Albums from the deep

Ripped this meme-note thing off Facebook, as it seemed like a good blog exercise. The instructions are:

Think of 15 albums that had such a profound effect on you they changed your life or the way you looked at it. They sucked you in and took you over for days, weeks, months, years. These are the albums that you can use to identify time, places, people, emotions. These are the albums that no matter what they were thought of musically shaped your world. When you finish, tag 15 others, including me. Make sure you copy and paste this part so they know the drill. Get the idea now? Good. Tag, you're it.

So just to be clear, you don't have to be proud of them or even really like the specific recording anymore, but you do need to be able to identify a period where you listened to the record, cassette tape, CD, or computer file over and over again ad nauseum because you just couldn't get enough. To that end, I think it is also nice to arrange them chronologically in the order you heard them. I like that there are 15, so you can get a good chunk of time in...of course, 15 allows you to be a little bit choosy about what you include, but do try to make it interesting.

Here's what I'm going with:

1. Roxette - Look Sharp
2. La Boheme - Beecham; Bjorling, De los Angeles
3. Counting Crows - August and Everything After
4. Rachmaninoff Second Piano Concerto - Rachmoninoff himself playing, Philadelphia?
5. Bob Dylan - Nashville Skyline
6. Simon and Garfunkel - Sounds of Silence
7. Cosi fan Tutte - Ostman; Drottingham Orch
8. Grateful Dead - American Beauty
9. Sweeney Todd - Orig. B'way Cast
10. Phoebe Snow - Greatest Hits
11. Well Tempered Clavier Bk 1 - Glenn Gould
12. Leonard Cohen - Greatest Hits
13. Nanci Griffiths - Other Voices, Other Rooms
14. Lohengrin - Solti; Domingo, Norman, etc.
15. Old Crow Medicine Show - OCMS
16. Brahms Requiem - Previn/RPO

Oops. That was 16. Oh well. Anyhow, I don't think I'm going to tag 15 people (tagging has grown excessive, no?), but I would sort of like to see what Maury and Lisa Hirsch and Patrick the PW have to say about this, so you may consider yourselves tagged if you pass by this way. The rest of you should just do it if you feel so inclined, in comments or at your own space...

Milk

Well, it appears the Indians edged out the gays at the Oscars last night, but Sean Penn getting Best Actor and Dustin Lance Black getting original screenplay were both pretty good consolation prizes. And these things needed to be said, at the Oscars, in recognition of this remarkable movie, in this trying year:





If you haven't seen it, can you PLEASE go see it now? I know you are thinking that it is a tedious political biopic that you already agree with, but it is really so much better than that. It is one of the few movies about a political figure I have seen that manages to totally avoid dumbing down the subject material and turning it into a historical "Behind the Music" episode. The drama in Milk is the drama of the ideas and emotional themes of the time. Also, it is beautifully made and filled with fascinating period details. Go!

Well Played: Lyric Opera

Looks like LOC took my advice from the other week and threw together a very choice new website, replete with fancy seat selector and everything! Check it.

Mendelssohn shout-out

Before it passes, let's take a moment for the 200th anniversary of Mendelssohn's birth. From the Songs Without Words:



I remember my mother playing these as a child--like Chopin they have this deep melancholy sound which you never really forget, and I was fascinated by the title.

A little later, Mendelssohn's Laudate Pueri was a beloved staple in the choir I sang in, as it was for so many other children's choirs:



Still later, I learned about the spectacular violin concerto. Here's Heifetz:



Something I read a little while ago was trying to distinguish between Mendelssohn and say, Wagner, by noting that however enjoyable Mendelssohn is, the history of music would nonetheless have progressed as it did. Maybe that's true, but, well, just see Matthew Guerreri in regards to this:

"Greenpoint"

Love this.

So sweet

Not too much of note going on at Lyric next season (PDF? Seriously? LOC needs to fix its internets situation stat). Though there is the small matter of...MATTILA IN KATA KABANOVA!!!!!

Goes a little something like this:



You're going to need a doctor's note to justify missing this one.

