!) My grandfather on my father’s side had immigrated to America. However, he had become ill with cancer. My father, recently graduated as a doctor and his young bride, went over to the USA to care for his him. I was born while they were there. Until very recently I told everyone that I had left America to return to Ireland when I was six weeks old, but have recently learnt that this was only a trip home to show me off to the family back in Ireland. My mother told me recently that we then returned to the USA for a while. But eventually we settled in Belfast, Northern Ireland.
In truth, I think I resemble my mother the most. She was a music teacher and although my father was also an amateur musician, I‘m sure I got my music from my mother.
2) What is the best thing / worst thing about what you do?
The best thing I do is that I get to perform, or record a wide range of music. The summer before last, I met up with some old school friends from music school in England, who I hadn’t seen in some twenty years. Although some of them were successful musicians, many had gone in other directions. It made me feel that my efforts to stick by it were worthwhile.
The worst thing that I do, as a conductor, is not anything to do with the music, but rather the vast amount of artistic administration I need to do—about three hours a day! I am involved with many enterprises (with orchestras in Toronto, Ottawa and New York) and this takes a lot of organizing. I don’t resent it, but it certainly takes up a lot of time and energy.
3) Who do you like to listen to or watch?
Conductor Roger Norrington
In truth, I don’t listen to classical music for pleasure! Mostly, for fun I am listening to a lot of Jazz or Irish music. Having said that, I am a big record/CD collector. (Yes, I still listen to records!) So, I am often listening to lots of stuff that I am working on. For example, I have just started to work on performing the complete Beethoven symphonies in New York, so I have been listening to the pioneering recordings by Norrington and Gardiner. Also, I like the set with Nikolaus Harnoncourt with modern instruments, an approach I am trying to emulate.
I watch a lot of movies, having recently just given up on TV. Also, I try to watch lots of comedies—am rather addicted to a silly BBC series called Coupling, right now! I absolutely love Youtube and can spend hours watching performances, especially of violinists of the old school.
4) What ability or skill do you wish you had, that you don’t have?
This is a very good, yet difficult question to answer. It’s not that there are not a multitude of things that I wish I could do, or do better, but I have spent a lifetime making use of the resources I do have. This is an important outlook for me especially as I get older, because I can tend to beat myself up about what I think I should be achieving.
My skill with other languages is weak and it is something I am working on. I used to have a certain facility on the piano, but really gave that up one time in college when instead of the Beethoven sonata I was supposed to play, I could only really manage Lady Madonna-you know the Beatles song!
5) When you’re just relaxing (and not working) what is your favourite thing to do?
I find it difficult to relax as such—and even in down time am often working at something to do with music. But I have been blessed with many good friends, and a wonderful girlfriend, so there are always social occasions to attend or parties to throw—I love to cook. I was once an avid reader—something I have lost of late and which I am hoping to rediscover. With so many demands on my time, it is often difficult for me to carve out the time needed for myself. I know it, I say it, yet I don’t do what I know or say!
5 more questions about conducting various Messiahs–hoping it’s not a sacrilege to say that– particularly, the upcoming presentation of The Dublin Messiah.
1) How does the Dublin Messiah challenge you?
Funnily enough, even though I have conducted Messiah many times now, and particularly this, my own reconstruction of the 1st performance in Dublin, it is still a challenging thing to put together. There is never enough rehearsal time and so part of the conductor’s art is figuring what to do in the limited time to get maximum results. This year I have three out of the four soloists who are new to doing it with me, and indeed there are a lot of new players in the Aradia orchestra, so you have to try to get the best out of everyone and to get them to feel relaxed while you still cover everything musically. In rehearsal this year there will also be a film crew following us around who will be doing a documentary about the Hallelujah chorus. So, there is a lot to keep together!
2) What do you love about Handel’s Messiah, particularly the Dublin Messiah?
1773 Score of Messiah: "an oratorio in score as it was originally perform'd / composed by Mr. Handel to which are added his additional alterations."
Performing a lot of Baroque music, it is always evident that the composers of the time saved their special efforts in reflection of their devotion to God. This is something that is often difficult to appreciate in our modern, secular world. So, it was with Bach or Handel that in the religious works we see a special effort made to write for the glory of god. (At the end of the manuscript of Messiah, Handel wrote the letters “SDG”—Soli Deo Gloria an abbreviation of the words “To God alone the glory”.)
