Hockey Noir

Posted on May 11, 2018 by barczablog

I love ambition.

Tonight I was plunged into a world completely unlike anything I’ve encountered in opera, and it will be replayed tomorrow.  Okay, performed again I should say, even if it does feel like a hockey game at the Jane Mallett Theatre.

There are red and blue lines, boards, and lots of passion (as you can almost glimpse in this picture).

damphousse

You can see a bit of the stage, although the main reason for this picture was the charming sweater of the gentleman directly in front of me.

Start with this premise:

  • that we recall the rivalry between Toronto & Montreal in hockey from the era of black and white television
  • that we make a kind of film noir story out of that rivalry by injecting some romance
  • and it’s an opera

So did you get all that? They’re presenting a 1950s film noir about the hockey rivalry between Toronto & Montreal.  That’s what I mean by ambition.  You don’t get much more Canadian than that, especially when it’s in both official languages with splashes of Joual.
And it’s a collaboration between Continuum, Ensemble contemporain de Montreal (ECM+) and the Toronto Comic Arts Festival giving it great flair visually and aurally.  It was not so much a film noir as a graphic novel, sepia images reminding me of old black and white TV hockey broadcasts. Still images or animated ones were projected onto the screen behind the live performers.

ECM+ filled Jane Mallet Theatre, a string quartet, keyboards and percussion, conducted by Veronique Lacroix.   The opera is an 80 minute collaboration between librettist Cecil Castelucci (who has several graphic novels under her belt) and composer André Ristic, who has several previous commissions with ECM+, in four acts.

hockey-noirAnd like any good film noir it’s narrated from the point of view of a detective, this time Detective Loiseau.   I was immersed in something unlike any opera I’ve ever seen.

I love its ambitions even though the hockey fan in me quibbles with its anachronistic errors.  For instance, “slot” and “slapshot” were words that were never heard before 1960, coined much later; and the image onscreen of a goal-crease is round… I just looked up a goal by Guy Lafleur from 1979 on youtube and even then the crease was still rectangular.

Forgive me! I am a stickler. NB the teams in the opera can’t be Leafs or Habs likely due to copyright concerns (as you can see in the picture above)

 

Even so this was a magical opera presentation.  We were re-enacting Richard Wagner’s point, from Opera and Drama, that opera was not a form employing music for dramatic ends, so much as a form using drama for a musical end.  We were immersed in passionate singing about love and relationships and yes, sometimes about the game.  Much of what we heard was marvelous, especially coupled with the sophisticated visuals. We were in no danger of mistaking this for real life because it was so stylized, surrounded by the magnificent projections.

I could be wrong but I think Quebec society & culture are more laid back, less likely to give too sh**ts over what some hack writer like moi should have to say about anachronism and opera.  They took their concept and ran with it, which is what we need to see more of here in Toronto.  The adaptors were as bold as Mafia hitmen (yes that was in the story too), making no apologies for their eclectic mix of styles.  The audience—who must be the youngest audience I’ve ever seen at an opera that wasn’t geared for children—totally ate it up, likely because they were nerdy young graphic novel fans, entirely in their element.

It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen, and I think that’s a good thing.  Continuum / ECM+ are back Friday night at 8 pm for another performance at the Jane Mallett Theatre.

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Questions for David Fallis: Toronto Consort & Monteverdi’s Orfeo

Posted on May 9, 2018 by barczablog

When I interviewed David Fallis five and a half years ago concerning a period production of Der Freischütz my first sentence said that he “is surely one of the most important musical minds in Canada,” an assertion that has only gathered weight with every passing year.

Have no fear, he’ll still be prominent in Toronto’s musical life. While David’s tenure as the Artistic Director of Toronto Consort ends this season, he’ll continue to work with them, as well as in his roles as Musical Director for Opera Atelier and Choir 21.

David closes his final Toronto Consort season as Artistic Director with three performances of Monteverdi’s Orfeo at Jeanne Lamon Hall at Trinity St Paul’s Centre beginning May 25th.  I had to ask him a few more questions.

G.Dou, Spitzenkloepplerin - G.Dou, Lace maker -

David Fallis (Photo credit: Paul Orenstein, digital work by Ross Duffin, background by Gerrit Dou 17th century, Dutch).

1. What has the Toronto Consort meant to you?

The Toronto Consort has been an exciting place to explore so many repertoires of music which are too little heard today. I say repertoires, in the plural: since we perform music from roughly 1150-1650, there are many styles and developments to come to understand (sometimes lumped together as “early music”), and it has been great to have a vehicle for constantly discovering new and beautiful music. This is thanks to our strong base in Toronto, where an appreciative audience comes back year after year, but they naturally want to hear new music each season.

The ensemble has been blessed with great, committed performers over the years, and it has been a privilege to work with them, and get to know them so well.

Since early music is often unknown, we’ve always felt that it is important to give the audience a context, and this has led to great collaborations with actors, dancers, visual artists, world musicians, etc., and to the chance to create scripts and stories which can add so much to the concert experience.

2. As you look back at your years with Toronto Consort, do any concerts stand out, perhaps for the piece being presented, perhaps for the guests or the performance?

This is a hard one! A few possible candidates:

  • our most recent version of the Monteverdi Vespers of 1610, which sounded even more magnificent than before in the newly-renovated hall at Trinity-St. Paul’s Centre, with Charles Daniels leading a team of fabulous singers, and Bruce Dickey leading a group of fabulous players
  • the feeling of having the audience join in on “In dulci jubilo” at the end of the Praetorius Christmas Vespers has always been magical, achieving the sense of community participation which we strive for in that concert
  • it was a dream to perform “The Play of Daniel” with a youth choir, and to hear them all sing the Te Deum at the end, with the bells ringing around the church, is something I will never forget

    DSC0166_2

    From The Play of Daniel in 2017: Belshazzar – Olivier Laquerre (l) Noble – Bud Roach (r) (photo: Glenn Davidson) . Olivier Laquerre and Bud Roach appear courtesy of Canadian Actors’ Equity Association.

  • the serenity and beauty of “A Medieval Christmas”, curated by Katherine Hill, with images projected in the darkness
  • countless opportunities to sing great one-on-a-part vocal music with such a great vocal consort – it’s like working in a string quartet: challenging but one of the most rewarding things for a singer

3. Recalling all the different roles with the Toronto Consort, as performer & curator, and impresario, and knowing that you don’t have to do all that for much longer, please reflect, which parts did you find most rewarding, and are you breathing a sigh of relief as far as any part of the job is concerned?

Choosing a program of early music has many challenges. You have to find a theme, find the sheet music itself, decide if it is good music, decide if it can fit the Toronto Consort, make lots of decisions about scoring/arrangements, etc. I have always felt that the beauty and quality of the music must be of first importance, so it’s not always easy to find the perfect piece for a certain moment in every program, but when it works it is wonderfully rewarding. I will miss the “thrill of the chase” in that sense – finding something which is worth hearing that not many other people have noticed.