Hot Steva

Check it (h/t J):



Update: More hot Steva. This guy is really good:

Yikes

What is going on with our sweet, sweet Giuseppe Filianoti? I know this has been brewing for a while, the La Scala thing, etc., but I hadn't really focused on it before listening to the Rigoletto b-cast today. I mean, he didn't pull any Heppners, but it was worse--Heppner of course sounds brilliant the entire rest of the time, while the the sound here was generally labored and off putting throughout.

Three years ago, after seeing one of those celebrated Lucias, I believe I referred to him as "some kind of kick-ass opera cyborg" due to his beautiful tone and inhuman breath control. Today? It sounds like he's been possessed by the spirit of bad night late stage Alagna.

The juxtaposition of his and RV's troubles is disturbing. I mean, won't anyone please think of the tenors? Why are these two brilliant voices essentially toasted before 40?

Rolandon't

J: dude
A: yes?
J: seriously disastrous Lucia tonight
A: oh no
J: Villazon is toast, man
A: brutal
A: sad
A: like, unpleasant, or seriously fucked up
J: like, Heppner bad
A: !!!
A: oh shit
A: that is so awkward
J: he bailed before act 3
J: and so did we
A: sometimes everyone just needs to walk away
J: he went for this one not-that-high note
J: at the end of the quintet
J: and he held it forever but it sounded like....sandpaper
A: christ jesus
J: and then
J: he just stopped
J: and Trebs was staring at him and the audience gasped
J: it was such good stuff
A: oh. my. god.
J: and then he just collected himself and did the note again!
J: and it was better
A: wha???
J: then he sorta fumbled to the finish
A: rolando
A: honestly
A: what the f
J: Rolandon't
A: Roland'oh
J: Trebs is so shitty in Bel Canto
A: eh
A: yeah
A: was she cute with the baby pudge?
J: she is cute
A: you missed the bonkers scene tho?
J: yeah, she didn't sound good in this and I bet people cheered for nine minutes
J: it would have been annoying
A: that's fair
A: well
A: i mean, back in the day, i.e. 2005
A: it was always like that doesn't sound comfortable but i guess he knows what he is doing
J: right
A: so the vocal chickens have come home to roost
J: the opera chickens.
J: welcome home.
J: oh no, Villazon's wife's name is Lucia
A: oops
A: did you go with greg?
J: yeah
A: are there many more?
J: there are 3 more
A: arg
A: why is she doing this stuff
A: one does a certain thing well
A: why not stick with it?
A: its not like a cop out
A: its just not doing stuff you KIND OF SUCK AT on the met stage
J: she should sing:
J: Suor Angelica
A: word
J: Manon
A: YES
J: which she does
J: Manon Lescaut
J: I want her to try Butterfly
J: it's a big voice
A: renaay don't own that no' mo'
J: esp on top
A: trebs can get in on that
J: and like...do Russian stuff!
A: OMG
A: yes
A: where is the russian stuff!?!?
J: like, that soprano role in Mazeppa
J: shed own that shit
A: damn
A: that would be rad
A: where was she for that mazeppa?
A: why did we have that random woman?
A: that could have been like a big time trebs show
J: I may need to put on that Mazeppa

Holiday Movie PSA

No opera opportunities over the holiday, but I did manage to hit up some of the holiday season/Oscar bait offerings. Be advised:

1. Milk - OK. This is just so clearly the only legitimate contender for Best Picture. No, I haven't seen the old baby man Brad Pitt picture yet, but I kind of feel like I can still claim preemptive outrage that it is going to be considered serious competition. I read the Randy Shilts book in high school I think, and couldn't stop thinking about what an amazing big time movie biopic Harvey Milk would make if done properly, and lo these many years later, it has arrived. Milk is a deeply affecting and serious movie about history and politics and ideas and questions directly relevant to the moment, both Prop 8 and the prospects for a broader re-invigoration of a national politics about equality and civil rights (Rick Warren speed bump aside. WTF Obama???).

The depth of Sean Penn's portrayal of Harvey Milk is shocking. He does something infinitely harder than playing a hero or martyr: he demonstrates how people actually make politics out of relationships. How do you even start to figure out how to play that? His death at the end is devastating, not because you're mourning for the movement, but because you've grown so attached to his character.

