Stuff I did week before last: Lulu/Pollini

Sigh...never got around to posting on the fine week of music last week, but for posterity's sake...

I made an executive decision to miss this awesomeness in DC for Lulu at the Met (the first matinee...oh, and I guess my family was there and stuff). And while I am still jonesin' bad for a hit of that sweet sweet Brewer earmagik, I was very happy to "do the deed" and get rid of this nagging Lulu virginity I've been harboring.

It's really just such a fantastic piece of music. While I felt Wozzeck (in the last Met outing) was wonderful musically, the drama feels subsumed by the symphony at times. Lulu on the other hand is all flesh and blood, with Berg's spectacular orchestration supporting moment after moment of pure OPERA.

The cast, as noted, was universally fine. Marlis Petersen sounded great and pulled off the trick I think must be central to an effective Lulu--maintaining that air of amoral cruelty right up until the excruciating pathos demanded by that horrific final scene. JMo towered over his scenes as Schoen and JtR, and Gary Lehman's massive tenor made for a consistently exciting Alwa. Luisi's conducting frequently "made clear" the beauty of Berg's score.

Good sign o' the times moment: in the fourth act, when the "humans are godforsaken animals" theme is extended to a bunch of 19th century financiers at a party screwing each other over on some stock market BS, there were HEARTY laughs from the audience. Choice laff line was something like: "We're bankers, we know what we're doing."

***
Maurizio Pollini was on at the Kennedy Center the following Wednesday, and those who know about that dutifully gathered to participate in the communal brain pleasuring. The program was all Chopin: played, not as wistful memories, but as something approaching modern art in immediacy and formal power. Pollini teases these pieces apart like a surgeon, separating muscle from bone so that one can see how they lie together.

Sometimes his manner can seem a bit cruel with slighter tissue. The simple mechanism of a mazurka in the first half could feel harangued by his probing treatment. But Pollini's interpretations reward those willing to play a deeper listening game--the effect at its best is cumulative rather than acute, an architectural beauty only fully appreciated when the last girder is snapped into place.

Oh, but give the man a substantial subject for dissection--the Sonata No. 3 which dominated the second half of the program was nothing short of transporting. His project--finding truth through the structure, emotional power through clarity, is clearly as vital as ever.

As Downey points out this was a somewhat disjointed program, a mixed bag of Chopin replacing the apparently planned complete Preludes + all Etudes in the second half. But just in case there's any confusion, we will take what we can get.

Just for kicks, here's Pollini on opera:

He closely examines the sources of pieces he plays. Chopin, he pointed out, changed the voicing of the final chords of the Second Ballade four times.

"He was seeking perfection in every detail," Mr. Pollini said, fingering the different chords on the hotel coffee table. Was he the same way, Mr. Pollini was asked. "I'm not exactly like this, certainly," he answered. But he gave a clue about his attitude later, saying he did not go much to opera. "There are too many elements," he explained. "You are rarely satisfied. But if it succeeds, it is something absolutely phenomenal."

Sounds about right.

Figaro at WNO

As others have already noted, WNO has turned out an immensely pleasing Figaro revival (I saw it Tuesday with the A-cast). This is a production focused on emphasizing the opera's vast appeal and, watching such a natural, well-conceived staging (kudos to director Harry Silverstein), it is hard to believe this magical piece of musical theatre ever produces anything else. But getting 200 year old humor right is not easy (witness every godforsaken Barber production) and finding a production that avoids wallowing in the endless hit parade while meeting the piece's musical demands is something to value indeed.

The mood was evident from Patrick Fournillier's downbeat on a madcap, rollicking reading of the overture, and he proceeded to keep things moving at a healthy clip, which was clearly catnip to the enthusiastic cast.

Now, it must be said, despite the considerable fun of Teddy Tahu Rhodes' SexyCount ^TM, it sacrifices something in the plausibility department. There's something to playing the Count as a sort of hapless Don Juan, but the discrepancy between his station and dissolute behavior is an important tension. If he just comes off like a rich 28 year-old d-bag, it is hard to be very perturbed by this. Moreover, it makes sympathy for the Countess less easy to come by--you married this jerkstore who's at least a decade younger than you, what did you expect? That said, Rhodes clearly has a great stage presence and to my ears was the most exciting vocal thing happening onstage. One of the musical thrills of the evening was hearing his warm, resonant baritone cutting through the ensembles.

His Countess, Virginia Tola, turned in a fairly sedate performance relative to her colleagues that at times verged on the nondescript. The voice has an appealing strength and urgency through the middle despite a sometimes unpleasant edge, but peters out at the top, with pitch issues on some of the big moments. But all of that equivocation was promptly forgotten for the duration of her "Dove Sono" which seemed to suck all the air from the room, as it is wont to do in the right hands.

Veronica Cangemi's Susanna was a great deal of fun--she works the Despina angles hard where others might try to keep things straighter and more sympathetic, but it really is a better character this way. Vocally there were some quibbles, including a failure to hold her own in the ensembles where Susanna's soaring lines are so key. But, as with Tola, she went out on a high point, offering a sensitive and beguiling "Deh Vieni".

If less consistent than Rhodes, Michèle Losier's Cherubino was certainly the other vocal standout of the evening, bringing all the ardent passion one wants from this role, if not the exalted levels of mezzo creaminess one finds in the finest readings. The rest of the cast was uniformly strong, particularly: Ildar Abradzakov's polished Figaro and Victoria Livengood's bawdy, hilarious Marcellina, which could be too broad depending on your taste, but never crossed the line to vulgar or distracting.