But I know that there are lots of great ideas and musical programmers in the Consort, so I know that tradition of “searching for gold” will continue.

4. Help us to understand what’s involved in being a curator/ impresario for music that existed so long ago.

As I mentioned above, the quality of the music is #1. Then, like a curator, you have to set the piece in the right place, with the right light on it. This means spending a lot of time organizing the order of the pieces to create a sense of wholeness to the evening’s program, with enough contrast, enough common ground, between pieces.

Of course, there is a lot we do not know about musical performance so many years ago, but I like to be inspired by what we do know, and then commit to whatever equivocal decisions we have to make. Especially in the Middle Ages, I think music was often heard and understood differently than today, but that “strangeness” can be very mind-opening if you are willing to explore it.

5. Out of the complex planning and development cycle, what’s your favourite moment when you mount a concert or an opera?

You hope to reach a moment when you feel that the order of the program is settled, and that it has a rhyme and reason. For opera, it is always thrilling when, after weeks of staging rehearsals, we add the orchestra and suddenly the colours in the composer’s ear are revealed.

6. What do you love about the repertoire you’re playing & discovering?

It depends on the particular rep, but in renaissance music, I love the directness of the rhetorical quality. I love the fact that what’s on the page is only the beginning of a piece of music. Almost like jazz musicians today, we are expected to add and create new things, guided by the original piece of music. I love it when what was, only a while ago, some scribbles in an obscure source have become a living piece of music.

7. Do you have a favourite moment in Orfeo?

Another tough one. Again, some possibles:

  • the messagiera scene, where Eurydice’s death is told by an eye witness
  • Orpheus’ response to hearing this news: “Tu sei morta” and his resolve to go to the underworld to get her back
  • Persephone’s pleading with Pluto to let Orpheus into the underworld (“Signor, quel infelice”)
  • “Possente spirto” with its singing, the echoing solo instruments, the harp solo, the slow harmonic pace, the magic of the music as it creates this eerie underworld scene
  • the brass sinfonias, and male choruses which end Acts 3 & 4, so solemn and so different from the lively choruses earlier

8. Please talk about the cast in Orfeo and what we’ll be hearing.

Charles Daniels is divine in this repertoire, and it’s really his piece.

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Mezzo-soprano Laura Pudwell

And we have a great cast around him, with Laura Pudwell as Messagiera, Katherine Hill as Musica, Michele DeBoer as Persephone, Kevin Skelton, Cory Knight and Bud Roach as shepherds.

The instrumental colours are also magical in Orfeo. The theorbos, harp, harpsichords, organs, strings, recorders, cornetti, sackbuts are all used in wonderful ways, and the sounds of the orchestra is constantly shifting.

9. Is there a reason why Orfeo seems like a fitting conclusion for this chapter of your life? [or am I reading too much into this..?]

Well it depends what you are reading into it 😉

[When I was young Orfeo was known as the first opera, a notion that has since been overturned, so it seemed fitting / symbolic. Oh well…]

I’m glad to be ending with Monteverdi, one of the greatest of early music composers, and glad to be ending with such a great team of musicians.

10. How do you relate to Medieval and Baroque music & opera as a 21st century man?

There is a wonderful balancing act you do as a 21st-century musician dealing with repertoire that is so old. On the one hand, you want it to be comprehensible and moving for a modern audience; on the other you also are intrigued and curious about the “otherness” of early music. You are always struck by similarities with the modern condition, and by differences.

With lots of medieval and renaissance music, you know you are often presenting music that much of the audience is hearing for the first time, sometimes because it may indeed be the first time it’s ever been heard in Canada! So you enjoy the spirit of discovery and newness.

Which leads to:

11. You’ve divided your time between older works –both with Toronto Consort & Opera Atelier—and newer ones, as the Music director of Choir 21 (a choir specializing in 21st century compositions). Going forward, will we see you with those three ensembles?

Maybe it’s the same spirit of discovery which has attracted me to both early music and contemporary music.

And, yes, I’m not retiring, only stepping down as AD of the Toronto Consort, so besides my continuing on the team of Artistic Associates at the Consort (next year I will be leading the Praetorius Christmas Vespers for the Consort in December, and doing a program of modern music written for the Consort in February), I will still be working with Opera Atelier and Choir 21.

12. Your music direction & performance of Ulysses (with Opera Atelier), a more mature opera by Monteverdi, likely stayed in your head while you were rehearsing Orfeo. You are acquainted with Monteverdi on so many levels, as teacher & practitioner. Please reflect on our understanding of Monteverdi, the difference between the two operas (reflecting his growth & development but also the growth of opera itself) and how that informs your process.

Orfeo was written for a courtly/academic milieu where the rich orchestration and the beautiful sensitivity to the elegant poetry was central. By the time of Ulysses, opera was being performed in a public theatre trying to turn a profit, so the focus had changed somewhat. The orchestra was reduced, the storyline features more “action scenes” etc. Orfeo has almost the quality of a religious rite, where Ulysses is very much a human, even domestic, drama. But Monteverdi’s sureness in creating drama and bringing the text to vibrant life with his music never falters.

*******

David Fallis conducts Toronto Consort’s concert presentation of Monteverdi’s Orfeo May 25 & 26 at 8 pm and May 27th at 3:30 pm at Trinity-St. Paul’s Centre.

And next season David will be back:

  • a double-bill of two short operas in the fall, namely Charpentier’s Acteon & Rameau’s  Pygmalion  October 25 – November 3, 2018,
    and Mozart’s Idomeneo in April 2019 with Opera Atelier
  •  Praetorius Christmas Vespers in December 2018 with Toronto Consort
Posted in Interviews, Music and musicology, Opera | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

All –Beethoven Tafelmusik Finale

Posted on May 4, 2018 by barczablog

Tonight’s programme from Tafelmusik was the first of their season-ending concerts at Koerner Hall. We heard Beethoven’s violin concerto & the Pastorale symphony.

Thinking about moustaches & tears earlier this week, it felt serendipitous to be studying the same sort of phenomenon tonight.  Both the guy sitting next to me and I were fascinated to watch a child so moved by the Beethoven that they danced around in their seat, at times resembling a ping-pong ball boing boing boing-ing, first left, then right, then left, and so on, from one parent to the other and back and forth with the energy only a child high on Beethoven can muster.

Tafelmusik always strikes me as a kind of phenomenological laboratory, wherein we explore the creation of the music they are presenting.  To hear Beethoven played on their more natural instruments isn’t quite as perfect as what you’d hear from the modern instruments of –say—the Toronto Symphony or the Canadian Opera Company Orchestra—because of the riskier sounds produced in those old-style instruments.  And so I feel we’re brought into the presence of Beethoven as he was, the new & dangerous composer, that radical of the early 19th century. Sure, it sounds a bit ludicrous to say, when these compositions are over 200 years old, but we become blasé hearing perfect performances on the modern instruments with valves and metal strings, not recognizing how daring these works were when they burst upon the world.  To hear this orchestra risk so much in performance? That brings Beethoven to life like nothing else I’ve ever encountered.

