The Alliteration of Akimon Azuki

The Turn of the Monkey

2010-07-14T22:21:00.010-04:00

This year at Castleton Festival: great music and fresh batch of kittens. Sickeningly cute, though easily scared kittens:

Kipling monkey Jinkoh was also in attendance and was lucky enough to catch a performance of "The Turn of the Screw" and while at it, decided to perch atop a head of wax figure standing in the corridor.

This is Castleton, so the old adage "They came for the zonkey, they stayed for the opera" applies, but sadly, there was no time to see the magnificent creature this time, so here is another Kipling monkey, Volaria, as seen with the zonkey and the zebra mama last year:

And the Zonkey up close:

Britten chamber operas, kittens, zonkeys, the smell of fresh sage and forest, and stars at night: what else could I possibly want?

Akimonkeys in Action: Tooling around

2009-07-31T12:46:00.006-04:00

Anjun Ampulius is a big monkey, complete with a Mohawk AND a tail, but even for him, last night's Tool concert was no picnic: a heart warming, but deafening experience. Patriot Center is on my official s#*t list of concert halls to be avoided and possibly razed to the ground. Sound mixing is not brain surgery! The Akimonkey in attendance is still recovering, but enjoying his little Tool: here are some pictures of Anjun holding his brand new weapon: a Kipling monkey sized Tool wrench, procured at the event. I did get a nice, Ouroboros style Tool T-shirt for myself, but it is nowhere near as cute as this keychain... We want to congratule VRN on his excellent taste, and the fact that he sneaked out mid-set to get it for us!

Akimonkeys in Action: Hassimir @ Sackler & Freer

2009-07-25T22:34:00.010-04:00

Today the big grey Kipling monkey called Hassimir went to Freer & Sackler Gallery, ostensibly to check out the new "The Tsars and the East" exhibition (no photos allowed, well then, screw you, Lukoil the Official Sponsor, no promo!) but of course, there were a few nice stopovers on the way to check out assorted South Asian and garden variety sculptures...

Grimy Greatness from WNO

2009-03-22T22:01:00.026-04:00

I am not sure how, and I am really not sure why- their core audience seems to like their Bohemes and Toscas served on schedule and as conventional as possible- but Washington National Opera has put on a shockingly great production of Peter Grimes. I was there for the opening night yesterday; this is possibly my most favourite opera (OTHER than Don Giovanni, do I need to say that..?) so I procured the tickets (cheap but decent seats in 2nd Tier) months ago. However, I honestly did not expect too much, and , my gods, what a surprise!
Originally created for Santa Fe opera, this production has several things going for it: people come to Santa Fe coz they really want to, and so there is no need to cater to musty old audience, or worrying about putting random tourists' butts in their seats, and that means creative freedom; but it is still privately funded, and without the government subsidies, there is less danger of a totally free wheeling Eurotrash "artistic team" threatening to "update"this opera to yet another Planet of the Apes version.
Of course, WNO still managed to put a piece from Grimes/super fake lighthouse, Kinkead worthy collage on the cover of the program , but this is DC for you. And where else you could witness the following scene: a flustered couple runs into the elevator minutes before the curtain time, rumbling about tickets; I am thinking they forgot theirs at home, and had to get a reprint; happens all the time; indeed, the guy says "Jesus F($&^$(&ng Christ, I had the old Tosca tickets in my pocket" and the woman says "You almost knocked over Ruth Ginsberg!"....
On with the show: first view of audience: along with my posse, a whole bunch of people under 65 present! Fresh blood! First view of the stage: no raked stage! Progress! Also, set up looks good. Kipling monkey Dootsy climbed our of the bag instantly to stare at the fishermen houses and pose, aft style, on the bag:

The houses actually started moving and closing in to form a tighter space over the tuning of the orchestra, thus beginning their creepy, shifting scenery role. Orchestra opening was good, the young conductor Ilan Volkov showing that things were well under control as he launched into Prologue, with Swallow (Daniel Okulitch, fully dressed and sounding great) announcing that "We have come to investigate..." but then came the first surprise: the chorus. I mean THE Chorus! Other, not so shabby choruses I have heard live recently at other opera houses (the Met and COC) cannot even begin to compare favourably with the WNO's present state. The Director's notes in the program do say that the chorus is "the biggest, most influential character in the opera" and it sure was here, and sounding amazing: precise, powerful and totally ON. And obviously given stage directions; they moved with a predatory grace of piranha's shoal of fish. I was so preoccupied with how good the chorus was that it was only when they filed out that I begun to pay attention to Ellen (Patricia Racette) and Peter Grimes (Christopher Ventris). Actually, their first scene was their weakest; they had some trouble tuning in, but they soon hit the stride.
Racette's voice did not sound as good as I remembered from her Jenufa two years ago; the vibratto much wider, top notes not super secure; possibly this was partly caused by the orchestra holding nothing back in big moments. She is still totally riveting on stage. Ellen is true goodness, strong and brave, as her "Cast the first stone.." confrontation with the crowd made it clear, even as heard and viewed from the rafters. Ventris showed a ringing voice combined with something of a really great body language; wired or weary, here was a completely believable Grimes, without any cheap histrionics.
Soon after, Alan Held came to the fore and, as it is his custom in any opera at any time, proceeded to sing and act the living dickens out of the role of Captain Balstrode. His big scene with Grimes was a study in vocal heft- after all, both him and Ventris earn their living by mostly singing Wagner- but it was also all white hot emotional intensity. Ventris' "Great Bear and Pleiades" aria was merely good, soft singing not being his forte, but the pub scene was great overall. The Nieces- young, smoking hot and beautiful sung by Micaela Oeste and Emily Albrink- showed off their goods, in more ways than one, and Ann McMahon Quintero's Auntie kicked butt all over the place. Since Grimes the Opera has no convenient breaks for clapping mid acts, the audience had to sit tight, but one could smell the goosebumps. And as soon as Act 1 ended, there was a tumultuous ovation. Hearing a non Puccini opera, "modern" opera, and without Flacido Domingo singing in it, DC audience was all riled up.
Act 2 was even better; never mind the orchestra hitting a rough patch in the opening Interlude: it was just about their only slip up of the entire evening. Beginning with the Church scene, Ellen and Grimes' confrontation , with all the small details working like a charm- like the boy suddenly hugging her desperately before being dragged away by Grimes, up to deftly handled mob scenes, the chorus ganging up and marching up in military formation to get Grimes, and then the feverish, claustrophobic scene in Grimes' hut culminating in the cliff accident that was handled as well as it could possibly be... And the ladies "From the gutter" quartet was vocally sublime and beautifully staged. Another ovation greeted the end of Act 2.
At the begging of Act 3, with stage bathed in blue light, the Kipling monkey was barely hanging on to the bag:

Ms Sedley (Myrna Paris) was spot on in her spinderly "detective" work, and what she started built up to a most powerful finale; when she finally got the attention of Ned Keene (Keith Phares), him and Rev. Adams (Robert Baker), ending their sprightly jigs and snapping them back to crime fighting mode, and with them rounding up the crowd to finish off Grimes business, the tension was pretty unbearable; and then we found out that Mr Director had one more trick up his sleeve; as the chorus swelled up in one of their final "GRIMES!" invocations, the houses suddenly nodded and closed in on them at an angle, as if about to fall and crash them. And off their went on their blood hunt, leaving the stage to Peter Grimes' mad scene.
Ventris went for broke here, even cracking his voice a few times, and singing up an emotional storm, but it was only when Ellen and Captain Balstrode came in "to take you home, Peter..", that I found myself negotiating difficult choices of either taking out a crinkly pack of tissues and making a racket among the audience which was sitting in rapt silence, or using my sleeve to wipe my face and my nose.. (The sleeve won). And then, with Captain Balstrode delivering the steady "Sail out till you loose the sight of the Moot hall..." and Ellen emitting a choked up "NO!", I found myself totally and utterly choked up. I was able to join in the wild clapping that ensued after the curtain fell, for the last time, but I left the screaming of "Bravi!" to the guy next to me, bless his heart. Standing up in the 2nd Tier is a tricky business, but I could see that everybody in the main floor was on their feet. I feel spent just writing about it now... Bravi, tutti bravi, including the director Paul Curran, the lighting designer and the whole gang:

Corridor comments overheard afterwards: "It was... sad". Sad as in deeply moving, sure. I think most of people simply did not know what hit them...
If you can, do not walk but run to the nearest computer and try to get tickets for this production. Apparently, March 29 is already sold out. WNO has a great show on their hands, and they deserve to be keenly aware of that.