The crime is not doing Figaro too much, but doing it in a way that anyone could leave bored and unfulfilled. Figaro is like comfort food and haute cuisine all at once--a delicate balance, to be sure, but one that, successfully achieved, leaves one's heart full and one's head swimming. So let's not phone it in, OK? More of what this production has going is a good start.

Jenny

A: there is this jenufa in english from the 70s on sirius right now
A: it took me like 15 minutes of listening to realize this
J: oh?
J: I still wish they called the English version "Jennifer"
A: ha~!
A: inflected je-NI-fer
A: ?
J: no, just plain old Jennifer
A: je-NIIIIIII-fer
A: the women are totally unintelligible
A: this is with Astrid Varnay as Kostelnicka
A: creepy...one forgets that Laca is totally just talking about her cheeks the entire end of the first act before he cuts her
J: “Larry"
A: ha
A: and Steve
J: "Steve"
A: Aunt Connie?
J: hah
J: that one doesn't really translate as it's basically like "Deacon"
A: right
J: "Evil Stepmom" is the same number of syllables
A: ha
A: just sung really fast
A: evilstepmom
A: Jon Vickers is a bit much as Steve
A: tho maybe we're just too used to pretty douchey Steves
A: as opposed to scary douchey Steves
A: i want to see a live Makropoulos case
A: how is that going to happen
J: come to SF with me in November
A: oh?
A: oh mattila in san francisco!
A: done
A: i am so there for that

Jack Quartet at Library of Congress

The monastery of Sainte_Marie_de_La_Tourette.

A strong show by the Jack Quartet, a group of Eastman grads specializing in contemporary and new music, at the Library of Congress last night. The program was works by Jeff Myers, Matthias Pintscher, a premiere by Caleb Burhans, and a REDONCULOUS Xenakis quartet.

The opener, Jeff Myer's "Dopamine", operates in a unique space tonally, creating (through tuning I think) these not-quite-dissonant-not-quite-vanilla harmonies that dance uneasily around various solo figures. Toward the end, they converge in great masses of alternative chords and the effect is quite brilliant. You can listen to it on his myspace page here.

Pintscher's "Study IV for 'Treatise on the Veil'" is one of those pieces I find out of place in a regular concert setting. To the unprepared ear (perhaps all ears) it is almost completely without structure. An endless soundscape of demonstrations of the different noises the violin can make, both on its own and with certain augmentations added by the musicians. It could very well be an interesting sound world, but I can't help but feel it might be better explored in the freedom of a gallery space or something similar. In concert, on first hearing, one tries to interrogate it with the concentration one accords other things one hears in that space, and this approach offers pretty meager rewards with such a piece.

After the half, we heard the premiere of a gorgeous piece called "Contritus" by Caleb Burhans. So, sometimes watching new music, I wonder about whether the space exists for something like the generous feeling one finds in, say, Brahms--that kind of unabashed wisdom, feeling for the human condition, what have you. One the one hand, its an essentialized sentiment, and hard to square with a lot of the advances in the "research program", for the best in large measure, but on the other hand--its a question of how well music fulfills some basic human needs.

Burhans' new piece meditates on guilt via three sections organized around prayers of contrition. Not suffocating and terrifying guilt, but, I think, as a sort of beautiful humility before God. The piece is constructed from small figures, multiplying deliberately in pure, vital harmonies. At its climax, the swoon of the strings cuts deep and disarms, resolving in a slow fade out and reverent silence. It is a piece that wants to convey deep emotions, and does, through a deeply persuasive musical logic. I hope to hear it again.

And then there was the Xenakis, specifically the quartet "Tetras". I thought I had heard Xenakis live before, but now I'm doubting that, because I think I'd remember. Here's a little excerpt of him talking about his music out of A. Ross' Rest is Noise:

"The listener must be gripped...and--whether he likes it or not--drawn into the flight path of the sounds, without a special training being necessary. The sensual shock must be just as forceful as when one hears a clap of thunder or looks into a bottomless abyss."

Done and done, buddy. It is indeed primal--but not in the animal sense: in the chemical, rock formation, lava vs. atmosphere sense. It is the performance through humans of deeply unhuman processes. Today, when we think about how to portray such elemental forces, our minds go to a recorded artifact. Imagine the possibilities of technology to create strange, unsettling sound worlds that shock and surprise us. Yet Xenakis has humans doing it, choosing how to create it, in real time, WITH VIOLINS. And bizarrely, I suspect that this is the vehicle which produces the deeper effect of alienation, of disjuncture, of "sensual shock". The act of watching other humans force these noises into the world--and I'm sorry, but the Jack Quartet players just fucking outdid themselves here--resonates more deeply and personally than a disembodied recording.

I dunno if that made any good sense but that's where I am trying to get a handle on what I heard earlier.

Anyhow. Excellent program and performance.

The Eternal "Concert Halls are Too Offputting" Debate

Crossposting a long comment I wrote on Greg Sandow's blog, since, well, content is content...

Sandow's original post is here, which was followed by comments that people, especially the young, are loath to replete shrinking classical music audiences because the concert hall is too restrictive and doesn't allow for enough audience expression.

