Celebrate

In honor of Thanksgiving, which will see me with my family for the first time in a looooooong long time (since high school? Is that possible? I can't think of a time since then that I spent Thanksgiving with my blood relatives except for Freshman year of college, and that was when Dad came out to Boston to have Turkey Day bachelor-style):

And also in honor of Carrie, with whom I saw La Boheme last night, and who I think would approve:

Equinoctial

Happy First Day of Spring, everybody!

So far, I've been celebrating by not even leaving the apartment, but that just seems wrong, so I'll shift gears soon. but first I wanted to say I hope you all had a good winter (as uncooperative as the weather tended to be) and that you're in good health (no small wish in this era of earthquakes and tsunamis and wars and floods).

This week was a full one, with networking and socializing on Monday, a kind of a night off on Tuesday, Lucia di Lammermoor at the Met on Wednesday (great! It's part of the HD broadcasts too, so you can catch it at a theater near you...), The Motherf**ker with the Hat on Thursday (which evening included dinner with a couple of my good friends who had somehow managed not to be in the same room with Cory until now), the Premier of the Mel & El webisodes at Ars Nova on Friday (featuring yours truly as a Mean Man, according to the credits; my bitchy gay character was rechristened by Kevin and Carl as one of the Mean Girls. I'll take the career boost.) and the Martha Graham Dance Company at Jazz at Lincoln Center last night (featuring the company of out-of-town guests from both Virginia and Italia)

Whew!

How do we do it? The secret is to sacrifice cleanliness.

Anyway, it's clearly time to change over the wallpaper photo on my phone from the snow-covered branches outside our window to something more printemps. I'll try to grab something this afternoon.

A Day at the Opera

It seems only fitting that on the day we are mourning the very much beloved and sorely missed Joan Sutherland I take the opportunity to share some notes from our trip to the Garnier Opera House.

We had a long and fervent walk to the Opera House from our Hotel - there was no good Metro route, we weren't down with the buses at that point, and we sort of underestimated the distance. I slept in a bit more than usual that morning (can't really explain that - the wine? travel catching up with me?) and so we didn't get going as early as we'd have liked, and there was an English Language tour we wanted to make it for, so we really hoofed it to get there. No stopping for croissants, no stopping for cafe: not a recipe for a happy morning couple. But we made it just in time for the tour - only to find a huge long line extending onto the street.

Cory took the French approach and went in through an alternate door to ask for some guidance; which we got, advising us to completely blow off the line to get on an interior line for the tours. Where we waited. And waited. The French way of dealing with queues is singular. There's plenty of pushiness, and not much devotion to order; but there's also not really much in the way of hurrying or urgency. Eventually we found out that the English tour was totally sold out and there wouldn't be another one until the next day (because of a dance performance taking place that afternoon). So we opted for a self-guided visit to this incredible building and hallowed hall of music.

We did miss something by not having someone take us through it, but the place is gorgeous no matter how you slice it.

We had no access to the orchestra seating area. Only people on tours got to go there. (Stifled shouts of frustration.) But we got to see Chagall's incredible ceiling from a box in the corner.

We made up for some of our bad luck by having the very good luck of seeing the painted faux curtain on the drop when we stopped into the other corner box. It was only down for a couple minutes, and it was very dark, so the image isn't so hot, but it gives you a sense.

The ceiling from the other box. It was truly awe-inspiring.

Notice the details of scenes from operas and ballets. Daphnis et Chloe; The Firebird; etc.

Les Troyens; Castor et Pollux; Swan Lake; Boris Godunov; the Magic Flute; Fidelio; on and on...

Had to get a shot of the Phantom's box (Number 5)

And the obligatory shot of me dancing in a holy place. (No trip is complete without one or two of those.)

This is nothing close to a worthy testament to the memory of La Stupenda, but I'm glad I could put something out there for her today.

Welcome to the Weekend After

Which started yesterday, with the day after (try to follow along, would you please?)

On said day, Black Friday, Cat, Rich and Cleo went to Macy's Santaland for a visit to old Saint Nick. Afterward, Rich had to go to work, but Cat and Cleo went to a Chinese place on 8th Avenue for lunch with Uncle Mick.



