Chicago housekeeping

Two pieces of news that are probably old hat to many, but bear repeating:

1) Institution Marc Geelhoed (by internets standards, mind you--he's our age) is going on to what sounds like a very sweet new job at the CSO's record label. His Deceptively Simple blog, (which he keeps abbreviating as DecSimp, tho I think that sounds like the diminutive the tabloids would make up for a hypothetical goth-influenced youngest Simpson sibling who named herself Decaysia, i.e. Jessica to DecSimp: Don't steal my boyfriend!) will thankfully stay around, but will exchange the torturous reports of all the cool things music critics get to go to but you don't for other interesting content. Cheers, Marc!

2) Andrew Patner, reviewer about town and major contributor to WFMT's awesomeness through his show Critical Thinking, started a blog last month, which both consolidates his commentary from various sources and includes fresh stuff. Patner is the real deal where great newspaper music criticism is concerned...just check his Sun-Times review of the recent Ainadanamar (sp?) concert here for a taste.

Piano digression

For the record, I got to see Radu Lupu play live for the first time today here at Orchestra Hall. I liberated this disc from my mother at some point before going off to college and I think it is the recording from which a good deal of my subsequent love of Brahms flows. There was no Brahms on the program today however: Lupu played the Schubert Sonata D. 850 (which I don't know well) and Book 1 of Debussy's preludes. There's a reason why this is less often played Schubert, but Lupu brought out many of its joys.

But the Debussy--well that was on another level altogether. Synesthetes in the audience would have been driven to seizures with the wondrous range of colors he was able to draw out of the Preludes. If one could say of the current greats that it is Pollini who is able to make plain the true structure of a piece, or Argerich who finds its true magic, when we speak of the the authentic color in a work we must speak of Lupu. I don't pretend to know a whit about how pianists go about creating such things, but it was a marvel.

And here's a swell example for your listening pleasure: the Intermezzo in B Minor from that Brahms disc.

P.S. I saw Mitsuko Uchida in the lobby. It was pretty kewl.

Fancy that

PS, did anyone notice how good last night's Carmen was? Carmen is something of a primordial opera for me (I was in the children's chorus circa age 10 and subsequently became obsessed with my parent's cassette tape set) but it's pretty hard to get stoked about post-adolescence, considering A) the general quality of the casts attached to it and B) it lends itself to phoned-in readings better than anything else in the rep. I mean, it's Carmen. That's what it does.

But last night sounded like wall-to-wall blood and guts gorgeousness. Borodina brings more vocal riches than probably half of the current Carmens in North America put together. Alvarez sounded tremendous, warm and passionate and convincingly pissed off. And then, in the oft forgettable part of whiny little simp who is nonetheless totally right about the whole sordid business, we got Maija Kovalevska's disarming loveliness. I mean, when's the last time you got really excited about a Micaela? The Escamillo didn't make as much of an impression, but no matter. I don't know if this is a Gelb gilding the warhorses thing or what but it was awfully nice.

Screw birthstones

J: so, the day you were born the Met did Bartered Bride and Dialogues des Carmelites
J: in Cleveland
A: huh
A: how about you?
J: Tannhäuser in Boston
A: anyone good in it?
J: i don't remember the t-haus
A: that is a fun use of the d-base
J: but Rysaken and Mignon Dunn were the gals
J: Rysanek
A: oh nice
A: i guess you could do it like "what your birthday opera says about you"
A: altho that is dicey for me
J: In which case, I wish I had Lulu
A: that would kick ass
J: "so hey, what's your birth opera?"
J: "mine totally blows. I got Idomeneo"
A: ha
J: I don't know why I find this so unbearably cute
J: *link*
A: haha
A: my father has Tristan with Melchior and Traubel
J: oh wow
J: good one
A: my mother's is pretty sweet too
A: Don Giovanni with Pinza, Milanov, and Steber
J: oh fun
A: conducted by George Szell
A: so
A: the variable for capital is k
A: and the variable for output is Y
A: which means the capital-output ratio is the "K/Y ratio"
A: hehe
J: haha
J: "how does that feel...is the K/Y ratio ok or do you need more?"
A: haha
A: he refused to explain the K/Y ratio and...it just chafed me, you know?
J: ha

Sad

This afternoon, WFMT played an excerpt from a memorial held for Jerry Hadley last week, including Thomas Hampson singing and saying some incredibly heartfelt and beautiful words about his colleague that had me choked up on my way to the supermarket. Well put, T-Hamps, well put.

P.S. Is there any city in America that can lay claim to a radio station like WFMT? That would rebroadcast an excerpt of a memorial service for a non superstar opera singer in the middle of drive time? That so treats its audience as intelligent people who really care about culture and not just another market segment at which to toss playlists? That continually finds innovative ways to demonstrate its investment in the culture of its host city? I can only really speak for WQXR's failure to hold a candle to it (David Dubal and Nimet's overnight show excluded...I cannot speak ill of that woman), and maybe there is dissent about WFMT out there or worthy contenders I don't know about. But seriously, it's a gem.

