My house looks even more surrealistically messy than usual. I’m having new bathroom floors installed, so I have one toilet sitting next to my pipe organ, another sitting next to my large screen TV. I’m hoping that things will be put back later today. (The ungrouted ceramic tile looks very nice.)
I was in St. Louis this past weekend to attend three performances at the Opera Theatre of St. Louis, founded in 1976 with a mission of performing standard as well as new and unusual works in English, with casts of young American singers. The noted British stage director Colin Graham was the artistic director until just a few years ago, shortly before his death. As a protege of Benjamin Britten, Graham was responsible for presenting many of Britten’s works in St. Louis, including the four-act version of Billy Budd and Gloriana (with Christine Brewer, in 2005, which was my first encounter with the company).
This season was typical, with Mozart’s Il Pastor Fido, Puccini’s La Boheme, Richard Strauss’s Salome, and John Corigliano’s The Ghosts of Versailles, in a newly revised version designed for smaller opera theaters than the Metropolitan Opera, which commissioned the work and first performed it in 1991. In the space of two days, I saw the Corigliano, Strauss and Puccini works.
La Boheme is Puccini’s weepy masterpiece. I don’t feel like I’ve had a satisfying performance unless my eyes get moist at the end. This was no exception, with a talented young cast that looked the part of the young Parisians. The production was imaginative, funny and touching.
I had real reservations about Salome: how would it work in a small theater the size of the Loretto-Hilton at Webster University, where Opera Theatre performs? The role Salome was being performed by Kelly Kaduce, a local favorite, having previously performed as Cio-Cio San in Madama Butterfly and as the title character in David Carlson’s Anna Karenina (recently released on CD). I am happy to report that she was not swallowed alive by the part itself or the orchestra. (Strauss famously commented the role of Salome requires the body of a 16-year-old and the voice of Brunnhilde, a virtually impossible physical and vocal combination.) Kelly Kaduce was convincing as the Judaean princess who falls in lust with John the Baptist and demands the Baptist’s head on a silver platter after Salome agrees to dance the “dance of the seven veils” for her pedophile step-father King Herod, while her mother, Herodias watches. Kelly Kaduce’s voice rode the waves of the the orchestra sound, but she was also surprisingly intimate when necessary. Just as La Boheme should make one weepy, Salome should make the audience feel like they should go out for a collective brisk walk at the end of Salome’s twenty-minute final scene in which she fondles and makes out with the severed head of John the Baptist. (I’ve never before witnessed a severed head used as a sex toy.) Ms. Kaduce’s antics with the head make no secret that this is a horny, spoiled teenage girl who gets what she wants. The whole opera had the necessary creepiness to be effective. A word about the staging: the libretto (based on Oscar Wilde’s play of the same name, originally written in French, translated into German for the opera libretto, and here performed in English) calls for John the Baptist to be in a dark cistern below the stage floor. The St. Louis theater does not have that capability, so the director Séan Curran and stage designer Bruno Schwengl, came up with an imaginative solution, a huge round plate at the back of the stage that is removed to reveal an iris-like aperture that opens and closes to reveal John the Baptist (and later to admit the executioner into the Baptist’s dungeon.) Gregory Dahl was hunky and commanding vocally as John the Baptist (although, dressed in loin cloth, it was hard to disguise the fact that this desert prophet had not missed any meals.) Michael Hayes and Maria Zifchak were effective as Herod and Herodias. This was a very compelling and memorable afternoon of music theater. Kelly Kaduce would likely never sing the role in a house as large as the Met, but she made a brilliant impression here. When she was on the stage (which is most of the time) she was the center of attention.
My real reason for traveling to St. Louis was to see John Corigliano’s The Ghosts of Versailles, which had received its first monumental production at the Met, directed by Colin Graham, in 1991, and for which no expense was spared, technically or musically. It was revived once at the Met, appeared at the Chicago Lyric Opera and perhaps once in Europe, then fell off the map: it was simply too expensive to produce. The Met performers included such stars as Teresa Stratas and Renee Fleming, as well as many more (there are 25 named parts in the opera, plus a huge orchestra, large chorus, dancers, and more. The Met production used every bit of the Met’s enormous technical capability.) The plot is far too complicated to tell here, but you can find it here.
