There’s no better affirmation of the power of a particular opera score than to see it performed in concert: or maybe that should be “hear” rather than “see”. The only impact a designer has on such a performance is the cut of a tuxedo or the style of an evening gown. The evening depends on the singing, the musicianship and the music itself.
Callas as Violetta
Tonight I attended the second of three presentations of La Traviata being undertaken by Bill Shookhoff’s company Opera by Request, a testimony not just to its popularity (given the good sized turnout) but its dramatic power as well.
Traviata has always felt modern to me in its bourgeois concerns, unlike Rigoletto and Il Trovatore, the other masterpieces Verdi composed in the 1850s, with their royal personages and unlikely romantic plots. Traviata is one of the earliest operas with such a contemporary focus, believable scenario (a courtesan dying of consumption) and has remained among the most popular.
A concert presentation is a mixed blessing. Yes the voices are front and centre, especially in an intimate setting, but the singers must conjure the illusion without sets or costumes, without champagne or an actual deathbed. In Opera by Request’s presentation we notice the biggest discrepancy in the two party scenes, whereas the more intimate scenes between two principals were far more successful.
Traviata sinks or swims with the soprano portraying Violetta, a role requiring the consummate singing actor, while—at least for me—the others only matter in their impact upon Violetta and her short life.
Soprano Jennifer Carter
Jennifer Carter achieved the most important of the requirements of any Violetta. It has been said that over the course of the work, we require several different singers to encompass the drama and corresponding vocal writing Verdi entrusts to her. From the moment she appeared, we believed Carter as a courtesan and bon vivant living under the shadow of her illness. I was especially persuaded by Carter’s confrontation with the elder Germont in Act II and her final act duet with Alfredo & eventual death.
Paul Williamson as Alfredo was for me the vocal star of the evening, with a lovely voice, masterful top and exquisite musicianship, never straying off pitch. Wayne Line’s Giorgio Germont transcended the usual stiff conservative; as a result, we saw a confrontation between two loving individuals in disagreement (Line’s Germont and Carter’s Violetta), giving their scene the weight of real tragedy.
Shookhoff was the usual note-perfect accompanist.
Opera By Request will offer their third and final performance Wednesday April 13th at the New St James Presbyterian Church, London Ontario.
Romney’s painting for the shipwreck in The Tempest
There you are on a desert island, the place where what-if questions are always posited. One is asked impossible hypotheticals, such as “If you were on a desert island, and you could only take one book, one DVD, one beverage, one appliance… which one would you take.”
Okay, here’s another impossible question, one I am sure you’ve never heard. If you were cast ashore on that desert island, what opera would you decide to set on your island, and then enact on the island?
It’s an odd question, yes. But curiously enough, lots of operas are set on the proverbial desert island.
Two operas immediately popped into my head, because of current events, namely the two comparatively recent adaptations of Shakespeare’s The Tempest. One premiered in 2004, with music composed by Thomas Adès, and a libretto by Meredith Oakes adapted from Shakespeare; this Tempest will premiere at the Metropolitan Opera in the 2012-13 season in a production to be directed by Robert Lepage. The other, with a libretto adapted from Shakespeare by Mark Shulgassser, was composed by Lee Hoiby, the American compsoer who passed away this week; Schirmer say it was composed in 1985. I wonder if Hoiby is reading this from some paradisal setting, possibly at peace, possibly disgruntled that the wrong setting is coming to the Met.
One of the earliest operas we know of, is Monteverdi’s setting of the Ariadne story, L’Arianna. Curiously the opera about the mythological castaway is itself as lost as if it were a ship wrecked at sea. I find this very poignant, particularly because one tiny little bit of it survives, like a little chunk of wreckage found floating in the vast ocean. We have not lost Ariadne’s lament “Lasciatemi morire” (or “let me die”), one of the earliest pieces I learned to play on the piano. I learned it because it’s in that Schirmer anthology of Italian arias that everyone gets, but also because it’s easy to play. This tiny little composition –on a single page in the Schirmer book– is a powerful little drama. Hear it for yourself:
….how odd, you may think that a man sings this. But the circumstances are not so different than a popular Broadway song, or a tune from a Hollywood film. Youtube has versions of this song by Jewel (yes that one: the pop singer), Paul Robeson, as well as several wonderful recordings sung by women. I chose to use Corelli because it corresponds to my own early experience of the work. I first played the accompaniment while my brother sang it.
Of course this is just a roundabout way of introducing my favourite desert island opera, namely Ariadne auf Naxos. With libretto by Hugo von Hoffmannsthal, and music by Richard Strauss –after Giacomo Puccini, possibly the most successful opera composer of the last century, — this is a very sophisticated take on the story.
Dale Ferguson’s design for Zerbinetta on the beach
The Canadian Opera Company are opening a new production of the Strauss opera in the next few weeks, and I can’t wait. The designs, posted on the COC’s blog, elicited these ruminations. I shared them to Facebook, where friends and I had a bit of an exchange that led me here.
Upon seeing that Zerbinetta has three costumes, including one outfit she puts on when she realizes that she’ll be on an exotic island, James Fretz said “It is so important to have the perfect island wear. It can’t be stressed too much.”
I replied “Seriously, if you could pick one opera character to travel with, wouldn’t Zerbinetta be close to the top of the list?” …Because of course her happy demeanor is the opposite of sad Ariadne.
And so for awhile we wondered about operatic travel-companions. Some of them are pretty dreary:
don’t get in a boat with Peter Grimes
ditto for The Flying Dutchman
Aschenbach (Death in Venice) will talk your ear off
don’t open the door to Jack the Ripper (Lulu)
and it’s hard to imagine enjoying a glass of zinfandel sitting in an outdoor café with either Alberich or Mime
you’d enjoy tagging along after Don Giovanni however
Yes, the questions are nerdy to the extreme. I guess i need a vacation and it doesn’t have to involve a desert island. In the meantime, we don’t have to travel any further than the opera house, where we’ll encounter a strange juxtaposition of characters, some fun, some serious. The premise for Ariadne auf Naxos reminds me of the crazy mashups of ideas you’d see in a sketch from Second City.