The fact that this musical composition—one of the great canons of Western Music was first performed in my home country of Ireland has always made me proud!
3) Do you have a favourite number in the Messiah: something that you’re looking forward to hearing?
The truth is that there is hardly a weak moment in Messiah. The Hallelujah chorus is famous for a reason- it is a superb piece of music, but for me when you have done all of the oratorio and you hit the last few bars on the words Amen, it always sends shivers down my spine.
Susanna Cibber, who sang the very first performance of “He was despised.”
“He was despised” is for me, probably the most moving aria. One can only imagine the first performance: Susanna Cibber (sister of the English composer Thomas Arne) was by all accounts renowned for her ability to move the audience emotionally. Charles Burney wrote of her singing “by a natural pathos, and perfect conception of the words, she often penetrated the heart, when others, with infinitely greater voice and skill, could only reach the ear.”
When she sang, “He was despised” she so affected the Rev. Patrick Delany, chancellor of St. Patrick’s Cathedral that he is reported to have leapt to his feet and exclaimed: “Woman, for this be all thy sins forgiven thee!
(Several years ago at the Aradia Dublin Messiah we had an actor depict Delany and do likewise!)
4) How do you relate to the Dublin Messiah as a modern man?
Although Handel first performed Messiah in April of 1742, with the oratorio covering the Christmas and Easter stories, it has become traditional to perform it at Christmas. As such the Christmas sentiment gives me reason to pause and reflect on peace on Earth, goodwill towards men, positive beliefs, love, peace and joy.
I find it heartening that, amidst all the problems we have, mankind can still come together and find and encourage peace and goodwill.
That is why I love the following moment in Messiah when the soprano sings:
And suddenly there was with the angel a
multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying:
Glory to God in the highest, and peace on earth, goodwill towards men.
It is on the word Glory that we hear the first entry of the two trumpets! Another great moment, that gets me every time!
5) Is there a recording of the Messiah that you especially admire (whether it’s a historically informed version or not)?
The version of Messiah I have listened to for most of my adult life was that of my mentor and teacher John Eliot Gardiner. I think it is hard to be bettered. I also like Hogwood’s reconstruction of the 1754 Foundling Hospital version. Of course the one I am looking forward to is the one Aradia will make in 2013 of the Dublin Messiah!
~~~~~~~~
Kevin Mallon leads the Dublin Messiah (a reconstruction of the first performance of Handel’s Messiah) Saturday, 17 December 2011, 8pm at Glenn Gould Studio, with
the choir and orchestra of the Aradia Ensemble, and soloists Virginia Hatfield (Soprano),
Maria Soulis (Mezzo-soprano), Joseph Schnurr (Tenor) and Giles Tomkins (Bass). For tickets call 416 -872-4255 or order online at Roy Thomson Hall.
Against The Grain’s iconic Streetcar (from their website): an image that says TORONTO
When I attended the opening night of Against the Grain’s La bohème in June, it was thrilling to experience a modern adaptation of this well-worn opera in a downtown Toronto bar, in a very edgy English translation. The bohemians called Benoit a “man-whore”. Musetta –played by Lindsay Sutherland Boal—stole my sunglasses! right off my head! as she worked the room during her big Act II solo. Joel Ivany’s adaptation moved us into present-day Toronto, and it wasn’t just a thrill. It was a happening.
Tonight in December 2011, Against the Grain revived their bohème with largely the same cast. While it was much the same, it was not edgy in the same way. How could it be? That first time was very much against the grain, but now that they’ve proven that this opera actually belongs in a grotty bar? –no offense, Tranzac Club!– it’s not quite so shocking. That first time, I swear there was an element of danger, even a palpable sense of fear emanating from some of the cast; I had wondered if they could even pull it off, and maybe they wondered too.
And they pulled it off.
This time? Ivany (not just the translator & adapter but also the director) with music director – pianist Christopher Mokrzewski took it to the next level.