Furtwangler on Brahms

Brahms is the first great musician, in whose case historical meaning and meaning as an artistic personality no longer coincide: that this was so, was not his fault, but rather that of his epoch. The loftiest formal creations of Beethoven had been born out of Beethoven's time, in so far as they employed the language and expressive possibilities of this time. The aspirations of Beethoven, as timeless and pregnant with the future as they may have been, were nonetheless in correspondence with the aspirations of the time; Beethoven was "borne by his time." The most audacious and thorough-going works of Wagner themselves attest not only to the vehement humanity of their creator, but to the aspirations and possibilities of their epoch. He was, as much as he then wished to perceive himself in contrast to his time, nonetheless its expression. With Beethoven, with Wagner, as well as with later ones, like Strauss, Reger, Debussy, Stravinsky - personal aspirations and the aspirations of the times coincide.

With Brahms, and for the first time with him, these aspirations part company. And this was not because Brahms were not deeply a man of his times, but rather because the material/musical possibilities of his time went other ways, that did not suffice the quality of his aspirations. He is the first, that as artist and creator was greater than his musical-historical function.

He is hence the first, that had to defend himself, in order to remain what he was - what for his predecessors through Wagner, borne by the favor of the times, fell into their laps as a matter of course. Thus he became the first, that had to confront his times in his heart of hearts, only to be able to do consciously what to earlier generations was self-evident: to make the human being the focus of all art and artistic practice - the human being, who is ever new and yet ever the same. For not the development of the material - harmony, rhythm etc. - is the soul of history, but rather the will to expression of those, who avail themselves of this material. Not the degree of "audacity," the newness of what is said from the developmental-historical standpoint, but rather the degree of inner necessity, the humanity, the expressive power is the measure of an artwork's meaning.

More here...

Lyric

JvR scolds Lyric for a safe-ish season next year, I assume due to the absence of one new or relatively new work. But what are you gonna do? They did a great job bringing and promoting Dr. Atomic this year, ditto for "The Wedding" and that other one in recent memory (how do you find past season info for Lyric?)--pound for pound, Lyric probably does better than the Met on that count. Maybe the right project just wasn't in the cards next year. One does wonder what they have in the hopper, however.

Clearly, the winners next year are the new Lulu production and the D-Vo/Forbis Tristan. I must start scheming now about how I'm going to get respectable tickets for Tristan. Despite the niceness of Dessay and Kaufmann, I find it hard to imagine really wanting to check out Manon. Nor do I have much need to see Porgy and Bess. For the rest of the meat n' potatoes, the choice cuts are distributed judiciously, with no evening really devoid of something to recommend it. Here's how I'd line-up the offerings after Tristan and Lulu:

1. Butterfly w/ Racette

2. Entfuehrung w/ Polenzani & Wall

3. Pearl Fishers w/ Cutler & Gunn

4. Cav/Pag w/ Zajick's Santuzza

Fizzle

First the good. Make no mistake, there is some very wonderful, top-shelf Adamsian music in Dr. Atomic, especially the opening chorus, the first Kitty Oppenheimer aria, the Donne aria at the end of the first act, some of the Kitty business in the second act, the tenor aria in the second act, and any number of wonderful orchestral interludes.

But dramatically, Dr. Atomic is kind of a mess, veering clumsily between the type of opera it wants to be, and ultimately saying nothing of great interest about its subject, the bomb. And at its weakest points, trivializing it something fierce.

Now, this is a bit of a dangerous case--like others, I've been imagining this opera in my mind for two years now, getting stoked about it, reading articles about it, and generally developing a bushel of preconceived notions about it. So criticism noted if it sounds like I wanted it to be a different opera than it is. But at the same time, I've wanted this to be a great theatrical experience for a long time now, and, while my usual MO is to leave over-hyped things praising the good and looking for excuses for the bad, I left Dr. Atomic with few charitable feelings.

The libretto is the big problem. As we've read, Sellars' libretto is largely drawn from a combination of source material and poetry inspired by the things Oppenheimer and others were famously reading at the time. Certainly sounds good on paper. But the result is basically a total lack of any narrative thrust to the opera. The Kitty Oppenheimer character, who ends up with the lion's share of the lyrical writing, expresses herself almost entirely in broadly relevant poetry. By the end of the night, it sounds like gibberish. Like the woozy feeling one gets after 2 hours of really expressionistic spoken word. Yeah, I guess the words are pretty, and maybe if I sat down with it I would get what it means about the bomb, but an opera on the move is no place for it.

The other side of the coin, the mundane detail material, just sounds really boring when sung. You can see how a straight play composed of this material would work, but the inherent gravity of singing makes these essentially worthless details seem terribly irrelevant. You sit there thinking "Am I really listening to someone sing this stuff?" Mind you, it works for a while in the beginning of the show, when we would expect more exposition setting the stage for the bomb. But later, when we want the work to come together emotionally and intellectually, it just feels like our time is being wasted.

Other parts of the libretto are just bizarre mis-steps. Somehow, in the midst of all this dread and oppressive authority, we are supposed to swallow the Leslie Groves character as a buffoon? Anyone with a cursory knowledge of the Manhattan Project knows that Groves was about as far from a buffoon as you can possibly get. Yet here we have the character milking the same stupid joke about not accepting the weather forecast over and over again. And then the weird-ass exchange about his dieting at the end of the first Act. Yeah, I'm sure it's based on something real, but at that point in the show it just comes off as an inappropriate cheap laugh.