If you missed the Battle of the PBS Stars, Julia Child boxes with Mr Rogers (the clip above). Odd as this may seem, the combination of one template (battle of the stars) with another (recognizable PBS celebrities) creates something new and completely absurd.
Ariadne auf Naxos is much the same. A rich man’s entertainment is to include two contrasting entertainments:
a comic scene of commedia dell’arte
a serious operatic scene
Imagine if suddenly, due to time constraints, they were forced to play simultaneously. That’s the bizarre premise for Strauss’s opera, as comedy and tragedy share the stage together.
For instance, in this little excerpt Harlequin sings a simple song in an attempt to lift Ariadne’s spirits, accompanied not only by his commedia cohort but also by Echo, one of the mythological nymphs on the island. It’s a strange mix, which is why i invoked SCTV. While I’m not sure it always works (some operas, in comparison, seem indestructible), when it does work the blend of sublime and ridiculous is pure theatre magic.
Ariadne auf Naxos, at the Four Seasons Centre, April 30-May 29
The designs, posted on the COC’s blog, elicited these ruminations. I shared them to Facebook, where friends Joseph Fretz, Donald Arthur and I had a bit of an exchange that led me here.
There’s nothing quite like cinema to change your viewpoint. Film has changed my perspective on Frederic Chopin more than once.
Chopin by Delacroix
I’d grown up with his music around me, aware of him almost from the beginning. Anyone learning how to play piano must reckon with a few titans of the keyboard. One inevitably encounters them, particularly Bach and Beethoven, Mozart and Chopin. Each one is a combination of pleasures and challenges, of requirements to be met and rewards offered in return.
I was dimly aware of the biographical details, a little bit of context. Chopin is the most ethnic of the four keyboard giants, which is to say, the only non-German admitted to the pianistic pantheon.
And the complexities abound, for when we think of Chopin’s ethnicity, we are really examining two cultural milieu. As a child Chopin lived in Poland, his Mother’s birthplace, the land of the Polonaise and Mazurka.
As a man Chopin came to Paris, his father’s homeland and the artistic capital of the world for most of the 19th Century, the home of sophistication, style, subtlety.
In my head I always saw two tendencies in conflict. The Eastern European side, with which I identified as a Hungarian, seemed vulgar and clumsy compared to the restraint and elegance of Paris. I assumed that the Polish youth would be awed by Paris. Of course, that was a projection of my own insecurities, my own sense of being the cultural outsider in Toronto, even though I have no accent, nor any reason not to be fully assimilated.
Hugh Grant as Chopin, Judy Davis as George Sand
Then I saw Impromptu, a refreshingly unpretentious 1991 film that encouraged me to shake free of the pretentious views I’d held onto for so long. It offered a new look at several artists –Chopin, and also Franz Liszt, George Sand, Eugene Delacroix—not as icons, but simply as people. Whatever you may think of its merits, there are moments in the film that have a wonderful ring of truth.
I’ve had another such wake-up call with a recent film. Chopin at the Opera is a difficult creation to classify, something in the borderline between documentary, concert and colloquium. A series of experts across many disciplines talk about Chopin while we hear excerpts played and sung.
Their focus is wonderfully narrow, with a focus on a new series of ideas about Chopin.
In 1830 when Chopin was forced to emigrate at the age of 20, we know a few things from indirect evidence. Chopin loved the opera. This has a ring of truth to me as I picture a recent arrival in Paris, perhaps not able to keep up with the sophisticated conversation of his new home; what better refuge for the talented young pianist, than an artform practiced in foreign languages? Whether he understood the operas in Italian or not, their Babel likely mirrored his own disorientation, a stranger in a strange land.
Chopin at the Opera
Chopin at the Opera looks at the mutual influence of opera upon Chopin, and his own influence upon the culture of his time, especially singers such as Pauline Viardot who sang versions of Chopin’s piano music. Did you know that Viardot made virtuoso vocalises from some of Chopin’s Mazurkas, achieving fame throughout Europe?
At the same time, the film also issues a series of wonderful provocations about Chopin’s music. His melodies are at times like bel canto solos. I find I am hearing Chopin in an entirely new way, and re-thinking Rossini, Bellini & Donizetti as well.
The film is a colloquium in multiple languages (German, French, English), reminding me again of what Chopin must have experienced in his brief life. Piano & voice engage in dialogues, not placid concert performances, but intense discussions of how to perform, a study in how one discourse informs the other. We spend much of the film channelling George Sand’s love of Chopin, both in a series of calm readings from her memoirs, and in the use of her home as the setting for the film.
I am mightily stimulated by this little film that tosses out so many provocative phrases:
“CHOPIN HAD NOTHING TO SAY… and that’s why it’s so brilliant”…And I think he’s right. The speaker –in German—was contrasting Chopin to other composers who employ programmes or texts, and felt that—like Bach—Chopin created absolute music.
“It’s as if Chopin wanted the voice but to do away with language, disengage himself from words”….And another invoked Mendelssohn’s compositions answering “ohne worte”.
“In his time people wanted to associate titles, meanings, texts… but that wasn’t Chopin’s aesthetic at all.” Again we’re thinking of absolute music, but this time they’d portray Chopin as a kind of anti-romantic holdout, refusing to be tainted by sentimentality or literal-minded readings of his music.
Last year was Chopin’s year. 2010 was the year to commemorate the bicentennial of his birth. 2011 is now Liszt’s bicentennial, also McLuhan’s centennial, so maybe I am a bit late. Schmidt-Garre made Chopin at the Opera in 2010, presumably as part of the commemoration. I shall have to spend a little longer with this material before I figure it out. I am thoroughly stimulated, and suspect you would be as well.