Okay, so that’s the usual laboratory for me, hearing Beethoven or Mozart as if from first principles. But in addition we were presented with a miniature psychological experiment that echoed some of what I wrote about a few days ago. This time it wasn’t a question of weeping (although I was momentarily blind-sided by tears watching the child bouncing around), but joyous phenomena:

  • dancing
  • singing
  • laughter
  • applause

Think about it.  These are all the things we suppress in a classical concert, as though we were checking our humanity at the door, hung up with our coats & scarves. And so of course, the parental units were not entirely amused, although I was mightily impressed with how they handled their little firecracker, who looked to be 6 or 7 years old.  I wanted to surrender myself, wanting to applaud after the first movement –the way any normal person would have applauded in 1805—and indeed after the wonderful cadenza, again as any normal person would have done, back in the day.  We’ve had our spontaneity curtailed by the conventions we now agree to in 2018, although had this been a rock concert? I think the woo hoos would have erupted spontaneously.

I’m going to see this program again on the weekend.

First we watched Elisa Citterio play the Beethoven Violin Concerto.

elisa_citterio_tafelmusik_music_director_designate

Violinist Elisa Citterio, Tafelmusik’s new Music Director

Is this the best of all the violin concerti? Maybe not. But it is my favourite because it has such drama, appearing out of the slow plodding figure in the timpani, a sweet slow melody with great passion, energies held in check but explosive under the surface.  The cadenza that Citterio created was every bit as profound as the movement from which it emerged, including a wonderful statement of the main theme in a contrapuntal creation back and forth between two adjacent strings.  As I said, I wanted to applaud the cadenza, and again at the end of the movement. Only in the third movement –when the child started to dance—did the passion find legs.  Conductor Bruno Weil gave us a wonderful series of tempi, always keeping things moving, with spirit yet always eloquent. My one discouraging word would be that Citterio’s matching cadenza for the third movement was probably too long & fraught.  My opinion? Perhaps, but the child stopped dancing, stopped cold by all this ambivalence & chromaticism in a movement that is mostly diatonic. Indeed I’d say that’s the concerto’s real dramaturgy: that it tortures us with chromaticism for the first movement, gradually emerging into the clear air of the diatonic particularly in the last movement. To insert all that angst in the last movement? Out of context, I feel. Movement One is perhaps like Chekhov or Pinter, but movement three?  Not so dark or complex.   Even so the concerto is magnificent, the performance a watershed for Tafelmusik working with their new Music Director. The smiles! those erupted from faces all through the orchestra.

Beethoven-Symphonies-Bruno

Conductor Bruno Weil

After the interval came the 6th Symphony, another beautiful performance from Tafelmusik.   I went looking for what I wrote about their complete symphony recording that I reviewed a few months ago, conducted by Bruno Weil.

Weil does not suppress one part to help bring out another. What’s daring and new for me in these recordings is that I can hear every little part.  I can’t help thinking that this is what Beethoven must have sounded like in his first appearance: that is, in the performances before conductors started regularly “interpreting” symphonies in particular ways (aka distorting and changing the music). (review)

So too tonight, especially in the third movement, when Weil allowed all the various voices to have their turn without picking one to be the “melody”.  It’s fabulous. I can’t help thinking it might be closer to what Beethoven created in his own time, before conductors started “interpreting”, aka distorting the music.

And at the end I was shaken thinking about this hymn to nature and ecology, wondering if the shepherd who celebrates the Earth’s renewal in the last movement could have imagined climate change & whales choking on plastic.  Is there a possibility for the planet’s renewal or are we in a death spiral?  Listening to this lovingly presented antique, namely the careful performance from Tafelmusik & Weil, it’s especially poignant.

I recommend you go hear this concert if you can.  I’m going again on the weekend.

Posted in Music and musicology, Psychology and perception, Reviews | Tagged , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Cry for me

Posted on May 2, 2018 by barczablog

Some actions are startlingly ambiguous.  Right now for example I’m not shaving my upper lip. Am I growing a moustache –which would be an action—or am I simply not shaving my upper lip?

I had that thought, thinking about a topic that reared its head a few days ago, in passing, at the beginning of an opera review, where I spoke of crying.

I’d mentioned crying in response to opera.

And the next day a friend spoke to me about her husband, who had seen the review and was delighted because he also cries at the opera. And like me, he is of a generation reared to conceal such feelings.  Two other gentlemen also spoke to me about crying.

So I thought I’d talk about it a little bit.  When I started I thought I wouldn’t have more than a couple of paragraphs. Surprise surprise, the floodgates were open, and I am working hard to stop this from turning into War & Peace.

And so as it turns out, we’re speaking of another thing like my shaving example, hm, and here I am thinking of that proverbial stiff upper lip.  I suddenly have a new perspective on the metaphor.

I have to ask, is it that we sometimes cry, or that we sometimes don’t stop ourselves from crying?

The analogy goes further.

There’s a kind of choice between a natural process and an intervention, refusing nature’s pathway.

The hair growth is the process that happens naturally, even, gulp, after we die (or so I have read). Shaving is a revolt against nature, an attempt to civilize the caveman, trimming and mowing the chaos of a facial garden.

Similarly, the emotional response –whether we mean the tears or something more extreme like sobs—is a natural eruption like a rainstorm.

But I am far less lucid about the alternatives, the choices for this one. I remember being teased for my tears as a child.

Boys don’t cry, I was told.

Men don’t cry, I heard.

And it gets messier because of course I transgressed. While I may have been told I wasn’t supposed to cry: I did anyway.  I was perhaps one of the lucky ones, because I was exposed to things that would make me cry involuntarily.

Now imagine that you’re older and you discover via books or in conversation reasons to doubt what you learned before. Maybe you start to wonder if your previous conditioning was wrong.  Can you allow yourself to cry, to surrender to those impulses, however taboo or forbidden they may feel?

Or maybe you think about it: but aren’t able to do so.

It’s a deep-seated set of messages that aren’t overturned easily. I’m reminded of the stutter we saw in The King’s Speech, a kind of visceral battle of wills, between one older set of instructions at a gut level, and new injunctions at a more superficial level of conscious thought.

I can’t help thinking that opera and classical music are really good for me: because they help overturn those old faulty messages.

Wagner’s operas, especially Parsifal, were among the first works to help subvert all that bad conditioning: softening me up.


In time I have found more and more. Beethoven leads me back to my true self.  Poulenc strips away the BS and reminds me of who I really am.  Debussy too. And John Lennon.