The new revised performing edition, capably conducted by Brooklyn Philharmonic conductor Michael Christie, was a brilliant success. The score reflects the three levels of the opera: atmospherics for the ghosts, including Marie Antoinette, Louis XVI and the playwright Beaumarchais, that inhabit Versailles; pseudo-Mozartian/Rossinian music for the “opera within an opera” that is presented for the Queen; and “realistic” music for the scenes that take place during the blending of time of the opera and the French revolution. There are so many moments of extraordinary beauty: Marie Antoinette’s phrase first set to the text “There once was a golden bird” which returns time and again, seeming to represent how the queen was caught up in events not of her choosing; Beaumarchais’s phrase “I risk my soul for you, Antonia”, in which he declares his love for the Queen; the comic music of Figaro, Rosina, Cherubino and the other characters of Beaumarchais’s “opera.”
The soprano Maria Kanyova was perfect as Marie Antoinette. At first she almost seemed to be channeling Teresa Stratas, who originated the role. (I suspect, however, that this was more the fact of the vocal writing than any conscious attempt to sound like Stratas.) Ms. Kanyova’s acting was impeccable. At the end, when she is a tiny figure alone, center stage, reaching out her arms to be joined for eternity with her true love, the playwright Beaumarchais, it was a simple, but spine-tingling moment that I will carry with me for a long time. It was an astonishing coup de théatre.
The character Beaumarchais is second only to Marie Antoinette in importance in the opera. Baritone James Westman commanded his role in its many aspects, both musical and dramatic. There was not a weak link in the entire huge cast. The staging took advantage of the limitations of the small stage–all of the Met’s grandeur wasn’t necessary. This new look at the opera made us examine the relationships among the characters. I agree with critic Sarah Bryan Miller in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that this was a “must-see evening in the theater.”
My two experiences, separated by four years, confirm that opera is very alive and well in St. Louis. The three performances that I attended were all sold out, and the company seems to have a strong fundraising community upon which to draw. May they continue to thrive.
Every year at this time the British government publishes the long list of British subjects who have been given awards in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List. Several prominent musicians are on this year’s list:
Order of the British Empire: Dame Commander (DBE)
Mitsuko Uchida, CBE, Pianist. For services to classical music.
Order of the British Empire: Commander (CBE)
Stephen Cleobury, Director of Music, Kings College, University of Cambridge. For services to music.
Simon Preston, OBE, Organist. For services to classical music.
Jonathan Pryce, Actor. For services to drama.
Graham Vick, Artistic Director, Birmingham Opera. For services to opera.
Ethel Smith plays “Tico Tico” (south of the border) on her famous Hammond Organ.
I watched the broadcast last night of the 2009 Tony Awards, and there were several scenes performed from the current Broadway revival of Leonard Bernstein’s masterpiece West Side Story, in a new concept production staged by Arthur Laurents in which the Puerto Rican characters speak (and sing) in Spanish, and the Anglos speak in English. It’s gotten a great deal of press, not least for the performances of the young Argentine actress Josefina Scaglione as Maria (she was nominated for a Tony as Best Leading Actress in a Musical), and, especially, Karen Olivo as Anita, who won the Tony for Best Featured Actress in a Musical.
This evening just for kicks I went back to the original Broadway cast album of 1957, with Larry Kert, Carol Lawrence and Chita Rivera. It is now released with a recording by Bernstein himself with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra of the Symphonic Dances from West Side Story, so between the cast album and the orchestral work you have most of the significant music from the show.
What strikes me, after so many years, the freshness and brilliance of the score. Yes, Bernstein and his collaborators were liberal do-gooders with an eye toward social justice. But Kert, Lawrence and Rivera are still the tops, after how countless revivals and God alone knows how many community theater productions. The show is just indestructible. If Bernstein had done nothing else in his career, West Side Story would have sealed his fame.
I was also pleased last night to see the special lifetime achievement Tony award given to Jerry Herman, composer and lyricist for such timeless hits as Hello Dolly, Mame, Mack and Mabel, and others. They showed clips of some of the original production of Hello, Dolly, which I remember vividly from seeing the show in the mid-60’s in Des Moines, Iowa, with my family, in a traveling company starring Carol Channing. Gower Champion’s flowing choreography for “Put On Your Sunday Clothes” was perfection.