Overstepping Orfeo

2009-01-27T22:23:00.035-05:00

I started the 2009 music season not with a bang, but with a half step plop; let's hope it can only get better.
I have attended several Met HD broadcasts to date, and my 2008-2009 series had a killer, blood smeared opener in Matilla's transcendent Salome
- (Karita rules the opera world, so what's new)-
followed by Doctor Atomic (loved it- it was da bomb!), and then LePage's La Damnation de Faust (high tech gear and a very comely Canadian bass, John Relyea.) The next pick from the list, Mark Morris' Orfeo, was a no brainer: Gluck plus a great mezzo in production designed for, sniff, the late Lorraine Hunt-Lieberson, what's not to like... However, handicapped by elements that were pointless (spastic dancing) or plain irritating (Daniele The Screech), even the mezzo could not save the show. Maybe Ewa Podles could, but then, while Blythe may seem to be "able to sing anything" (how strapping!), Podles really can sing anything AND always sounds like she f*%$$ng means it. Stephanie Blythe, not so much...
The thing is, I have been looking forward to hearing Blythe in a staged performance; what I had heard on record promised a fabulous voice, able to handle Handel and Baroque in general with great aplomb. However, the solid column of sound and somewhat bloodless performance that Blythe turned in last Saturday was not enough to make me care one bit. She can act, it just seemed she was too tired to bother. There were no ornamentations to speak of- why? Please, this is Gluck with Levine, not Verdi with Mutti ("come scritto or you will be execute"!). It could have been the cold that Blythe had been battling and which forced her to cancel one performance in this run. Indeed, in a rushed, perfunctory "Che farò senza Euridice" something slightly hoary and scary did creep into Blythe vocals, enough to make me wonder if she was really going to make it to the end. The voice is gorgeous, contralto rich, and with a fab baritone bottom, and I am still looking forward to hearing it live, in a recital with WCO, but this was not a good day for Blythe; I believe she can do better than this.
The resident Euridice, wearing a shaggy carpet white dress, did not help in the least. I have grown very tired of Danielle de Niese recently; after seeing her bubbly Hebe in Les Indes Galantes, I had high hopes for her, expecting more goodies from William Christie sponsored indie groups. That was until I was assaulted by her Cleopatra from the Glyndenbourne Giulio Cesare. She basically screams through her entire performance, hoofing and dancing like a well trained pony; her V'adoro Puppile is downright scary. Such mighty muscular arms, such big, loud mouth... It's a nondescript voice, breathy and badly supported, always pushing and trying to sing LOUD, all the way, all the time; no amount of dancing can help there. Though ably assisted by Angelica Kirschlager's rabid, scenery chewing Sesto, the Screech herself pretty much ruins an interesting production of one of my favourite operas. Now De Niese is Ms Media Darling, armed with "great looks" (whatever) and a debut album that can indeed be described as a real dog, except it would be insulting to dogs. Judging from the performance I witnessed on Saturday, the bleaty singing has been augmented by more intense "acting" (such nostril flaring, in full HD) and repertoire of facial acrobatics, some of which give Cecillia Bartoli and her "I Can Smell Stinky Cheese with One Eyebrow Cocked UP, all the way UP!" serious run for her money. The good news is, now that she is such a star, no more Rameau and other obscurities! We is SAFE, for now...
Amor was sung by Heidi Grant Murph: ouch. Very eeky squeeky sound, like a more wobbly and underpowered Debbie Voigt, but ever so cute in her sparkly polo shirt. I have actually heard Ms Murphy live recently, in Opera Lafayette's Zélindor, and my impression from that day - nice lady, small voice, not much else going for her- still stands. Met chorus was ok, and decked out in silly costumes, all symbolicly ponderous and super drab.
And finally: ze production, which, in gist, can only be described as "The Longest Gap Commercial Ever". Tiered chorus stands and utterly pointless ladder; voilà, scenery! Chorus stands at an angle: voilà, Gates of Hell! Craggy melted plastic: the Underworld. No costumes, just some casual wear procured at a nearest budget outlet, all khaki and washed out greys and dingy whites. And, in an opera with a legit ballet music, a smorgasbord of dance moves with no rhyme and reason. A mix of different styles, with no point to it other than hopping along to the music. Total nucular waste. Some stylized baroque dancing towards the end, but the hoedown at the very end - wtf. And, WTF was that rolling hand gesture? He's got the whole world, in his hands, indeed! I was not amused. I was glad they chose the shortest possible version of this opera. "Slumdog Millionaire" has better, open air staging of Orfeo (French version and all) in it. And Mark Morris needs to get clothes that fit, Gap, whatnot, just cover up, for all our sakes! Curtain calls are not for gratuitous nudity, and especially not for sneak peaks of Morris' underbelly. I know that I am not the only one that was startled by that flashy fleshy thing...
The Kipling monkey which went to see this broadcast, Mr Olaber, slept through most of it, only came up to cheer for Blythe:

He will have more to cheer on Thursday: the real deal, a totally obscure Baroque opera done right, at the Kennedy Center Terrace Theatre. Repeat after me: Opera Lafayette presents: Pierre Alexandre Monsigny's Le Déserteur. Yes, they do! Yes, things can only get better now.

Anthropology: long, cool Finnish

2008-04-14T00:39:00.009-04:00

The umpteenth reason why the Finnish are so cool: if you are going to make a list of complaints about life, might as well sing it! Thanks to Laura for the link:

I love the Nokia ringtone parody that starts at 2:12....
Also, I have mentioned the intrepid Nokia design guru, "human-behavior researcher” and “user anthropologist" Jan Chipchase few months ago in one of my regularly scheduled pieces of Finnish fawning non-fiction. Now the New York Times magazine is getting on with the program:

NYT article: Can the Cellphone Help End Global Poverty?

Now to back fighting the Design from Hell while trying to get things done on my laptop.

The last M-word you will ever need

2007-12-11T11:08:00.000-05:00

'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 that verdamdte 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

2007-10-17T14:22:00.001-04:00

"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

2007-09-20T11:03:00.000-04:00

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

2007-09-18T13:51:00.000-04:00

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

2007-09-12T16:20:00.000-04:00

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

2007-09-10T10:29:00.000-04:00

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

2007-09-06T22:58:00.000-04:00

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

2007-09-02T22:21:00.000-04:00

.. 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

2007-09-02T21:53:00.000-04:00

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

2007-09-02T13:19:00.000-04:00

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.

Eternal Setting Sun

2007-09-01T22:35:00.002-04:00

Quite a bit of net noise of the US side, about the Eternal Sonata, has been heard recently. I did try the demo, found it chop socky, but I do feel warm and fuzzy at this latest sign of Japanese obsession with Szopen-san. ( like to spell it the normal way.. also, Mazurkis makes me squirm, it's Mazurki, that's the nice proper plural). BTW, Polka means either the crazy Czech dance, or simply, a Polish woman, like moi. The character in the game wears Dutch get up, complete with clogs- what a modernist approach.
Not that I ever understood why Japan hearts Szopen so much, and they keep turning up in droves at the International F C Competition every four years. Surely enough, there must be something to it, it's not just a thing for all things Western classical. Here, let me eat another bit of supremely tasty, ridiculously expensive Ryujin umeboshi plum...

... mmmm... ume. But, still not a clue.
One interesting thing is, who is the pianist providing the soundtrack in this game. Stanislav Bunin. Станислав Станиславович Бунин. Ha! His father's name was Stanislav, too! I knew he would "go places".
Not in any normal sense. His career as a pianist has been - not so much, which is notable becuase usually, once you win the IFCC, and at such a young age, the doors of great concert halls will open wide. Heck, even if you DON'T win... ask Ivan "Exploding Cancer Liver" Pogorevic. (my, he is crazy..)
But the thing is, I vividly remember that particular competition. I was in Poland, after all, tinkling the ivories with my tiny little hands. And I remember very well my teacher, Ms Krystyna Serafin, bless her soul, telling me that Bunin played heavy handed, and it was all political- a Russian had to win, even with other competitors being better. Of course, she was a in-your-face anti-Commie flare, just like the rest of us, I remember her playing at our Independence Day (November 11) concerts, but she knew piano playing and had a good ear (and bloody perfect pitch- it unnerved me to no end, when I hit a wrong key, to hear her scream from another room "It's G!"- how could she possibly know every note I played in every piece... later on, a gentleman who arrived to tune my piano, and who knew her as a child told me the secret).
Now, things being back to normal, it even happened that a Poland's own Rafal Blechacz won two years ago, and apparently totally on merit. (the link is to an NPR story with audio- and I have to give it to this NPR guy, he pronounces RB's name well enough).
Too bad in opera, it's still political.
And Bunin has settled in Japan, and is doing good. Good for him, he looked like a lost but honest soul. And I still love playing Szopen, not that I get to do it often enough- no piano at home- and not that I should. He had hands like gorilla, mine are small, and arpeggios are not the same as grabbing these big fat chords in one swoop.
I'm off to- no, I will NOT play the Bioshock game demo again. After I clubbed down some mutant with the crowbar, I got stuck at a door that would not open. I will probably continue to get my brain fried, reading Gene Wolfe's Book of the New Sun.
Nephilim just got mentioned, and in a super cool context.
What a total mind f&ck, like nothing I ever read....