* * *
I guess I just find it hard to believe that anyone who is likely to actually be interested in classical music is being kept out of the concert hall because of these petty prohibitions. At some point you have to want to sit through 40 minutes of Beethoven, not just try to endure 40 minutes of Beethoven by distracting yourself with your phone and intermittent clapping. And if you don't want to sit through it then why should you have to? Look, if the goal here is to trick people to get some extra butts in the seats and massage hurting orchestras' revenues, that's a business decision and you gotta do what you gotta do. But that's a conversation for business development departments or something, not for people interested in broader questions about how to best serve music they love.

On who has the etiquette rules, I made careful to specify "not in a bar". I like going to bars, and I like to hear music in bars, and I think that these efforts to do chamber music in bars and bar-like venues is great. I'm hoping to finally get to a show at Le Poisson Rouge the weekend after next and am very excited about it. But it's a different etiquette because its a space with multiple purposes. And while it's great for some things, it's kind of hard to fit the CSO in most bars, not to mention major dance and theater, which have similar if not identical etiquette. I was at that CONTACT show that had Nico's pieces in it, and I agree that the Harris theater is a big hulking space far better suited to opera or dance than the kind of intimate, personal chamber music they were doing, and the atmosphere was stilted. Presenters can always do a better job of choosing an appropriate venue. But the point is there are different levels of appropriate interaction in each that would feel out of place in another.

It goes to the heart of why Sandow's comments sometimes feel problematic to me, i.e. this example Sandow uses above with a New Orleans jazz band inspiring dancing through the street. Putting aside his misleading example of the Bernstein performance, which obviously is a special case of history and moment, why should an everyday Beethoven 9th performance and an everyday New Orleans jazz band performance be experienced the same way? Why must we force those people dancing in the street to do it to Beethoven or vice versa? Can't we just let them have the real thing?

I think we have all this anecdotal evidence of younger audiences being disproportionately attracted to groups like Bang on a Can because THAT IS WHAT THEY LIKE. It doesn't make them particularly interested in hearing Schubert art songs. So let people listen to Bang on a Can at their desired volume. And if that means in 20 years, there are fewer Schubert recitals given, then that’s how its going to be. I feel pretty confident that there is enough of a critical mass of people who will still love to perform and listen to Schubert that we're not facing some kind of Schubert extinction. But when it is performed, let people listen to it the way people who love it want to listen to it. Let them enjoy the quietness and delicacy of Schubert's melodies in some kind of recital space, unamplified, and don't force them or the performers to interrupt their concentration for people getting up to go to the bathroom or a round of applause every 3 minutes.

Let's have more trust in the judgment of people who seek out the performance of music because they love to know how they want to experience it. I suspect anything else is an exercise in futility.

P.S. This agony over the clapping thing has got to stop. It’s a useful convention because the audience doesn’t know how a conductor/ensemble/etc. wants to handle a transition between movements and it’s just the nature of the beast that we let it be their prerogative to shape a performance. We give them the freedom to let a quiet movement settle or drive right into the next. Also, it ends up adding a lot of time to a concert with a bunch of movements. The only people who are “concerned” about it are those who act like this one piece of practical performance etiquette is a grave personal affront. We live in a society predicated upon venue specific etiquette, why can’t people accept that this is the etiquette for this particular interaction? I don’t get it.

* * *
A final point: I hope the part about Bang on a Can and loudness doesn't come off dismissive. Disproportionate interest among contemporary audiences for contemporary music is obviously the world we want to live in and they are creating really exciting and interesting music. Yeah, it probably means some restructuring in the Schubert industry, but Schubert will be OK. My point was just that we shouldn't force the appropriate performance practice of one onto the performance practice of the other.

Later: Dur...small correction: that commenter on Sandow's blog was referencing a comment Nico Muhly made about the NY Phil's new music series. I mixed that up with the MusicNOW series the CSO does that I saw Nico in the other year (I think I imagined it with a similarly aggressive exclamation point). Anyhow. The Harris Theater is still kind of a sucky venue for chamber music.

Christopher Maltman at the Austrian Embassy

A lovely recital by Christopher Maltman last night, with Graham Johnson at the keys. Maltman's voice is extremely beautiful, to be sure, but his first priority is really conveying the dramatic meaning of these pieces, and in that he succeeds quite brilliantly. Yes, he does that baritone lieder singer thing where his loud dynamics sometimes push into this coarse hollow place that gets overused and is grating. But I think maybe that's just my issue with the medium, since everyone (except Goerne, natch) does it.

The program was a really unexpected and surprising mix of, uh, settings of Goethe by 19th century Austro-German composers. But you know, parameters like that and you've got to pick some interesting stuff. So among the numerous Schubert selections we got a fascinating setting of an excerpt from Faust in which the singer shifts between Gretchen, the evil voice tempting her, and a chorus (how awesome would a Schubert composed one-man Faust opera be??? #fantasylieder); two mythological pieces, the beautiful "Ganymede" and the epic "Prometheus"; and the delightful "Der Fischer". In the sheer Schubertian beauty department, Maltman offered up both the "Wanderers Nachtlied(er?)", an incredibly restrained, haunting "Meeres Stille", "Wilkommen und Abschied" and more.