And, while we’re doing the Tony wrap-up, Neil Patrick Harris was cute as always as the host, and it was good to have Angela Lansbury win yet another Tony for her current performance in Blithe Spirit. The original musical Mame is the essence of a Real Star.
I’m back in Cleveland after the five days in beautiful Seattle. The weather was spectacular for the whole trip, even on the last day when the temperature got down to a more moderate low 70s. On Friday I went back to the Seattle Public Library for their specialized architecture tour, and it was worth it. The woman who conducted the tour was very knowledgeable and gave good explanations for the design and engineering of the very complicated structure. (She likened it to three shoeboxes set on top of each other, the middle one turned at right angles to the other, then with a towel draped over the whole thing.) She also revealed that the structural and mechanical engineers who made the building work had also worked on the Gehry “Experience Music Project” building, and said that Rem Koolhaas’s library was more difficult. The re-tour was worth the hour and a half.
I was also glad to have taken the ferry to Bainbridge Island on Thursday. The ferry was relaxing, and the island is calm. Nothing much to do but get picnic lunch at the grocery store, then sit by the marina and watch the boats and water, then walk around a bit and take the ferry back.
I had dinner on Friday evening with my niece Kristine and her boyfriend Bill. After Vietnamese food we had fresh strawberry shortcake made from organic berries that she had picked that day at the organic farm where she works. Nothing like vine-ripened fresh strawberries!
The return red-eye flight was uneventful, although almost full. But leaving at 11:00, the lights were dimmed almost immediately. I had my usual situation of not being the least bit sleepy, so it meant that by 6:15 EDT when we arrived in Cleveland, I was really tired.
Imagine, then, my state when I got back to my house at 7:30 AM to discover that at some point during my trip the garage had been broken into. Luckily the thieves did not get into the main part of the house, but my bicycle was stolen as well as a number of other small things. So I called the police to make a report. To their credit, the officer did arrive about ten minutes later. Not much to be done, but it was an unpleasant end to what had been a fine trip.
I managed to get a couple hours of nap, but then had to top off the day playing for a memorial service for Phyllis Martien, one of my longtime church members who died while I was away. The service was at the Judson Park retirement home, and there was no organ. I had been requested to play Bach’s “Sheep May Safely Graze” on the piano (a quite nice Boston instrument). I didn’t have a piano transcription so (thank goodness for the Internet) I found a copy and downloaded it.
Bedtime couldn’t come soon enough.
I have to say that Seattle is quite a wonderful place to visit, but (unlike many people I know) I have no desire to live there. Check one off the list.
My pilgrim’s progress as a Seattle tourist continues, and in the last couple of days I have visited to significant newish buildings by world renowned architects, both of which have made an impact on the cultural life of Seattle. One is largely a success; the other is a chaotic mess.
On Tuesday I went to the Experience Music Project/Science Fiction Museum in the Seattle Center, the former grounds of the 1962 World’s Fair and the home of the Seattle Space Needle. The affair is a very rich man’s “folly”. Paul Allen (one of the founders of Microsoft) has collected tens of millions of dollars of rock and science fiction memorabilia, and, essentially, he needed a place to put it. So he hired Frank Gehry (of Bilabo and Disney Concert Hall fame, not to mention the Peter B. Lewis Building at Case Western Reserve University) to build a structure to house it all. The city of Seattle went along with it–who doesn’t want yet another major tourist attraction? The building is typical Gehry, with undulating multicolored folds, like a pile of melting raspberry and lemon and cherry sorbet dumped on the street. The inside is dark and cave-like, with no definable paths to anything, restrooms hidden, no clear entrance to the structure. It is impossible to know directly how to get from one exhibit to another. There is no “narrative structure” to either of the museums, which are in the same building. (I finally had to ask a staff person how to get to the Science Fiction Museum, because there was no sign to tell me how to get there.) The collections are fabulous–the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland ought to be green with envy to have some of the artifacts; but there is so much stuff, that it is overwhelming and overstimulating. I finally just had to get out. I can’t remember such an unpleasant museum experience. And, unfortuately, it can be laid at the feet of Mr. Gehry. It’s a quite wonderful architectural sculpture, but it is a horrific museum.
By contrast, the new central Seattle Public Library building, opened in 2005 and designed by Rem Koolhaas, is a triumph of light, space, practicality (with one notable exception) and rectolinearity, which is so important in a library. From the outside the building looks anything but a rectangular building, but once you get inside, you can tell that it is and that it is just the “skin” of the building that’s at bizarre angles, which create the light and airiness of the reading spaces. One of the most interesting innovations is the “book spiral” which contains the collection book stacks, all in one continuous ramp over 4 or 5 floors, which means that the collection can expand and contract as necessary, without needing to move from one floor to the next. Specialist librarians are stationed on each level of the ramp, near the Dewey classifications of their specialty. The only major miscalculation is the “red floor” which contains the library’s meeting rooms. The entire space is various shades of fire-engine red: floor, walls, ceiling, with red light. The walls are glossy and curved, and it is quite disorienting, and could be intolerable for a person with vertigo or visual impairment. It is striking, but problematic. The elevators and escalators are color-coded in highlighter yellow. The interior structure is natural concrete, but with splashes of highly patterned carpeting to define spaces. The exterior glass panels create wonderful natural light, which is so important in a city noted for its clouds and rain. The building is an astonishing success. I spoke to several librarians, all of whom said that there are details of the building that could be better, but over all it works very well.
Would that Mr. Gehry’s wealthy patron fared so well.
(Photos to come on Flickr after my return to Cleveland.)
I’m making my first trip to Seattle this week for some vacation away from Cleveland. The five-hour non-stop from CLE to SEA was uneventful, though packed. The weather in Seattle is unseasonably warm and sunny (a fact about which I am not complaining), with the high on Monday in the low 80s. It did necessitate a trip to a very large Old Navy store to buy a couple of t-shirts, since I brought mostly cooler-weather clothes on this trip.
I’m staying at the Hotel Max, a boutique hotel on Stewart Street in downtown Seattle. It is very chic, with art works lining the hallways. It is newly decorated. The rooms and bathrooms are quite small and put me in mind of a ship’s cabin in their compactness and efficiency. They are beautifully appointed, however, with a “pillow menu” (do you want soft, medium, firm, U-neck, body pillow, etc?) and a “spiritual reading” menu. No Gideon Bible for this establishment: if you want the Koran you can have it, as well as the bible, the Book of Mormon, the Torah, and a book on Scientology. There are Aveda cosmetics in the bathroom. I’m on the second floor, so there is a fair amount of street noise, but the reviews in Expedia had warned me, so I’m prepared with my earplugs.
I spent the afternoon exploring what may be the no. 1 tourist attraction in Seattle, the Pike Place Market, which reminds me in many respects of the West Side Market in Cleveland, but on steroids. It is huge and on several level. It is a little seedy (it has “character”), and there are some dodgy characters hanging around, but it is possible to find just about anything there, besides the de rigeur seafood, meat, produce and flowers, dairy and bakery.
My friend Walter Grodzik, originally from Cleveland, now on the faculty of Evergreen State University, picked me up for dinner about 6:30. On the way to dinner, Walter drove us to the Queen Anne area that overlooks Seattle, with a good view of the city. It was even clear enough that I could see Mt. Ranier faintly in the distance.
We had dinner at Monsoon, in Capital Hill (what used to be Seattle’s main gay neighborhood, but now much more mixed). Monsoon is a “pan-Asian” restaurant. Asian influence, but not strictly of any one cuisine, with also some French influence. It was all excellent. The most unusual thing that we had was fiddlehead ferns cooked in a light sauce with porcini mushrooms. They were delicious, and the ferns were crispy. We had a halibut dish and a lamb dish, both of which were beautifully seasoned and presented.
After dinner we went across the street to the Kingfish Cafe, a soul food restaurant, for dessert. I ordered red velvet cake, and Walter ordered peach crisp. Well, as it turned out, we could almost have made a whole meal from the desserts-they were huge. I ate less than half of the piece of cake and took the rest of it home with me.
Despite wanting to stay up to watch Conan O’Brien’s first night hosting the Tonight Show, my body was saying it was almost 2:30 AM EDT, so I finally cut my losses, put in the ear plugs and went to sleep.
In Austinburg. Ohio for the Memorial Day weekend. Here’s Rosie in her wheels and holiday decor.