Jacobs does Don part I

2007-08-27T17:33:00.000-04:00

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

2007-08-27T16:14:00.001-04:00

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?)

Compression Oppression and Equalizer for All

2006-09-30T15:20:00.000-04:00

I read this excellent article, courtesy of Sasha FJ/Alex from The Rest is Noise, which finally explains why most of the recent non-classical albums I have been subjected to sounded so... oppressing is the word, methinks. Ha! I knew they were up to something, just didn't know the details. Alex has a fascinating picture of what can only be called a brick of sound in his follow up post. He also mentions the tricky issue of safe shuffle use on iPod when playing a mix of classical and these souped up tracks. Well, gee, there's an easy fix for that. Getting the bands and sound engineers off the Compressed Till Your Ears Bleed wagon- that'll take some time.
First of all, let it be known that I heart them iTunes very much, except that buggy new version no 7 which made every piece of music on my PC sound distorted, hissy, overamped and totally unlistenable. I had to resort back to version 6.5 and that was a painfully messy operation, but at least I can again listen to my sprawled collection. The back and forth update also wiped out the customized equalizer settings I had for certain albums, so I had to go back to working these sliding thingies again, to assure peaceful shuffle times on the Washington Metro Second Circle of Hell (ie morning commute.) I use these settings mostly to bring down the levels of rock, pop and Bollywood songs, but also to fix up other audio issues. Seems like this is not a very well known feature, strangely- if you ask me, that's one of the best things about iTunes. I figured I will post it for the good of the mankind and aural stability of folks like me who have, shall we say, very eclectic collections of music. I don't mean eclectic as in "not just pop, but also rock and country", I mean mix of classical- Gesualdo, Reneissance lute songs, mostly Mozart everything, 1950s Wagner recordings, 1902 Moreschi and such, along with Indian, Polish and global village music, plus Bjork and loosely defined rock, heavy metal, death metal and symphonic death metal.
The equalizer on iTunes, that neat little thing, allows you to set up customized equalizer presets for any particular album or individual songs and save them as default for these tracks- and these settings can include volume up or down.

To simply squash the volume, let's say on these fabulous screaming Soundgarden songs: pull up the equalizer, best if the songs in questions are playing so you can hear how different settings affect the volume, choose the Manual setting from the drop down menu on the top, and set the left side "Preamp" bar lower to reduce the dB level. This goes from -12 db to +12 and allows for quite a range. Whenever you think it's low enough, click in the drop down menu again and select "Make preset" to save your preset under a given name (QuietGarden, for example.)
Then go to Library, highlight the Soundgarden song(s) and right click on "Get Info"; once you are there, select the "Options" tab and choose the "QuietGarden" from the Equalizer Preset drop down menu.
If it's just less volume you want, you can also use the Volume Adjustment slider right above the Equalizer Preset, but I find that this one is a very blunt and tool and can squash the sounds too much with just a slight slide to the left and so I use it less often, or, lately, not at all.
If you pick the custom preset- and BTW this can also be used for albums and other collections, just select the whole lot and click get Info- then just click OK and voila, it's saved as the default equalizer setting for that Soundgarden song from now till kingdom (or new iTunes update, God help us) comes and it's safe to shuffle at will.
Even during time on Washington Metro Third Circle of Hell (afternoon commute.) And for all these people with their portable players who listen to their oompa oompa music on such loud settings that the whole Metro car can hear it out of their headphones: "F&CK YOU RIGHT IN THE EAR< YOU STUPID< SOON TO BE DEAF GITS!" Ah, the sound of silence... and Fretwork and Kirkby doing Byrd...

The Secret World of Spiral San Diego Seaweed

2006-04-22T20:08:00.000-04:00

I was in San Diego for the Baroque fiesta of Julius Caesar, but even with all the da capo attractions, I could not help but notice that the local seaweed are something else. Seaweed is my kind of thing, tasty and mysterious, but some shapes and forms I have seen around the area... Los Alamos runoff?

Start at the Beginning

2005-10-03T23:06:00.000-04:00

We have just started, so we are a little on the green side, when it comes to blogging.
Once we figure what we are doing, we will be back.
BTW, if you are still in the Microsoftial clutches of Internet Explorer, get yourself a spanking clean and foxy browser to browse with. This blog will look much better on Fire- ha ha, would it be nice to have the flames lick your screen- but in the meantime, Firefox will do.
bnm, Monika