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.
~~~~~~~~
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).
Essential Opera is a relative newcomer to the Toronto scene. I watched their presentation of Massenet’s Chérubin tonight, a logical sequel considering that their debut earlier in 2011 (that I missed by the way) was Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro.
Massenet’s piece is a light-hearted romp, devoid of any of the socio-political tensions that gave the Beaumarchais play such an edge in its day, and still gives da Ponte’s libretto so much relevance. Only Chérubin survives in this sequel by Francis de Croisset, as a seventeen year old officer, just as we’d expect from what we’d heard in Beaumarchais’ play and Mozart’s opera.
While there might be a Duke, a Count and a Baron, they are not differentiated in any way to suggest that, for example, this might perhaps be the Count Almaviva from the earlier plays. Instead they are more like a royal version of the Keystone Kops: which isn’t so different from the modern royals, come to think of it. There’s also a Countess and Baroness for the young soldier to pursue, although most of the time the women pursue the soldier this time. Amatory adventures, and the accompanying threat of duels are the chief action of this opera. Just as in Mozart’s adaptation via Da Ponte, the role of Chérubin (Cherubino in the Italian opera) is sung by a mezzo-soprano. While Massenet sometimes offers a hint of rococo, he writes for a romantic orchestra, ably impersonated for Essential Opera by pianist David Eliakis.
This work represents an ambitious choice of repertoire. Clearly Essential Opera were not afraid of the challenges when they chose a comparatively unknown work that requires several strong voices with a strong command of French both in singing and several declamatory moments.
Soprano Erin Bardua
The audience embraced their efforts. The comedy was not lost on us, often quite elaborately staged even in the concert context. The work began somewhat tentatively, but came to life with the arrival of L’Ensoleillad, the seductive dancer who is both the King’s favourite and Chérubin’s dream woman. Soprano Erin Bardua’s delightful coloratura and confident command of the stage silenced a restless audience, while helping to settle everyone else on stage. Bardua’s arrival improved everyone else, as the company gained energy and confidence the rest of the way.
Mezzo-soprano Margaret Bárdos as the trousered young soldier displayed a wonderful gift for comedy, both in her ironic expressions, her delivery and her delightful impersonation of a young man. As Nina, Chérubin’s true love (for now), Maureen Batt was the other outstanding vocal portrayal, treading a fine line between pathos and comedy, particularly when she seemed bound for a convent in the last act.
Soprano Maureen Batt
Hm, come to think of it, the two most impressive voices in the production happen to be the co-artistic directors, none other than Bardua and Batt. Good thing they had the good sense to employ such wonderful voices.
The other star –and he was the backbone of the performance—was Eliakis at the piano. Sometimes concert performances sound more like lieder, in the careful pianism one gets, but not this time. Eliakis was fearless, often challenging the voices to sing out with his passionate playing, yet without losing accuracy.
Essential Opera will be back in May 2012 with Handel’s Alcina, this time accompanied by chamber orchestra. I can’t wait!
Marcel Danesi is a Professor of Anthropology who has followed his heart, from the study of Italian language & literature to the study of customs, signs & symbols (aka semiotics), and culture in its manifestations. Danesi’s current brainchild is That’s Puzzling!, a new Saturday magazine insert in the Toronto Star, and he also makes regular contributions to Psychology Today.
I ask him ten questions: five about himself and five about his work.
Professor Marcel Danesi. Click image to see recent publications.
1) Which of your parents do you resemble (what’s your nationality / ethnic background)?
I resemble my father most, although I have the spark of my mother (both have passed away). I was born in Italy.
2) what is the BEST thing / worst thing about what you do?
The best thing about what I do is teaching. I love every minute of it, and I get paid for it to boot. I will miss it horribly when I retire. The worst thing is having to give grades. I wish that this system of evaluation did not exist. It is difficult and often humiliating to have to assess the very ones I teach and who I really admire.
3) who do you like to listen to or watch?
I love classical music. I have it on all the time, morning to night as I work and do other things. I love to watch documentary programs on TV.
4) what ability or skill do you wish you had, that you don’t have?
I am not sure I want to be any different than what I am.
5) when you’re just relaxing (and not working) what is your favourite thing to do?