When i was in highschool, one of my teachers explained the conventional wisdom of advertising for my impressionable ears. I still remember my surprise, listening to Mr Kearn tell me that Ford or GM or Chrysler would not ever say anything against one another, because at the same time they were selling their brand, they were also selling cars in general.
Mr Kearn said these companies created their ads in search of something called “market share.” GM or Ford seek to enlarge their percentage of the total dollars spent on that product. And by promoting the activity in general, all of the competing companies seek to enlarge the total amount spent on cars (compared to say, cola or Barbie dolls). Everyone making a car ad sells the joys of driving, promoting the big product –cars– while also promoting their own brand as well.
Positive ads have at least two outcomes:
1) first by showing or speaking of an activity, you promote that activity in a non-specific way. If you show cars you’re selling the glamour or the fun of car ownership, the pleasures of driving, and so on.
2) and second, when you name a particular brand or product, you identify some smaller group within the larger class from #1, such as Ford, or Firestone tires.
a sophisticated negative ad
And so, we come to another phenomenon, namely the negative ad. Yes I was thinking of attack ads, made by one political party, drawing our attention to something the opposition has done, such as a false promise or an embarassing quotation.
Not all negative ads are political attack ads. For example, I call your attention to the long campaign from Mac ridiculing PC. Mac is cool, PC is businesslike, Mac is reliable, PC crashes. And so on. The fascinating thing about this series of ads is how gently they make their attack. Even so, there’s no denying that this is still a species of negative ad.
As Canadians enter another election, I am thinking about the consequences of negative ads. I wish our political ads were as sophisticated as the Mac-PC ads, which seem comparatively victimless, compared to the snarling tone of the usual political attack ad.
By the logic of Mr Kearn’s lesson on the positive ad (where we avoid negative language to avoid words backfiring against the product class), there are also possible unforeseen consequences for negative ads. Or perhaps those consequences are clearly foreseen and even expected by the party planning gurus.
We can picture two different outcomes for the negative ads, just like the positive ads i mentioned above.
The first one is well documented. When one political party says negative things about a particular politician, it encourages people to shun that person and not vote for the person attacked. That’s more or less the part we’re conscious of, when a politician is picked apart and thereby loses his “market share”, or in other words, loses popular support.
The second? i don’t know that it’s properly recognized, but it’s equally important. Just as the positive ad works both in support of a class of product as well as a specific product within that class, so too with the negative ad. In addition to persuading voters not to vote for the targetted politician, there is an additional broader response to the broader product being sold, namely the political system and our elected representatives.
The negative ad encourages a sort of despair, because it proclaims that politicians need to be scrutinized carefully, that they sometimes are untruthful (haha: as if that were news), that politics is not a nice business, that politics is actually a revolting sad affair. One loses enthusiasm, loses faith in the good in people, while sinking into a kind of negative expectation. One becomes cynical, as if they were broken-hearted. Without faith in society & the process, people will not want to vote, and won’t show up. When people become cynical about politicians, they stop caring about the outcome, and surrender their franchise.
So far I have not reached a state of despair. As we enter the Canadian federal election campaign, one of the by-products that some will aim for is a kind of fatigue, to persuade voters not to show up. History shows that low turnouts support the incumbent, whereas high turnout indicates a desire for change. Speaking as a voter who wants a change, i am fearful of the manipulative power of advertising that not only directly addresses the candidates, but may have the power to sap voters’ will to show up, to wear them down, break their hearts, and ultimately persuade them that democracy doesn’t work. I hope that people show up–whoever wins–so that the outcome is a reflection of the will of the people, a passionate choice, not apathy and despair.
At the very least, elections give us wonderful opportunities for comedy (the following makes fun of both Liberals & Conservatives… i apologize to those from the other parties who might feel left out).
My friend Joseph So recently shared a link on Facebook that started a conversation about conductors.
Carlos Kleiber
“Carlos Kleiber has been named the greatest conductor of all time in the April issue of BBC Music Magazine… In a poll, 100 conductors including Sir Colin Davis, Gustavo Dudamel, Valery Gergiev and Mariss Jansons were asked to vote for their favourite.”
Here are the conductors’ selections, lifedates & nationalities; boldface signifies conductors who are still living.
1. Carlos Kleiber (1930-2004) Austrian
2. Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990) American 3. Claudio Abbado (b1933) Italian
4. Herbert von Karajan (1908-1989) Austrian 5. Nikolaus Harnoncourt (b1929) Austrian 6. Sir Simon Rattle (b 1955) British
7. Wilhelm Furtwängler (1896-1954)
8. Arturo Toscanini (1867-1957) Italian 9. Pierre Boulez (b1925) French
10. Carlo Maria Giulini (1914-2005) Italian 11. Sir John Eliot Gardiner (b1943) British
12. Sir John Barbirolli (1899-1970) British
13. Terenc Fricsay (1914-1963) Hungarian
14. George Szell (1897-1970) Hungarian 15. Bernard Haitink (b1929) Dutch
16. Pierre Monteux (1875-1964) French
17. Yevgeny Mravinsky (1903-1988) Russian 18. Sir Colin Davis (b1927) British
19. Sir Thomas Beecham (1879-1961) British
20. Sir Charles Mackerras (1925-2010) Australian
As much as I agree with many on the list, I couldn’t help wondering: about the few unexpected omissions such as James Levine or Otto Klemperer, and about what such a list tells us. What is a conductor’s conductor? Too bad nobody asked the conductors to spell out what they admire in their colleagues. Baton technique or fund-raising prowess? Masterful control of the orchestra or of reviewers & publicity? Clearly tastes are changing, as evidenced by the inclusion of Harnoncourt & Gardiner.
At some point you may begin wondering what any of this has to do with the title of the post: “The Nerds Shall Inherit the Earth.” The nerds of course have the patience to wait for me to get to the point; as usual, we have a lot to learn from the nerds. I’ll get back to them in a moment.
