A Treat for you

If you don't know the music of Tom Sturdevant, as sung by Annie Sellick and the Hot Club of Nashville, then here you go. You're welcome.

Perfection

I was at a wedding at the end of August, between two lovely young people involved in the classical music scene in the city: both talented and delightful. What struck me, apart from the expected pleasure (the beauty of bride, the emotions of the speeches, the joy of the crowd), was the musical selection. In my opinion, it couldn't have been done better. What made it more special was that the highly talented young opera singers who performed are all good friends of the bride and groom:

~ the processional music was "Soave sia il vento" (Così fan tutte) and then "Laudate Dominum" (Mozart)

~ during the register signing, it was Strauss's Morgen

 ~ the recessional was the love duet (piano version) from Götterdämmerung's Prologue

~ at the start of the reception the bride and groom danced to Ella Fitzgerald singing Night and Day

~ during a pause in the speeches, the groom told us that his new wife had always encouraged him to keep at his solo piano career; in her honour he played her favourite piece, Clair de Lune

~ An English language version of "Mann und Weib" (from The Magic Flute) used their names in place of "Mann" and "Weib" and opera singers popped up all over the ballroom to join in.

~ an e.e. cummings poem (used in Hannah and Her Sisters) was the reading during the ceremony:

somewhere i have never travelled,
gladly beyond somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond 
any experience, your eyes have their silence: 
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me, 
or which i cannot touch because they are too near

your slightest look easily will unclose me 
though i have closed myself as fingers, 
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully, mysteriously) her first rose

or if your wish be to close me, i and
my life will shut very beautifully, suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;
nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility: whose texture
compels me with the color of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing

(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens; only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody, not even the rain,has such small hands

Total. Heartfelt. Perfection.

A Few Grateful Moments

~ I sat for a long time recently, in a sort of dream, my fingers idly stroking the wilting creamy petals of a vase of roses.

~ A while ago I slipped in a massive and ungraceful fashion on a large, invisible puddle in the supermarket. I literally went flying and came down - bang! - on my right hip. I had a couple of bruises and waited with bated breath for my body to start screaming in pain the next day, or the next. It never happened. I'm seriously grateful for still being pretty bouncy.

~ While shopping with my mum, we saw a stroller out of which peeked a pair of very tiny baby feet. Not so tiny as to be newborn with its shrivelled, wrinkly pinkness; these feet were probably a month old, with that pillowy chubbiness, yet still very small. At the end of those tiny pin-cushion puffy feet were teeny tiny toes, wiggling in slow motion, as though being stirred by a gentle breeze. Each toe was like a perfect small pearl. I recalled this hysterical Onion feature, as we both remarked on how nibblable those little toes were.

~ I was called back for a re-do of my first mammogram ever. Gulp. I thought of this clip. I had the re-do, then I had to wait for an ultrasound. I was told that the results would be sent to my gyno in a few days. But after my prolonged ultrasound, the technician asked me to wait while she showed the results to a doctor. I lay there ready for the worst. I lay there a long time, bargaining with God and making plans for the inevitable. Then I was told... I WAS OK!!! I felt a little... like this. Given my family history, cancer is likely to get me at some point... but not just yet!

~ Yellow leaves are falling everywhere, and the city is aglow with them

~ A year of neighbourhood reconstruction (mainly streets and sidewalks) and the noise of rattling windows at home and at work isn't over yet, but when it is - wow, everything will look fantastic! We have the PanAm games to thank for this... Toronto wants to look its best and as my 'hood is very near the athletes new accommodations, my neighbours and I are benefitting. So are the paving contractors!

Damp Day, Much Music

Two weekends ago, I spent a rainy day trip in Stratford, one of my favourite cities in the world. Well, it was rainy on the way, but then dried up and cooled off. I got in with lots of time to see the Stratford Festival's Fiddler on the Roof in the Festival Theatre, a very good production of a very dated piece that is so very much of its time (1964). I won't need to see it again.