We also got the setting of "Erlkonig" by Carl Loewe (though they couldn't resist doing the Schubert as an encore), and Loewe's delightful setting of "The Sorcerer's Apprentice", taken at an appropriately dazzling speed. The regular program closed with two completely beautiful knockouts: Brahms' "Dämmerung senkte sich von oben" and Loewe's "Lynceus der Türmer, auf Fausts Sternwarte singend".

Not that Goethe needs the shout-out, but it is remarkable to think about how a single artist provided 19th century romantics with inspiration for basically every aspect of their emotional/aesthetic imagination. Bleakest despair, check. High (but genuine) Romantic Schmaltz, check. Medieval fantasies, check. Magic and faeries, check. It's all in there.

But Maltman clearly thrives on this variation, and reminded the audience that done properly, interpreting these songs requires truly rarefied storytelling skills. I'm not great at extracting the details of accompanists' contributions to recitals but I will also note that Johnson's fine playing shone particularly in the wonderful piano writing in the Wolf selections.

Update: Link to Charles Downey's take in the Post...

Mitsuko Uchida at Strathmore

Had my first chance to hear Mitsuko Uchida live last night at Strathmore in a deeply affecting performance of Mozart and Schumann.

To grasp for a word, there is something so internal about this playing. One feels as though there is no gesture, no effect designed solely to appeal to the listener in the concert hall. Not that speaking to the audience is a bad thing, of course, but I think wrapping your head around her approach means understanding how everything she does is to serve an internal emotional logic in the music.

Accordingly, the opening of the Mozart A Minor Sonata was neurotic, frantic, desperate. The forward momentum, save for those blessed, haunting echoes in the main theme, nearly tripped over itself, devolving into masses of clotted chords in the denser sections. But of course this frenzy resolved into the Andante, and some of the most enlightening Mozart I have heard in a long, long time. Uchida shies away from Mozart as a deliciously balanced, finely humming machine--instead she seeks a clarity of statement almost embarrassing in its immediacy.

In her Davidbundlertanze, it was easy to muse on how this reading must get very close to how Schumann sought to truly portray the inner life of the heart and mind, each miniature singing with completely authentic ecstasy, melancholy, what have you. Though at times one grew restless for perhaps more structure to guide things overall.

And then after the break, the Fantasy in C Major. I love this piece so dearly, and to hear it played with an honesty and conviction that never left one feeling something had been compromised or left to expedience was just...really, really awesome. The third movement was especially fine--the opening sequence, earthbound, circling around itself, unable to to find any light, then suddenly and completely disarmed by a theme of raw naked longing, utterly incapable of being anything but itself. I think there may have been some note slips in the nastier sections (which were still exhilarating), but these mattered not at all to the overall impression.

Surely spent from such an evening, the sole encore was simple, purifying Bach.

P.S. Charles Downey's WaPo review here...

P.P.S. What was up with the riff-raff in the grand tier the other night? The parody level extent of inappropriate coughing/candy unwrapping/KLEENEX UNWRAPPING/whispering would have been hilarious if it hadn't been so frigging annoying. It was like date night at the Met but with adults who should know better. Let's get it together, people.

Rachmaninoff, Chaikovskii, Auerbach at Kennedy Center

Denis Matsuev has some serious ideas about Rachmaninoff's Second Piano Concerto. He sees it not as the Second Symphony with piano accompaniment, but rather as a Prelude of massive size with orchestral connective tissue. He sees it as a work of sometimes unbearable momentum, and at other times of heart rending stillness. And he has the technique to back up these ideas--a hugely satisfying use-your-paw-to-press-the-note-down-as-far-as-it-goes sound that cuts through the orchestra like there's a whole "piano" section, exceeded only by a beguiling sensitivity that unabashedly steals your heart.

In short, after taking a lot of heat for schmaltzing up the Concertgebouw's program on Monday, I think its safe to say that Rachmaninoff has redeemed himself in DC's eyes.

The NSO, under the direction of James Gaffigan (any relation to this guy?) played with delicacy and distinction in many moments. But at other times, they seemed to turn Matsuev's crisp, driving sets into gluey, halting picks (volleyball metaphor FTW!). Not that its easy to maintain momentum over those expansive themes, but one wonders at what could be achieved with an orchestra matching the brilliant agility Matsuev was serving up.

Matsuev responded to ecstatic applause with this showpiece, providing me with cheesy encore #2 for the week. I mean, it's his right and all, but after being so blown away by his Rachmaninoff I was really jonesing for some more information about what he could do with, you know, teh serious music.

The opener was a fascinating piece called "Requiem for Icarus" by Lera Auerbach. There were passages that came off a bit clumsily in the NSO's hands, but the overall impression was searing and direct, particularly the chilling final section.

After the half was Chaikovskii (love that bad-ass spelling) #4. Quibbles in the first half be damned, this was an exquisitely executed performance from the NSO. The allegro was played with glorious, tense precision, giving way to a second movement of disarming simplicity of expression. I don't know what to say about that plucked business in the scherzo, but the finale was an all cylinder tour de force. Gaffigan has a keen sense of phrasing that feels at once driving and deeply intuitive.

Concertgebouw!

Well, much to my chagrin, I didn't get to see the Concertgebouw on my trip to Amsterdam a few months ago, but was able to save some face tonight seeing them at the KC Concert Hall, courtesy of WPAS.

The first half was the Sibelius violin concerto with violinist Janine Jansen, and I liked it fine. That said, it was a bit domesticated. I'm listening to the Heifetz/CSO record I have of it now, and there's something sort of desperate and sad that was missing in Maestro Jansson's very beautiful and thoughtful reading. For her part, Jansen brought an exciting hard-edged tone and brilliant skill to the solo. But mostly I think I just wanted more Concertgebouw than the concerto could serve up.

The Rachmaninov Second Symphony after the break did not disappoint. So, maybe Rach Symphony II is not the most cerebral piece. Maybe, like 'Party in the USA', one could accuse it of basically being "all chorus." But as a tour calling card that makes me want to abandon my job and apartment and just go live in the sound the string section makes? Yeah, its pretty freaking good for that purpose. I mean, I'm not a huge Second Symphony connoisseur, but I just can't imagine how one plays the piece better than this. The lyric money lines, which, as mentioned, come like ever 20 bars, were time and again just pure plush brainfreeze gorgeousness.

But not cheap, you know? The Concertgebouw is able to achieve that thing it seems great orchestra string sections are able to with remarkable consistency: that sense that the lines are really 'speaking' as when played by great soloists. Mind you, I've never played in an orchestra, so the whole thing is kind of voodoo magic to me, but I know when an orchestra gets beyond the earthbound "here is the melody we are playing it nice" level and it is a magical, exhilarating sensation. Is it an absolute fidelity to phrasing across players thing? In any event, the Rachmaninov really spoke this evening, in all of its big wet earnest glory.

The encore was cheesy (if impressive). Enough of cheesy orchestra encores. Why can't they roll like pianists and come up with something in the familiar but classy/unexpected favorites vein?

And now, the Naxos bobsled team...

A: UM
J: yes....?
A: have you ever heard of how in seoul in 2004 when they lit the torch they lit all these doves on fire??
J: no!
A: uh
A: start this video at like 4:30
A: er
A: 4:20
A: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xgAXCAWQUic
J: ok waiting for it to load
J: whoa
J: I mean, they had to know that was going to happen
A: koreans are hardcore
A: "yes, pigeons will die...what of it!!!!"
J: do you feel like watching an intense Waltraud Liebestod in extreme close-up?
A: sure i do
J: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvRlZndM70Q
A: lots of people dead in that tristan
A: ah
A: its the guy who did that salome i saw in amsterdam
J: oh...
J: well the rest is just Waltraud in extreme close up
A: ha
A: oh man
A: she kicks so much ass
A: that is the best
J: she really gets into it
A: i want to see her in a production of "Sunset Boulevard"
J: totally!
J: that lead up to and the actual moment of that last huge loud note....amazing
A: and then that funny kind of grimace on the very last note
J: yeah....oh, that note.
A: kind of a dick move on wagner's part
J: Stemme gets it in the one I found online
A: rarg
A: i think i bought tix for somethign else the night of the 20th
A: i may need to bail on it to see her tho
A: are you excited for olympics
J: oh man
J: yes
J: though my figure skating crush did not make the team
A: who is that?
J: http://ryan-bradley.com/photos_podiums.html
A: oh cute
A: dommage
J: dude listen to how perfect this is
J: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xo_9PAnuFmA
J: just from this past fall
A: i want to get into ski + shoot this time
J: oh good one
A: wow
A: that is great
A: she is the real deal yo
J: I mean
J: 2011 we're flying to SF for a full cycle
J: you know she's doing all the Brunnhildes
A: got to be
A: i will totally sit through more Crackerjack Ring for that goodness
J: oh totally
J: I will say though....I wouldn't stress yourself about coming up for the Ariadne
J: she's SO wonderful
J: but
J: the Bacchus BLOWS
J: I went back last night
A: ew
J: and so it ends with a real thud
A: that sux
J: and I think Kathleen Kim is not all that
J: she's fine
J: but def not wonderful
A: that dark flavor in stemme's voice is so killer
A: like, yes, I'll take a little coffee with my cream, thanks
J: I want to hear her whole Isolde so bad

Clothes War-Horses

Rupert Christiansen comments on a column Opera Chic has written about conductors' wardrobes:

Offstage, it doesn’t matter what a performer wears; onstage, however, it regrettably does. We are meant to go to a concert to listen rather than look, and ideally how musicians are clothed should have no bearing on the sound they make. But the brute fact is that understated elegance inspires confidence in the performer, while ugly, ill-fitting and garish outfits (still the norm in our concert halls) make one sub-consciously doubt the wearer’s competence. And it matters too in terms of popular preconception and prejudice: a shiny, baggy suit or a Primark evening dress promotes the notion among the trend-conscious young that ‘classical music’ is terribly cheesy and uncool.

Really? I mean, it's all well and good to gossip about classical performers' wardrobes--the clothing of rich and classy people is interesting as always. But people not attending classical music because of the sometimes-dumpy dresses? First, anyone who is lukewarm on the whole concept of classical music is probably not paying for seats anywhere near close enough to get a good look at the outfits. Renaay just looks like a big sequin from the cheap seats at Carnegie Hall no matter what she has on. Second, if the performer and the music isn't doing anything for you in the first place, its hard to imagine you'd want to come back for the great outfits. I'm afraid this is another one of those variables that people can have fun thinking and talking about but has no effect whatsoever on the attendance side of the equation.

That said, while the impact of outfits is questionable, there's clearly a lot going on with appearance where performers' body types are concerned. Whether this is all in programmers'/artistic directors' heads, or whether people are now attending the Met in droves because of all the thin people plastered on bus steps (or is it just increased visibility overall?) is an open question, and has clearly real effects on who we end up seeing on stage.

BTW

So, I did see Radu Lupu at Strathmore last week, but it was one of those concerts that is kind of hard to write about because I didn't feel I was really in the proper space to appreciate it. But you know, posterity and all that, so I shall say a few words.

Obviously, Radu Lupu kicks ass. There is that beloved Brahms CD of course, and then I saw his Debussy which was ridiculous. This program was Janacek's In the Mists plus the Appassionata, plus Schubert (the Sonata in A Major) after the half. It was great to hear the Janacek (yay!) live--I seriously don't get why his piano works and those of Poulenc are not programmed more often. But it was nice here.

I found the Appassionata problematic. I would never characterize Lupu's approach as "precious"--"genius of coloring" is more appropriate--but he seems to have sacrificed some of the work's momentum for the sake of pursuing those gorgeous colors. The resulting experience, while fascinating in places, was less than satisfying. But maybe it was just me.

The Schubert suffered a bit from the same syndrome but was much more successful, particularly his spectral reading of the slow movement. And then there was the encore--one of those famous Intermezzi--and all the magic came flooding back. Brahms' chords in Lupu's hands are not assemblages of notes, but single, bottomless sounds. As Alex Ross says in that review--it's as though Lupu's piano is a different instrument entirely...

Capuçon-Angelich Trio at the French Embassy

You know how sometimes you go to chamber music and you wonder if you've forgotten how to enjoy it? Well, the snowy Capuçon-Angelich Trio show at the French Embassy tonight was not one of those occasions.

The program was Haydn (the "Hungarian" trio) and Shostakovich (the trio No. 2 in E Minor) before the half and Brahms (the trio in C Major of 1882) to close. I was searching for a word to describe this delightful, disarming Haydn, and the best I could come up with was "plainspoken"--which sounds kind of lame, yes, but there was something so forthright, so honest about the declamation of the piece, if you will, and particularly the violin of Renaud Capuçon. Haydn is so often reduced to the sensitive, but precious--this felt like Haydn had something to say.

The Shostakovich was the highlight of the evening, I think. What to say about this chilling, jaw-dropping, ecstatic performance? This trio understands what it is to imbue a piece with character. That is, they can traverse a fairly wide range of idiosyncratic perspectives without appearing gimmicky. And it is done with so much confidence, so much joy at finding out what makes the music tick and playing to that idea with fearless yet precise abandon, that it does not feel inconsistent. The blistering, desperate Allegro non troppo evoked a sort of dueling banjos suicide pact played by drunken peasants. The Largo was conceptual art--strange and terrifying harmonies floating in space. The finale--Death delighting in a perverse, funky little tune he has invented and getting entirely carried away with it.

As for the Brahms, well, maybe I am too picky about Brahms. The performance here had many very beautiful things and moments of real introspection, and it was miles better than the last Brahms chamber music I heard, the quintet which closed the otherwise stellar Marlboro concert last fall. But for my ear they still fell back too easily on those scourges of Brahms performance: over-emoting and the pervasive mezzo forte. I think to play really successful, interesting Brahms, one must have to go into it playing with restraint, and then double it. There is so much passion, so much heave and sigh in the music already, that anything more strikes a false note. Still very enjoyable and played with commitment, but not as much to savor as in the readings of the Haydn and Shostakovich.

Hope to see more of them in the future...

Update: A positive assessment from Charles Downey is up here...

#sotu watch party w/ @lillaspastia

A: dude
A: what is wrong with John Edwards
J: what happened??
J: I missed it
A: just the sex tape thing from the other day
J: did the sex tape come out?
A: no
J: well we knew he was spreading his change juice all over the place
J: I missed the SOTU for Carmen
J: I think it's a good thing. It would have given me a heart attack
A: get a close up when i change on your tits, rielle
J: haha
A: i missed it for a piano recital
A: sounds like it went ok
A: but also sort of glad i didn't watch
A: how wuz carmen?
J: In a new book, a former aide claims that Edwards asked him to fake a paternity test and steal one of the baby's diapers to perform a DNA test on its poop.
J: I mean
J: WHAT is going on with him
J: Carmen was really fun
A: like, he is CRAZY
J: it was Jovanovich' debut
A: that is a CRAZY person that was running for pres
J: I know! and I voted for him once!
A: how is it that he was banging this chick and stealing poo and no one ever leaked it?
A: that is disturbing
A: i read something one time by some journalist about how they were creeped out by edwards
A: that like, every candidate they ever interviewed had an "off" switch where they would stop being in their candidate character and just be a normal person with you
A: but like, they had never seen Edwards in off mode
J: weird
J: so this Carmen is so much less awful than the old one
A: oh swell
J: and Borodina was out and it was this got chick
J: hot
A: that old one was death
A: garanca?
J: and Jovan Muskovich is way hot and was emoting all over the place. and she was acting like a TOTAL SLUT
J: it was awesome
A: haha excellent
J: no, Garanca's run is over and tonight was supposed to be the first night of Borodina
J: but she was out and it was some gal named Viktoria Vizin
J: http://www.viktoriavizin.com/High_Resolution_Photos.html#8
J: and her singing was good. Her voice was a little small but she basically brought it and just REALLY ACTED LIKE A WHORE
J: and he was all on top of her and feeling up her dress all the way up to her ass and verging into crotch
J: and all the Russians who came to see Borodina were like "ach!" and turning their heads
A: haha
A: damn
J: and they put that nice gay Kwiecien in this tight matador outfit but it was clear he maybe had more of a crush on Jovanovich than on Carmen
J: and it was also the met debut of this really young french composer
J: and he took all the dances really fast and had floppy hair and was bouncing up and down
A: that's a good subtext for carmen
J: totally
A: escamillo really steals her just to make don jose jealous
J: but he loved his pretty glittery matador outfit
J: yeah there's total opportunity during the knife fight music for erotic tension
J: that would be such a great deconstructionist Carmen!!!
A: oh man
A: c'mon europe
J: and then Don Jose kills her to be with Escamillo
A: yeah
A: and then then he runs in and they kind of make out before the bullfighting police or whatever take him away
A: and scene
J: so good
A: with like, extreme red spotlight center stage
J: and all the outfits could be leathery
and Michaela should DEF be like a fat fag hag
A: ha totally
J: and he sort of goes with Carmen cause she's so fierce
A: "hey don jose...does this dress make me look fat? Don jose I really need yoru opinion here"
J: haha
A: "Mais oui, tu est une vache"
J: Michaela is all trying to dance with a rose in her mouth but she's like Camryn Manheim fat
J: haha
A: "Vache totale"
A: where is that opera suggestion box when you need it
A: i think i heard an interview with that conductor
A: it was cute
J: he was tres adorable

WNO Announces

A: um, did you see that SF Opera is importing the Washignton ring wholesale?
J: it was always a co-production
J: they partially financed it
A: oh
A: i missed that
A: i thought maybe they saw it first and then decided to get in on it
A: i guess they are going to do the gotterdammerung now
A: maybe they can send it back to DC after
J: yeah what is the fucking deal
J: is DC just not going to do the cycle?
A: i mean
A: none of it is on the sched for next year
A: i guess maybe they missed their window
A: nice that that dumb production will dominate ring performances in two cities for god knows how long
A: i mean, i was more ok with the walkure and siegfried, but I don't want to like see them again or anything
A: people should start referring to it as "The Discount Ring"
J: it really is
J: Zales' Ring
J: Der Ring des Claire's Accessories
J: wait is DCs season up already for next year?
A: yeah
J: !
A: it is little
A: do you see the randoms in that Voigt Salome?
J: oh that's not a bad seasons though
A: yeah
A: i would see all of that except the DQ
A: er
A: DP
J: Pat racette Iphigenie is interesting
A: yeah totally
A: i like that
A: and doesn't look like the met/seattle or the lyric/danish productions
A: what are the chances one sees 3 different iphegenie productions in 3 years
A: Uh, did you also see "Dramatic soprano Deborah Voigt, the definitive Salome of her generation..."
J: heh
J: um
J: some bitches may beg to differ

Seasonal Interlude

The Shepherd's Farewell, Berlioz, from "L'Enfance du Christ"

Smyooth Myusic

A: how was elektra, yo???
J: oh it was good
J: Bullock was good but not hottt
J: Voigt kinda summoned fat voigt!
J: which is a good thing
A: oh word??
J: she sounded way way better
A: nice
J: I thought G--- was going to die
A: "I call on thee, spirit of fat voigt, rise now..."
J: hah
A: die how?
J: just with general elektra excitement
A: kewl
A: his review is great
J: it's really fun
A: hmmm
A: how wuz felicity palmer
J: she's really great
A: i think i have to do the 22nd or the 29th
J: if you do the 29th I'll go with you
J: I fly to chicago in the morn for Kitty Kabs
A: indeed!
A: that is exciting
A: its really an amazing role for her
A: more complex than jenufa is in a way
J: yeah I'm way excited
A: where are you sitting
J: in the $136 orch seats. row HH.
J: basically the Carmelites seats
A: right
A: worth it

As You Don't Like It

So, I saw some things in the past week, starting with From the House of the Dead and, um, Hair, in New York last Saturday, and concluding with As You Like It at the Shakespeare Theatre Company here on Wednesday. While the latter two are somewhat off topic, I shall start with them first for reasons of relevance (lord knows when FTHOTD is coming back) and ease of review writing.

In the case of "As You Like It", this is owing to the incredible and vast suckage of this production. Now, I want to be clear that this really doesn't reflect on anyone in the truly excellent cast, which was filled with a great assortment of committed and skilled actors. No, this is exclusively a case of directorial misconduct in pursuit of the cheap laff.

The opening scene of this "As You Like It" involves a sort of faux old movie gimmick, which was somewhat inexplicable, but quickly forgotten. The first 40-50 minutes of the production is cast in a Puritan milieu, which is a perfectly good, neutral historical period for Shakespeare. The production is spare, but handsome, and we are clearly dealing with a set of actors committed to the task of inhabiting these mercurial characters and delivering Shakespeare's words with insight and passion.