I’m lucky that so many different media & styles move me so much. I cry for baseball movies like Field of Dreams, or the politics of The Post or JFK. It was helpful to watch Dumbo as a dad with my daughter: which stripped another layer off of me.   

One can read about the physiological processes of music.  This is your brain on music, we would discover.  There is something called a “Mozart effect”, someone claims.

So I would add my own little footnote at this point.  Perhaps there is something redemptive about music, indeed, about the arts, in restoring ourselves to ourselves and subverting the false conditioning that may have been imposed upon us.

A stoic warrior is one who denies his or her feelings in service of their higher cause: because something important was needed, that precludes the luxury of feelings & tears. At times civilization demands such sacrifice, or maybe one thinks it’s necessary in the trenches of our 9-5 lives.  And it is one’s humanity itself that is sacrificed.

Sometimes humanity needs tough heroes, and sometimes the gentler person that feels and cries, that is vulnerable and malleable.  I think nasty impulses sometimes begin in the fear of exposure, fear of being shamed. If we are given space to be ourselves in whatever failed versions, we can find a happier reconciliation of our impulses.  I recognize that what I am talking about in my personal restoration project is to redress the balance, to be less a pure warrior, less likely to sacrifice myself for a cause (and one where the enlisting was imaginary; nobody really asked me to enlist), and more likely to take care of myself.  When push comes to shove, the warrior is still there, but he is no longer perpetually at attention, guarding the citadel of visceral emotion against anything soft & tender.

In case you’re wondering, the headline isn’t like the song in the musical, and Argentina doesn’t come into it.  I am explaining what I do. I cry for me the way I run for me or lift weights for me or eat kale & krill oil for me.  I do it because it feels good, and to block the impulse is harder and harder, finally.

One of the things I do on this blog is suggest films, CDs, operas, plays, books, that you might enjoy.  Chances are you already know this phenomenon But if you’re like me, someone who was led astray when you were younger, crying might be something you’d really enjoy.

Posted in Cinema, video & DVDs, Music and musicology, Personal ruminations & essays, Psychology and perception | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

Anna Bolena: saving the best for last

Posted on April 29, 2018 by barczablog

Sondra Radvanovsky is the story.

Anna Bolena

Sondra Radvanovsky as Anna Bolena in the Washington National Opera’s production of Anna Bolena, 2012. (Photo: Scott Suchman)

There is no better singing in an opera in Toronto than what you’ll hear if you go see Anna Bolena with the Canadian Opera Company, and she’s not the only great voice.

I can talk about the number of times I was moved to tears. (I’m of a generation reared to believe guys aren’t supposed to cry openly, and opera is one of the safe places for me to let it out: and I do)

How many? Nine times, nine different places in the opera. Not all of them were Sondra’s doing, although by 6 or 7 I was thoroughly tenderized for the emotional last scenes.

Spoiler alert: they’re all dead. But that’s because this is an opera based on historical figures who died hundreds of years ago. Some of the characters in the opera are to be executed although I won’t tell you whether we see anyone die or not.

Did I mention that there are some amazing talents in this production?

Sondra isn’t just a great singer but also an amazing actor. From time to time she blind-sides me with a facial expression or an interpretive choice that moves me very much. Sondra plays Anna, aka Anne Boleyn. If you just arrived in Toronto or haven’t been paying attention, Radvanovsky is a world-famous star who happens to have blessed us by choosing to live in the GTA, and choosing to make herself available. Lucky us!

There’s another wonderful soprano role in this opera, namely Jane Seymour, aka Giovanna aka Seymour, portrayed by Keri Alkema. Alkema was a remarkable Tosca last year (unique intelligence in her portrayal) and a fabulous Vitellia in 2013. She makes an intriguing contrast to Radvanovsky, a worthy addition to the ensemble.

While you might believe the show is built around Radvanovsky because she’s such a megastar, it’s not so. Yes Anna Bolena is largely composed around the title character. But for most of this opera, the key character is King Henry the Eighth aka Enrico, in the big physical presence of Christian Van Horn. While he might be taller than anyone else in the show, he is often lounging in a chair while being pushed about the stage. No wonder he gets fat later in life, although at this point he’s still a handsome figure of a man. He’s also a scary piece of work who always gets his way, and has no scruple about who might get hurt.

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From left, Allyson McHardy is a boyish Smeton, Christian Van Horn as Enrico VIII reclines centre and Jonathan Johnson as Hervey, far right in red (Photo: Michael Cooper)

Tenor Bruce Sledge is Ricccardo (Richard) Percy, once betrothed to Anna and still in love with her, singing some of the prettiest music of the night. Jonathan Johnson is Hervey, who is the ears and eyes of the King, in a slippery portrayal that had some people hissing at the curtain call: which tells you he did a great job.

Allyson McHardy looks like a handsome boy when she wears the right sort of wig in the aptly named role of Smeton, a young man who is indeed smitten: with Anna. McHardy’s luscious voice reminds you of her gender whenever she starts singing.

And so the last two Canadian Opera Company productions have now opened. Two weeks ago they gave us the premiere of The Nightingale & other short fables, a production where the visuals in Robert Lepage’s concept take you back to childhood in a series of departures from usual practice in an opera house. Today it was time for something more normal, namely opera relying upon the singing voice & musicianship in Donizetti’s Anna Bolena, the second Donizetti opera of the season. Depending on what you like in an opera, they’ve saved the best for last. While I am a total sucker for the visuals in The Nightingale, a perfect first opera, a wonderful production for children, I’d have to crown Anna Bolena the best thing I’ve seen from the COC all year.

This is Stephen Lawless’s production, to complete his take on Donizetti’s Elizabethan trilogy presented in recent years. We had Roberto Devereux also starring Radvanovsky in 2014 and Maria Stuarda in 2010. Lawless & his set designer Benoit Dugardyn remind us of the Elizabethan theatre in their staging concept. That we are looking at a playing area enclosed as though it were the Globe Theatre makes sense when we see that the King, his women (Anna & Jane) and the courtiers all thrust into a kind of performance role, their every word scrutinized and judged. We watch from our side across centuries while another audience of his contemporaries onstage looks upon the courtiers & the King, sometimes straining to hear what’s being said, voyeurs in the lives of the great & powerful: just like us.

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Notice the resemblance to the Globe Theatre in Benoit Dugardyn’s design for the Canadian Opera Company’s production of Anna Bolena, 2018. (Photo: Michael Cooper)

Like the Lepage show it’s a great piece of theatre, although Lawless is just one piece of what makes Anna Bolena so good. Conductor Corrado Rovaris led a taut reading, the COC Orchestra shining brightly throughout, while the COC chorus were fascinating both for their musical contribution but also in their regular visits upstage as that mysterious audience.

We even see the young Elizabeth, a non-singing role.

Anna Bolena continues until May 26th at the Four Seasons Centre.