The Oppenheimer character is certainly less vulgar, but its ultimate failure is revealing as far as the libretto's larger problems go. No one is expecting a historical facsimile, but Oppenheimer isn't exactly some obscure figure--he's a towering enigma in the popular imagination and historians have spent countless words attempting to understand the character of his remorse about the bomb. Given that, a clear dramatic choice would have been to explore him as both the villain and ultimate conscience of the play, letting him drive the project on and then ruminating on what he has done of his own free will. But this Oppenheimer just wallows in regret for the bulk of his time, as though he's being coerced against his will to finish the thing. I guess it makes him sympathetic, but it also makes him terribly uninteresting.

The ham-handed staging exacerbates all of this. The libretto demands this sort of cinematic structure for a great deal of the opera. If you were to count up the individual scenes French style, the mind boggles. This may be an inherent flaw, but regardless, it demanded some sort of imaginative staging conceit to keep it in line. Instead, characters just walk all over the place willy-nilly. With a few exceptions, its impossible to invest anything in the exchanges because someone takes a few paces stage left and all of a sudden they're in the desert or back in the living room or something. And speaking of the living room--where the f is Oppenheimer supposed to be during the middle of the second act? It's supposedly a few hours before the test, there's a living room set downstage where Kitty is, and he seems to flit between the living room and the control room at the test site at will. Maybe wouldn't be a problem in something more abstract, but the staging is often so brutally literal that just ignoring those barriers when you feel like it ends up looking sloppy.

The staging also suffers from a serious lack of faith in the music. Very beautiful internal arias that should be simple showcases for vocal acting are marred by all sorts of superfluous movement, i.e. the cringeworthy "break, blow, batten" motions in the Oppenheimer Donne aria. Also the attempts to turn Kitty's second act opener into an actual scene with the maid caring for her and such, because she is obviously going nuts shrieking marginally applicable poetry in the middle of the living room. Opera gives you a free pass to let people get up and just sing these things. Why feel you have to illustrate them?

Which brings us to the Indian maid character. This is a really unfortunate choice. Are we in 1992? Do we need to throw in an essentialized Native American who likes to scold people for raping the earth? When I read about this, I thought "hmm, that sounds sort of suspect, but I trust them, it is probably tasteful and haunting." Wrong. It is almost exactly as cheap as you fear.

I won't continue, but the staging has other problems, like the random, pedestrian dance sequences determined to not allow us any alone time to dwell on Adams' wonderful interludes. I found myself looking at the ceiling just to get away.

By the end, when we finally get to the detonation, it all just seems like so much self-serving anxiety. There are so many interesting, still unanswered questions about the bomb, and all we get is heavy handed dread. Cuz you know, the bomb is fucked up and stuff. And sure, its fucked up. But does anyone deliberately seeing this opera really need that pounded into their heads? I think not. What we could have used were Death of Klinghoffer tough questions--real problematic questions that opera, with its ability to demonstrate deep emotions and motivations like no other art, can illuminate in new and powerful ways.

The heartbreaker is that I spent the first 10 minutes or so really excited because I thought that's where it was going to go. The opening chorus is this perfect John Adams harmony--you're unclear whether it's glorious major or glorious minor, the articulation is impeccable, the intellectual and musical coexisting in stark relief: the chorus is chanting "We believe matter is neither created or destroyed, we believe energy is neither created or destroyed, etc." It evoked something new and chilling about the beauty of the 20th century's faith in the elegance of science, and the inevitable and terrible thing which will grow from that faith. Now there's a tough question about the bomb: if one really considers the scientific discoveries of the teens, 20s and 30s--those marvelous revelations that changed so much of the world we live in--its pretty impossible to imagine that nuclear energy, and its military potential, wouldn't be developed. Oppenheimer and crew had reservations about the thing, and joined up anyhow in many ways based on that logic. So can we really hope for some 'pure' state of nature without the prospect of nuclear war? Or is our fate inextricably tied to nuclear weapons? For that matter, would we want to live in a world without nuclear weapons? Where mutual deterrence wouldn't be around to prevent another cataclysm of the magnitude of World War II?

But by the end of Dr. Atomic we have nothing approaching a tough question. We just have a lot of pretty sounding mush and upset faces. Because in case you forgot, the bomb is fucked up.

Oh yeah. The singers. I had vague impressions that Gerald Finley and the tenor (Thomas Glenn) had nice sounds, and Jessica Rivera (Kitty) had a powerful but not very nice sound. But who could judge with the brutal mic-ing? This was not subtle enhancement. It was full-bore amplification which reduced everyone's sound to a single level and muted any individual nuance. I've read that this is because there are electronic sound effects (extremely grating, BTW) but to me at least, it didn't seem like much solo singing was done while the effects were on, so I don't know why they felt this necessary.

Nice work from Robert Spano and the Lyric orchestra and chorus. If the regular Met chorus does this in a year, they are going to need to step it up.