Henry E Dudeney, a great creator of puzzles
My favorite thing is to read. I love it.
5 more questions concerning puzzles and That’s Puzzling!
1) what’s the biggest challenge in creating puzzles?
Striking a balance, that is, making them at a level that is just challenging enough, but not too much, for then the solver would become frustrated.
2) what do you love about puzzles?
They tell a human story. Since the solution to a puzzle is never obvious, involving twists and imaginative thinking, it is a small-scale model of the large-scale questions of humanity. The latter have no answers, puzzles do and thus, as a great puzzle-maker, Henry E. Dudeney once said, they are their own reward.
3) do you have a favourite type of puzzle?
Oedipus and the Sphinx by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres
Not really. Since I write about them and teach a course here at the university on the history of the “puzzle instinct” I have come to realize that every type of puzzle has its particular charm.
4) how do you reconcile being a puzzle afficionado with your life as a modern man?
Puzzles are as old as civilization and they continue to fascinate us today as they did people in the ancient world where they were considered to be portents of destiny–oracles spoke in riddles and gematrians used anagrams to foretell destiny.
5) Is there a puzzle you’ve ever encountered that you especially admire, or that influenced you?
The Riddle of the Sphinx, as the first written puzzle of humanity, is still the most fascinating puzzle of all. “What is that walks on four at dawn, three at noon, and four at twilight?” The answer is “humans”, who crawl at the dawn of life (on all fours), stand up and are bipedal (at the height of the day) and need a cane to get by at the twilight of life. What a brilliant metaphor for who we are. And guess who solved it? Oedipus. The rest is legend.
I watched the latest instalment of Robert Lepage’s Ring cycle at the Metropolitan Opera in a high definition broadcast.
The celebrated machine that is the star of the production continues to amuse and delight. In the latest episode we see a greater reliance on projections and animation, making me wonder whether the complete Ring presentation next year may feature more of these images, elaborating upon what was seen in the first two operas. The production gives us Wagner’s opera virtually intact. That may seem unremarkable until one remembers how challenging it is to stage some of the effects called for in the score:
A dragon slain in battle by Siegfried
A talking bird
A mountain surrounded by impenetrable fire: that can be penetrated by one who does not know the meaning of fear
Siegfried vs Fafner
And so we actually see something to suggest all of these effects, whether we’re speaking of the key elements of the story or minutiae. Siegfried makes his first entrance accompanied by a bear that he uses to harass his guardian, Mime. Not only do we get a bird, but this time —as specified in the score–we see the bird chased away by the ravens that serve as the Wanderer’s entourage.
But this is not cinematic realism, notwithstanding the filmic element in some of the elements being projected. We are confronted with an obvious hybrid of the living actors and a patently artificial surface that the viewer must construct in their mind into some sort of combination-reality. Parts of the set are clearly visible as projection surfaces, simultaneously aiding the illusion while offering a classic Brechtian gestus reminding us that we’re looking at a projection of a forest or a river or a magic fire.
I am reminded of Lepage’s last production with the Canadian Opera Company, namely The Nightingale and Other Stories, featuring shadow puppetry. When Siegfried dips his newly fashioned sword into the fake stream to cool it down, and later grabs some fake stream to refresh himself, it’s a wonderful tromp-l’oeil moment, playing both with our sense of perspective and our awareness of the artificiality of the moment.
For last year’s Die Walküre I felt at times that I was watching a performance for a studio audience (albeit without an “applause” sign), especially given the intimate camera work and ultra-soft vocalism. For today’s performance I think we’ve now gone a step further, as we watched an opera that seemed like a virtual performance. Some parts work better than others. The forest bird is a wonderful effect that moved me; the final scene on the mountain-top, however, didn’t work quite so well for me –at least in the High Definition broadcast—due to the confusing perspective (maybe it looks better in the house?). Perhaps this will be resolved in time.
Eric Owens, hair-raising in his brief appearances as Alberich
During the Metropolitan Opera broadcast of Siegfried we were treated to the drama of the last moment substitution of an understudy, namely Jay Hunter Morris in the title role. It’s a very exciting scenario, even if the rags-to-riches story they tell is perhaps an exaggeration the way they played it on the broadcast. A quick look at Morris’s website indicates that he’s been singing heldentenor roles for at least a few years. His next year looks phenomenally busy, not just with the sequel upcoming at the Met, namely Götterdämmerung to be broadcast in February, but also a Tristan next summer. I wish Morris well, particularly given the worldwide shortage of tenor talent.