Posted in Opera, Reviews | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

Against the Grain Orphée+

Posted on April 28, 2018 by barczablog

Orphée+?

That plus sign might signify an opera updated, enlarged, perhaps even reformed(?). The “+” means some remarkable additions and changes from Gluck’s original, Orphée et Eurydice (or the Italian version aka Orfeo ed Euridice). Gluck created more than one version, but the + is a 21st century incarnation whose pluses include adventurous mise en scene, electronic guitar, and a virtual chorus, who aptly mirror the isolation of so many in the modern world addicted to our phones. There are some marvelous ideas vying for our lonely broken hearts. It’s a colossal team effort, involving singers, dancers, musicians, designers, directed by Joel Ivany,  choreographed by Austin McCorrmick, a co-production between Toronto’s Against the Grain Theatre, Columbus’s Opera Columbus, The Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity and New York’s Company XIV. This is the biggest collaborative effort we’ve seen yet from AtG and expensive considering how beautiful it is in so many ways, appealing to all of our senses.

For anyone who knows Gluck’s opera this is familiar turf. The story gets told with some intriguing wrinkles and embellishments. Love (aka “Amour”) is the most flamboyant character in the story and in the production, sung, acted and… okay I have to stop and pose a question.

What is the verb for what an aerialist does? I googled and found a wonderful plethora of words and images describing the moves, a reflection of a burgeoning culture that’s far from the operatic world. Because aerials have rarely been integrated into another medium such as opera, the vocabulary is unfamiliar outside that realm. There are moves and positions that have names within the community, the same way that figure skating or dance has given names to the positions or the leaps. Just as we learned what a death spiral or an arabesque looks like, so too eventually for a single knee hang, shoulder balance or so many more. But when I start dropping the names I’ve become the sort of snob I hate (I loathe jargon on principle): so I’ll stop.

Of course part of the problem may be that it’s hard to talk when your mouth is hanging open, silenced but for a few gasps. I guess I need to get out more.

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Marcy Richardson is Amour (Darryl Block photography)

Marcy Richardson is the best reason to go see Orphée+, as though the plus-sign were the twinkle in her eye. Marcy is an aerialist, dressed as Love with wings and sequins and looking like a slim petite version of Mae West (please note, I speak as a huge fan of Mae West, the under-rated and empowered sex goddess from another century). Did I mention that Marcy also sings? And that she does it while suspended upside down ten feet above the stage? So in other words we’re talking about a remarkable feat verging on a circus stunt, something that might even be called dangerous or death-defying.

All in a day’s work if you’re an immortal goddess.

You will never see or hear anything like this in your lifetime, at least not until singers routinely incorporate aerials into their training. But I wouldn’t hold your breath for that possibility. It’s not impossible I suppose. I remember being taken aback by Barbara Hannigan doing the role of Lulu on her toes, so perhaps there will be another rare multi-talented performer like Marcy Richardson.

We’re in a very interesting time for displays of beauty. One of the things I love about burlesque, invoked in the costuming and in the movement style of Company XIV, is the aura of empowerment that totally deconstructs the old-fashioned objectification of women we used to see in the 1950s and before, when a performance like the one I saw tonight could elicit wolf-whistles: but in places far removed from the operatic stage. This is a relatively new notion of beauty, an inclusive image that isn’t sizist or sexist, although it remains to be seen whether age or disability can also be transcended as well. As the bodies on this stage from Company XIV conform to the thin athletic ideal, I can’t say Orphee+ is a fully inclusive display of that sort even when the 21st century burlesque aesthetic suggests something more broadly accepting; and we did venture into ambiguous territory when dancers paired off & moved in ways to signify intimacy, at least avoiding the hetero-normative displays one sometimes sees in ballet & theatre.

What Marcy and her Company XIV entourage pulled off is stunning and apt for this opera, where she is the redeeming goddess who rescues the other two protagonists. They say love conquers all, and on this occasion it was so.

I’ll continue to harp on a theme I keep bringing up, that opera is theatre above all. We are immersed in a powerful spectacle, not just in the form of Marcy’s magnificent movement, but in the stage picture incorporating wonderful CGI on a stunning set, all designed by S. Katy Tucker. Long before we see Mireille Asselin perform Eurydice, we’re seeing her face projected in different ways, haunting poor Orphée, played by Siman Chung. All three are wonderfully musical, emerging out of the soundscape conducted by Topher Mokrzewski, an orchestral texture including keys and guitar. John Gzowski’s contribution is lurking throughout, a sound design that gives the piece an edge. When I say it sounds like hell I mean it in a good way, in an opera showing us the afterlife. The addition of electronics plus a virtual chorus may represent departures from Gluck’s original, but the goal is theatre & magic.

It’s the morning after (I set aside my review late last night) and I woke up thinking about Opera Atelier, suddenly appreciative of what they achieve and thinking of how hard it is integrating dance into the story-telling, making the dance inevitable and cathartic. They do it by relentlessly forcing everyone—dancers, singers and maybe even the stage-hands—to conform to the same consistent movement vocabulary. In places the Orphée+ dance –beautiful and skilful as it was–seemed extraneous rather than organically linked to the story-telling. Perhaps I’m caught up in the visual aesthetic & its fashionable appearance, but these dances felt more like accessories, scarves and fascinators, adornments rather than an organic living part of the whole. When I went to bed I was trying to find the right way to express what I felt was missing. But I think the key is that Gluck is known as a reformer, his Orphée sometimes austere and dry (thinking for instance of the minimalist version we saw from Robert Carsen at the COC), a reform of the excesses that preceded him in removing divertissements and extraneous decoration. The + in Orphée+ seems to be the attempt to put a lot of the stuff back in that Gluck sought to remove, a counter-revolution against the reformer. I wouldn’t object if I felt it hung together better, but my sense of the + as excess came to me after the interval. Where the first half cohered beautifully (and isn’t it always the way with daring adaptations?), the longer we went on, the more I felt that the different parts –and collaborating companies—almost seemed to be in competition rather than accord.

So in other words I think Orphée+ is AtG’s bridge too far, biting off more than they can chew, in the collaboration between one company too many, a brave attempt that still hasn’t quite gelled. So many of their productions are near-perfect especially in their ability to pull it all together around a few key ideas. On this occasion, while there is so much that’s brilliant, yet the performance felt very uneven to me, spectacularly breath-taking when Amour is onstage but far less exciting when she’s not there. We had tantalizing guitar work, some loud electronics in the scenes with the furies, and tantalizing dancers. Go big or go home I wanted to say, because I felt the negotiation underway between the existing text and the desire to make it bolder and newer. Hell could be so much more seductive, so much louder and nastier. I felt that what we got was so respectful of Gluck, in the way that a project requiring so many players –onstage and in the pit—with so many pages of musical score, must negotiate between daring adventure and more cautious steps in the service of organization & intelligibility. I wanted more adventure, more daring wild spirit. We came to pages of recitative that honour Gluck, but plunked on a guitar (or was it a keyboard? I couldn’t see for sure) rather than the usual way: a collision between the desire to innovate vs the published score by Gluck. I wondered about their creative process, commissioning John Gzowski as a sound designer, whose work was very self-effacing, peering through the pages of the score from time to time, when I wished he had been turned loose to do more re-imagining. It felt too respectful to me. And at the very end the lovely tableau was so tantalizing as we all silently stared, gradually realizing that alas the show had ended and had segued into the curtain call.