'Twas most fun - Home on 8th provided some decent, no-frills (and 'no-frills', as Cat pointed out, often equates to 'kid-friendly') food, and Lia joined us a little later.

Before C&C took the train back out to the Island we stopped in to Penn Station for a cup of coffee, which event I documented in this next chapter of my videography career.



Ok, I know - Orson Welles I'm not. Hey, I'm learning the tricks of this trade as I go along. Cleo is so damn cute though!

Then it was out to Hoboken for a mostly relaxing night (my building still smells like smoke, and it's seeping into my apartment in spite of my best efforts - I'm calling the an advocacy office on Monday to see what my options are. If there are any tenants' rights experts out there, feel free to offer suggestions too.) Watched part of the James Bond marathon, listened to some music, called Grandma and Grandpa (their phone was down on Thanksgiving), did some reading and writing and actor homework. Stayed up later than I thought I would, but in the middle of a holiday weekend, why not?

This morning I went to the gym for the first time in a while (remember that cold I got a while back?) and made a yummy breakfast: spinach, tomato and Stilton omelette; baguette with cream cheese and olives; French press coffee. Huh - had a French theme going on there without knowing about it. Listened to the radio and did some more reading and tonight I'm going to see From the House of the Dead with Annie. And tomorrow morning, Cory comes back from Colombia! Talk about things to be thankful for!

The Ring, Week Two

Ok, I'm way behind on my Ring posts. Last week was totally crazy and I didn't have a chance to post. I'll try to make it up to you this week.

Practically everybody knows Die Walkure at least a little bit, if for no other reason than that it includes the Ride of the Valkyries, which has been all over popular culture for the last, oh, pretty much since it was written. You know, that music that Robert Duvall plays when his Hueys drop napalm in Apocalypse Now. You know - the tune Elmer Fudd uses to sing "Kill the Wabbit."

Well, here's where it showed up first: in the second installment of Wagner's Ring, to herald the arrival of the Valkyries, warrior goddesses who transport fallen heroes to Valhalla.

It's an amazing piece, and once again, we had a great experience. We introduced ourselves to our box-mates: Christian, a student of Epic Poetry at Bard who'll be going to grad school at USC this fall; and Mark, who was much less chatty, but brought along his own copy of the score - he claimed that he is not a musician or a conductor, so at this point I just think of him as a serious music fan.

This week was special because it was supposed to have Christine Brewer in her first Brunnhilde at the Met.

But Ms. Brewer couldn't do the cycle for undisclosed reasons, so instead we got Irene Theorin looking and sounding great in the role.

Anyway, I thought she was great. Some of the press and fan-reaction has been less than rapturous. And it was disappointing not to hear the more famous voice. But her acting (which I'm better equipped to assess than her voice) was as good as anyone's up there. And this was her first appearance at the Met, and I think her first time singing in the U.S., so that's exciting.

Also very exciting (at least for me) was the last-minute appearance of Gary Lehman, who was covering the role of Siegmund (his first time in this role at the Met, too!) I usually get geared up by performances that include understudies/covers, because they tweak everybody's attention to a higher pitch, and just add some energy to the air. The Times had an article about this phenomenon in opera last week too, by coincidence as far as I know.


This is the Ring opera that I am most familiar with, having seen it before, and listened to recordings several times over the years. It has to be the kinkiest of the four: we have the handsome and virile stranger whose name is Siegmund but who goes by the name of Woe showing up at the door, to be tended to by the kind woman whose name is Sieglinde and who is clearly cowed by her husband; she puts sleeping potion into the husband's drink and comes out to visit the stranger in the middle of the night and show him the magic sword hidden in the ash tree in their living room (they have a tree in the middle of their living room.) They fall in love. Then they discover that they are twins... so they have sex. True holy love, you see, triumphs over ALL: morals, ethics, laws, plain healthy good sense, the whole kit and kaboodle.