While it’s difficult to assess the success of the voices in the house –a huge space seating over 3,500– arguably the production targets the viewers of the broadcast, rather than those in attendance. Gerhard Siegel as Mime impressed me most of the main personages, both for his flamboyant dramatics and his wonderful vocal characterization. Bryn Terfel’s Wanderer put me in mind of his Rheingold Wotan, particularly in the scene when Eric Owens appeared on stage; for that brief period Owens blew Terfel’s lighter voice away, although in fairness the part is very brief. For those few moments Owens is terrifyingly powerful. Terfel’s delicate and lyrical sound, coupled with his fascinating looks were compelling and always seemed well conceived and thoughtful.
Neither dragon nor bird let me down. The illusion of the forging scene was satisfactory and was wonderfully sung by Morris and Siegel. Only one aspect of the production disappointed me, and unfortunately serves as a dark omen for Gotterdammerung, the last installment to come in early 2012. Deborah Voigt sang the role of Brunnhilde adequately, but simply did not suggest the depths of compassion and insight of this pivotal role. I simply can’t picture her singing the Immolation Scene, although i desperately want her to succeed. In fairness she’s new to this role and likely will grow in the role.
As I prepare for the Remembrance Day Service in my church (this coming weekend btw) I can’t help thinking of some of the fascinating contradictions associated with the day: contradictions that are inevitable given the depth of emotion stirred by such memories.
November 11th is designated as “Remembrance Day” in Canada and Commonwealth countries, but known by other names such as “Armistice Day” or “Veterans’ Day”. We seek to remember soldiers who served in wars. We honour those who served in some capacity, and seek out those who can bear witness.
In a Christian church in peacetime we are easily able to find texts supporting one side of the equation: the dream of peace. That’s what every soldier wants.
Poet John McRae: click the photo to see other McRae poems
Even so, alongside the yearning for peace, there is a celebration of the warrior. In Flanders Fields, John McRae’s iconic poem of the Great War, contains these lines:
Take up our quarrel with the foe: To you from failing hands we throw The torch; be yours to hold it high. If ye break faith with us who die We shall not sleep, though poppies grow In Flanders fields.
There’s nothing problematic about this sentiment while it’s in the mouth of a soldier contemplating war and the fallen. It’s another thing entirely in a church, where Christian values collide with the secular values of war. How does one reconcile the commandment against killing with the usual behaviour of a soldier: killing the enemy?
But in fact there are plenty of instances where the Bible contains records of wars and the killing of the enemy. Sometimes the church says we must not kill, while at other times says the opposite. I think the version of church many of us have encountered—particularly in the years when Canada’s military presence in the world was as peace-maker rather than war-monger—emphasized the dove over the hawk, even though the past few years –notably since September 2001—have seen a renewal of a more conservative celebration of this day for warriors.
John Magee, aviator and poet. Click the picture for the text of the poem.
The other text I associate with Remembrance Day is John Gillespie Magee’s poem High Flight. It re-frames the actions of a pilot as a kind of lyrical celebration. I think one reason it’s been celebrated is the complete absence of anything warlike from its lines. Magee’s immortal poem was written before he had reached his 20th birthday, and his untimely end.
I am reminded of another contradictory text associated with war. The song Jerusalem with its text by William Blake was composed in the darkest days of the First World War by Sir Hubert Parry. In that context Blake’s poem can be read as a kind of call to arms, even though I believe it is originally more of a call for spiritual awakening (particularly in a line such as “I will not cease from mental fight”). The weapons that are named all carry strong metaphorical connotations far from the realm of actual warfare:
Bring me my Bow of burning gold; Bring me my Arrows of desire: Bring me my Spear: O clouds unfold! Bring me my Chariot of fire!
Blake is no war poet even though the celebration of Remembrance Day often puts Blake’s words into the same Order of Service with the young poet-warriors.
Parry (via Elgar’s orchestration especially) can be proud of his creation.
Are we evolving away from war as a species? Ha, here I am –like Blake in that poem—asking questions.
barczablog 