Conductors at one time were a fearsome bunch. Think of Leopold Stokowski, Gustav Mahler (yes he was a conductor, not just a composer), or Arturo Toscanini. They unapologetically re-wrote scores, etching their own personal stamp on music from someone else; and for their audience this was never a problem.
If you think of the imposing shadow Stokowski casts –literally—in Fantasia, you almost have the sense that a composer was lucky to submit to the brilliance of such an artist. But as I said earlier in reference to the BBC conductor poll, fashions change. The world has had records (wax, vinyl, and assorted digital formats) for over a century, which means that the worldwide audience exhibits a growing sophistication. When I recently watched Fantasia with my grand-daughter I found the tone a bit condescending, as if the maestro were so far above us as to be invisible in the clouds. Conductors of the old school were absolute rulers, tyrants who commanded.
The world has changed of course. Whether in the world of sports, in management, or the arts, tyranny is no longer acceptable in a leader (even if several countries still seem to put up with pompous asses…but excuse me for venturing off topic). In its place, there appear to be a number of possible prototypes to replace the old one: if you can call anything “new” that has been emerging for quite awhile now.
One option is the composer-conductor, arguably the original role of the composer, if we recall that Richard Wagner & Hector Berlioz were among the first great orchestral conductors. Among the Top Twenty we find Wilhelm Furtwangler, Leonard Bernstein and Pierre Boulez. There are others such as André Previn & John Williams from the world of film music. This signifies a new option only if the composer-conductor resists the temptation to re-write masterworks; that’s exactly the kind of textual fidelity we see with Bernstein & Boulez.
Toronto Conductor & Scholar David Fallis
Another option is the scholar-conductor. The scholars are perhaps the ones who have been quietly changing the musical landscape. Charles Mackerras, Frans Bruggen, Roger Norrington, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, John Eliot Gardiner, René Jacobs all bring a different sort of authority to the podium: the authority of research. In Toronto we have another such scholar, namely David Fallis of the Toronto Consort & Opera Atelier, whose careful exploration of the text makes him leader on merit, rather than by some sort of divine right of the podium.
Both composer & scholar have legitimacy as the leader of the ensemble. The older model – of the virtuoso conductor—can also work of course. Carlos Kleiber came up the usual way, as an instrumentalist, then a repetiteur, and then as a conductor. James Levine, too, plays the piano with his singers, a talented musician who is a friendly leader rather than a fearsome ogre.
And so we’re seeing several competing prototypes on the podium. Sometimes we get the slick matinee idol looks of the old powerful maestro, for example Riccardo Muti, Herbert von Karajan or Carlo Maria Giulini. Alongside that image, we have a gentler sort of conductor, such as Fallis, Norrington, and Rattle.
I watched a movie today that I found online, namely The Schumann Encounter – Robert’s Rescue, starring Simon Callow & yes, Roger Norrington.
You may remember Simon Callow as the boisterous friend in Four Weddings & a Funeral, or Schikaneder in the film of Amadeus. Callow was in fact the original Mozart for the premiere of Shaffer’s play in 1979.
Norrington –who is also credited with the idea for the film—is in some respects the most daring of the scholars. Where Bruggen, Harnoncourt, Fallis & Jacobs have explored early music (admittedly a loaded term, and with very different application for some such as Fallis than for the others) using instruments purporting to be authentic, Norrington fearlessly explores music previously left to the modern orchestra such as the symphonies of Brahms and even Mahler. It also means that some of his experiments rub people the wrong way, if this critique is any indication.
The complete film is available—at least for the time being—through the link (below). It’s a charming fantasy, exploring the mind and mythology of Robert Schumann, as exemplified in this little blurb from Schumann’s wikipedia entry:
Chopin’s work is discussed by imaginary characters created by Schumann himself: Florestan (the embodiment of Schumann’s passionate, voluble side) and Eusebius (his dreamy, introspective side)…. A third, Meister Raro, is called upon for his opinion. Raro may represent either the composer himself, Wieck’s daughter Clara, or the combination of the two (Clara + Robert).
In Schumann’s suite Carnaval, opus 9, both passionate Florestan & contemplative Eusebius get a musical self-portrait (“self-portrait” because they are aspects of Schumann’s mind).
Contemplative eusebius:
Passionate Florestan:
The film is heart-breaking in some respects. Talk about a nerd project! Here’s a film made for those so fascinated by Robert Schumann that they would enjoy a film exploring his internal demons. That the film is available online for free suggests that perhaps there aren’t enough of us – Schumann nerds of the world—to have made the film profitable. While it does have a few silly moments, its chief strength is the way it illuminates something of Schumann’s madness. I don’t think it matters that at times it resembles a total flight of fantasy. It’s no more fanciful nor any more inaccurate than the aforementioned commercial success, Amadeus. While Norrington may not be everyone’s cup of tea –as actor, film-maker or his chief strength as conductor—I really like this film. If you’re a musical nerd maybe you’ll like it too.
Today I visited my Mother’s house after church. I had stayed late for a rehearsal of the big piece we’re performing in April, namely Ernest Bloch’s Sacred Service.
It’s funny how things sometimes seem to follow patterns, whether in reality or in our minds.
At church, our music director David Warrack is teaching us music sung in Hebrew. For everyone at today’s rehearsal, that means we’re singing phonetically without much comprehension (except when we encounter hallelujah or amen). We’re making music, trying to make sense of words that normally would be a foreign language. The piece by Bloch becomes an inter-cultural bridge. While that may seem odd, it’s how people learn oratorios, operas, songs written in other languages; part of the task is to dig into the text, to properly learn what the text means, its context and how it is to be pronounced. It’s a wonderfully seductive process, because one never gets to a point where one knows too much. An Englishman learning Shakespeare or a German learning Bach will always have more they can learn, so you can imagine that newcomers will have that much more to discover. In the meantime, a text such as Bloch’s score is a magic carpet, taking us into a whole new world.