But this forbidden incestuous love is the one thing that might save mighty Wotan and his league of immortals: for, as his in-the-right-and-many-times-cuckolded-but-palpably-shrewish wife Fricka reminds him (after they rehash pretty much the whole plot of Das Rheingold), he is Guardian of Laws and Treaties, and he can't help his children (did I mention that Siegmund and Sieglinde are his children from an adulterous affair with a mortal?) either in battle or in the quest to regain the Ring, because that hero must be someone unaided by Wotan and the Gods. So he has to have the Valkyrie Brunnhilde (one of his other children, from a totally different adulterous affair - this one with Erde, Goddess of Nature) go disrupt the impending fight between Siegmund and Sieglinde's husband Hunding (they are planning to fight to the death over something having nothing to do with the adulterous, incestuous affair. Naturally.) take away his magic sword Nothung, and bring him to Valhalla to live with the Heroes. So she goes to do it, but she's charmed by his valor and sees through Wotan's law-abiding instructions to his true wishes to help his son and so leaves him to win the fight. Happy ending, right?

OF COURSE NOT! Wotan shows up at the fight himself, shatters Nothung with a wave of his spear, and leaves Siegmund, defenseless, to be killed by Hunding. Wotan then kills Hunding. Naturally.

After all of this has happened, we finally get to hear the Ride of the Valkyries as Brunnhilde meets her sister Valkyries, but bringing Sieglinde instead of Siegmund. She (Sieglinde) is so distraught over the death of her warrior brother/lover that she wants to despair and die until Brunnhilde tells her that she is carrying Siegmund's child. [On a side note, I like to think that when Mel Blanc and Carl Stalling were putting together 'What's Opera Doc' and such, they were thinking of this couple and the expression 'the rabbit died' when they decided to use the Ride of the Valkyries as the theme of 'Kill the Wabbit'] Sieglinde runs off to hide and have her baby, and Wotan shows up enraged with both his daughters. Brunnhilde knows she has to be punished, but talks Wotan down to a punishment of being put to sleep behind a circle of fire that can only be penetrated by a warrior who knows no fear. Awesome.

Speaking of fire, I wanted to make mention of this last week, but forgot: Loge, God of Fire, is one of the most vibrant characters in this piece. He loomed large in Das Rheingold, helping Wotan, Odysseus-like, outwit the Niebelungs. He is also the one responsible for building the Ring of Fire surrounding Brunnhilde. I was hoping to find a good image of him to post here, but I guess he's not a big enough character to warrant a good photo-op. Instead, have a look at his doppelganger:


That's right, he looks just like that icon of more recent popular culture, the Heat Miser. I was hoping to show the two of them next to each other, but you'll just have to take my word for it.

So what do we make of this bundle of confusion? One question that seems to come up a lot when I talk to people about this story is "SO - the twins: did they know they were twins when they did it, or did they find out after the, um, fact?" Oh, they know. They share backstories and real names and put two and two together. As it happens, they look at the consummation of their love as twins and lovers as something right, true and inevitable. A common follow-up question is something along the lines of "What the fuck?"

I don't know. I'm not a Wagner scholar. I've done a little bit of the reading and a little bit of the listening, but I don't know too many of the answers. But I think it has something to do with bringing up some of the tough questions that don't come up all that often. Is there something more important than Law and Morality? Something that triumphs over even Nature? Something beyond what people want and need? Maybe you believe there is such a thing, maybe you don't, but I'll bet you know someone who does. What would you call that thing? God? An Ideal? A nation? Who gets to decide? A Priest? A Judge? An Artist? An Ubermensch? What if, as some people say, "God is Love?" What if, on the other hand, "God is Law?" What in each case would be the repercussions? What would Oedipus have to say about it? What would some of the people Wagner was reading (Nietzsche, Engels, Schopenhauer) have to say? What would Woody Allen?

And, most importantly, let's not forget that the text (all written by Wagner himself; no outside librettist for Richard) is only a fraction of this work. The music does most of the heavy lifting. And it does so right from the top: the Prologue to this piece shimmers, it's thrilling, maybe even more so than Ride of the Valkyries. The music grabs hold of you before the curtain opens and doesn't let you go until well after it's closed up again. Die Walkure weighs in at well over 5 hours when you factor in the breaks at intermissions, and while it wouldn't be accurate to say it's over before you know it, it flies by more than you think, and feels a lot shorter than the timing would suggest. The leitmotifs that are introduced in Rheingold are developed in this piece and inform the argument, the drama, the characters, the themes. But that's another box of wine: I'll discuss the music in a some more detail in my next post, but I want to get this one out, as it's so late already (and I sense that I'm already at risk of going on too long...)