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Against the Grain music director Topher Mokrzewski

Yes it’s very cool that they used burlesque in an opera. In fairness it’s from a time when opera was normally in parts & chunks, when eye candy was the reason you went to the opera in the first place. Gluck’s reform aimed to strip away the excess complexity to get back to the essence. I wasn’t sure who was winning in this battle for opera’s soul even as the collaboration seemed intent on turning back the clock on Gluck’s reforms. The musical side was impeccable, Siman Chung with a big beautiful tone, very accurately wielded. Mireille Asselin brought her usual beautiful musicianship, a sensitive and passionate delivery of every moment, and as mentioned Marcy Richardson was spectacular in every way. The virtual chorus plus the few actual chorus singers were beautifully integrated into the live performance, another impeccable outing for Topher Mokzewski.

And just as Gluck came back to his opera, aiming to improve it each time, I’m sure AtG aren’t finished with this either, especially given that they brought back Boheme and Messiah. But you still have a chance to see this version: Saturday night at 8 pm at the Fleck Dance Theatre at Harbourfront.

Posted in Dance, theatre & musicals, Music and musicology, Opera, Popular music & culture, Reviews | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Candide with the Toronto Symphony: using our imaginations

Posted on April 27, 2018 by barczablog

Tonight was the first of two concert performances of Candide presented by the Toronto Symphony at Roy Thomson Hall in the worldwide celebration of Leonard Bernstein’s centennial year.

Earlier this week Joseph So was rapturous in his description of a concert performance of a Wagner opera in Cleveland with their orchestra.  One of the ironies of high definition broadcasts, particularly with bizarre director’s approaches to the staging, is to make some of us rebel at the notion of realism, pushing us back to the music, and indeed embracing concert performances as an ideal.  It’s especially valid for those works requiring the imagination, that are near impossible to stage in a realistic fashion.

If one were to ask for a list of such works, Wagner’s operas might be the first one would think of: yet Candide is every bit as impossible.  People die and come back to life. The action takes us back and forth across the Atlantic, and the whole time we’re really in the presence of a story that is told to us as if for instruction rather than for the purpose of creating a dramatic illusion.

One might argue that too much illusion is counter-productive.When I think of the music-theatre nerds I know:

  • I remember Leigha Lee Browne, the founder of the theatre program at Scarborough College, who gave her name to the theatre they built at UTSC, telling me that this was the finest musical ever written
  • And yes I could name three others who told me that Candide is their favorite musical

Of course they were speaking from their acquaintance via recordings, aka virtual theatre.  When you listen to it you can create the illusion in your head, and won’t trouble yourself about the inanity of the plot.     And so this is a nerd’s dream.

They’re playing with us in this presentation from the TSO, as we watch members of the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir put on a bit of costume, which is to say, they’re still in a concert tux with a funny hat.  So this is hugely theatrical, demanding that we use our imaginations, like good nerds.  It doesn’t matter if Cunegonde is older than Candide, not when we’re in this virtual theatre of music, words & our flights of fancy.

Judith Forst, Bramwell Tovey dancing (@Jag Gundu)

Judith Forst & Bramwell Tovey dancing (baton betwixt his lips) as Tracy Dahl, Mendelssohn Choir &  TSO look on (photo Jag Gundu)

This felt like a very authentic performance to me, Bramwell Tovey kicking the TSO, chorus & soloists along at a wonderful pace.  Tovey even got into the act, singing & dancing himself, but he was having a great time.

I call it authentic because of a video I saw of Tovey, speaking of his history with Bernstein.  You watch, and judge for yourself.  All I know is that this Candide made a ton of sense, the best Candide I’ve ever seen.

There are other reasons why it was remarkable.  Tracy Dahl showed us a very different way of doing “Glitter and be gay”. Oh sure, she sang it perfectly. But in the middle she acted, she played the role of Cunegonde, giggling and crying like a true comedienne. This wasn’t just an aria but a whole scene, a complex portrayal, hysterically funny in places, poignant in others.  It brings me back to a current obsession of mine, that we need to pry the fingers of the musicologists off the throat of opera,  a form that they are strangling by missing the point.  Because of course opera isn’t just music, but theatre. And ditto for operetta and musicals.  We wouldn’t mistake a musical for a pure piece of music would we? Even in concert performance we understand that we’re dealing with a hybrid, part music / part theatre, and greater than the sum of its parts.  Dahl makes theatre out of her big aria, and indeed is making theatre –and wonderful comedy—every moment she’s onstage.  Oh sure, the voice is fabulous: but it’s not a virtuoso display, never about the music at the expense of the character or the situation. She was always alive as a character, in the moment and fascinating to watch.

resized_Tracy Dahl, Nicholas Phan, Bramwell Tovey, Richard Suart (@Jag Gundu)

Tracy Dahl and Nicholas Phan sing, Bramwell Tovey conducts as Richard Suart and Judith Forst et al watch the romance unfold (photo: Jag Gundu)

Judith Forst is also a theatrical animal, although in the Old Lady role, she’s given tons of great material, in numbers that people sometimes remember best of all in Candide.  I love this rich elegant voice, especially singing these wonderful melodies.

Nicholas Phan has a classic music-theatre sound, even though his bio suggests he’s at home with oratorio & classical singing.  The high notes floated, sometimes in a delightful falsetto: and they were pure magic.  While it’s a team-effort, I can’t help noticing that he is the most likeable Candide, managing to be totally sympathetic in a work that at times is all big ideas & philosophy.

And speaking of philosophy, one of the keys to Candide is the role of the narrator & Pangloss, presented tonight by Richard Suart.  If the virtual presentation floated along on any wings, they were largely his, the man spinning the tale.

If there’s any possible way you can get to see the second presentation on Saturday –admittedly on what feels like one of the busiest weekends of the year—I strongly recommend that you get yourself down to Roy Thomson Hall.  You’ll see and hear what I’m talking about.

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L-R in the foreground, Judith Forst, Tracy Dahl, Nicholas Phan, Bramwell Tovey (extending his hand), and in the white tux, Richard Suart.