Les Miz on (Upper) Broadway

J: my little sister just called me angry because she bought a Les Miz recording and she doesn't like the Eponine
A: ha
A: and that's how we know you're related
A: which one?
J: I think it was the broadway one, which I think is the same Eponine as London, which is the one she likes. But she was having none of that argument.
A: ha
A: that's funny
A: I have long disliked the Broadway over the London eponine
J: she was like "she sounds like fucking Madonna!"
J: it's the same gal though
A: yeah
A: look at that
A: well, she definitely broadways it up for the later version
A: not that she is the model of restraint on the OLC
A: but i think it is pretty striking
J: huh
A: i have now compared
J: hah
A: me and your sister are pretty justified
J: do you own both?
A: no
A: just london
A: even from the Itunes clip you could hear
A: "Frances Ruffelle" just really lets go
A: with the little whiny Eponinisms
J: on b'way?
A: yeah
J: hah there are reviews on Amazon where people compare the conducting of the various recordings
A: ha
A: people love them some les miz
J: and there is a guy who does a London/B'way comparison of every character and decides which is best
J: Fantine: LONDON. Patti LuPone is one of the few Fantine's who sings the role instead of wailing it. And she does more than just sing it. If LuPone's "I Dreamed a Dream" doesn't bring you close to tears, you have a stone heart. Randy Graff on the Broadway recording leaves a lot to be desired, but isn't nearly as bad as Ruthie Henshall in the Tenth Anniversary Concert.
A: heehee
A: true that about P-Lupes
A: tho
J: she is very good
J: Eponine: Now, while I ADORE Lea Salonga, I just don't think she is right for Eponine. Nor do I like Frances Ruffle. The best Eponine I've heard recorded is Kaho Shimada. I LOVE her portrayal, and it's even more impressive because she didn't know English at the time.
A: wow
A: which one is she on?
J: she's on that "Complete International Symphonic Recording"
J: the black one with gold writing
A: meh
A: maybe if i heard more than 15 seconds of it
J: eponine tempura
A: i think Trebs would get Eponine in an opera version of Les Miz
J: yeah I think so too
J: though Eponine strikes me as a mezzo
J: she dresses as a boy and all
J: Stephanie Blythe would me Madame Thenardier
J: be
A: word
A: Someone would probably try to cast J-mo as Jean Valjean
A: and it would suck
J: that would blow
J: actually no---they would use Thomas Hampson
A: ah
A: good call
J: imagine him singing "Who am I"
A: damn
J: it's entertaining
A: it really is
A: or the croony faces on the Bring him Home high notes
J: haha
J: I'd enjoy a Mattila Fantine, though it's awfully low for her
A: ooh
A: yes
A: please, someone transpose that and get her to do it as an encore
J: Aprile Millo could be the barricade
A: haha
A: i would enjoy Alagna as a flagrantly over the hill Marius
J: hah
J: who would be Cosette?
A: A Barbara bonney type
J: oh interesting
A: The real question though: who conducts?
A: I know Barenboim is something of a Boubil-Schoenberg specialist
J: hah
A: but I just love the clarity Thielemann brings to the synth/drum kit passages
J: hah
A: listening to some Bring Him Home right now
J: hah
J: natch
A: god help us of t-hampson ever gets ahold of this thing
A: if
A: ooh
A: I like Alan Held for Javert
J: oh good call
J: um, please take 5 mins and watch this
J: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTEiEvkl1KY
A: shut the fuck up Diane Sawyer
J: oh my god
A: he is such an absurd man
J: watch til the end
J: what a supreme douche
A: i don't know if i can
A: i feel like my computer can't handle this much douche
J: it's worth it
A: hahaha
A: good god
A: no
A: no
A: this is not happening
J: I mean....!
A: people had to start their days with this?
J: right?!
J: Then didn't we go to that concert that night with Randy?
A: yeah
A: !!!!
A: the ending!!!
J: oh you just got there?? haha
J: he does the closed eyes and the teeth and everything

Death in Sweden

A: this guy is funny
J: the dude from queens or whatever?
A: licitra
J: yeah he is a goof
A: eesa no gonna turn out so good for Gustavo
A: i really want to see Death in Venice live
J: yeah I'd like to as well
J: I left my sirius on overnight and half woke up when it started at 6AM this morning
A: i think it may be really amazing, but it is sort of hard to grasp it listening
A: or I find at least
J: have you ever seen the movie?
A: no
J: it's in my top 5
J: it's pretty incredible
A: whoa
A: who directed it?
J: there's all this blasting mahler
J: Visconti
A: ah
A: i will netflix it
A: who plays aschenbach?
J: Dirk Bogarde
J: there isn't much dialogue at all
J: it's mainly music
A: huh
A: neat
A: there is a really good section about Britten in A Ross' book
A: which has made me want to get my Britten in order
J: oh swell
J: this Ballo is assy
J: she's decent I guess
J: he sounds like a ragged pop singer
A: yeah
A: weak
J: hah the Death in Venice plot keywords on imdb:
J:
• Very Little Dialogue
• Man Boy Love
• Pedophilia
• Beautician
• Train Station
• Prostitute
• Make Up
• Hourglass
• Beauty
• Homosexual
• Plague
• Gay Interest
• Beach
A: yikes
J: "Beach"
J: Plage, Death, Pedophilia, Nice Sunny Day
A: ha
A: What's Death in Venice about?
A: Oh, it's kind of a beach movie
J: hah

Caucasin'