Meanwhile, did you notice all the holidays this week? Patriots' Day on Monday, Earth Day today, and (because it's especially important this year) the Founding Date of Rome yesterday.

The Ring, Week One

Think I may have mentioned this before, but this Spring, I am going to my first-ever Ring Cycle at the Metropolitan Opera. It is a pretty major splurge for me, but I'm very psyched about it. I am not one of those "The Ring Cycle is The Greatest Thing in The History of Performing Arts" guys, but I do think it is a pretty incredible achievement that just gets better and deeper the more time you spend with it, and I'm really excited and awed to be able to experience it live. Which experience began on Saturday afternoon with Das Rheingold, which you heard live on the radio if you make a habit of following the Live at the Met Opera Broadcasts.

So where to begin? How 'bout with our seats? Carrie (an unexpected opera fan friend who dove into the Ring with me) got into the game pretty late and have fairly limited budgets, so we ended up with Balcony Box seats. We're in the first box on house right, meaning we are very close to the stage and can look down on the singers and the orchestra pit. We're in the box number 2 in the second (yellow) rung on this chart:

This graphic gives a sense of HOW high up over the stage we are. But it doesn't do such a good job at showing how much CLOSER to the stage we are than we would be if we were back in the balcony proper. This next chart does a slightly better job at that:

In this chart, picture us sitting where the number 2 is in the goldenrod 'Boxes Even" column on the left. This comes closer to doing justice to our proxmity to the performers. And sort of gives you an idea of our sightline...

You see, when you're in our particular box, there are some pros, and some cons.

The pros:

• You're really close to the stage - MUCH closer than in the balcony proper.


• You can see the conductor and the orchestra, so you can watch all the musical goings-on. And let me tell you: that adds something. I appreciated being able to see the harpists stand their intruments up when they were finished with their section; I appreciated being able to watch the incredible conductor James Levine doing his thing; I certainly have an appreciation I didn't have before of Maestro Levine's endurance: Rheingold has no intermission, and no breaks in the orchestral music, so the one guy who isn't able to take even a 3 second break in the whole 2 1/2 hours is the conductor.


• You can see some of the 'pay no attention to the man behind the curtain' parts of the stage magic - you can see the little slide built in behind the 'rocks' for the Rhinemaidens to 'swim' down; when the Niebelungen are getting ready to climb up from underground with their bags of gold, you see it; when Donner and Froh are piling up gold as high as Freia between the giants' staffs, you can see Freia kind of crouching down and taking a rest behind the pile. Not everyone would be into that, but I think it's a treat.


• You have your own semi-private hallway leading to the boxes. Not a big deal at all, but it does add a kind of fun approach to the experience.


• The sound is great. This is true throughout the Met, and while I'm sure we're missing out on the balance that's audible in the front of Parterre, it still sounds amazing.

The cons:

• You are WAY HIGH UP THERE. The stage is big enough and deep enough that you're not just looking at the tops of people's heads, but they aren't really singing to YOU unless they're raging at the heavens or something.


• There's no sitting back in your seat. Unless you don't care if you're not seeing anything. The angle is so extreme that you have to sit up at the edge of your seat if you want to see, and have to lean over the railing if you want to see much. At first, this seemed like a REALLY BIG CON. But as the day went on, I appreciated the way it sort of enforces active observation: sit up to see this, lean in to see that, shift over to glance at the surtitles, sit back and take a rest. I found a repertoir of optimal postures pretty quickly, and by the end of the fourth opera, I'll be playing them like a virtuoso.


• The sightline is seriously compromised. In fact, it kind of sucks. There's no way to spin this as anything but a big fat compromise to get to all the good stuff (including the relatively affordable - but still really expensive - ticket price) You can see a lot, but there's a lot you miss no matter how much you lean over the rail. You can't really see the upstage wall at all. This is a big problem. Opera at the Met is larger-than-life spectacle, and this production is an emphatic example of that. And while we can see a lot, there is a lot we miss. For instance, Das Rheingold begins with a discussion of the completion of the construction of Valahalla, the palace/fortress of the Gods, and it ends with a coterie of Gods and Goddesses walking off to the Rainbow Bridge that will take them there.