Mokrzewski was always discreet, playing slowly enough to allow laughs and helping make the singing completely intelligible; and I confess I am very impressed that he played the score while drinking at least a couple of beers during the show. This was a very relaxed interpretation, note-perfect but always clearly articulated.
Tenor Ryan Harper
The two leads are different this time around. Ryan Harper is a remarkable actor, with a genuine comic touch. His Rodolfo was funny throughout, so that when he had those few serious moments, they carried extra weight precisely because of the laughs immediately before. Miriam Khalil’s well-sung Mimi was direct, humble and emotionally grounded, making a fascinating contrast to the emotional flamboyance of Harper’s Rodolfo.
I feel blessed to have had a second look at the other couple, namely Justin Welsh’s Marcello and Lindsay Sutherland Boal’s Musetta. Boal stops the show rather effortlessly whenever she gets the chance, both in Act II and III. If you know bohème and have seen Musetta done by an opera singer –which is to say, someone with a voice and a modicum of acting ability—you probably expect Musetta to take the stage and make something of this moment, as that’s how Puccini wrote it. But I think it might shock you to see just how much magic there is in this scene of imperial seduction, when you let a really good actor who is also a beautiful woman sing it. To watch Boal devour this material is to have a lesson in how to use the stage, although full marks to Ivany for his brilliant use of the space & his cast.
Meanwhile, although Welsh isn’t quite as magical (and who could be?) in the drama department he did make the most consistently lovely sounds throughout. I think he’s relaxed into the role, showing self-assurance while filling the space with his warm mellow voice.
But the funniest performer of the night –possibly because he gets so many great lines or has them hurled at him in this adaptation – is Greg Finney as the landlord Benoit, the funniest drunk I’ve seen in a long time. Mokrzewski somehow managed to slow the scene so that we could laugh without covering the singers or stop the forward movement of the scene; amazing!
Against The Grain’s operatic invasion of the Tranzac continues Friday and Saturday, Dec 2nd and 3rd.
Canadian pianist Christopher (“Topher”) Mokrzewski is a former member of the Canadian Opera Company Ensemble Studio, participant in the preparation for COC’s recent Rigoletto and Opera Atelier’s 2011 La clemenza di Tito. But he’s also an accomplished soloist & chamber artist, who won first prizes at the Eastman School of Music International Young Artists Competition, the Milosz Magin International Piano Competition, the Empire State Piano Competition and the Canadian Music Competition (…and that doesn’t begin to tell the story).
This Thursday December 1st, Mokrzewski reprises his role as Music Director and pianist in Against the Grain Theatre’s revival of La bohème that he helped premiere in June.
I ask Mokrzewski ten questions: five about himself and five about his work.
Pianist Christopher Mokrzewski
1) Which of your parents do you resemble (what’s your nationality/ethnic background)?
I find that I resemble my father, in many ways, more and more as the years go by. Major nationality/ethnic identification: Polish and French.
2) What is the BEST thing/worst thing about what you do?
I cannot help but list the TWO most gratifying elements of the work I do for they are, I think, mutually dependent. First, I have the opportunity each day to work in a variety of different contexts with some of the finest musicians in the business. Whether in opera, art song or chamber music, the collaborative effort that makes a work come to life is the most sustaining force in my creative life.
However, everything rests upon the foundation of the works themselves. How wonderful is it to have a job which allows me, with the help of friends, to examine all that the western cultural tradition has to offer?
Today I continue re-visiting Boheme, and a week from now I begin work on Weill, John Adams, Messiaen, Mozart, and Stravinsky, but throughout all this I’ll still have a lingering thought in the back of my mind that I’ll never get to play the Schubert String Quintet, will never get to sing Peter Grimes, will never have time to know everything there is to know about the pieces that mean so much to me. The possibilities for discovery in this job are limitless and so too, therefore, is my enthusiasm to continue discovering.
As for complaints, I haven’t many. Perhaps the greatest challenge in this line of work pertains to scheduling – it’s difficult to be in control of it. Consequently, extracurricular planning (social, familial, etc) tends to take a back seat.
3) Who do you like to listen to or watch?