J: crazy how close this is
A: ?
J: Iowa results
A: oh yeah
A: i mean, they are all pretty good candidates
A: among the dems
J: yeah
A: i hope its absurdly close
A: and that it continues like that in NH
A: it would be amazing if there was a legitimate three way contest on Feb 5th
A: i'm so glad I have no way of watching Chris Matthews
J went away at 8:33:00 PM.
J returned at 8:40:15 PM.
A: well that's that, I guess
J went idle at 9:00:17 PM.
J went away at 9:35:16 PM.
J returned at 9:47:34 PM.
J: whoops I slept 2 hours
J: so, Obama. OK, I'm down with that.
A: yeah
J: Huckabee is a good speaker
J: boooo
A: really? I have never watched him
J: yeah he's engaging
A: it would be fun if he was all personally channeling jesus during his speeches
J: haha
J: I mean he does toss in words like "zeal"
A: "What? What's that? Ok, got it. Everybody, Jesus says thanks."
A: dude
A: i am watching "The Birds" for the first time ever
A: it is fucked up
J: it's way fucked up
A: seems a little presumptious that Edwards is saying he's seriously beaten HRC
J: oh is he?
J: shut up and suck it, Edwards
A: Link
J: Change/Douchebag 2008
A: ha
A: omg
A: run tippi hedren
A: right now
A: holy shit
J: haha
J: I thought you meant she should run for president
A: ha
A: oh
A: my
A: god
A: the birds
A: and the explosions
A: it is madness
A: wow
A: the little girl is Veronica Cartwright
A: she cries the same way she does like 20 years later when she's getting attacked in Alien
J: hah
J: wow we're gonna know who the nominee is in less than a month
A: i am excited
A: ok--wtf is wrong with these birds
A: these people need flamethrowers
A: that's it?
A: you don't find out why they attack?
J: I don't remember how it ends
A: they just get in the car and drive away
J: hah
A: Hedren was told mechanical birds would be used for the terrifying and brutal attic scene. Instead, live birds were hurled at her by prop men for a week. When one nearly gouged her eye she became hysterical, collapsed and spent a week haunted by "nightmares filled with flapping birds".
J: wow!!
A: i guess they didn't have to put that "no animals harmed" line in the credits then
J: No Animals Were Harmed Except for the Several Hundred Birds We Killed
A: ha
A: No animals (besides birds) were harmed during the filming of this movie.
J: Obama would be a neat president
A: damn: The scene where Tippi Hedren is ravaged by birds near the end of the movie took a week to shoot. The birds were attached to her clothes by long nylon threads so they could not get away.
J: whoa
J: hey Edwards, say "change" once more
A: ha
J: what does that even mean
J: like, they're all three democratic senators
J: we're "change candidates". wtf
J: I wonder if it's an issue for Hilary that she's basically been running for a decade
J: romney has a hot son
A: Edwards is a total change queen
J: hah
A: what's up with the animals this evening
J: oy
J: well I had to put the little guy in the bathroom
J: poor Andrew is pretty broken
J: and now the little guy is in their mewing
J: but I am hoping Andrew will relent and gimme some love
A: come n' caucus with me Andrew
A: wait...you watched the obama victory speech?
J: yes
J: it was good I thought
A: totally
A: intersting
A: what's with chuck norris
J: The frontrunner of recent months is lost down in Florida shakily repeating '9/11' under his breath like a hobo who needs a stiff drink.
J: is chuck all into Huck?
A: apparently
A: if Huckabee does happen to get the nomination, it will be great fun to wear buttons that say "Fuck Huck"
J: haha
J: The frontrunner of recent months is lost down in Florida shakily repeating '9/11' under his breath like a hobo who needs a stiff drink.
J: oh oops
A: this is also intersting
A: Fuckabee is boring me
A: "prairie fire of new hope and zeal"?!?!
J: yeah that was hilarious
J: I worry people will find him soothing
A: yeah...that is valid
A: he is very even-toned
A: and calming
J: his website is terrifying
J: My faith is my life - it defines me. My faith doesn't influence my decisions, it drives them. For example, when it comes to the environment, I believe in being a good steward of the earth. I don't separate my faith from my personal and professional lives.
J: I support and have always supported passage of a constitutional amendment to protect the right to life. My convictions regarding the sanctity of life have always been clear and consistent, without equivocation or wavering. I believe that Roe v. Wade should be over-turned.
A: er
J: I support and have always supported passage of a federal constitutional amendment that defines marriage as a union between one man and one woman. As President, I will fight for passage of this amendment. My personal belief is that marriage is between one man and one woman, for life.
A: gah
A: ok
A: enough speeches, I am turning Rosenkavalier back on
J: what is a covenant marriage?
A: oh crap
A: something with the blood of a 12 yr old?
A: ah
A: it is basically like agreeing to go back to the rules before no-fault divorce
A: where you can't just get divorced because you want to
A: you have to prove adultery or abuse or something in a court
J: ah
A: like when people staged these elaborate hoax adulteries
A: and they would find someone to volunteer to be the "co-respondent"
A: and hire a private detective to take staged photographs
J: jesus
J: yeah let's go back to thaht
A: how were this guy and Clinton governors of the same state?
A: nice
J: I hope Kevin Spacey plays him in a movie
A: oh yeah
A: that is uncanny

Sweeney Todd: The Movie

So, I've been doing some soul searching since seeing the new Sweeney Todd movie the other day, trying to decide whether my dislike for it was justified, or just me being salty because Burton et al. went a different way than the Sweeney dream movie I had pictured in my head. But I think I'm right.

The Sweeney Todd movie is not a good movie musical. Indeed, it is a straight movie that is ashamed to be a musical. The price of that shame is a film that fails to inspire any real feeling, much less evoke any of the majesty of Sondheim's original creation.