See how that gorgeous image is painted/projected onto the wall up there? Yeah, we couldn't see that. At all. I'm going to go out on a limb and predict that this is going to be my least favorite thing about this whole operation.

And then there are some things that may be pros or cons depending on how they pan out. For instance: these boxes are set up for four people. There are the two of us, and two other guys. SO there's potential for that to be the beginning of a beautiful friendship, or an awkward intimacy. Das Rheingold has no intermission, so we didn't really talk to the other two guys at all, but I'm guessing that by the time we get to the Valkyrie's "Hojoto Hos" we'll know something about each other.

Don't get me wrong guys: pros and cons weighed, this was an awesome event. And I am not using that term lightly - the amount of effort and artistry involved, from so many people, in service of such an amazing musical and dramatic creation, is truly... awesome.

Stay tuned for more next week...

Don't Fuck with Opera Fans

Last night, Cory and I went to see the HD screening of the Metropolitan Opera's Orfeo ed Euridice at a theater in Chelsea. It was a great idea - catch this Mark Morris-directed and choreographed interpretation of Gluck's piece, and be done in time to go home, have dinner and watch the Duke/Clemson game. Don't know if you're familiar with this Met Opera HD series, but it's actually pretty fantastic (and it's not New York-specific: there are screenings across the country). For a selection of Operas, there are live screenings, and then they'll repeat the screenings once or twice to give people another chance to see them. Excellent camera work, pretty good sound (weird echo sometimes), interesting features beforehand and during intermissions - it's a really good way to get to know the pieces, and you feel more a part of the production than you do in even the best seats at the Met. I mean, ok: no - you're not there live and in person. That can't be replicated. But I guarantee there is not a seat in the house with a better view of the performers' faces, or costume and set details. And the tickets cost less than all but the very worst seats in the Met. It's a very safe bet if you're in the mood for an opera.


But [you knew there was going to be a "but"] not last night.

Last night there were some "technical difficulties" which prevented the screening from happening. Man, you have never seen so many senior citizens (this was one of those occasions when I was one of the youngest people in the room) get so pissed off in your life. The theater sent up four people (count 'em - four) to make the announcement and organize the fallout. Before the first sentence was out of the manager's mouth, people were groaning and whining and shouting things. The scene at the Simpsons Premier Fail was nothing compared to this. People started complaining and would not rest.

And the people at the theater did a pretty good job of helping the situation (or trying to). They offered a full refund, a screening there and then of a different opera they had in stock, and/or a voucher for a different movie if you didn't want to stay for the second-choice opera. You'd think that would mollify people who, essentially, had no alternative at their disposal anyway.

Ummm... no.

They wanted to see this opera. Now. They wanted other choices. They wanted their choice of alternate operas to win (even when there had been a vote and it clearly hadn't won). They wanted a more accountable vote. And I suspect that if there had been another vote, there would have been a hanging chad issue to whine about too.

In their defense (I guess), this was the final encore screening of a tight, compact opera that has received all-but-unanimous raves, and which is finished for the season. Which means: this may have been the very last time in the history of ever that we had a chance to see this company perform this production. (Though I'm holding out the hope that it will be shown on PBS or released on DVD or something.) The winner of the alternate opera vote, Richard Strauss' Salome, while one that I like a lot, is not for all tastes. [Oh, and that led to more fun with disgruntled patrons: as the poor cinema employees were reading off the options and pronounced it 'Suh-LOAM' there were appalled shrieks of correction 'SA-lo-may!!!!!!' You can't really imagine it.]

It was pretty hilarious. Though not, of course, for the poor people working there, who had to wrangle the Strauss fans back into their seats and corral everybody else (Cory and I chose to take a voucher and head home - we'll go back and catch Milk or something) out into the lobby for the interminable process of crediting people's accounts (God help you if you bought your ticket with cash).

So we were sad to miss Orfeo, but hopefully we can catch it next year. And the entertainment value of the Debacle of Supreme Whininess? It was messy and not artful at all, but it was a pretty good consolation prize. The Greatest Generation making themselves heard in the most ridiculous way. Pure New York.