And then, the characters flee to the forest to escape their various fates, and the whole thing becomes an opportunity for the Shakespeare Theatre Company to demonstrate how much worthless bang they can give you for your buck. Under the rubric of "escape to the forest" being synonymous with an "escape to the uncharted land of historic America", this production casts each successive set of scenes in a different period of American history. So for 15 minutes they are in the Civil War era South and they are all doing Gone with the Wind accents. Then they are all cowboys. Then they are on a steamboat. Then they are all silent movie actors. Any of the actual "drama" constructed during the first forty minutes is flushed right down the toilet in the service of this absurd gimmick that allows them to put the characters in different silly costumes and make them speak in different silly voices that elicits kneejerk laughter from the audience. This isn't a play. This is dress-up.

In the past year or so that I've been going to Shakespeare Theatre Company's productions, I have often been highly impressed. Their Twelfth Night, Dog in a Manger, and Ion last season were inventive, playful, and honest interpretations of classics that earned whatever gimmicks they indulged in. But this production, and the wretched production of "The Alchemist" I suffered through earlier this fall were both pure chicanery. Shakespeare Theatre Company, please stop this madness and start acting like you trust your audience to appreciate the classics on their own terms and not as vehicles for cheap and vulgar sitcom caricatures. Productions like this are an embarrassment.

Phew. OK. Hair and FTHOTD thoughts coming soon.

Seasonal Interlude

The Lamb, John Tavener, based on a poem by William Blake

Strauss in Amsterdam

So, about that Dutch Salome...Parterre has a clip, natch.

First things first: Opera of the Netherlands is housed in the Het Muziektheatre, a modern hall at the southern end of the city's old town. I got a very nice seat on the fringe of the orchestra for less than the price of the Met balcony, tho I think it might have been partial view for the supertitles (surprisingly only in Dutch, since it seems pretty clear that language has about 50 years tops before everyone gives up the ghost and starts speaking English.) Audience (for a Sunday matinee) was probably a notch more hip than your usual Met or Lyric audience, like the usual oldsters plus the monied end of the BAM crowd.


Anyhow. The Salome on view is a fascinating production by Peter Konwitschny, a high practitioner of the sorts of things we apparently will NEVER be able to handle here. Here's a bit of an interview with him.

In Konwitschny's concept, Jochanaan is never down a cistern, but rather a guest at Herod's dinner party of debauched gangsters--something like the last supper of the Patriarchy. While he is clearly conflicted, he is really no more than another face of the male power structure which keeps the other women in the play--Salome, Herodias, and the Page--in a constant state of fear/degradation. Konwitschny makes explicit a dynamic which Strauss and his libretto strongly suggest--it is after all, at base, a tragedy about Salome's innocence, regardless of how much depravity one finds in her, and we can't help but sympathize with her against Jochanaan. Here, we are led to understand his cruelty as part of the same sick universe in which female sexuality is both a commodity to be abused as well as a dangerous threat to the status quo.

As Konwitschny begins to engage in deeper subversions of the superficial action-- Herod executes Narraboth, and Jochanaan uses his death as a chance to appeal, in vain, to the better nature of the other guests--he introduces a distinction between the play as it is being performed, and a sort of transgressive space outside the play which he uses to posit an 'alternate' conclusion.

After a frenzied dance of the Seven Veils which includes the entire cast trying desperately to escape the play and then (I think) slaughtering each other, Salome receives Jochanaan's head as usual--but then hands it over to him so he can think about what he's done. The dining room set begins to recede from the proscenium and he is left alone with Salome on an empty stage, confused and lost. Through this violent reversal, Salome has saved him, wresting him from a his sick institutions, and facing him as an equal. Removed from the brutal machinery of the play, they acknowledge their love for each other, and run off together. And in a way, isn't that how it really ends? With ecstasy and rebirth and the overwhelming joy of finally understanding?

Now, mind you, the subtext was flying pretty fast, and I was working from memory of the libretto, so this really just scratches the surface of the richness of Konwisthny's conception.


At the same time, one must point out the inherent failings in such an enterprise. While I really was quite intrigued and sort of touched by the ending, there was nary a shred of that overwhelming emotional experience that non-bizarro universe Salome is designed to produce. There was also a lot of gratuitous regie bullshit--Narraboth's corpse getting sodomized by everyone onstage, Salome helping Herod do heroin, an extra gory Jochanaan head with bonus shoulder still attached (actually, I kind of liked that), etc.--which came off as the usual finger to the audience that tends to sour one on an otherwise very interesting and nuanced project. (To their credit, a few courageous Dutch patrons did send that gang-rape a little boo.)

Annalena Persson was a so-so Salome. Vocally capable enough but not much going on in the sumptuousness department. I kind of think she may be a pretty great actress, though it is hard to tell, when you're ready to judge a SALOME and instead you get a KONZEPT. She, uh, was really convincing when she reversed that male gaze, I guess? That said, girl was game for ANYTHING, so credit is due there.

Primary vocal honors went to Albert Dohmen's rich, magnificent Jochanaan. None of that shouty business that plagues so many of them, but instead a warm commanding tone that brought out many of beauties of the part that you know are in there but don't necessarily get a chance to appreciate in performance. Dohmen also really got the characterization Konwitschny seemed to be going for here, bringing many human touches to Jochanaan's initial weary resignation, tortured questioning, and final revelation--i.e., that him and Salome should totally get married and have babies.

Additional shout-outs to another great Narraboth by Marcel Reijans (of all the challenges of the opera world in 2009, not enough good Narraboths sure isn't one of them, is it), and a Herodias (Doris Soffel) who made more effort than most to sing through the shrieking, to nice effect.