Then, I was off to a concert of music that was once mostly lost, but is timeless in its appeal and virtuosity. Yes, this blog's favourite chamber music group, the ARC Ensemble, was giving a performance as part of the Stratford Festival's Forum program. The concert, "Music Suppressed in Fascist Italy," featured three pieces by Jewish-Italian composers: String Quartet No. 1 (Vittorio Rieti), Piano Quintet No. 1 (Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco) and Pavana (Aldo Finzi). Between the pieces, actor Sam Moses (the Rabbi in Fiddler) read excerpts from "October 16, 1943" by Giacomo Debenedetti, an account of the night the Rome ghetto was raided by the Gestapo and when many Italians were shipped off to Auschwitz. The playing was full of energy and panache and I particularly loved the Castelnuovo-Tedesco which - excuse my coarseness - seemed to have everything in it, including the kitchen sink. The whole program was unmissable.

THEN... I hared back across town in good time to see an evening performance of Pete Townshend's Tommy. I saw Des McAnuff's production 20 years ago, and this was a new one of his. Ah, what can I say... I love great rock. The first chord nearly killed me. It fell while the lights were still up. I did worry that the older gentleman next to me might have keeled over. He didn't. It was LOUD. I could have used earplugs and still heard it perfectly well. Damn, I sound middle-aged. But actually I remember having the same reaction 20 years ago. What the hell - it was fantastic.

Music in the Park

On Thursday evenings, in St. James Cathedral garden, there is free, live music in the lovely bandstand. Give it a go! Here's the link.

Game-Changer

Peter Sellars is a rare talent, a brilliant director, and a loving and compassionate human being. I was lucky to attend this discussion and another. In both instances this last winter, where I got to hear him talk, he brought me to tears. Then I saw his production of Tristan und Isolde, and was blown away by this game-changing production. A large video screen dominated the stage, and showed video artist Bill Viola's stunning moving images. The singers, including Ben Heppner as Tristan, were accompanied sublimely by the COC Orchestra, and I felt those musical vibrations go right through me. Film + opera. My cup overflowed.

I've said it before on my blog - but for me the purpose of art is to take you places you weren't expecting to go. It's not always positive but it's always an adventure and sometimes (we hold out for those rare occasions) it's transformative.

Here's the video. I really hope you'll take the time to watch it. You don't have to be an opera fan!

Recent Music, Theatre

The National Theatre presented This House, a new play by James Graham, which covered five years (1974 - 1979) in the House of Commons and, most particuarly, the offices of the party whips. I'm hopelessly ignorant when it comes to politics, but this was the play for me. The art of the possible was made furious, funny and fast-paced. Time flew and I laughed and gasped and ruminated over that very troubled time in Britain's history. Thank you to NTLive for making it possible to see in Toronto!

The ARC Ensemble is a blog favourite. I was lucky to see them in performance the week before they took the same program to Wigmore Hall in London. From the program: "The ensemble plays a leading role in unearthing repertoire that has been suppressed or ignored due to political circumstances, or shifts in musical fashion, and its work has received unanimous acclaim from the world's cultural press." Currently, the ensemble's "Music in Exile" series "explores the music of composers who were forced to flee Europe during the 1930s..." I have never attended a performance of this ensemble that wasn't absolutely riveting. I urge you to see them whenever you can. As for the performance I saw, we heard works by Weinberg, Laks, Mendelssohn (a manuscript fragment completed by pianist David Louie, an ARC Ensemble member), and finally Ben-Haim's Piano Quartet in C Minor (1921), which was, if I had to pick one, the highlight. ARC Ensemble CDs are Grammy-nominated and you can buy from links on here. The good news is that they've just recorded a new CD, entirely of Ben-Haim's work, which is due for release this summer. For more of the performance I saw, you can read an excellent review here, which says it all much better than I could.
 
Much community theatre in Toronto proves that it isn't necessary how much you spend on a ticket or whether or not your performers are paid... you will still see really good theatre! I had a wonderful time at Etobicoke Musical Production's The Drowsy Chaperone, an affectionate and witty musical homage to Cole Porter and the Gershwins. The story behind the making of this piece is worthy of a musical itself! Originally a stag-night sketch, it then moved to the Toronto Fringe Festival, then to a large-scale Mirvish production, and finally Broadway, where it won Tony awards for Best Book and Best Score! The show itself is froth and fun, and especially enjoyed if you know some of those classical shows. Outstanding in this production (directed by the virtuosic Mario D'Alimonte) was Man in Chair, the narrator of the piece, played by Trevor Cartlidge.

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland has been a big hit for the Royal Ballet and was a sell-out during both its runs here in Toronto at the National Ballet of Canada. I saw it in another HD transmission, and it was a riot.



Joby Talbot wrote the music for Alice, as he did for his Path of Miracles, which I saw performed by the virtuosic Elmer Iseler Singers a few weeks ago. Path of Miracles is performed a cappella and describes "the ancient Christian pilgrimage across Northern Spain to Santiago de Compostela, the city whose cathedral is the supposed resting place of St. James." The performance was preceded by a presentation from Barbara Manners, a woman who has done the walk and showed us slides that had me yearning to strap on some walking boots, even after she showed us one of an award-winning blister. The performance itself was mesmerizing. For those of you who don't live in Canada and haven't heard of them, they're a 20-voice chamber choir who record and perform widely - not to be missed if possible!

A group of us attended the launch of Eliana Cuevas's new CD, Espejo. Catch her if you can!



P. S. On the side, Eliana is also our Spanish teacher!

I indulged my opera appetite with three great productions at the COC this spring: Lucia di Lammermoor, Dialogues des Carmélites, and Salome (twice, as I had to see this blog's favourite bass-baritone, Alan Held, who didn't sing the first performance I saw, but sang later ones). Carmélites provided a lesson for me - on the importance of seeing any performance live. I watch the Met in HD and the National Theatre from London the same way because it's way cheaper than me flying there every few weeks! Let's face it - that's not going to happen. But when you see anything filmed, you are being told what to focus on by the broadcast director. I saw how this works particuarly with Carmélites, as the COC was performing the same production I had watched on DVD from La Scala. There is no comparison. The live experience was extraordinary, under the genius direction of Robert Carsen. I've seen this opera three times before, and it remains as powerful as ever. The ending is one of the greatest in all theatre.

Southen Accent, Art, Music

I was attending the opening of a friend's art show on Markham Street and when we came out, inspired and hungry, I saw the sign for Southern Accent a few doors north. I'd forgotten all about it; I guess the last time I'd eaten there must have been about 12 years ago at least.

The blackened chicken livers were recommended to me then, and I had them again. SO GOOD. Served with garlic toasts and swimming in butter. Yum. The interior of the restaurant is funky and comfortably shabby - my kind of place.

The following week, having a couple of hours to kill between a beautiful memorial recital in honour of the great accompanist Martin Issep, and a stunning concert by the Elmer Eiseler singers at St. Mary Magdalene's, I - er - returned. In the meantime, the weather had warmed up and we sat outside. I can still taste those livers... the warm, buttery, garlicky scent wafting up around me as I spread a perfectly tender liver over a garlic toast. Double yum.

Music and Opera Catch Up... Hey! Where're You Going Now?

The older I get, the harder winter is to take. It's too cold and dark. So, I retreat into even darker auditoriums and give myself over to the antithesis of the withering winter emptiness: music. Having said that, and with spring almost (not quite) upon us, there will be less days and nights in dark halls, and more days, face turned upwards towards the sun. Art, music, opera, theatre... Thank you for getting me through these last few months. Now I need... water, trees, sun. Light.

Music, in its most outrageously absorbing and intense format, becomes opera. There was plenty of it: Elsa van den Heever and Ramon Vargas were ravishing in Il Trovatore (at the Canadian Opera Company); there was also a clever Fledermaus which pulled out the Freudian undercurrents that lurk in all societies; in this case it was early 20th-century Vienna. It made an operetta I don't much care for much more interesting.

Elsa van den Heever was thrilling later in her Met debut, which I watched live in HD at my local cinema, her Elisabetta up against Joyce di Donato's beautiful Maria in Donizetti's Maria Stuarda. I love me a bucketful of Donizetti, and the music is glorious, but the Catholicism gets bashed over our heads way too much in the final scene. We get it already! Catholics: good; Anglicans: bad! Blimey, an editor would have been useful there. Also in HD from the Met I saw Sondra Radvanovsky and Marcelo Alvarez in Un ballo in maschera, a fantastic David Alden production, which set the story in the early 20th century, more beautiful and more meaningful than a Ballo has ever been for me before. The word "diva" of course means "goddess" and it's a perfect word for the sublime Susan Graham who was at the heart of Berlioz's epic Les Troyens. Was it four hours or five? Four I think I don't recall. I'm not sure my bottom could take too much more, but it was very beautiful, and the entire cast was perfection, with Brian Hymel (he was Don Jose here in Toronto a few years back) stepping into the killer role of Aeneas, almost effortlessly. Another epic afternoon was Parsifal. Five hours of Wagner. Great music, don't like the libretto, dripping as it does with some creepy, twisted religosity. Jonas Kaufmann hardly seems to exert any effort when he sings. He spent much of this performance shirtless (excellent) and we watched his diaphgram keenly. Again, it all seems effortless. Rene Pape was towering as Gurnemanz. I took a few naps, almost on purpose, as I was planning ahead for the latter part of my day: I fled the theatre after the curtain calls, just in time to meet my friends for a movie and dinner (my scheduling secretary must have been stoned). The Met in HD season concluded for me with a rare showing of Zandonai's Francesca da Rimini. The sets and costumes were all medieval lushness with touches of Art Nouveau and Pre-Raphaelite flourishes, I was in overload heaven. The music is beautiful but having heard it once, I don't need to hear it again.

Molly Johnson was growly and glamorous at Massey Hall (but could they have turned up the heat? I sat with my coat on. I am not a nostalgia-filled fan of Massey Hall. People rhapsodize. I've only ever been uncomfortable in that space, although the good news is that a recent donation of land next to it means that it can be updated. I think washrooms, bar area and heating/cooling systems will be addressed).

Poculi Ludique Societas, who recreate theatre from the Middle Ages and Renaissance, performend A Medieveal Chistmas: Go We Hence to Bethlehem's Bower at St. Thomas's Church. It was, as might be expected, a tad bawdy, and I was riveted by the angelic face of Alice Degan (as Mary), who looked - with her sweetly hooded eyes and long, blond tresses - like Mary stepped from a painting of the period.

Nothing about music here, but the Service of Lessons and Carols at Trinity College Chapel had us sitting at the back on these elevated throne-like seats. Nice! The candles were haunting as usual but we used to hold them through the entire service. We were bade to extinguish them very early. Sigh. I love candles in church, especially holding them, as it gives me something to concentrate on. I know, I'm doomed.

More recently, I took a long lunch hour and indulged in the Free Concert Series in the Richard Bradshaw Amphitheatre. These concerts (at least two a week during the season) are varied and generous. I was there for Christopher Mokrzewski (musical director of Against the Grain Theatre) and his program of Bill Evans/French inspirations piano works. Messiaen, Ravel, and Poulenc were interspersed with Evans in a captivating, virtuosic performance. To be in that space with that music, the great wall of glass beside us showing the city traffic silently undulating up University Avenue was mesmerizing. What a gift.

Did anyone make it to the bottom? In case you did, here's your reward.

Insert Handy Curse Right Here

The long, admittedly unwieldy post I was composing about the recent theatre/music/film I have experienced is lost to the blogosphere.

I shall recompose it later this week... after I have recomposed myself.

(And by recent theatre/music/film, I'm talking pretty much an entire winter's worth. As I stumble, blinking like a freed pitpony into the spring, I lose much of my interest for most indoor activity, and seek instead sky, trees and water.)

Come on Eileen

A pretty, hand-painted vase from last birthday (thanks M!) and daisies. That and some great 80s music... a wonderful way to wind down the weekend, just in time to get to work early tomorrow to solve some problems there. Wahhh!

Just me Waffling on About Stuff

My mind has been racing with, for my soul anyway, a few too many theatrical offerings. One of the great gifts of art, as I've said before, is to take you to unexpected places, surprising thoughts, moving revelations, and previously unasked questions. But when it gets too densely packed in, there isn't the room and the time to ponder what has been seen and felt. I need that space and time.

I'm resisting the gluttony our society offers in its many different forms, one of them being over stimulation from entertainment. It is, in its way, another form of addiction or, at least, indulgence for the sake of distraction. I turn on my tv less, and there are only four tickets on the pinboard for future events.

As the challenging months of January and February are passed and my senses perk up in the knowledge that with March underway, and spring is not far behind, I feel the urge to leave behind the dark and wondrous theatre auditoriums, and be outside, absorbing the greatest art of all, our natural world. Spring sap will be working its magic in me as well as my beloved trees. It's time to turn my energies to the physical connection I have with the rest of the world, to my own creativity, and to love.

But... I also need to catch up in this space on some of the great performances I've seen recently. There's been at least one game-changer.

Now I just have to write my thoughts down... dagnabit.

Don't Miss it Tonight!

"My ear felt fresh to the touch, rough, cool, juicy like a leaf."

Opening last night, closing tonight, Against the Grain's run of Kafka, Kurtág and Janáček is short and sweet. AGT likes to use a new and unexpected setting for each production, and this one is no less magical than last year's setting for The Turn of the Screw (one of the best experiences I had all season).

This current production takes place in a magically transformed yoga studio (thanks to designer Michael Gianfrancesco) near the Distillery District. Led by director Joel Ivany and Christopher Mokrzewski, the first half consists of Kafka-Fragments, opus 24, Kurtág's setting of Kafka's fragmentary words, in a virtuoso performance by Jacqueline Woodley, soprano and Kerry DuWors on violin. During intermission, the seating gets moved around, and the second half consists of The Diary of One Who Disappeared, superbly and sexily performed by Colin Ainsworth, tenor, and Lauren Segal, mezzo-soprano, with three supporting singers.

You may recognize that this is a superb line of of established talent. If you don't, don't worry. This is an unexpected evening, one which challenged me (the Kurtág, which I'd never heard of) and ravished me (the Janáček). You don't have to know anything or dress any particular way. The production company itself is young, friendly, energetic and immensely talented. If you have no plans tonight, I really recommend you do something for yourself and get yourself there. (It's not far from Mangia e Bevi or the Distillery if you're looking to eat out as well).

"There are countless hiding places, but only one salvation; but then again, there are as many paths to salvation as there are hiding places."

(Note, as for the libretto of The Diary of One Who Disappeared, according to Wikipedia, "the author of the text was anonymous and remained unknown till the end of 20th century. The true identity of the author of the Diary was revealed by Dr. Jan Mikeska in 1998, some eighty years after the verses were published. The originator of the poems was Wallachian writer Ozef Kalda.)

My Elixir of Great Music

I don't know why previous listenings and viewings over my early years didn't impact me, but now the 19th-century Italian opera genius Donizetti has me in his thrall. From Maria Stuarda (Canadian Opera Company a couple of seasons back), to Lucia di Lammermoor (COC, then again a Met production, and the COC is doing one again this spring - can't wait), Don Pasquale and now L'elisir d'amore... I get drunk on this music for days, drive my workmates nuts whistling it (yes, I'm a whistler... strong lips... rrrrrrrRRRRRRrrrrrrrr).

It says a lot for the energy and talent of University of Toronto Opera School students that a Saturday evening performance of Donizetti's L'elisir d'amore managed to be delightful, funny and sweet, just weeks after I saw the Met's HD live performance, which was as perfect as I could imagine.

The Opera School consistently produces work that bodes well for the future of the art form, and all on the remarkable sets of Fred Perruzza, who - surely on a tiny budget - never fails to enchant.

The Met production boasted three of the cast from another Donizetti a couple of season's back, Don Pasquale. Anna Netrebko (dashing and sexy in a riding habit), Mariusz Kwiecien (as Belcore he was a handsome bully, and a potentially abusive boyfriend for Adina) and Matthew Polenzani (breathtaking in his big aria) were all in top form, but it was Ambrogio Maestri (oh God, what a name) as Dulcamara (last picture) who stole the show; a perfect basso buffo with everything you could ask for in a great singing comic actor.

This just couldn't be bettered.

Impressions from Montreal: Opera

Le Vaisseau Fantôme (The Haunted Vessel) is better known to me as Wagner's The Flying Dutchman, one of my favourite operas, and last week Montreal Opera was presenting it in one of my favourite productions (from the Canadian Opera Company). I was already planning a weekend there, so figured the timing would be excellent, and it was.

Cursed to sail the seas unendingly, only able to come ashore once every seven years for one day in which he must find a woman to love him unto death in order to release him from his curse, the Dutchman's lot is a rough one. This tale of the ultimate outsider who can only be redeemed by the necessarily blind and unquestioning love of a woman is rife with neurotic possibility. The music is sublime, of course, and the ending always poignant.

This Christopher Alden production luckily works in massive barn-like theatres like the Salle Wilfrid-Pelletier, as well as purpose-built opera houses. The slanted box-on-its-side, lined with rough wooden floors and chair pegs, has a Shaker feel to it and pushes the action and the sound out into the auditorium. The only set pieces within the set are a large wheel and a spiral wrought-iron staircase that comes up through the floor and disappears into the ceiling. The one set plays all parts and it works perfectly to portray an insular society, into which a mysterious sailor is likely not to be welcomed. The lighting by Anne Militello is creepy and glorious. One minute the stage is flooded with blood red, another with an acid yellow.

The Dutchman and his Senta are intensely sympathetic. Daland, Senta's greedy father, and the rest of her village, are suspicious and tribal in their attitudes to outsiders. When the villagers celebrate the return of their men, the rowdy Steuermann chorus is eerily disciplined in its barely contained rage. The villagers' costumes denote a 1930s Fascistic feel, with the Dutchman and his ghostly crew in what looks to be concentration-camp garb. The women are dressed in bilious green stoles, and all the characters bear raccoon-like eye makeup.

I wasn't blown away by the singing so the least said, the better. But I was here to witness again a thoughtful and potent production. And that's what I got.

Tempest Times Two

(Damn, I love alliteration).

It's been years since I've attended a Cirque du Soleil performance. I figured it was time to make a return to the big yellow and blue tent.

















The little company that could has made big. Started in the early 1980s in Quebec as a medley of jugglers, stilt walkers, and other street performers, the circus-that-didn't-feature-animals has become a massive international success story. I love the fact that at one point, the two biggest acts in Las Vegas were from Quebec: Cirque du Soleil and Celine Dion.

The latest touring show to hit Toronto is Amaluna, a name that vaguely and playfully is meant to represent "loving the moon." And, as you might suspect, Amaluna is woman-oriented. Apparently the usual ratio in Cirque shows of male performers to female is 3:1. In Amaluna, it's reversed. The concept for the production, directed by Diane Paulus is taken from Shakespeare's The Tempest. Except, instead of a Prospero, you have a Prospera. There is more of a thread of a plot than in other Cirque shows I've seen and it works well. Cirque du Soleil never strays far from its roots (the opening act consists of two young women madly moving around on unicycles), and yet it takes those skills to incredible heights, sometimes literally. The acrobatics are breathtaking, but always with a little twist, an extra subtext. The duo of a man and a woman suspended in mid air, fighting and tumbling above our heads, becomes a battle of sorts and, ultimately, very erotic.The clowning isn't the creep show it is in traditional circuses, but a more genuinely goofy and charming reflection on the sillyiness of human nature.

The thing I've never enjoyed about Cirque is the music, and yet I must admit it isn't Cirque without it. Redolent of soundtracks to films set in historic, exotic pasts, the music usually features a single woman's voice wailing in vague Eastern-tinged melodies through a powerful sound system. It always puts my teeth on edge, but I can't suggest another option. It just makes sense for Cirque.

I'm glad I went. I'll be back.

Then, this past Saturday, I went to the Metropolitan Opera's HD transmission of Thomas Adès' The Tempest. This opera premiered in 2004 at Covent Garden, and the Met presented it this season in a Robert Lepage production... Lepage who has also worked with Cirque du Soleil. I love these little connections. I have to admit, I'm not a fan of The Tempest... yet. I don't know why but I've yet to see a production of the play that really engaged me. This opera performance came the closest. The hotness that is Simon Keenlyside was Prospero (Adès wrote the role for him), and the rest of the cast was without fault. It did occur to me towards the end, that if, for some reason, Miranda and Ferdinand couldn't leave the island, they would be able to people their little kingdom with the most gorgeous gene pool. They were played by Isabel Leonard and Alek Shrader. Lepage is consistently remarkable and revelatory. Through his vision, Prospero set the tale, through his powers, in a recreation of La Scala... the opera house in Milan, because, after all, Prospero is/was the Duke of Milan. The magical elements were all there, the young lovers were completely believeable, but ultimately it was Keenlyside's embittered Prospero, the angry, rejected man of power, whose magic is the focus for all that pointless rage, that really made the show. Adès's music is dense and layered and I need more listenings of it. There were moments that were so beautiful, like the Act II love duet. And Adès, who was also conducting the piece, was intriguing in the intermission interview; modest and thoughtful.

Prospero (Simon Keenlyside) and Ariel (Audrey Luna) in the Met production, a recreation of Milan's La Scala opera house. Photo: Ken Howard/Met Opera

Die Fledermaus (The Bat)

So, I had two companions at the opera house the night I saw Strauss II's  Die Fledermaus ("flying mouse" = bat). One was very tall. One... not so much.

If I was ever going to take Bruce the Bat to the opera, it had to be this one.

We got there early and checked out our box seats as soon as the doors opened. Bruce had a good time after that at the bar, the shop, mingling. He's a social guy and had a good time.

Act I alone was worth the price of admission, bringing out Freudian-dreamscapes that made this the first Fledermaus I've ever truly enjoyed. Someone had thought this one out. Chocolate-box images were erased from my mind... relief.

 

In an Eastern Frame

Along with much of my love of Middle Eastern esthetic, I find myself drawn to lanterns and candle holders with ornate cutouts, the sort that bring to mind the jaali, the fancy wooden shutters and screens of the Mughals. Oh, I'm mixing my cultures here, but between the Mughals, the Persians, and the Armenians, I find much to delight and entrance. One night this week, I read some Hafiz, he of the ghazal form of poem:

"If the scent of her hair were to blow across my dust when I had been dead a hundred years, my mouldering bones would rise and come dancing out of the tomb."

I lit my lanterns, I filmed my lanterns, I listened to the Armenian duduk. Of course, I ate some wonderful new biblical treats: dates rolled in pistachios.

My new Best Friend

We even did this together, and this is us at the event. Could I get any cooler? Hee!

Thank you, Herren Bach and Quasthoff

I updated my post about the visit to Montreal, to include the entire repertoire of the last night of the vocal competition.

And, in memory of that, have been listening to the sublime Thomas Quasthoff singing from The St. Matthew Passion. I'm sorry that such a brilliant singer has had to retire. He has battled ill health since birth, but has handled his challenges with great grace. Born only five years before me, his mother was prescribed Thalidomide. My mother told me recently that her doctor prescribed it to her while pregnant with me, but instinct told her to take nothing when she was expecting me, not even an aspirin. How grateful am I?


 

Joseph of Arimathea has claimed Jesus's body and prepares to place it in the tomb.

Mache dich, mein Herze, rein,
Ich will Jesum selbst begraben.
Denn er soll nunmehr in mir
Für und für
Seine süße Ruhe haben.
Welt, geh aus, laß Jesum ein!

Make thyself, my heart, now pure,
I myself would Jesus bury.
For he shall henceforth in me
More and more
Find in sweet repose his dwelling.
World, depart, let Jesus in!