Need I mention that the intention of the organizers – who are bringing together choirs from different faith communities—is to encourage inter-faith encounter? The conversation across faiths (where each faith represents a discursive community, a complex network of codes & symbols) is by definition a cross-cultural experience.
Later, at my Mom’s there i was, doing the same thing. Now of course that may sound odd. Isn’t a son from the same culture as his mother? Yes and no.
A song my Mother heard recently on the radio moved her to reminisce about an experience from long ago, taking her back to her youth. Songs are funny that way, instantly taking us into reveries & memories in the past.
My Mom suddenly remembered a song she heard on another radio, long ago in Budapest during the first days after the Russians arrived in Budapest. She was wondering if I could help her to identify the tune. She sang it for me in Hungarian, and i persuaded her to let me record her singing it (it sounded pretty good by the way!). The song was a romantic Russian song being played in Budapest on the radio in 1944 or perhaps 1945. I got the impression it was the equivalent of a “hit“ at the time.
But wait. A Russian song embraced by the Hungarian populace? as a “hit”? That seems unthinkable given that the words that usually pop into my head when I think of “Budapest” and “USSR,” are words such as “uprising”, “revolution” or “tanks”.
My mother told me a story that might explain.
During the worst part of the Second World War–when the Nazis and Soviets were fighting it out, often on the soil of other nations– people hid away, fearful, endangered. Of course the way she described it was simply as a horror.
And then one fine day, the bombardments stopped. Curious, my mom and her family & neighbours emerged from their bunkers & basement hiding places.
As they came to the surface, the locals encountered men in clean white capes, who said
“Baratajim, ne feljetek, felszabitani jöttunk. Nincs töb háború.”
Those are Hungarian words, spoken by Russians in unlikely clothes. After a bombardment, starving people emerge from their bombed buildings to find reassuring men in beautiful white telling them exactly what they dreamt of hearing? Talk about a theatrical moment!
What did these mysterious men in white say?
“Friends, be not afraid. We came to liberate you. There’s no more war.”
I can’t help remembering the arrival of the Martians on Earth in Tim Burton’s Mars Attacks. The translator device says “we come in peace” moments before a Martian fries the symbolic dove of peace with a raygun, first blow in a pre-emptive attack on humanity.
And just like the Martians, the Russians seemed to be saviours to the populace of Budapest, freeing them from the Nazi occupation. In time this would change. But in the first blush of liberation, the Soviets enjoyed a honeymoon period.
In time the honeymoon would end. But at the beginning, if there was to be a dialogue, if there was to be peace, every effort was made to understand one another. Anything less is doomed to failure.
The unlikely “hit” on Budapest radio began with the following lyrics:
Szol az egyik a másiknak
Ne busulj Tovarisch
Minden lány elfelejt rendesen
— mindent el visz a viz
One soldier confides to another, pessimistic about love. The populace of a demoralized city likely could relate to the heartbreak of soldiers long separated from their sweethearts at home.
I found it astonishing to find that fourth line, which translates as
“the water takes everything away”.
In our service today, we read from Psalm 32 (whereas the phrase in the Russian song is completely serendipitous, the psalm was likely chosen because it resonates with what we’ve seen on TV and internet this week after the earthquake & tsunami in Japan) :
“Therefore let all the faithful pray to you
while you may be found;
surely the rising of the mighty waters
will not reach them.”
I will try to find a Russian song with similar lyrics to the one I quoted above. I seek the one sung in Budapest back in the 40s, when everyone was ready to believe that they came in peace. Just because the search for peace hasn’t yet been successful doesn’t mean we should stop looking.
The real Kay Macpherson? i think you can see her in this photo because she was not one to strike a pose. CLICK on the picture to read more(!!!)
Serendipity is such a wonderful word. I love that it’s a big long word, implying something complex, when in fact it sounds like a series of vocal accidents. Accidents are not to be confused with serendipity, for the word always implied to me something more, as if a hidden benevolent hand was at work.
We all get to see and even meet famous people over the course of a lifetime. Surely that must be so. I feel I’ve had more than my share. I am grateful, both for the ones i saw from a few feet away, such as Leontyne Price or Pierre Elliot Trudeau, the ones with whom i got to shake hands, such as James Levine or Jon Vickers, and the ones with whom i had the privilege of conversation, such as John Ralston Saul or John Polanyi. Studying and later working at a University means we can be especially privileged, sitting in a classroom listening to a Northrop Frye or a Linda Hutcheon.
But for all those special people (including loads i forgot to mention, given that i was speaking only of chance momentary encounters in theatres or hallways), I am remembering one person right now, and our encounter for me has always epitomized serendipity.
I was at one time a kind of superintendant, which is to say, i lived in a place while finding souls to rent out space in a house my family owned. What a cool assortment of tenants we had, including some well known acting talent, aspiring rock-stars, to go with the students renting space in the same building.
My Mom suggested we also rent out the parking space. And that’s how i met Kay & Brough Macpherson.
Kay Macpherson, in Pamela Harris' portrait. Again, CLICK on the picture to read more.
They were the most remarkable couple i ever met. CB, or Brough (rhymes with “rough” even though he was anything but…) was one of the most important scholars at U of T, even though he was a very kind man with no trace of ego or condescension. Kay, who outlived him by over a decade, was an important feminist & peace activist, perhaps more preoccupied with action than with recognition, which might explain why i even have to tell you who she was. Kay was one of the founders of the NAC; hm….but you have to be of a particular age to know what that stands for.
It’s so funny, but just now –researching with the help of my old friend google– i discovered that after all these years, i never realized that CB and i went to the same school. Ha. We’re both UTS alumni, or– as we would have said it before the place went co-ed in the 70s– “Old Boys”.
I identify with Mime
Kay was always very patient with me, as was CB (…sorry, Kay and everyone else called him “Brough” but i was too awestruck, and called him “Dr Macpherson”). I had such a big mouth, a lot like the character Mime in Act 1 of Siegfried. On that occasion the god Wotan shows up, and engages in a friendly game of riddles back and forth. Mime had the opportunity to ask questions that would be useful, but instead was too busy showing off what he knew. An egomaniac… not unlike moi. There i was in the presence of some key Toronto intellectuals (their parties included people like Herbert Whittaker and Danny Grossman), but did i ask them stuff? naw, i was too busy telling them stuff.
They were very patient with me.
On International Women’s Day, it seems apt to be remembering them, particularly Kay, who was always so kind. She made me tea. She actually listened to me, which wasn’t easy given that i am a big mouth. I was thrilled to see that she got her memoir done, even as her sight was failing. The title captures her spirit and the activism of her era: When in doubt, do both: the times of my life. I am recalling another picture of her with a big smile in the book.
Who is Martin Crimp and where has he been hiding all these years? Maybe as you read this, you’re thinking “he’s not new to ME”. Congratulations if you’re able to say that
I just saw my first Crimp play tonight, namely The Treatment. As I recall –with the help of google—I had a few opportunities in the past couple of years, but didn’t take advantage of opportunities to see Attempts on Her Life, and The City, as well as classic plays Crimp translated from French (his Misanthrope was on just last month according to google, that arena of the belated and the might-have-been). I feel as embarrassed as a doctor not knowing about a common ailment. Aren’t drama grads supposed to know famous playwrights? In my defence all I can say is:
I don’t think the reading lists for comprehensive exams include him (at least not yet), and (blush cough cough)
opera, musicals and film are really my specialties
Suddenly I am excited that another Martin Crimp play — Cruel & Tender– is going to be produced next year at Canadian Stage, directed by Atom Egoyan.
I saw The Treatment tonight at Theatre Glendon, and in the process discovered a distinctive “new” voice: that is if you can call something “new” that has been popular in England for twenty years. The Treatment premiered in 1993. I suppose I should cut myself some slack, given that Crimp has gone from comparative obscurity—at least in Canada—to becoming very popular over the past few years. His writing isn’t easy, which is probably the reason it has taken so long for him to become a major star. With a dozen parts in the play (only one pair of small parts can easily be doubled) it’s challenging for the producers & performers, as well as for the audience.
The Treatment is a wonderfully meta-theatrical study of modern life. We slip between two worlds disturbingly connected. A husband and wife team—Jennifer & Andrew—seem to be seeking a fit subject for a film; or perhaps they’re actually seeking life in their own lifeless marriage. Another husband and wife –Anne & Simon—struggle with a torture scenario, partly imaginary, partly real; does he tie her up with her consent (and possibly for her pleasure), or is it something she hates and seeks to escape? Sitting on the boundary between the “real” pain-filled world of Anne & Simon on the one hand, and the vicarious parasitic world of Jennifer & Andrew on the other, we find Clifford the writer. Oh boy, an invitation to meditate on life and art. How could i resist? Clifford introduces himself to increasingly hilarious effect as a writer who was famous for some hits in the 70s; he works half a year (just enough to pay the bills), and spends the other half-year writing.
Before long, Anne encounters Andrew, who wants Anne’s story AND her body. We will watch the treatment –as in the title—of Anne’s scenario take us to entirely different versions of the plot. An alternative writer –Nicky the deadpan receptionist in Jennifer & Andrew’s office—and Jane, the director, object to the passivity of Anne’s character, as an affront to womenkind. And so they substitute fictition for the reality they had previously been reading and trying out in their studio. In and of itself that’s not really news: that “look what they’ve done to my song” trope. But this is deeper and stranger, because art & image come into collision with Anne’s identity & authenticity, while the whole busy apparatus of art & culture are presented in the most cynical terms.
It’s the relationship between the two worlds and their imaginative juxtaposition that energizes The Treatment. We get to watch the film version of Anne & Simon’s violent scenario, juxtaposed against the originals. As we bounce between the two worlds –that is, the world of Anne & Simon, and the replica thereof—the relationship between the two gets confusing because there is so much going on inside the head of each of the characters.
Director Aleksandar Lukac
Theatre Glendon’s production was an adaptation directed by Aleksandar Lukac, which is to say that in addition to the complexities of the original, Lukac added some additional challenges of his own. I can’t pretend that I know the script –I don’t!—but Lukac told me that he changed the sequence in places, such that we’re sometimes seeing the film version of an event before we see the reality it’s supposed to have captured. For me, the most wonderful part of the presentation is completely Lukac’ creation, namely the filmed replica of Anne’s story being enacted in a studio space, and then simultaneously projected onto the back wall of the stage. The result is quite surreal & disturbing, even as it is also wonderfully ironic and full of insight about the nature of the mind and how story-telling & fantasy work.
While there are most definitely issues in The Treatment’s attitude to genders (some will be offended by what they see) it’s amazingly funny. I laughed so loudly with others in the audience at one point that we made the unfortunate actor playing a waitress start to laugh uncontrollably; I don’t think she or her colleagues realized how FUNNY that scene was until that moment. Part of me felt sorry for disrupting her performance, while another part loved the sense of surprise.
The play is a meditation upon authenticity and a genuine life. We see phoniness in abundance, usually layered in ironic delivery, and very few moments when the people onstage are likeable or nice. We occasionally encounter genuine passion, particularly from Anne & Simon, whose lives are at the centre of this comedic nightmare.
Adam Abbas played Andrew with a deliberate stillness evoking a species of office animal we’ve seen before in films involving politicians & lawyers, as well as films about film such as Altman’s The Player. At the other extreme of the human spectrum, we encounter the Simon of Vito Corapi, a brooding angry man capable of sudden bursts of poetry; you couldn’t take your eyes off his coiled physical presence whenever he came onstage. The bridge between the two was Philip Tetro’s Clifford, a splendidly creepy study in the mechanics of selling out, or perhaps a portrait of the artist as a shyster.
The two main female characters are not quite so simple; or in other words, I am still trying to figure them out and want to tread carefully. Michelle Drutz was Jennifer, the other half of the vicarious couple; in some respects she is powerful, in other respects, another victim. Anais Rozencwajg was Anne, stepping in and out of a realm of fantasy, in what must be the most complex role in the play.
I was especially pleased by several small portrayals that in their way stopped the show. Whenever Baudride Mbaya’s Bay Lady was onstage it was as if everyone else vanished. Yes the writing gave her several wonderful lines, but it’s not just that she slam-dunked her best moments; Mbaya happily took the stage when given the opportunity. Lynda Dawkins was also blessed with some wonderful lines as the blind cab driver (hard to believe right? very funny), which she underplayed, reminding me of a female Stevie Wonder. Some of the most inventive moments came from Geneviève Melanson’s Nicky, the brilliant receptionist cursed to work for the incompetents (Jennifer & Andrew). While Nicky never said anything too caustic, Melanson let us see her contempt, and in the process was a huge crowd-pleaser.
Rounding out the cast were Kaila MacDuff & Denix Wilson as the film actors portraying Simon & Anne, often providing an amusing juxtaposition between what we’d seen and what they enact, both onstage and then, when caught by a video camera, projected to the other side of the stage. Where were we to look? We often had several options. Between Crimp & Lukac, there was never a let-down.
The theatre has been open for over a year, but this was my first visit. I had heard good things, for instance, that its design was a charming echo of the Four Seasons Centre in downtown Toronto; but that’s hardly surprising considering that it’s once again Jack Diamond who is responsible for the design. The Richmond Hill space is like mini-me to the space in Toronto, but don’t let anyone tell you that there’s anything wrong with a small theatre. If i could be assured of getting a seat, i’d happily trade theatres (if we could figure out a way to get it downtown!), because of course it’s already very hard getting a seat; how much harder would it be when instead of roughly 2000 seats, you only have 600?
There are so many good reasons why one should see opera in a theatre this size, it’s hard to focus on one as the key.
There’s no bad seat in such a theatre. While i’ve heard the same thing said about the Four Seasons Centre, it’s only true when your’e making a comparison to a really bad space. In fact with the Richmond Hill space it’s literally true that every seat is good.
The acoustics aren’t just good. If you think about the problem of acoustics–without amplification of course– there’s a limited amount of energy generated by voices and orchestra. When over 3000 have to share the energy of those sounds, even if those vibrations were perfectly shared (that is, if you have perfect acoustics) there’s less sound available than when 2000 people share the same sound. Now imagine instead that the sound is poured over a mere 600 people. Even singing quietly, one can hear every distinct voice. The soft notes have additional richness.
The seats are bigger, the aisles are huge.
The parking is free
And need i mention that this is a stunningly beautiful space
It’s true that Richmond Hill is not Toronto, but a suburb. It took me less than an hour just after rush hour to get there from downtown, so it’s not far, but even so, some people aren’t willing to make the drive. I would say this is a mistake. Having made the drive, i am planning to repeat the experience, likely with the next performance of Cosi fan tutte. Richmond Hill is not far away, yet still feels like a small town. Everyone i met today was friendly; no offense Toronto, but you’re pretty rude in comparison. I had more warm fuzzy encounteres with staff in the lobby before the opera, than i’ve had in the past week at home. I felt as though i’d gone on a vacation (sigh).
What about Mozart’s opera?
Cosi fan tutte is one of those operas that rewards the risk of employing a youthful cast. The romantic plotlines of opera work better when we’re watching attractive couples onstage. I am accustomed to seeing this opera treated with a certain respect, likely because of Mozart. Opera York’s approach is somewhat daring, as the comedy was played with more edge than I’ve seen. Given that humour is a subjective thing, some might find it a tad over-the-top, but for me it was refreshing.
tenor Ryan Harper
Dion Mazerolle as Don Alfonso, was the vocal star of the evening, showing delicate pianissimos in the famous trio, articulating his words flawlessly, and lending a genuine sense of maturity to the proceedings. His portrayal was restrained, unlike the antics of the two young men. Anthony Cleverton’s Guglielmo felt like the straight man in the comic pairings of the two male leads; and Cleverton’s singing was a conventional reading that comfortably negotiated Mozart’s challenges with a lovely warm sound. Ryan Harper, in contrast, played the funniest Ferrando I have ever encountered, whether in his physicality, his endless repertoire of facial expressions, or his ironic delivery of lines.
The women, too, took a contrasting approach to their portrayals. Marcelle Boisjoli as Dorabella sang her aria in the first act very comically, whether in her droll singing, moans and a wonderfully long face. Rachel Cleland was the more serious of the two women as Fiordiligi, which is apt for the way the part is written. Cleland unveiled a big powerful voice for her passionate Act 1 aria (“come scoglio” when it’s done in Italian, but sung in English), yet otherwise played up maidenly restraint for comic effect. As the maid Despina, Anna Bateman was very energetic in her comedy, with a lovely clear voice. At the end Bateman chose an unconventional approach, seeming disgruntled by the outcome, as if disapproving of the entire game played by Don Alfonso, possibly adding a modern feministic tinge to the denouement. Her darker demeanour was a wonderful contrast to the prevailing jollity at the conclusion.
We had the benefit of two music directors tonight. Geoffrey Butler, who conducted, steps aside for Saturday’s performance, when Sabatino Vacca our harpsichordist will lead the performance from the keyboard. Vacca brought a wonderful flourish to many of the recitatives. Butler kept the orchestra and singers together, leading the performance at a very intelligible pace, which is to say, the singers were mostly clear in their enunciation and never drowned out by the Opera York orchestra.