Posted in Music and musicology, Opera, Reviews | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

Ulysses comes home

Posted on April 22, 2018 by barczablog

Opera Atelier’s Revival of Monteverdi’s The Return of Ulysses (1640) starts slowly but builds to a strong finish.  By intermission I had enjoyed a few moments (Kresimir Spicer in the title role and Mireille Lebel as Penelope, and Meghan Lindsay in a pair of goddess incarnations) as well as the usual sterling work of the orchestra led by David Fallis, but otherwise wondered if things might improve in the second half.  I think director Marshall Pynkoski devoted most of his attention & energy to the complexities in the latter scenes, where most of the dramatic interest is found.

And wow did the story ever come to life.

There are at least three plot-lines, in this opera based on Homer’s epic.  After a Prologue showing us the vulnerability of man in the hands of the gods, we watch things developing at home around Penelope including among the servants in the palace, around Telemaco, and around Ulysses.  Gradually the action coalesces as Telemaco reunites with his father –in the most affecting moments before the intermission—and we see the pathway Ulysses will take homewards, as Minerva assists him and his son in handling the suitors who are pressuring Penelope to re-marry.

For the most part we’re listening to gentle vocalism, singers able to sail comfortably over the orchestra because of its delicate sound.  Spicer reminded me a bit of Charles Daniels in the Bach Mass in B Minor, for his lovely unforced vocalism, agility without any forcing, perfect intonation and a wonderful sensitivity to the moment.  Like Daniels with the Bach,  we were witnessing a performer who might know his music better than anyone in the world, having done this role many times over the past 20 years on both sides of the Atlantic.  Whenever he was on stage there was something lovely to listen to and usually something interesting to watch.  His first scene with Minerva was especially interesting as he and Meghan Lindsay, who had teamed up a few years ago in Der Freischütz in a very different fach were once again making big powerful sounds for a few moments. Lindsay made a totally different kind of impression as Cupid, although both of her goddesses were larger than life.

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Krešimir Špicer as Ulysses and Mireille Lebel as Penelope (Photo: Bruce Zinger)

There was something I saw on social media in the past week or so from Mireille Lebel, an artist whose singing I already admire very much. She said something about intensity, that she would be singing the role of Penelope differently because of something she experienced in the past year.  I read this and I set the thought aside, until I came to the last scene of the opera tonight. The way Lebel approaches this last scene is quite unique and validates Monteverdi’s opera for me. I’ve long thought of this last scene as an odd superfluity, when the scene where Ulysses shoots the suitors should take us quickly to the end, rather than leaving us still facing a whole other drama.  I don’t know what her subtext is, but the scene makes tremendous sense, right up to the moment when Lebel is persuaded, and you feel the Earth move, as everyone feels the adjustment and change in her attitude, as she finally believes that Ulysses has come home.  I realized that for the entire scene I couldn’t take my eyes off of her, the flashing eyes and the unbearable agony.  It’s one of the finest performances I’ve seen in a very long time, and as I said, for me helps to make sense out of Monteverdi’s score for the first time.

I’d like to also mention the powerful presence of Douglas Williams, who was a totally different artist tonight as one of the suitors chasing –and harassing—Penelope, from the man we saw as Figaro a few months ago.  Instead of affability & charm we saw swagger and intimidation, a rugged machismo unlike anything I’ve ever seen from Opera Atelier.  And I realize now how much restraint he used singing the Mozart, after hearing the sound he produced tonight.

There were other great performances.  Laura Pudwell again made me giggle, while sounding fabulous as usual, in the relatively thankless part of Ericlea the nurse,  that she elevated into something magnificent.  And I realized how much I’ve missed Carla Huhtanen, who was the most musical performer of the night in the fascinating little role of Melanto.  Huhtanen has a gift for comedy that had us all laughing, yet it was her musicianship, making beautiful music that impressed me the most.    Christopher Enns was a believable son to Ulysses, and the Opera Atelier ballet were as beautiful as ever.

Opera Atelier’s stunning Return of Ulysses continues at the Elgin Theatre until April 28th.

Posted in Music and musicology, Opera, Reviews | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Eagerly anticipating Against the Grain’s Orphée⁺ next week

Posted on April 21, 2018 by barczablog

I’m writing about Against the Grain Theatre right now as I think about their imminent co-production of Gluck’s opera, that they are calling Orphée⁺ (the original press release said “an international co-production between AtG, the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, and Opera Columbus“, although AtG now also mention “NYC’s Company XIV” on their website).

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The production’s arrival in Toronto is imminent, a show that premiered last night south of the border with Opera Columbus, who are already known hereabouts as the employer of Opera Atelier regular & star Peggy Kriha Dye, the General and Artistic Director of Opera Columbus.

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Against the Grain music director Topher Mokrzewski

Let me make an analogy.  Let’s say Against the Grain are the Beatles and it’s still the 1960s.  All four were still alive back then in the 1960s when they could do no wrong and if you were like me, you hung on their every word, guitar strum and batted eyelash.  The thought they might ever break up(??!) was as unthinkable as growing old and dying to those of us who were young at the time (who knew!?).

I’m a fan who wondered at times if AtG could break up, as we watched Topher take a job for awhile in Calgary, as we watched Joel take all sorts of directing jobs all over the world.  Would they continue creating edgy projects here in Toronto? Or had they outgrown AtG? I am sure I’m not the only one who figured that after their Da Ponte trilogy of transladaptions, each more impressive than the last, after presenting and reviving Boheme and Messiah, that maybe they would lose interest, perhaps not be bothered.  Would they be distracted by better offers elsewhere?  Was AtG merely their youthful proving ground where they found their first fame, before going on to bigger and better things?

The Canadian myth for success especially in theatre, opera and music has essentially been the story of artists who get their legitimacy by being discovered abroad:

  • Robert Carsen
  • Joni Mitchell
  • Donald Sutherland
  • …and I’m sure you could list another 100 very quickly
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Against the Grain Artistic Director Joel Ivany

Or is that template now out of date?  Topher split his energies east and west for a time.  Joel & his wife Miriam have a child and probably have more than enough miles just going out to Banff where they workshop their shows before bringing them to Toronto, without adding a host of foreign destinations.   I hope I’m right in sensing that Against the Grain have renewed their covenant with themselves & the company in this new project pulling them together (admittedly in a co-production with others outside Toronto), everyone seeming committed and making an important contribution.  But a co-production is a great way to be able to do something exciting in Toronto.

I’m going by the promotional materials I’ve received plus the press I’ve read concerning Orphée⁺, in considering three elements, namely burlesque, aerials and the musical side.

Burlesque has been re-invented in the last decade, a site for women to reclaim their bodies in all shapes and sizes.  It is no longer the voyeuristic spectacle of objectification & pornography from the last century, indeed the aim to titillate has been replaced by a kind of fun celebration, as burlesque has come to signify inclusiveness & empowerment.

We’ve seen burlesque begin to enter the visual lexicon, part of the movement vocabulary for theatre practitioners.

The challenge for any show is to make the new and glamorous element an organic part of the whole.

Aerials are now solidly established as part of the visual theatre vocabulary, an addition to the toolkit that a director can’t ignore.