Moreover, it is just an incredibly well made movie. Gus van Sant is able to totally avoid the usual pitfalls of the biopic that can make such movies feel like plodding chores. Nor does it have that annoying historical sheen. In the phrase of the Variety review, Milk fills "lived in". Also, the documentary footage is impeccably interspersed, used sparingly enough to avoid undermining the new footage.

Reading about it since seeing it, I feel like maybe there is some weird backlash against it (a suspicion compounded by the Golden Globes snubbing). Like it would be too perfect for Hollywood to give a movie about a gay political hero best picture given Prop 8 and Obama triumphalism. If so, that is some BULLSHIT. I have not had strong Best Picture preferences for a few years, but this year it will be a total travesty if the gimmicky Brad Pitt thing or Batman or Nazi Kate Winslet wins instead. Bah.

2. The Wrestler - This is a movie that keeps it real, folks, I mean--for reals real. But, it is important to note that it is not quite a "downer" movie in the way "Dancer in the Dark" was a downer movie. For one, it spends a lot of time creating this truly fascinating (and gross) backstage world of low rent professional wrestling, but not for cheap laughs. Rather it plays like one of those documentaries at once disturbed and intrigued by its subjects but firmly operating under the conceit that theirs is a deep world worth engaging. Second, Mickey Rourke's performance doesn't really allow it to become a downer, because his character is fundamentally good-natured and can take care of himself and never feels like a pawn of some sadistic omnipotent filmmaker, which is quite an achievement considering the scene with the staples. You don't pity him, per se, but sort of join him as he resigns himself to the fact that his luck has run out. So, still a downer, clearly, but as someone who doesn't have a lot of patience for the genre at large, I think this is different and better. He still shouldn't beat out Sean Penn, but I wouldn't be irate if it went down like that.

3. Slumdog Millionaire - As advertised, very satisfying and then some. It ends more neatly and fairytale-ish than it begins, which could be bothersome, but whatever. While the story and assemblage of actors playing the main roles at different ages are enchanting (except for the adult version of the girl, who was bland and too pretty), the Indian setting is the real entertainment, with nicely observed glimpses into slums as well as call centers. Clearly not Milk competition for Best Picture, but I hope it doesn't end up as a sort of Indian "Little Miss Sunshine" for 2008. This is much worthier.

Tristan Bust

Well THAT was something of a lowpoint in my operagoing career, and on my first attempt to see T n' I live, no less. Serious weak sauce alert.

I spent the first act in the penalty box (thanks Delaware!) which was packed for some reason. Watson sounded nicht gut on the List Hall sound system. Like, actual cringe, muttering "Damn" under my breath, nails on a larynx unpleasant at some points.

I got up to my balc box for Act II and some tourist d-bag sitting in my seat says "What, you're just coming for the second act?" Dick. The good news about Act II was that Watson sounded perfectly fine in person. The bad news was that it was way, way boring. I would have thought Tristan could basically work under any circumstances, but I would have been wrong. It does not work when there is zero chemistry going on among the principals. I mean, when Konig Marke's monologue is the most exciting thing in the show, that's just not cool.

Now, I don't want to totally blame the principals. Watson certainly deserves the gratitude reserved for people willing to cover Wagner. That is some thankless shiz right there. And c'mon...it was the last perf in a run where the conductor was the biggest story, not to mention a Saturday night and snowing. Also, she was up there with Seiffert, who despite his nice sounding voice clearly could not act his way out of a plastic bag. (Exercise: Pretend you have just been run through with a broadsword. Does that make you happy, sad, or the same?)

Also: I know I'm the last person in the universe to get an opinion about this production, but does anyone else feel like the Met picked it up at IKEA? It's all soothing Nordic colors, competing faux wood veneers, modernish lines, and a bit cheap looking. Lest this production get in a show without one flub, you'll be glad to know the lift for the obelisk thing got caught or something when Melot is busting in during Act II and there was this sort of awkward section where no one knew where to look because Marke hadn't arrived from under the stage yet.

I was thinking about maybe not saying this in public, but oh well. I bailed on Act III. I wanted to just forget the whole business and go home and make plane tickets for Voigt/Forbis in Chicago next month. I just didn't want my first time to be like that, and I think we can all agree this was just the tip, right?

Good.

One night only...unfortunately the wrong one

Going up to NY to catch the last T u' I of the season tomorrow, but when Dalayman sicks out do I get the luxury cover? Of course not. I get L-dubs. Not like she is bad. But safe to say it is a serious non-event. I dunno. Maybe her Isolde is awesome and no one knows it and I will eat my hat.

Maybe.

I know what'll cheer us up...moose chili!

A: *link*
J: haha
A: dude
A: the palin interview on fox right now is ABSURD
A: there is a huge bear head behind greta van susteren
J: haha
J: hah
J: ridiculous
J: is it live?
A: no
A: they are all over the place
A: she is going to cook moose after the commercial, I think
A: and make GVS eat it
J: wait
J: really?
A: i half heard a promo for it last night, and I swear to God i heard "moose stew"
A: and a teaser definitely had a kitchen in it
J: good lord
A: that is sad about shitty opera
J: dude.
J: like, the end
A: how do you bounce back from that
A: maybe they should do a "make your own opera" thing
J: like, build a bear workshop?
A: ha
A: exactly
A: like "make your own opera" Thursdays
A: and they just open up the state theatre
A: and you get to come and yell onstage and stuff
J: and have like costume bins lying around
J: and like some old boxes of scores
A: yeah
J: perhaps some paint, and some boards, nails, etc
A: "alaska has so much to offer the nation in terms of national security"
A: and
A: "alaska is the richest state in the nation...in terms of its natural resources"
J: haha
J: no one gives a fuck about your state Pei Lin
A: Why you no go away Pei Lin, no one like you no more
A: "moose chili"
A: seriously
J: I'd eat that

Ouch

Some brutal news for City Opera. I mean...damn. Even the Republican party has to be thinking "at least we didn't have as bad a year as NYCO" right now.

I for one was certainly enthusiastic about the gamble they took--as Chair Susan Baker (who ought to stay out of dark alleys filled with Parterre commenters today) reiterated in the Times piece, the NYCO formula, aka everyone's favorite programmatic whipping boy, has been "financially broken" for some time. Against that reality, its hard to see how they could drop down to just their bread-n-butter-sad-excuse-for-the-Met stuff and retain any pretense that they had a mission beyond picking off calves from the herd headed next door.

The alternative "BAM-icization" plan was clearly a gamble, but it was the honest gamble. Those BAM types have money to burn on more challenging fare, but City Opera is hardly on their radar at present. Cut down the performance commitments to something closer to a regular regional house and aggressively chase those people as the core of a new, more committed audience. And if you program it, the younger and more adventurous in the Met audience will come, too.

But I suppose all that is moot for the moment. Blarg. Such a mess.

Well, that kicked ass, didn't it? Here's one of those fun red/blue state maps that accounts for where all the people in the country actually, you know, live. That's a lot of blue, yo.

Pollini at Strathmore

Anne Midgette saves me a bit of trouble with her spot-on review of Maurizio Pollini's recital at Strathmore two nights ago:

Pollini thinks in phrases, not in notes...If music is made up of sentences, these were translating the content into a whole new language. And yet it never felt as if the pianist were being whimsical, imposing a point of view simply for the sake of being different.

Contrast this to Allan Kozinn's NYT review of the same show at Carnegie Hall the other week:

If you like this aspect of Mr. Pollini’s style — his forcefulness and muscularity, and his ability to create the sense that the piano is inadequate to the music’s demands and his own — his tendency to apply the same expressive effects to every work on the program was not a deal breaker...the sameness of his interpretive approach from work to work struck me as a flaw that even the great — and very real — Pollini aura could not overcome.

Kozinn has every right to find Pollini not his cup of tea, of course, but I fear he is trading in the fairly tired Pollini "debate". Pollini is a challenging artist, but not because he offers extreme perfection at the expense of warmth or sentimentality. Rather, it is because he challenges his audience to think "bigger" about the works he plays, for lack of a better word.

Its a hard thing to describe, as AM duly acknowledges, but when he is really successful, the feeling is akin to the revelations one is used to feeling more often in literature or architecture: when you really understand a work as the sum of its parts, and the genius in their relations. Achieving this--making that architecture audible to an audience--requires an absurd level of consistency and control. The second things fall out of proportion, the audience goes back to understanding a piece as simply melody plus harmony, color plus tempo, etc. Anyone not at the pinnacle of virtuoso technique wouldn't be able to even consider such ambitions for the repertoire he plays. Again, AM hits it when she says that his performance was hardly note perfect, but conveyed the "concept" of perfection.

Now, sometimes his interpretations require a lot of work on the part of the audience, because to express the design that he wants to, he needs to contradict the CD playing in our head. Sometimes its successful, sometimes its not. It's a tricky business. But we shouldn't assume for a moment that what we're hearing is anything as mundane as an "effect" that didn't come off right or didn't get enough attention. Pollini is a man with a project, and his interest lies in a very different space than isolated effects.

I could rundown the different pieces in detail, but I really ought to go back to work, so I'll just say: the Appasionata was probably the pinnacle in all around mind blowingness; the Tempest bores me these days but it was good; the C Major Fantasy reading was probably the most 'challenging' by the meaning above, but perhaps the one that will stay with me longest; Pollini's Chopin, which closed the concert and accounted for all the encores is a really unique and special thing, and I'm not going to ruin it by going on about it anymore.

Also notable from the department of ironic bad concert etiquette: some classical music dork's cell phone went off during the Beethoven, and I'm pretty sure the ring tone was from some other Beethoven piano piece. Is that more or less embarrasing than "Who Let the Dogs Out"? Not sure...

Update: Great rundown from Charles Downey at Ionarts here.

Norn 3: Cut the damn string already...

Cute video from the New Yorker here. I was initially skeptical of the Palin-Brunnhilde angle (has she learned anything, really?) but I do like Pal-hilde as downfall of the Republican party, her zealotry igniting the flames of wingnuttery to engulf the once god-like party, now undone by the hypocrisies etched on its speer.

McCain as Siegfried is pretty good, but he of course can't blame a magic potion for turning out to be kind of a dishonorable asshole (I suppose they still have a couple days to float that, tho). Also, god willing, the press will not be charitably inclined towards any 'redemption in defeat' BS after he eats it on Tuesday...

New Violetta...New Atomic

Someone please talk me out of faking sick so I can take in one of the non-sold out Harteros Violettas. Only another Traviata one hears oneself saying, but then there is the terribly overwhelming b-cast the other night, and this awfully tempting review from JSU:

To my mind it's a miracle that one who can be the rare sort of person Harteros' Violetta is onstage, opening long-unheard sonic-expressive vistas in the part, can also sing well and powerfully enough to be a star in this house.

Dang it.

In other news, sounds like Dr. Atomic's fundamental crappiness is not succumbing to the Met's shiny new production, despite our fondest hopes.

Watching the neat trailer video, I am re-intrigued the way I was before I actually saw the thing, and entertain ideas of seeing the new production and enjoying it and finding all the disappointment in between has just been a bad dream. But then I try to decide whether I was more bored in 2008 by Dr. Atomic or John McCain's acceptance speech, and I find myself choosing Dr. Atomic. And damn...that is just a tough, tough burn right there.

PS...A: For those of you who have not seen it yet but do have tickets, be warned: close to the end, when you will be praying for the end to come, there will be a countdown bit to the atomic bomb detonation. This countdown is not, I repeat NOT, in real time. It will say 5 minutes, but you still have 20, easy, to endure. Do not be fooled. Thanks to commenter E at Maury's place for reminding us of this. We had clearly repressed it.

What to do with the rest of the year?

A: were you there tonight?
J: duh
A: damn
A: it sounded awesome on the radio
A: KM brought the A-game
J: for serious
J: she was fucking nuts
A: bonus
A: they better not do that shit again for a while if this is it for her
J: I know
A: not many people are going have patience for an adequate salome with this in recent memory
J: I wish I could get a recording of tonight
J: she did some crazy physical things
A: ?
A: huh
A: her debut at the Met was as Donna Elvira
J: I know
A: natch
J: weird
J: she didn't do anything new tonight I guess, it was all just a little more over the top
A: i'm need to come back for those Onegins
J: totes
A: what are you going to do with yourself now?
J: I don't know!
J: worry about the election I guess
A: at least there is still that

The Last Salomai

Almost at a close. The final "Kopf Des Jokanaan" was marvelous--apparently she's a bass when she wants to be.