The costumes – by Amanda Eason—were a persuasive window on the 18th century, including the silliest Albanian outfits I have ever seen. The first thing that popped into my head was “two wild and crazy guys…” because they were indeed cruising for chicks in tight slacks, plus silly wigs.
Cosi fan tutte has one remaining performance at the Richmond Hill Centre, this Saturday March 5th at 8 o’clock.
I am not going to Brooklyn to see the remount of a Canadian Opera Company production that I saw in November 2009; but i figured i would repost excerpts from a review posted to drama.ca, as a kind of preview, plus some photos taken at the site of the current production. The review makes a tiny mention of the second opera (Madama Butterfly) mounted at the time; but I believe it’s still pertinent to the BAM installation. In case you can’t tell, I am a huge fan of this production. I enjoyed re-reading what i wrote in 2009, which is still pertinent now.
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The East Is Golden [originally posted November 2009 at drama.ca]
The two operas presented by the Canadian Opera Company this autumn at the Four Seasons Theatre –The Nightingale and Other Short Fables by Stravinsky, and Madama Butterfly by Puccini—appear to be a perfect pair. Both evenings of opera (including short Stravinsky works not usually understood as “opera”) were written in the 20th century. Both take their title from a non-human avian creature. Both rely heavily upon a single female star for their impact. Both are oriental in focus, even if their music is European. And although the East is sometimes red, both works have been box office gold for the COC.
And that is probably where the similarities end.
Whereas the delicate set and costumes of Butterfly make it possibly the fastest production to set up or take down, of all possible operas that the COC has in its repertoire, Nightingale entails a setup so complex that its mise-en-scène upstages the work. But how can one argue with the results? For the second time, the COC handed Robert Lepage a daunting modernist project that he converted not just into an exciting evening of theatre, but a money-maker and guaranteed sell-out requiring additional performances to meet demand. The first time was in the early 1990s when Lepage staged the double bill of Bartok’s Bluebeard’s Castle and Schönberg’s Erwartung.
The current project appears to be every bit as forbidding, in the choice of unfamiliar repertoire from a composer known to be dissonant to the ear and difficult to execute. But Lepage and his company Ex Machina hand us a coup de theatre before the show begins. Opera is usually a daunting form to theatre practitioners, placing an enormous yawning orchestra pit full of musicians between the stage and the audience. Under normal circumstances, singers offer variously dramatic interpretations, but only after they have devoted themselves to the imposing task of learning their music and then singing their parts.
Not this time. Lepage evicts the orchestra, filling the pit with water. Did he need to do this? Possibly; but the strongest message it sends is that the normal business of the opera house has been overturned, and that the conductor has been removed from his usual place of oversight.
And the singers who usually give indifferent performances were in for a shock when they came to this production, which changes –if not completely subverts—their usual role. A singing-actor is in fact a curious hybrid, as some have previously observed. Julie Taymor for example, has used dancers with offstage singers in place of the usual hybrid. Lepage turns to the precedent of bun raku, the oriental style of puppets that are a compound figure comprised of a voice and manipulated puppet. The arbitrary separation of voice and animated body makes sense when we remember what opera has been for most of its history: a singer giving almost their entire attention to vocal production, while sparing a comparatively smaller part of their attention for their dramatic portrayal. In the past few decades this balance has shifted somewhat, but even the finest singing actors are required first to bring their vocal technique to a level where they can offer a good dramatic portrayal.
Lepage’s presentation of The Nightingale does not settle for singers who do a little acting. Instead we get puppets, some actually manipulated by the singers: and the singers coped remarkably well with the challenge. The gentlemen in question could hardly be accused of being prima donnas, to be singing, manipulating puppets, and all while slogging through water up to their waist. So in addition to the demotion of the orchestra and conductor, Lepage knocks at least some of his singers off their pedestal as well.
Does it work? I think it depends on where you sit. For the performance when I sat near the front, I was enchanted. But when I was up in the purgatory of the fifth circle–a location that acquired a genuinely Dantesque association—I could not see the show properly. Admittedly, the COC advertised the deficiencies of those seats in advance. Curiously, the appetite for tickets was so strong that nobody seemed to mind until they actually saw the show. The friends with whom I attended that second performance were decidedly unimpressed.
Why did Lepage do it this way, making so many of the puppets too small to be seen from anywhere but the best seats? After all there are some huge puppets in the show, and surely the expense was not the reason. I think there is a clear rationale when one looks at the climactic image of The Nightingale. For most of the opera humans manipulate small puppets, creating a scale that is appropriate for a chamber work. Then the Emperor goes to sleep. He is confronted by Death, a puppet that reverses the usual template with electrifying effect. Suddenly the human is tiny, surrounded by the huge expressive skeleton shape of Death. This reversal struck me as highly symbolic, making the fragile Emperor seem like the puppet, controlled by the powerful figure of Death. Without the tiny scale of the puppets in the rest of the opera, the effect would not have been possible.
In fact, Nightingale comes across primarily as theatrical spectacle, and is only operatic en passant. The figure of the Nightingale is an irrepressible coloratura, capably sung by Olga Peretyatko. The remainder is picturesque, without testing the skills of the COC singers. The most successful singer of the evening—setting the gentle mood of the opening and close of the work, in addition to manipulating puppets—was Lothar Odinius as the Fisherman.
Stravinsky provided the remainder of the program’s Other Short Fables. Although there is one medium-sized work –The Fox, a vehicle for puppets of a completely different style from those in Nightingale—most of the first portion of the evening is a series of miniatures, more of a chamber concert than opera, helping to whet the audience’s appetite for the subsequent spectacle, in a series of works that require patient listening. Conductor Jonathan Darlington and the COC orchestra were more visible playing from the stage rather than the pit, bringing out the delicate colours as much as the occasional dissonance.
barczablog 