  • We know aerials have roots in the realm we sometimes call “circus”, from companies such as Cirque du Soleil
  • Theatre artists have been importing aerials for a long time, for instance Robert Lepage, who brought aerials into Erwartung (1993), Damnation de Faust (2008), his Ring cycle (2010 – 12) and Needles & Opium (2013)
  • An essay I wrote about it a couple of years ago .
  • Inspiring imports such as The Return ,Triptyque
    and
  • Inspired local creations such as Balancing on the Edge  and Bruce Barton’s experimental YouTopia
  • …and we can’t forget inspiring productions at the Canadian Opera Company (in addition to (Erwartung) such as Love from Afar, and Semele

So it would seem like a natural to remake Amour, aka The Goddess of Love as an aerial goddess of glamour as in the pictures I’ve seen (such as the one at the top of this blog).

As for the music I’m on shakier ground in my projection/ speculation. The Berlioz take on Gluck was used recently by Opera Atelier in their production. But perhaps more importantly there’s also the use of electronics & sound design. Is this too part of a new vocabulary?  One can look at electronic incursions into classical performance, for example:

  • Haus Musik (where Tafelmusik regularly marry their authentic sound with new electronic improvisation + staging to match)
  • The annual Electric Messiah

Electronic and Electro-acoustic music have been there for awhile, and regularly  incorporated into operas, either in the score or in adaptations of older rep.  I could list lots of productions, but I have no idea what AtG’s adaptation will be like, so they’re not terribly relevant, except as a reminder that electronic music and electronic/digital processing of sound & music are normal ingredients in theatre.  We will see & hear soon enough. I sense that AtG want to ensure that their adaptation is an update both in the visual and sonic realms, but I’m just guessing. This weekend they’re in Columbus.

On the AtG website it says
“Against the Grain Theatre, The Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, Opera Columbus, and NYC’s Company XIV collaborate to present the Gluck/Berlioz masterpiece, the opera Orphée et Eurydice. We all know the original Greek myth: the musician Orpheus is grieving the death of his lover Eurydice—and gets one chance to retrieve her from the Underworld. In 2018, we think this would become an electronic, baroque-burlesque descent into hell. While staying true to the original score — which features the world’s most exquisite melodies of love, loss, and desperation — and honouring the traditions of Baroque opera, this new production pushes the boundaries of operatic presentation through an orchestra that mixes acoustic and electric instruments, features captivating choreography from burlesque dancers, aerial artistry, and a global virtual chorus.”

I’m looking forward to seeing Orphée⁺ next weekend, one of the three Toronto performances.  When I went online to buy a second pair of tickets to go with my comps (because four of us will be going; I said I was a fan, remember?) there were still some available.

Find out more & book tickets by going to AtG’s website.

Posted in Dance, theatre & musicals, Music and musicology, Opera, Personal ruminations & essays | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

I love dogs & The Post

Posted on April 21, 2018 by barczablog

Living through the daily assault upon one’s sensibility leads one to take protective measures.  Whatever does get you through the night?

I vacillate between truth and escapism. Truth consists of various sorts of political content, whether on a news network or in some sort of film or documentary.  Escapism will sometimes take me to music, opera, or movies although the best escape sometimes is simply to stare at a cute kitten or puppy.    Social media reflects our taste, where one can see kitties & puppies or political memes, vying for one or the other side of our brain.

dogs

The film world has noticed too.  Recently I saw Wes Anderson’s Isle of Dogs.  See what I did in the headline above? That’s just me, catching on to what Mr Anderson already did.  When you say “Isle of Dogs” aloud can you avoid the homonym?  “Isle of Dogs” is an unlikely phrase, and sounds a whole lot like “I love dogs” even before you factor in a story awkwardly on the boundaries of English due to translations from another language.    Not only does Isle of Dogs explore –indeed celebrate—the love of dogs, but it ventures more than a little into the political side of the brain as well.  After seeing it, I pulled out The Royal Tenenbaums and Rushmore, a pair of films I have owned for years, and the next day brought home The Grand Budapest Hotel from the library for another viewing.

Fanciful & poetic as Anderson’s films are, they also include a great deal of political content.  In The Grand Budapest Hotel we see some violent confrontations that look a lot like moments in the Second World War.  Ditto for Isle of Dogs: and I’ll say no more for fear of giving it away.

Tonight, it was Mr Spielberg’s turn, working in the company of Meryl Streep, Tom Hanks and one of his oldest collaborators, John Williams.  The score is understated but at the climactic moments I was moved to tears, largely due to JW’s contribution.  The Post is in some ways more of a nostalgia trip than Grand Budapest Hotel. Where Anderson’s film takes us to a place in the past that never really existed, Spielberg reminds us of a recent version of the USA, one that seems lost in the current climate.

I’m reminded of Philip K Dick’s novel The Man in the High Castle, a book that posits an alternative world where the Axis powers won, where America ends up occupied rather than victorious. How crazy is it, then, that today’s world feels like Dick’s nightmare world: where the wrong guys have somehow overturned everything achieved in the last half century, breathing new life into fascism and the KKK and the worst xenophobia.  Spielberg’s film would remind America of what she once was, for fear that she forgets, that she loses herself altogether.

Today I saw a Huffington Post article citing James Comey’s memos:

  • headline: “Trump Floated Idea Of Jailing Journalists To Make Them ‘Talk'”
  • quote: ‘They spend a couple days in jail, make a new friend, and they are ready to talk,’
    full article |memos

Does that make you want to close this page, and instead find a picture of a dog? (sorry if the picture above misled you) or something political?

Isle of Dogs is not a children’s film.  It’s rated PG-13 because of violence and thematic elements, an allegory about our own time, which is precisely why Anderson chose to set it in a remote place in a stylized fashion.  If you too live in a house where the TV is tuned to CNN 80% of the time you’ll be open to the plot elements in a movie to remind you of current times.  No, there’s nobody with a bad comb-over or a real estate empire.  Maybe I’m making too much of the story.  It does include (SPOILER ALERT)

  • Fake news
  • A leader who follows a strategy of demonizing a powerless group
  • A leader who follows a plan to exterminate that group in a kind of final solution that almost comes to pass

I’m reminded of a few artists, when I try to characterize Anderson.

  • Gustav Mahler, for that ambivalence that mixes high and low, comic & tragic often in the same instant.
  • Terry Gilliam for the ambitious & layered stories, the use of models & elaborate art direction
  • The live-action animation we’ve seen from Tim Burton, although I don’t think Burton ever achieved anything as deep as Isle of Dogs

Tomorrow I’ll be escaping into a baroque opera with a classical story-line.  I comfort myself that on the weekend the only firing the POTUS will do, will be balls fired out of bunkers on the golf-course.

Posted in Animals, domestic & wild, Cinema, video & DVDs, Politics, Reviews | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment