The last M-word you will ever need

'Twas another Friday, another promise of an exciting American Opera Theatre production!
Except that the work which was given the AOTreament was an unfortunate choice: Handel's M-word, which can only be fun in this context.
As much as I love Handel (and when it comes to Cesare, Orlando and Rinaldo, and assorted fluff, I really love Handel) I could never comprehend why that particular oratorio is so popular. It's way too long, has a plodding structure, and only in couple of choruses does the music even start to sound interesting, just before it is briskly pulled back into rather banal Baroque twiddling. "I know My Redeemth LEAEVETH" (thank you Emma) is vaguely pleasant, especially when done with gonzo ornamentation by the likes of Julianne Baird, but after hearing the whole thing live at National Cathedral some twelve years ago, and few thwarted (life is short) attempts to listen to Gardiner recording, I just gave up. Why not do Samson, or Saul, or Alexander's Feast, or the wonderfully fawning Coronation Anthems, or go for the high octane drama of Hercules and Theodora, instead of giving in to the sorely mistaken Christmas tradition of doing the Messiah rounds, in spite of best efforts of people who care. It's the Hallelujah chorus, innit? People are suckers for big hits, right?
Still, I am a sucker for AOT, after they stole my heart with Cavalli's La Didone. So off we went, accompanied by a Kipling Monkey named Marcy. Here she is, just before the kick-off, with the backdrop of the Gonda theatre stage, littered with- gasp!- torn book pages! Such violence! No wonder the orchestra hid behind the screen...


As it turned out, violence was very much in, and it was not just the books that were beaten up. While Handel's score was solidly performed on period instruments (with just a few snafus here and there) and energetically conducted by Tim Nelson, and the chorus, consisting of rounded up G-Town students sang just fine, though sadly amplified, the soloists were given much rough stage business to perform, and did not sound evenly good. Kristen Dubenion-Smith, billed as mezzo, sounded great in terms of her basic deep, contralto-ish sound, but Bonnie McNaughton sounded really off. Tenor- well, who cares for tenors... not me, nor the Kipling monkeys. Just like moi, they are well known for their love of baritones and basses and worship the God of Baroque Thunder, and so Marcy did come out and started jumping quite excitedly at "He trusted in God that He would deliver Him" sung by bass David Newman, and perked up at several instrumental passages, but that was pretty much it.
As for the staging, I will refer to Michael Lodico at Ionarts who gives a blow by blow (literally!) account of the proceedings. It made SOME sense as literal reading of the text, but it did not make for terribly compelling drama. Couple of cute/tortured/beautiful angel poses struck by soprano Sherezade Panthaki, who also sang quite beautifully, stood out. (There are several pictures posted on Tim Nelson's blog). Violence aside- I know VRN cringed at the massacre of the books and the rough treatment of IKEA furniture- it was an interesting performance, but I think I have had my full share of the M-word for ever and ever, amen. Much other music deserves to be heard instead.
And speaking of which, I found this in the M-program, and indeed AOT has now officially announced their new season and put a huge and ever expanding grin on my face: they are doing my eternal favorite, Cavalli's La Calisto (which I just happened to feature in October post to mark an important event in my life), and Bizet's Carmen, which of all cheesy overperformed opera evergreens is my favourite cheesy evergreen, and Handel's A&G (ze GOOD Handel, ja) and some bizarre Glass opera that sounds like great fit for a truly outrageous staging. And I can't wait for Charpentier's opera in May 2008. Truly, I say unto them, I hope that they hath exorcised their M-word jonesing and will stick to quality works from now on.

UPDATE:
This is now getting interesting: there is a "Letter to the Editor" from Tim Nelson, on the Ionarts post, and Micheal's witty "The M-word... S&M" title is gone, but the comments are being fired from all sides. And while being chastised for his "wrong reading", VRN is being taken to task for saying that M-word is- gasp!- not a masterpiece. Now we really should have a ban on it...

Freedom, Liberty and all the rest of it

"Non e maggior piacere che,
seguendo le fere,
fuggir de l'uomo i lusinghieri inviti
tirannie de' mariti
son troppo gravi, e troppo e il giogo amaro.
Viver in libertade e il dolce, il caro."

"There is no greater pleasure
than to flee
amidst the herds of wild animals

men and their mendacious flatteries
the tyranny of husbands
is too heavy
and their yolk too cruel
to live in freedom
is my dearest delight
and my sweetest desire"

"La Calisto" Francesco Cavalli

Diacriticism Notes

AHHHH.. and kurde moll, what is the problem with the Polish words searches? Surely, there must be some ASCII issue that has so far prevented me from finding articles on people we like that just happen to have fancy Polish consonants in their names. (Mine is plain vanilla, luckily).
I am referring to two giants opera-dom, an established one- Ewa Podles (now officially websited) and upcoming one: Mariusz Trelinski, yes, trannylicious, or dark and drab as they see him. The buzz over his Boheme (ahh, Metro Weekly did notice the couch!) is getting louder.
But important spelling issues remain; it should be: Ewa Podleś & Mariusz Treliński.
The Goddess and the Gifted Troll. He is not ugly per se, but it does have a cultivated artistic skunkiness going in his general look.
Diacritic marks are sadly necessary for us; there is no option of writing them out in combination, as it is with German umlauts. But take a name like Podles, assuming it is even in nominative form and try searching Polish mags archives. Total mess...
... but here is the reason I was fuming about this issue: it's only now, after running some proper Treliński searches, that I dug up an interview (Polish link here) titled- ohhhhhh! - "I was born for Don Giovanni"! In which he speaks at lengths about a project that will end up taking two years of his time, the movie, a collaboration with - yes!- Marc (Boski) Minkowski: the Don Giovanni movie. The basic idea: Don is actually killed by Commandatore, and all that follows is just feverish imaginings, a "confrontation of his own myth". Interesting. Very interesting. Please, let's get it made AND available for us to see! After net gimmicks, and a year or so after it was premiered, where the heck is Kenneth Branagh's Magic Flute? Certainly not in cinemas near us, nor on DVD. I know it was actually made with a purpose of NOT making money. Let's hope the Trel-Mink Don movie, in the great tradition of the other Don classics, is a smash hit, DVD special editions, Oscar dripping Amazon best-seller. Just bring it on already!

Spastic Fantastic Sofa-isticated Entertainment

By chance or divine intervention, I scored tickets for the opening night of WNO's La Boheme. VRN came along, and there was room left for one Kipling Monkey, so Lalik, who just happened to match my ball gown

came along as well. On my part, the desire to see "the world's second [is Carmen still no 1?] most popular opera" live was mostly morbid curiosity- I have said enough on the topic of my feelings for La Big B, but I wanted to check out Trelinski's Production, and also experience the seasoner opener, for once.
We should have known that something was up when the monkey tried to escape!
He did some posing for pictures on the back of the seat in front of us, but just as we were about to sit down, I realized that I did not have him with me. Turns out, Lalik made it for the exit- but we intercepted him- found him hiding under a chair.
He did not come out at all for the rest of the evening. Just as well- there were such acts of animal cruelty in this opera! Some poor parrot got offed for being "annoying" and later on, there was talk of eating it roasted. Where are the vegan nazis of PETA when you need them?
As for the operatic event itself... for starters: music. Well, typical Puccini miasma, maybe just more trite than usual. The orchestra was good, no screw ups, everything sounded smooth as $hit from duck's a$$. I furrowed my brows a lot at many phrases and turns and twists and , if I may paraphrase a line from Amadeus, I would like to say "I did not know such music was possible! When one hears such music... what can one say but PUCCINI!"
Singing: Vittorio Hunko Grigolo was really good- he knows his schtick and target audience. He sounded LOUD on the high notes . He so EMOTED- when he flung himself to the wall, it was with such a tremendous bang... Oh, and that training with the late Big Lucy did not hurt either: excellent diction was his forte. Overall, the men did well, except for the Landlord, which put the big fat O in Twitchy Overacting. Marcello, sung by Hyung Yun, was too cute, moved well, and sang beautifully when one could actually hear him. The coat aria, done by Paolo Pieccholi, was the best bit.
The women: Adriana Damato, Mimi, was nicely rounded, vocally and otherwise, but her falling sickness bouts were executed with a grace of a wounded giraffe. Her table top dance was quite spunky though, and she died well. Nicolle Caballe, sounding like the little mouse that could, looked pretty in Acts III and IV, even though she was limping, but the platinum wig and dominatrix outfit she made her entrance in did her no favors. They both sounded underpowered, often inaudible. The chorus, dressed up mostly as assorted hookers and the children chorus, pimped out as bunnies, sounded fine.
So now to the best parts: the staging . I like!!! Thanks to the long wall imposed over it, the whole stage looked bigger and certainly different than usual. The photo loft where the Gellida action took place, complete with great rainfall effects, the Momus cafe, filled with iconic American figures (Chewbacca! Divine!) and the factory landscape which provided backdrop for the whining lovers' quarrels- all good. Sci-fi digs, even better. And it made sense to me. If La Boheme was Puccini's attempt to show young, aimless "artistic" posers tossing around stock emotions and trying to show off, then Trelinski showed it well enough in vaguely contemporary setting.
And now for the piece de resistance and the best part of the whole thing. The sofa!!!
Seen here, glowing white on stage, next to fluffy angel wings-
-the escapee Kipling monkey is in front-:

That white, imposing, solid, in your face sofa gave the best performance of the night.
It wasn't just the lightning that made it the center of attention in every act. It was SO THERE. And when that dead, cold, clammy hand of Mimi fell limp over it, you could practically feel its pain. No wonder the audience was teared up. Such a presence...
It was a triumph and a great hope for stage furniture everywhere! It can only be compared to the great performance of the Trebbs Salzburg Traviata sofa

(which, I believe, was sold at an auction recently and went into well deserved retirement)...
So, my final rating: on scale of 10, I give four KM monkey points, one for Trelinski, one for the the nice young singers, one for Grigolo and his sheer cheek, plus one BIG point for that incredible sofa. And VRN sez... And Inoarts, not so hot on the smutty staging. The Post-ed Tim Page - who started the "Nobody does not like Sara Lee and everybody loves La Boheme" cheerleading campaign weeks ago- pummels Trelinski pretty good.. with alliteration! gasp! Dark (huh?), drab, denatured etc. Yes,we need more Zeffirelli and nicely parked singers and classy starving people, or modern production that fully showcases important dramatic values of this evergreen drivel. I enjoyed WNO's/Trelinski Mm Butterfly outing, I would like me some deranged Tosca (with Matilla the Goddes - Met's plans), or good Turandot but enough is enough: let's scrounge enough money and see Trelinski's take on something worthy- Don Giovanni at LA Opera, perhaps? I have seen La Boheme live. Now I never have to see it again!

GROUNDed in Georgetown

I saw the grand production of Amercan Opera Theatre's Ground last Friday; the Kipling monkey which got to go with me was Pitsy. Here he is, with the backdrop of the pseudo-Gothic spires of the G campus:

I have to admit, his Forest Green fur blended in nicely with the Georgetown landscape...
Other than hearing great things about this production when it debuted last year, I did not know what to expect and it was a big surprise. For this year's edition, in somewhat changed form, nothing but good reviews are coming from all sides - the Post, Michael Lodico at Ionarts, the "Ground is Heavenly" praise from Operatically Inclined CGK. Here's why I liked it so much.
On a very sweet note, Tim Nelson, the head honcho of AOT, opened this production with a short speech and dedication to all these artists who may have been "esthetically very different from" AOT, but who were important and who left us recently- LHL (sniff.... am still in denial about her death), Nilsson, Crespin, Sills and of course Pavarotti. Nice acknowledgment from such Enfants Terribles group like AOT, paying respect to the old guard. People change, opera goes on.
What you could call a plot in Ground is a simple thing. A Him is lonely, and meets Her, and they go through whole life cycle together, singing. And the band plays on.. Part I was at first only pleasant, but the whole thing kicked it into higher gear with Part II.
Since the singers had to carry this through, few words about them. Brian Cummings' voice has improved greatly; at his La Didone's outing as Iarbo, he often seemed unsure if he was really a countertenor, now it's a much smoother vocal ride, with some funny runs, but really nice sound. He still has a particular way of moving on stage; his trademark hops were especially endearing when the couple was at the young age/early stages of courtship. Elizabeth Barber was vocally underpowered at first; she improved as the show went on, but she expressed herself well enough, not just with the vocals. Blending in duets was a mixed business, but in the end- where it mattered- it was really good.
For the mini orchestra, I have nothing but high fives: most importantly, the three players managed to stay focused, crunching out repeating patterns of music.. even had a bit of fun in places- at the movement accompanying the couple's quarrel, the hitherto impeccably Baroque violin suddenly broke out into blue grassy mode.
The staging was sparse but very ingenious- the same silk sheet made for the bed and the baby, the flower vase told stories about my way/your way issues of cohabiting together, the collapsed wall of the little house made a very sad flower patch - and a grave?- but it was just enough to express a lot of things on a budget, and, methinks, without great compromises.
The projected titles also made sense to me, though people sitting behind me found them confusing. The common surtitle scheme in opera houses works by having most if not all the words simply translated, and the Ground's loosely connected words projected on screen may take getting used to. The brochure handed out was certainly made a on a cheap, and with a tipsy editor, but I only opened it at the beginning. In this production the link between the sung text and the story was tenuous anyway, and it made no sense to be rustling pages.
What actually surprised me was how I engaged in the story I became. From the first signs of baby onward, it felt like a connected, coherent and really emotional tale. The ending was perfect.
Pitsy the Monkey got little bored with Part I, but emerged at the break- which was, in a new fashion, accompanied by music and used to change the "scenery" (i.e. move the tealights):

and he absorbed Part II wistfully. Kipling Monkeys are tough to please, and this was a good sign.
And all this wonder from patchwork of music that, other than Monteverdi, I barely knew- Merula is the author of a piece called La Monica, and I like to see my name used for noble musical purposes, but that's all I heard of him so far.
I have high hopes for AOT. I hope staging of madrigals catches on! I would love to see few chosen pieces by Gesualdo presented with some smart stage business. My super favourites in the madrigal field, La Venexiana, got slugged recently for "sameness of mood" at their concert. Inventive stagings like Ground could help with easier digestion of not just madrigals... but I think early Baroque/Renaissance music lends itself beautifully to this treatment.

F is for a Fantastic Finnish Festival

My goodness, this is too good.
Is Finland the coolest place on Earth or what? I mean, the Finns seem to get it all: they brought us Nokia, and they care deeply about the things I happen to care deeply about: classical music, and music in general - and ski jumping. And they have such great, unique events- like this one: the Annual Air Guitar Festival.

"The world championships, which began as an offshoot of Oulu’s annual music video festival, have been held for 12 years in this small city of low wooden houses on Finland’s west coast. This year 19 men and one woman from 17 countries competed in the finals, trying to demonstrate to a panel of judges their charisma, technical skill and “airness.”

NYT article: Costumes Malfunction, but Never the Guitars



The official website of AGWC

I like the real live music with no mikes, but Bollywood lip syncing AND playing air guitar- these are two special kinds of artistic expression.

Luciano in Legoland

Few months ago, us and a band of Kipling monkeys flew to California, ostensibly to see San Diego Opera's production of Le Nozze di Figaro (Mariusz Kwiecien as the Count kicked a$$, and one very cool Valkyrie, Ms Sarah Castle, sang a powerhouse Cherubino) . We also visited few chosen places of interest. We had adventures () in the rugged (and surreal: ) landscape, under the CA sky () but we also found out opera in some very unexpected places.
The local Legoland (in Carlsbad, CA) has a small alley with several busts of the chosen famous people made of Legos. There is Einstein, and the Governator and then one statue which will sadly require adjustment of date, but manages to put across that big grin in plastic blocks.

Goodbye, Big Lucy.
I sometimes made fun of you and the hankie and your wonderfully dopey album covers...

but you were something else.

B is for Boy Band

.. not just ANY boy band. THE Boy Band. For real.
Our intrepid glob trotting Nokia aficionado, VRN, alerted us to this glittering musical pearl.
Bunch of hunky guys professing their love to..:

the NEW Nokia N81. For real!
Nice try, guys! I'm a swivel type of gal and I love my bronze Nokia 7370. But, really, good sell.
It's not just classical music that these Finns do so well.
Speaking of nice Nokia guys, I recently went to a presentation by Jan Chipchase, from Nokia's design team, on Nokia's global search for the perfect phone. How could such cool thing happen at my workplace...Here's a shout out to Jan, whose Future Perfect blog is a thing of beauty and some deeper thought.
All the best to Nokia on their quest for - ehm, I have no idea what THIS is about. But I am surely it will be designed beautifully.

C is for Clean

I have been test driving the new Itunes plus- about which more later- and I decided that it would be good to obtain another recording of Mozart's Mass in C. "Another recording" does not mean getting the umpteenth version of, let's say, Mozart's Requiem (in any case, I only have a dozen of these) but rather getting something new and decent- the only great Mass I have is some ancient Marriner with von Otter and Kiri.
I remembered that Dessay and Gens recorded this recently with Langree. Voila - there it is, available on Itunes Plus. But wait- not only is it 256 bits and DRM free, it also has CLEAN LYRICS!!!!

Thank God, they bleeped out all the offensive Latin bits, but what about these secret hidden Masonic messages in the text? Plus we know how Mozart loved a good fart and ass kissing "on both cheeks". SO is it REALLY safe????
... I have looked at several versions of Carmina Banana on iTunes plus. Ha! No clean up there! So, roasting swans, clergy drinking in taverns, horny rouge touting wenches AND loosening the rims of virginity are OK, but Kyrie Eleison needs to be disinfected?
Totally confuscated now.

Soho the Dog Quiz

OK, I came up with my answers to this very wicked quiz.

1. What's the best quotation of a piece of music within another piece of music?
Figaro's Non più andrai in Don Giovanni. I had no idea it was there, and when I first sat down to listen to Don G, I barely knew Le Nozze, so when this piece came up, I scratched my head and said "Isn't this what Mozart plays in Amadeus when he is showing Salieri up..?" These days I know better, but it's such a cool cross-marketing.

2. Name the best classical crossover album ever made.
Am not a connosieur of crossover, but Juan Diego's Sentimiento Latino is preeety good.

3. Great piece with a terrible title.
There are number of Bach cantatas (especially The World is my Hospital series) with particularly nasty titles but Mein Herz schwimmt im Blut takes the crown.

4. If you had to choose: Benjamin Britten or Michael Tippett?
Benji. Silly question.

5. Who's your favorite spouse of a composer/performer? (Besides your own.)
The first Ms Gesualdo!

6. Terrible piece with a great title.
The Assassin Tree. Well, am not sure just how bad it is, but how can it live up to such a great title...?

7. What's the best use of a classical warhorse in a Hollywood movie?
I love The Smell of Valkyries in the Morning- so here's another vote for Wagner in Apocalypse Now, but my personal favorite is Il Dolce Suono from Lucia di Lammermoor in Fifth Element.


8. Name the worst classical crossover album ever made.
Any album by Renee Fleming would qualify, especially her Xmas Special (complete with the film edition), known as le Sacred Cow, but if I had to pick one, it would be her Handel album.
BTW, Amazon has removed my review of the Sacred Cheese for "spiteful content"- in other words, it was too scathing and funny and zee righteous Flemingos were pissed off- but a shorter version survives on iTunes. Jpeg version here:

9. If you had to choose: Sam Cooke or Marvin Gaye?
Marvin. Better songs.

EXTRA CREDIT:

For early-music nerds: Name a completely and hopelessly historically uninformed recording that you nevertheless love.
Flagstad singing Gluck and Bach. So wrong. It's Flagstad. I love it.

Jacobs does Don part I

Finally, at long last! Concrete release dates and promos are being rolled out!
Harmonia Mundi will release René Jacobs' Don Giovanni in Europe on Sept 27 , US of A gets it on October 9, both as a SuperAudio CD (Amazon does specify it is an import and a hybrid disc) and a regular version. I will likely get the hybrid, not that I have any illusions about being able to play the SupC part just yet, but, just in case...
There are two audio samples available at HM site: the overture (sounds appropriately ominous) and Deh vieni alla finestra (sounds like nothing special...)
The cast is largely the same as in the Innsbruck production. Minus Lacroix costumes... please to release DVD at some point in the future, please! I am much looking forward to Pendatchanska; have not heard enough from the other singers to have an opinion.
The Don is young and completely unknown to me, but he does have a beautiful light baritone voice that is a must for me, for this role. I hate proper bassos singing Don... Judging by the Deh vieni sample, Johannes Weisser is not in the league of Peter Mattei, the best Don in this Galaxy (the Universe is too big and full of empty holes to count) but let's hear the whole thing first.
Someone kindly posted badly synchronized, but very interesting videos of the recording sessions on YouTube:

YouTube - René Jacobs - Don Giovanni Recording Sessions: Part 1

YouTube - René Jacobs - Don Giovanni Recording Sessions: Part 2

YouTube - René Jacobs - Don Giovanni Recording Sessions: Part 3

True to his form, Jacobs promises radical, wild and crazy things... for example, a very SLOW Fin ch'han dal vino ("there is a trill in this aria.. have you ever heard it?") . The cover follows the style of his Nozze and Cosi, and the box will look very nice on the shelf. Oh, and there's the music too, with outstanding sound production, I'm sure, enough to raise any neighborhood statues back to life...
-so why am I so blasé about this Don? Have I not been waiting with baited breath for years? Well yes, but in the meantime, Daniel Harding's recordings, the CD- available in iTunes - and the Brook's production on DVD came my way and nothing's been the same way since...

Compression Oppression 2.0

It's only been a year since my last rant on rampant compression...? Well, I just read a more detailed account of that horrible procedure (thanks to Slashdot for bringing this to our attention.)
Over this weekend, I sat down and slashed my meager "rock, pop and metal" material on iTunes down, again, and could not fail to notice that of what remains, it's mostly old old 80s things. Not that Metallica's opus Magnum, Master of Puppets (first album on my first iPod!) does not need re-mastering- it sounds like $hit- but if they were going to make it sound like ze Black Album, then no thanks. Even such strange casualties as bunch of Nick Cave albums- Let Love In, for once- there was so much compression, they had to go. I can't listen to them any more , it's just physically oppressive, like trying to read Anne Rice vampire novels.
The article in IEEE (which also comes in cute multimedia version) makes a good and valid point of new media formats going to waste. But one memory I took from reading it is that, as usual, Sony was somehow responsible for the mess. Duh. SONY. Yee of rootkits and warring, inter-suing divisions. Oh, I have my own Sony stories. How about this: having acquired Sony's own PlayStation recently (the only console that my household was missing thus far), finding out that the sound from blue ray discs would get clipped and generally screwed coming out at the other end, on Sony's own receiver? And that Sony's own Super Audio CDs will NOT play on PlayStation? After half an hour of configuring the PS for SupCs, using the available menu item, disclaimer pops out, something about this format "not being supported". Granted, I only own three SupCs, one is Harnoncourt's freaky take on Mozart's Requiem which was released as hybrid/dual format; the other two I got by accident when trading CDs on LaLa. So, no great loss there, just a snigger at the royal sarary chrysanthemum mess that is Sony. (Can you tell I just read this book?)