How could it be? This is Tim Burton, the man who made the delightful musical "Nightmare Before Christmas" and a handful of other movies with strong musical film sensibilities, esp. "Beetlegeuse" and "Edward Scissorhands". But I happened to catch a bit of his "Sleepy Hollow" the day afterward, and it explains a lot about what went wrong. Burton is approaching Sweeney Todd as an arch gothic drama, not an imaginative spectacle, and its the wrong choice. To be sure, were he adapting Sweeney's 19th century source material, this would probably turn out pretty well. But instead he's trying to shoehorn all the pathos, grand opera emotions, and explicit wit of Sondheim's score into this bleak frame. The songs are still the songs, but most of the life has been beaten out of them.

The trouble is not 'doing' the numbers as numbers, but simply bleeding them into the spoken scenes, unmarked by any transition in how the camera treats the material. Somehow these songs, which can really take care of themselves, turn out dull and workmanlike, as though everyone involved is trying to bide their time until its done. Take "A Little Priest"--the showstopper of the whole piece, crying out for morbid Burton-esque details, and the thing gets staged with Sweeney and Mrs. Lovett literally looking out the window at the professions mentioned in the song. Who looks at this material and thinks "let's play it as straight as humanly possible?" I dunno. Maybe the humor is meant to be in the literal-mindedness. But the humor is already there for the taking. Why fight it like this?

There are some exceptions that prove the rule:

1. The epiphany scene involves a sort of dream sequence where Johnny Depp is stalking around the streets threatening the dishonorable throats, who can't hear him. But again, the movie seems uncertain whether it wants to admit its doing a number or not, and it ends in a bit of confused musical logic, where suddenly Depp is back in the garrett and we're back in reality. In an admitted musical, such a transition would be ok, but in the hyper-realism context of the whole, you realize he's just been banging about in the corner for a while.

2. The "Johanna" staging picks up some momentum, altho it may just be that the song is a montage and requires crosscutting.

3. "By the Sea" is the only one that really works, and its because Burton momentarily lets loose and does it as a complete fantasy number. Unfortunately, the sudden infusion of easy laughs feels cheap against the otherwise terribly serious proceedings.

I would like to be charitable about the voices on Depp and Carter, and in a better staging of the whole thing, I think it would be easy to get over. But both contribute to the sense of caution pervading the film. I can't quite believe some things I've read that they were actually recording the vocal tracks for the songs while they were filming, but at least it would explain the extreme apprehension in places--one would assume you wouldn't keep that take in the studio. Seriously, some of HBC's entrances sound like she's being forced to stand up and sing My Country Tis of Thee at high school assembly. But she at least has a good sound in line with the character she's created. Depp's songs are ridden with scoopy pop mannerisms that are entirely unbelievable in the throat of his Sweeney.

I also had some beefs with the orchestration. Despite being done by Jonathan Tunick, the original orchestrator, I was struck at times how bland the usually rich textures of the score came off. It was partially the choices discussed above: musical films must work to make you aware of and engaged in the off-camera music; here they might as well have been listening to a CD player in the corner. There were also some oddly slow tempi, which gave the unfortunate effect of a conductor slowing down his orchestra to coddle the unprepared singers on stage.

Mind you, this Sweeney does not belong on the pile of truly inept modern film musicals, i.e. what I hear of Phantom and Rent. It is a very competently and beautifully made film. But it moves the genre backward not forward. All of the successful examples of the recent crop of film musicals had the security blanket of staging conceits--Hedwig, Dreamgirls, Chicago--one had hoped we were now ready to see a film musical in the classic form, and who better to do it than Burton, a director who seems capable of suspending disbelief with impunity? But instead he decided to run the other way.

Ah well. Guess we'll just have to wait for that Jekyll & Hyde adaptation...keep your fingers crossed for Sebastian Bach to reprise his role! And remember kids: it's all a facade...

Now that that's done

Can we please have a one-year moratorium on Christmas song covers next year? Chicago's WLIT 93.9, decided to replace its usual lit(e) fare with nonstop Christmas songs between Thanksgiving and December 25th, and flipping past it amidst the other car presets over the past month has subjected me to near overdose levels of holiday treacle. Is there any lower form of art than the opportunistic pop Christmas song cover? If you don't agree, I beg you to audition Jessica Simpson's "Little Drummer Boy." We need to take a year and think about what we've done.

So, I saw War & Peace and Iphigenie on a short jaunt to NY the week before Xmas. I feel J said what needed to be said about I 'n T, and anyhow, its done, so you can't act on my praises if you missed it. Suffice it to say, any equivocations about the piece following last year's Lyric version were entirely dashed, and I am embarking on an Iphigenie teach-in of one. I think maybe the super-abstract Lyric production just had me confused, and I was taking it out on the opera. Ditto to Maury's fanatic praise for the Wadsworth team.

You do, however, still have a chance to see W n' P, or V i M as it were, and you really should. As a piece of theatre I've decided that War and Peace is a bit like the Les Miz of opera. Which in my book is a great thing. Both are improbable attempts to satisfy our desires to see huge works as movies, but somehow they've ended up on the stage. While that should be a recipe for disaster, both succeed with a remarkable economy of storytelling and stagecraft that enables the enormous structure to skip rather than sag.

That said, Les Miz compacted its story by simply excising things most of its audience will never know are missing, while Prokofiev's audience knows all 1K+ pages backwards and forwards. On the one hand, he gets to gloss over explication chores, since everyone knows what's going on, on the other hand, the audience gets to keep score. On the third hand, is there any chance a War and Peace opera will be anything more than pantomime to an audience rereading it in their heads?

The conclusion of this War and Peace stops somewhere short, or to the side, of the book's final conclusion--the final choral orgy (chorgy?) of national feeling comes off like so much propaganda. Although it is awfully rousing propaganda, to be sure. As for the rest, the real magic is not whether he says anything new about it, but that he makes it come alive in the music. I am totally in love with the musical language of War and Peace--it's narrative power, its lyricism, its marvelous textures--it's a powerfully modern version of everything one loves in Tchaikovsky's opera writing.

As for the Met show itself, it's a very strong, if not particularly distinctive cast. Vocally, Kim Begley didn't quite have the goods to make Pierre's lyric passages soar, but the acting was great. Pierre is far and away the biggest dramatic challenge of the show, and Begley got the nuances and thoughtfulness as well as the despair in Act II. I was quite partial to Alexej Markov's Andrei, who sounded wonderful in addition to looking like an Andrei straight from central casting.

Oh PS, I was sitting in extreme left orchestra row *C* thanks to student tickets and a mean wintry mix going on outside that evening. Which is definitely closer than I've ever sat before. Pros: the visceral thrill of how loud people's voices are projecting at the Met, and a chance to see the acting up close. Cons: the acting up close and some loss of stage magic, being able to look straight into the cavernous flies. This range was especially unkind to Marina Poplavskaya's Natasha, who suffered from a severe case of APFD (all purpose flitting disorder). It might have played well in Fam Circ row X, but up close it was pretty bothersome. Pretty voice though.

Now let us talk about Samuel Ramey. The reviews I've seen have ragged on him for excessive wobble and old man's voice, with some grudging praise for his still formidable presence. Not being a fan of old man wobble (I'm looking at you J-Mo) I was ready to dislike this. But people. If Kutuzov is not the role crusty aging basses should play in the twilight of their careers then what the hell is??? Yes, there was wobbling. And it was magnificent. Ramey rams through that wobble with shocking bravery, and Kutuzov's big monologue arias end up being the most memorable numbers in the show, heartbreaking and staggering in their evocation of the ancient general shouldering all the nobility and suffering of his beloved nation. It is vocal acting of the first order.

Love the production, too. Tsypin and co. have on their ambitious yet respectful hats, relative to some other outings. And honestly, the show is so complicated that trying to work in a more aggressive design would have likely just cluttered the field. That said, they don't disappoint in the burning of Moscow sequence, which includes some of their trademark wowza stagecraft.

Looks like the last show this Thursday is sold out, but do yourself a favor and wait on line or wrangle tix some other way if you can. It shouldn't be missed.

Christmas traditions

So I guess we now get to look forward to a new cringe-inducing English translation of something every holiday season. I suppose this Hansel is better than some, but its still pretty unpleasant. Swell.

PS

WFMT is streaming the Dr. Atomic premiere from Lyric this evening, at 8/7 central. Get it here: http://www.wfmt.com/main.taf?p=4.

One...Two...Three....Four...

Maury mentioned earlier that Philip Glass is probably incredibly frustrated that "seven" has two syllables. Hee.

The mention was made, not surprisingly, at this evening's concert performance of 3 of the 5 hours of Glass' Einstein on the Beach at Carnegie Hall.

So I know nothing about this piece (I am hesitating to casually say "this opera" because I know it's *technically* an opera, but it really feels more like a major choral work to me), other than the most basic of basics: Philip Glass developed it in the 70's with Robert Wilson, and at the original, 5-hour, intermission-less performances, the audience was allowed to walk around and chit chat and such, which basically sounds like my worst nightmare.

Actually, it sounds kind of great. I wish I could have walked around during last year's totally mediocre Meistersinger. Speaking of five (six?) hours. Anyway, this evening's event kept the audience seated and, for the most part, well behaved. I would really loved to have seen the original staging of this--I kept imagining it set against some 70's-tastic Robert Wilson tableau.

In case it isn't already totally apparent, I'm sort of avoiding writing about the music or the performance, because I don't really know how to comment on it. I really, really enjoyed it. I even found it emotional. So I'll let that suffice. And other than one wayward soprano who flatted her way through a lengthy, ethereal solo near the evening's end, I can say confidently that this was a stage of rock solid musicians, each of whom (including the individually mic'd choristers) were very exposed throughout.

So, this was a worthwhile change of scenery. It was cool to watch P. Glass play and conduct, and as one Einstein-going companion noted after the performance, it could be the last time the Philip Glass Ensemble ever performs this together. Which made me retroactively appreciate it that much more.

Accept no substitutes

So, I didn't get to see the Met countdown thing because lame Chicago PBS was busy playing another Celtic Christmas Carols concert or something (for Chicagoans...seriously, how bad does WTTW blow these days?)

But J pointed me to one of the highlights on YouTube, Leontyne Price's farewell performance of Aida in 1985. Maybe I'm just emotional because I've been writing a paper for the past 48 hours, but damn...that is some fucking OPERA right there.