Leonard Bernstein by Jack Mitchell
The answer to this question grows more complicated as time passes! The fact of the matter is that I will always retain a certain fondness for, and desire to return to, the recordings and films of those artists who had the greatest impact on me in my youth. Leonard Bernstein might as well have been Superman to me! Glenn Gould and Arthur Rubinstein were probably the most important pianistic influences on me in my earliest years of study. In those days I collected every bit of material I could find on them.
Nowadays my tastes are a bit more varied. I admit to listening to very little piano music (mostly 20th century repertoire, when I do), lots of orchestral music (the newish Simon Rattle/Berlin Phil Mahler 9 being the most played according to my iPhone), a good deal of opera (new and old works by new and old performers, the Jacobs Mozart records being a bit of an obsession at the moment), chamber music (inexhaustible), contemporary music (inexhaustible), epic amounts of jazz (Bill Evans of late) and very selected nuggets of popular music (there’s no getting over The Beatles and Radiohead).
4) What ability or skill do you wish you had, that you don’t have?
I’ll give two answers even though one would suffice. Simply put, if I could do anything other than what I do now, I would want to be a writer. As for a specific skill: I’ve always wished that my musical abilities were more inclined toward an ability to play proper jazz. And if I were able to carry that desire to its fullest potential, I would have the ability to play proper jazz… on the trumpet… like Louis Armstrong. Potato Head Blues!
5) When you’re just relaxing (and not working) what is your favourite thing to do?
I’m a voracious reader, an idealistic exerciser, a fervent poker player and a passionate lover of football (Pittsburgh Steelers), hockey (Habs/Pens) and baseball (Jays). I enjoy a bit of beer with friends and any time spent with my partner, Cait.
5 more questions concerning being a music director and Against the Grain’s La bohème.
1) What’s the biggest challenge in being a music director?
The challenges that I’ve encountered music directing this production of Bohème (on both occasions) are those that have typically assailed me in assignments when I’m serving as “orchestra”. A conductor is, usually, a very comforting presence for a singer and, while I can conduct, it is not too easy a feat to accomplish whilst playing. The methods required to supersede these difficulties include careful planning of key moments and some judicious head bopping. We lead or we follow by insinuation, we mould the structure of the piece as a group. The result resembles, I hope, a lovely bit of chamber music.
2) What do you love about opera?
In opera we frequently encounter orchestral music of greater psychological and emotional depth than we might find in SOME of the symphonic warhorses beloved by many a concert subscriber (I’ll name no names…). And of course, opera is about the beauty and visceral communicative power of the human voice. It is the cumulative effect of opera, that unification of so many art forms, that gives it the power to move and excite generations of committed fans and advocates. That’s what I love.
3) Do you have a favourite type of music to play?
There is always some new work, or new composer, that one comes across and, boom, the world is changed. A listing of my favorite kinds of music to play will always be in a state of flux. I have, nevertheless, established very strong relationships with certain composers and styles. I don’t think I will ever grow weary of working on Mozart (the operas especially), a composer whom I have cherished since my childhood. I identify very strongly with Brahms’ music (I reckon he and I would have gotten on like a house on fire). I will always hold an obsession with Wagner and hope to spend a significant portion of my musical life with his works. The twentieth and twenty-first century supply most of the remaining repertoire I’m interested in: MAHLER (though I’ve no means of participating in a performance of one of his symphonies, as yet), Ravel, Debussy (Pelleas!!!), Britten, Berg, Schönberg, Messaien, Stravinsky, Reich, Adams, and it goes on, and on and on…
There’s also a great deal of music that is tiresome, dull, poorly crafted, sickeningly saccharine, pointless, loathsome and detestable, that I hate and hope to never hear again. But that is another (quite substantial) list!
4) How do you feel about Against the Grain’s upcoming Boheme, as a modern man?
I’m chuffed to be a member of the Against the Grain team and very proud of this production. Our cast is a fine one, our crew is amazing, our designers are miracle workers and our administrative team second to none. The whole company is the brainchild of Joel Ivany and we all have him to thank for this recasting of a timeless operatic monument.
Boheme is a piece that requires no improvement. It is an astounding work of music theatre and will continue to move audiences as long as it’s performed. It’s reasonable to wonder, therefore, why a company might try to mess with a good thing.
Although everyone likes a costume party now and then, I believe that opera is a living entity that must, like Alvy Singer’s shark or his relationship to Annie Hall, either constantly move forward or die. Do we then extirpate tradition by pandering to the lowest common denominator? Ought the Met to invite Michael Bay (of Transformers fame) to reimagine Madama Butterfly set to a meandering score played by Nickelback? Nah..
I look to my musical home, the Canadian Opera Company (where I started out a few years ago as an apprentice in the Ensemble Studio), and see a vibrant company attracting the finest singers in the country and the world, preparing a new generation of great voices and coaches through the Ensemble program, possessing a first rate orchestra and chorus, programming QUALITY new operas (go see Love From Afar!), new productions of old favorites, bringing in brilliantly creative directors. I see what Alexander Neef and company are creating and believe in it heartily. It is these kinds of values—respect for the artform, a striving for the highest performance quality possible, all without fear of entering uncharted creative territory– that also inform our young group.
I like to think that our Boheme, in the vernacular, in a bar, does justice to the integrity of a classic while, at the same time, shedding new light on the familiar with the hope that it will, at worst, provoke a reaction and, at best, not fail to move you.
5) Is there an interpretation of an opera that you especially admire or has influenced you?
Wagner: Tristan und Isolde (Nilsson/Windgassen, Böhm). I would not work in opera today were it not for this piece (and this recording). Period. It rocked my youngster world!
Prepare to be rocked.. here’s a small sample.
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Dec 1st Mokrzewski is back playing for La bohème. Later this season, expect two performances in the Richard Bradshaw Amphitheatre at the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts: a jazz collaboration with soprano Lauren Margison, and a solo piano program of works by Liszt, Poulenc and Messiaen.
I’m going a bit outside my usual comfort zone with this one. I’m a composer & keyboardist, a scholar in opera, theatre, film-music, literature. In grade six they already knew I couldn’t paint or draw.
Thank God for computers, because I was given a second chance at (artistic) life playing with cameras, graphics and web design. Even so, I could never be mistaken for an artist, and I have never been fooled about my capabilities.
Some artists create work that is so completely original that one wants to create a separate category for their art. For writers or composers we speak of their “voice”. The authentic idiom or language of a choreographer is in movement. For a composer it’s sound. For a painter? Ha, I think it’s silly that I want to call it a “voice”, but it’s just that I tend to relate so much to music that I even think of painting as having a rhetoric and a sound and a language, and that the painter is “speaking”. There’s probably a better word for it that art scholars would know.
So let me return to what I was saying about personal style. I have been thinking about the original vision unique to particular artists. Nevermind whether it’s a voice or a language or a series of signifiers that recur in the work of that artist.
Brian Wyers
I am writing this piece with its big preamble because I have been moved by the works of Brian Wyers. I am intrigued by his paintings even if at the same time, underlying such questions are my own concerns and questions. As much as I may think I am looking at someone else, I am really looking in a kind of distorting mirror, another way to see myself. I hope Brian’s okay with what I say.
I first saw Wyer’s work in a gallery in Coldwater Ontario. The walls were covered with a series of big powerful canvases. Nowadays when I see an artist seizing a space with powerful work I try to understand what they’re doing; but on this occasion I think I was a bit threatened by how self-assured it all seemed. Although the gallery in question is a very large space, these paintings managed to fill the room with their vibrant images. On one wall were flowers, beautiful colours…
The aptly named Adoration
One reason I wanted to ponder that question of unique artistic vision is because of the following painting. It reminds of something Georgia O’Keeffe, the great American painter of flowers, might have created. Now of course I have never seen her works in person, only in books. Not only is the picture in question big but 100% of the painting is a portion of the flower. It’s so indecently, pornographically close up that one almost expects the painting to have a scent. It’s substantially different from what O’Keeffe painted in several ways, but I have to invoke the earlier painter as I process Wyers through the lens of the great American floral painter, a natural reference point in this instance. The title of this work is “Adoration”. To be close to this painting is to be challenged by its beauty. How can one look at it and not adore? If you have eyes you will be seduced. It’s size makes a noncommittal response impossible.
On another wall in that gallery in Coldwater, I was particularly struck by a large canvas that caught something totally magical, a picture of a fish, the water glinting. Under the surface? There was some sort of machinery. Upon closer inspection I saw a bicycle. It seemed so odd.
Only later (months later, when I had my second encounter with this wacky painting) would I make sense of the painting and come to understand its subtext. I understand it’s Gloria Steinem who said
A woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle.
What exactly do we get when we see a fish with a bicycle? While Wyer’s painting is titled “A woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle,” I am intrigued that he shows us a fish with a bicycle, a combination as unexpected as Steinem must have anticipated. In this combination it’s as if we’re seeing –via the extraordinary metaphor—an illustration of woman with man. Am I crazy? If we accept her premise, then why shouldn’t we see woman with man / fish with bicycle?
a woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle: by Brian Wyers
It’s a really big canvas. The power of this work doesn’t really come across in an electronic medium. In person – bicycle or fish—they’re different because they’re much bigger and more impactful. The koi in the picture is gloriously large, an astonishing three feet in size (although from my research I am assured that koi can in fact grow that big), a bright swath of orange dominating the room, in spite of the sweetness of its –dare I say it?—feminine facial expression. The pathetic bicycle destroyed in its aquatic setting? Ha, I can’t help but see that as the masculine part of the painting. And it’s not so absurd if we follow Steinem’s ratio (woman: man = fish: bicycle). Yes, the sexy fish is the woman, and the ridiculous wrecked bicycle is the man. Speaking as a heterosexual man, I can’t help but think that sometimes that’s exactly how it works, that man is as subject to sabotage in the presence of femininity as a bicycle to the charms of wetness. While one could also imagine a fish on the back of a bike in the air-breathing world: gasping for breath where the cycle is at ease. But no, we’re instead in the piscine world, a place where bikes go to rust & die.
I can’t claim that all of Wyers works are as wacky. But he does provoke my thoughts, and this painting isn’t the only one stirring the pot of my brain. This is a picture of something that is beyond uncommon. It’s not really surreal, so much as provisional, speculative, and as a result, poetic in an unusual way. Discussing the images (both the big flower and the fish-bicycle painting) with my wife, who had been with me in that Coldwater Gallery, the word “absurd” came up. She thought absurd isn’t a compliment and doesn’t really sound nice. I was simply seeking the right word, and “absurd” works for me, in the sense of absurdist theatre, whose play on words & logic can be so powerful at times. But I am not sure whether “absurdism” is perhaps too strong. “Whimsical” and “playful” might be better words. His paintings seem to have irony or a kind of self-awareness.
I have to think about this some more. I shall return to Wyers and his pictures, but this is enough for now.
Wyers art can be found in Ayrspace.ca –a group of painters showing in Ayr Ontario– and in Artspace in Oakville.
One of my favourite movies is the 1988 Terry Gilliam film The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (or ABM for short). It features wonderful work from Eric Idle, an uncredited appearance by Robin Williams (“Ray de Tutto” which makes sense considering he was playing the King of Everything), Oliver Reed, and my first unforgettable glimpse of Uma Thurman. Jonathan Pryce—so wonderfully sweet and vulnerable in Brazil —made the mistake of showing us the dark shadow that underlies that sweetness, and as a result has been largely typecast in that dark place ever since. Sarah Polley may have had a huge career since that time, but for me she will always be Sally, the provocative child coaxing and badgering the Baron through so much of this film.
As far as anything you’ll ever read about ABM, I feel inclined to say “and now for something completely different.”
Actor and director John Neville, who passed away November 19th. (click for more information about Neville)
I can’t pretend that I really know John Neville’s work, given that I was aware of his theatre work in Canada long before this film. That’s just it. I’d heard about him for so long, that I didn’t expect him to live up to the hype. English actors are always expected to be good, right? But he far surpassed it, at least on this occasion.
One of the curious things about the film is how it addresses multiple roles & guises. Just at the most elementary level, early in the film we encounter a play-within-the-film that tells the story of the Baron using a different actor. On several occasions in the film, the Baron meets a woman whom he romances using his standard line: that she reminds him of Catherine the Great, whose hand in marriage he refused. At one point he says this to three different women in his presence.
But how, he is asked, could they all remind him?
They do, he assures us, in different ways. And what a wonderful thing it is that he is inspired this way: a Don Juan who believes his own pickup lines.
This is a movie about story-telling, about the imagination of children and their (or I really should say “our”) ability as listeners to dream and imagine.
Sometimes the Baron looks old, especially when he is on the verge of complete defeat, as Sally observes. At such moments he is a cousin of Tinkerbell (in her live theatre incarnations), who relies on the faith of the audience to survive. At other times he is rejuvenated. At one point Sally looks troubled and says “You look different, …younger” to which the Baron retorts “I always feel rejuvenated by a touch of adventure.”
Yes Neville is aided and abetted by makeup and camera work, showing us a Baron in several different forms. But Neville’s greatest ally is the composer, Michael Kamen. I wonder if Kamen deliberately emulates Richard Strauss’s tone-poem Til Eulenspeigel’s Merry Pranks. In Strauss’s work we meet a trickster whose theme is put through a series of variations, corresponding to the disguises employed in his various pranks; Kamen takes the Baron’s music and puts it thought a similar series of variations. Just as Kamen helped supply some of Gilliam’s magic in Brazil, he was every bit as effective in ABM, an expensive film that sadly hurt Gilliam’s reputation even though in my opinion it is one of the greatest films ever made. I hope it isn’t a radical idea to ignore box office receipts. Otherwise Titanic would be considered a better film than Citizen Kane.
Michael Kamen, whom you’ve heard far more than you realize (The Wall, Lethal Weapon etc)
Many of the most memorable moments in ABM are the result of Kamen’s work:
The Baron’s meeting with Venus and subsequent waltz, a moment of such surpassing beauty that I think Gilliam tried to replicate it (or was told to replicate it by his colleagues) in several later films, such as The Fisher King (the moment in the train station which is visually and dramatically compelling while falling down musically) and 12 Monkeys (using Bernard Herrmann, a brilliant idea that didn’t quite work)
The opera within the film (not to be confused with the instances of plays-within-the-film; man oh man this is a complex film come to think of it), called The Torturer’s Apprentice, lyrics by Eric Idle, including the chorus of eunuchs “Cut off in my prime”
The music Kamen creates for the Angel of Death, who is lurking in wait for the Baron throughout the film, finally unleashed by his jealous rival Jackson (played by Pryce).
The brief excerpt from a Requiem Mass for the Baron, sounding like an echo of Mozart’s Requiem, including a heart-wrenching paroxysm in the music when Sally reacts to his face
Here’s the cue –minus visuals—allowing you to hear Kamen’s contribution undistracted by anything else. The Baron’s life-force is finally snatched by the Angel of death just before the 2nd minute, seguing into the Requiem. [alas the cue no longer exists on youtube]
And just as his body is going into the ground we hear Neville unexpectedly uttering one of my favourite lines, using one of his more crusty incarnations (there were several voices to go with the different versions Neville gave us visually): “And that was only one of the many occasions on which I met my death, an experience which I don’t hesitate strongly to recommend.”
The line takes on a special poignant magic with his passing November 19th at the age of 86. Kamen, in sharp contrast to Neville, passed far too early at the age of 55, and by coincidence passed November 18th 2003. I remember both dates as I recall both of these wonderful generous men.
I have to think they’re comparing notes somewhere. They should be proud.
I was fortunate to see Rusalka in its final performance November 19th.at Opéra de Montréal, a co-production of Minnesota Opera & Boston Lyric Opera originally directed by Eric Simonson, remounted on this occasion by Bill Murray.
The production had at least two stars.
First and foremost, the production leans happily on soprano Kelly Kaduce, whose voice is always pleasant & in tune, and sometimes astonishingly expressive. The demands of the role are somewhat daunting if you consider that Rusalka is a mermaid who is transformed into human form, for a time bereft of her voice, and betrayed by the prince who prefers the heat of a high-maintenance princess to the unconditional love of Rusalka: a mute beauty who is as cold as the princess is hot. Kaduce’s physical beauty not only mirrored the innocent loveliness of the natural world from which she comes, but made this challenging story far more believable and absorbing.