Props to the good people working at the Clearview Chelsea. I feel for you.

Now that Duke/Clemson disaster is another story...

Update

So I've been slacking on the blog a bit. Got a nudge from a friend, so here's a bit of an update:

Saw Die Walkure at the Met a couple weeks ago. Now, loyal readers already know that I have this music geek side to me. And about a year ago I wrote about receiving the gift of Wagner's Ring Cycle on vinyl. Still, I wasn't sure how I'd respond to 5+ hours in a theater with this music.

Silly me. It was awesome (and I do try to avoid Valley Girl-style misuse of that word. I fail sometimes, but I try.) Even a first-time operagoer in my group who had given prior notice that she might bail at one of the intermissions stuck with it and loved this show. Wouldn't be exactly right to say it 'flew by,' but it went faster than I'd have thought it could. I will say that, from our seats waaaay up top at least, that wall of fire that Wotan builds around Brunnhilde didn't look quite so vibrant. Still - fantastic!

I've kept very busy with auditions lately, which has felt good. Also started some music work, which has me excited too. The logistics of life constantly intrude - welcome to the world - but I've been fighting the good fight. Political concerns are on the mind all the time these days. That shouldn't surprise anyone much either.

Couple nights ago saw Patrick Stewart in Macbeth at BAM. Stunning. Not perfect by any stretch, but some choices I hadn't considered, mostly very good acting, and, well, I'll cop to a soft spot for bald actors who really rock the house.

There's Patrick with his Lady M., Kate Fleetwood. Once again I was way up in the rafters, and this time I think it made me miss out on some important stuff. Still: helluva show. The whole run is sold out, so you may want to make really good friends with someone involved with this show, or with BAM, or who already has tickets. And by 'make really good friends,' I of course mean 'have sex with.'

OH - got a great shirt from my sister delivered to the dayjob today! A gray athletic t-shirt with an image of Jesus, halo and all, standing on a cloud with arms outstretched, and beneath Him is the caption: JESUS HATES THE YANKEES. Hehehe. I think that the fact that my sister's husband (who's a bigger baseball fan than I am) is studying to be a Christian minister makes this even funnier. After all, he'd know who Jesus hates, right? In the note she sent with it she wrote: ...And for the Yankee fans you may work with... well, Jesus hates them, too. :-) That's my sis!

Happy Spring Training one and all (even Yankee fans)

The Met and the Mets

Went to the Metropolitan Opera last week to see Puccini's Il Trittico. Three one-act operas tucked into one tidy evening (well, if almost 4 hours worth of opera + intermissions can be called tidy.) Stunning and spectacular and all that stuff. Far from perfect, but definitely a good night out. The biggest production at the Met this year, and if you've ever been there, you know that that's downright impressive. Three completely different, gigantic sets - even if, as my friend said - and everyone was thinking, one of them did bring to mind The Sound of Music. ;)

Worth mentioning: Barbara Frittoli, the main soprano in Suor Angelica, the second of the night's three operas, has one of the most amazing voices I've ever heard. At least, she was fantastic last Thursday. We were sitting waaaaaaay up in the back of the top balcony, and when she opened her mouth the first time, my head just snapped toward her. Incredible, seemingly effortless singing poured out of her and filled that huge hall with some pretty glorious music.

Which doesn't mean that Suor Angelica isn't still a pretty cheesy story.

Gianni Schicchi was tremendously fun. Funnier than maybe any opera I remember seeing/hearing. Have to get back there, maybe before the final week of the season next year...

Meanwhile, on the other side of town, Caught the Mets again last night at Shea, getting beat up by the Cubs this time. I have enough fondness for the Cubs that I appreciated seeing Aramis Ramirez's grand slam in person (and not SO much fondness for the Mets that I couldn't let myself enjoy it. Plus, Shawn Green gave us a four-bagger for the Mets' lonely run, so that was fun too) Tonight they had a big rain delay. Flipped channels a while ago and was surprised to see the game going on after all. It's almost midnight and they're just in the 6th inning. Sorry guys, not gonna stay up for this one...