Naughty Elsa

A: this is amazing
J: urg I got half way through and it froze the browser
J: oh she's so huge and Elsa is so little
A: its like the setup for a rough lesbian porn
J: seriously
A: "say it elsa, say you want me to do you with a piece"
J: sick
J: oh there's more:
J: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=So-RHR1VyJI
A: oh wow
A: this is so dirty
J: it's nasty!
A: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ksU3AEqCEGg
A: can they bring her back for other things please?
J: right?
J: I mean, her 'trud was a mix of fun and hard to listen to in places
A: not a desert island 'trud
J: indeed not
J: ok I'm off to see "Enchanted" with Karen
A: enjoy
J: thanks

Not without mein schatten

Getting reasonable seats at Lyric is kind of a bitch. The Lyric Fam Circ, called "Balcony 9" or something, is priced at $31, but unlike the Fam Circ, which is only really far away, Balcony 9 is really REALLY far away. And more expensive. They do have $20 student tix, which get you in the very back of the main floor, but getting them is also a bitch. They only tell you if they are available for a certain performance about 2 weeks in advance, and they tend to sell out quickly, so if you miss your email, you're screwed. And you have to order them through the website, and then go to this special window away from the regular will call. Lyric ends up selling out most of their shows, so I don't blame them for not working to make it more friendly, but if some wealthy donor feels like it, by all means.

Blerg. Anyhow, onto the FroSch. Anyone who heard that kick ass broadcast the other weekend can understand that expectations were way high (see Dannato, M). And it was a fine show for sure, but not quite the earth shattering business one might have hoped for.

Robert Dean Smith sounded like a bit of a chore on the radio, but in person it was really a liability. He scores about 50 percent of the money notes (which is like half the role) but the other 50 percent were kind of brutal. Maybe total reliability isn't a reasonable expectation for your run of the mill Emperor, but it needs to be better than this.

Franz Hawlata was suffering from a cold (and Jill Grove was full on sick--definitely one of the more nerve-wracking pre-show announcements) which seemed to manifest only in a handful passages and at the very end of the show. Otherwise he was lovely.

I don't remember the name of Jill Grove's cover for the Nurse, but she did a tremendous job. Great, non-harpy rendition--no lumps. But enough of the small fish.

DVo: So, I have seen the DV live thrice prior to this, all in context of beloved 'pre' recordings. Forza was meh, as was Tosca. Salome was tremendous. FroSch is right on up her alley. Yet I would be lying if I said there weren't moments when I wasn't thinking "oh, that's the part of new DV I don't like so much". When she goes up top with the full commitment, it is immaculate. When it is semi-committed, there is on occasion a fleeting inconsistency. In the middle, there is this--oh, how to describe--nasaly thing? Pinchediness? I dunno. But one must admit that one doesn't love it. But enough of that. When it was good, mercy was it good.

Brewer! That is some shit, yo. Wow. I heard her Isolde from SFO on the radio the other week, and it was great to hear that marvelousness in person. Unfortunately, I felt like she was holding back a tad in the 3rd Act duet due to Hawlata's cold, or something. Ditto for her and Voigt in the quartet, for a while at least. But we finally got a glimpse of the full power for both of them, and it was quite a thing.

Andrew Davis: Man, FroSch is hard. I mean, Salome is hard, but at least its clear what needs to be done. But FroSch gives no such roadmap. I felt like there was less ecstatic Strauss goodness than I wanted...maybe some reluctance to overpower the singers? There was some sort of disconnect--perhaps a balance thing. I was also sitting under the orchestra overhang, so there may have been some dampening. But that said, the detail was marvelous, and the Lyric Orchestra played with fantastic polish and sensitivity.

The production is kind of exactly what you might expect from a company like Lyric putting on FroSch. The spirit realm bit was often priddy, if not especially inventive. The human realm kind of looked like a disco Ewok village. But what are you going to do?

Iphigenie en Sale

In a 4AM IM to Alex from a problematically orange hotel room in London, I proclaimed that, due to opening night pricing and a pocket book drained from a failed attempt at low budget international travel, I would not be attending the Iphigenie prima.

Then a spectacular thing happened!

Iphigenie went en sale. This happened last year for the opening night of Die Ägyptische Helena. If an opening night is not selling well, it seems the best strategy is to wait it out until about 24 hours before, as there just may be some price slashing.

I could not be more pleased that this happened. Not only because I love a bargain...

Folks. RUN to this production. I'll make it easy: Click here for tickets to this terrific production

Stephen Wadsworth, whose Rodelinda was without question the best part of that particular evening, has brought to the Met (via Seattle) a tasteful, coherent and ultimately pretty simple production. Punctuated with a few moments of well placed theatricality, this staging is effective in a way very few of the new productions in the past couple seasons have been. In fact, only Minghellafly comes to mind, really.

The thing is, the performances this evening could have been given in a flourescent lit rehearsal space and I'd have been on my feet screaming.

Susan Graham. Who knew? I mean, I liked her a lot in AmTrag, and thought her Komponist was totally solid. But seriously--I always sorta figured she may be a hair on the unexciting side. Not so...in addition to seeming totally comfortable in the role (she HAS sung it a fair number of times at this point...) she brought a sensitivity and and an urgency that really caught me off guard. Add to that a completely committed physical performance and you are left with excitement indeed.

Maury and I are currently discussing going to every performance.

Groves and Domingo seriously gayed it up as Pylade and Oreste. It was really sort of sweet and sad. And they both sang the crap out of those roles. It's unbelievable to me that Domingo's sound is still as big and focused as it is. It was my first time hearing Groves, and I'm pretty impressed. And what a gorgeous role...

Is it fine if I like Iphigenie more than Orfeo? Because, I think I am leaning that way. Maybe it's just a phase.

So, this gets my vote for best thing so far this season. See you there. Seriously, maybe at every performance.

Update:
Maury makes a bold proclamation.
JSU is none too pleased.