Wendall K Harrington, guru of projections
Beauty was the essential ingredient to this production. The other star was the mise-en-scène, particularly the projected images designed by Wendall K. Harrington. We’re immersed in a world apt for each of the three acts, images of startling depth and realism:
Act I: A range of innocent images of nature, the water, the moon, forest, including a brief interlude with a psychedelic colour scheme as Rusalka is being transformed into human form by the witch Jezibaba
Act II: while most of the stage is now the civilized world of the Prince and his court, projections interpose aspects of the natural world, particularly Rusalka’s father Vodnik, the powerful Water Goblin.
Act III: we’re back in the natural world again, but it’s a fallen world, including storms and portents
Bass Robert Pomakov
In some respects this is a conservative production, presenting the main relationships without irony. While two of the subordinate characters (who serve as comic relief) are cut, the overall integrity of the opera is largely preserved. Both Jezibaba (Liliana Nikieanu) and Vodnik (Robert Pomakov) are given their comic moments, but the prevailing tone of the opera is intensely serious. The sub-textual critique of humanity –that the Prince and all humans are simply unworthy of Rusalka and what she and Nature offer—reads as a kind of pro-ecology message. Pomakov ably shoulders the burden as the defender of both his daughter and Nature.
I had been in attendance at the American Society for Theatre Research (ASTR) conference this past weekend in Montreal, lending a curious lens through which to view the performance. After listening to conversations at ASTR concerning alternatives to virtuosity –for example the deliberate use of stutter and false steps by Nature Theatre of Oklahoma –I was sensitive to the ironic choreography in Act II, incorporating slips, slaps, and other mis-steps to suggest a very dark view of romance in what is ostensibly a celebration of conjugal love. But you don’t come out of this production feeling very good about humanity.
This was the closing night of a four performance run. Opéra de Montréal will be back Sunday December 4th for a special fund-raising Gala.
As I type this, I am listening to the latest news concerning the various Occupy movements in the background. They’re speaking briefly of Occupy Boston, after having spoken of the Toronto version. And they’re also speaking of events in Los Angeles & Portland. For awhile there was little or no coverage: which upset those demanding some response from the “1%”. Silence, however, may have been preferable to the coverage I’m seeing now, which has a focus almost completely on the confrontations with police, while omitting any of the conversations that these protests were meant to generate.
Martin Luther King
But nevermind. Perhaps the reason the press coverage is missing the message (such as it is) has to do with a failure to learn the lessons taught by Gandhi and his great American disciple, Martin Luther King. MLK is a small player in Satyagraha, but brings the action of the libretto into the modern era.
Satyagraha is the second of the three portrait operas Glass created in the 1970s and 1980s:
Einstein on the Beach (1976): to be produced in USA & France, and later coming to Toronto in 2012 as part of the Luminato Festival
Satyagraha (1980)
Akhnaten (1983)
Satyagraha is a compound Sanskrit word possibly meaning “the force of truth” or “insistence of truth;” as I don’t speak Sanskrit there will be no insistence that I know this with certainty, only that I have been reading about this for a long time. The word is associated with Mohandas (aka “Mahatma”) Gandhi’s mass resistance technique, something like passive resistance.
While Akhnaten is an opera that seems to be about spirituality –concerning the first monotheistic Egyptian King—I believe Satyagraha is even more spiritual. Gandhi is unquestionably a political figure, but his methods are ultimately spiritual.
The entire libretto comes from Gandhi’s religious subtext, namely the Bhagavad Gita. It is as though one were telling the story of Martin Luther King’s life in a play comprised completely from lines in the New Testament.
One passage in the last act –my favourite lines—situates the opera right on the interface between spirituality and activism. Gandhi himself sings the following:
The Lord said, I have passed through many a birth and many have you. I know them all but you do not. Yet by my creative energy, I consort with Nature and come to be in time. Whenever the law of righteousness withers away and lawlessness arises, then do I generate myself on earth. I come into being age after age and take a visible shape and move a man with men for the protection of good, thrusting the evil back and setting virtue on her seat again. (from full libretto)
Activism is reborn in every era. We meet Gandhi in his youth in South Africa, and by the end of the opera encounter Martin Luther King, a more recent incarnation of this energy.
Satyagraha will be broadcast Saturday November 19th, and also will be available in an encore broadcast (USA: Dec 7th , Canada: January 14th).
barczablog 