This new play by Alan Bennett shows actors rehearsing a new play about W.H.Auden. The key scene is when Benjamin Britten arrives to consult Auden about his forthcoming opera Death in Venice.  That places the action in 1972, since the opera was first produced in 1973 — I remember it well. It also provides a focus for the homosexuality that is a key element in this drama. Thomas Mann’s novella Death in Venice involves the middle-aged writer Gustav von Aschenbach, who is erotically drawn to a boy named Tadzio. There is no sex, only a desire that becomes an obsession, but the desire is a metaphor representing Britten’s own yearnings for boys, which is contrasted with Auden’s indelicate habits and use of rent boys. The juxtaposition of Auden and Britten shows the horribly uptight Britten bringing out the best in Auden, who encourages him and offers to edit or rewrite Myfanwy Piper’s libretto. This warmth and enthusiasm shows another side of Auden, whose character is wonderfully portrayed by Richard Griffiths.

Alex Jennings plays Britten, and both he and Griffiths also play the roles of actors rehearsing these creative men with their habit of art, and in Jennings’ case his role as a somewhat camp and homosexually-knowing actor contrasts with his clever representation of Britten’s careful correctness. Elliot Levey portrays the supposed author of the play they are rehearsing, showing confused irritation at the actors’ attempts to alter the script, including Adrian Scarborough’s effort to interpose a song and dance routine. He plays the role of Humphrey Carpenter and is frustrated at being merely a device, but that, and the occasional frustration of actors forgetting lines, are dealt with by Kay, the stage manager who keeps it all going, despite the unexpected absence of the director. She is brilliantly played by Frances de la Tour, and I only wonder whether this delightful fancy of a rehearsal within a play would work as well with less gifted actors. As it is, the direction by Nicholas Hytner gives an excellent forward movement to Bennett’s text. This is theatre about theatre, a play about a play, and an exploration about homosexual boundaries in a world that wasn’t sure where it wanted those boundaries drawing. But in the end it’s a play about Auden, Britten and indeed Bennett himself, and as usual his dialogue is wonderfully effective.

Do you remember this, my sketchbook exchange with Jennifer of Habit of Design?

I actually completed my ‘project’ last week, but wanted to wait till Jennifer received my sketchbook by mail so not to spoil the surprise!

The cover, before and after….. (yes I was not authorized to operate on the sketchbook cover…I did it anyway):

A blank sketchbook cover...an invitation to mischief!

Front Cover- inspired by various things among whom (is this how you say it?) Death in Venice

Back cover

And who knows what it might turn thanks to this. (More on Renga)

I know, I am so demanding.

SO my assigment was Typewriters… Yes, these are all my drawings and photos! What do you think?

Typewriters - Page 1

Typewriters - Page 2...and that's why my fountain pen matters.

Typewriters - Page 3

Typewriters - Page 4

Typewriters - Page 5

This was a wonderful experience- to be soon repeated.

Thank you Jennifer for the Brilliant idea!

I have to thank Professor Booker…Back in my Undergraduate days @ NDSU, he introduced us to Renga Arts and the stunning, surreal, Moorish-inspired “Forgetting Room’ by Nick Bantock.

About Renga and Renga art…[and here it's to future Renga poetry and art collaborations]

Renga Platform Contemporary forms of Renga in the UK
Renga Arts Functional Art.
Renga @ Wordshop.com (love the name! and yes, it does take two to renga)

image via Octogon (Design and Architecture online from Budapest)

So here it happens, the siren of Architecture called, and I heeded.

Nay, I relinquished.

Architecture, that capricious muse, finally seeps in my art chamber- yet how could I have kept it at bay?

Architecture is, indeed, frozen music.

If this building was music, what song/genre would it be?

Sir Barry says that some architects of the Baroque era literally applied to their designs harmonic ratios learned from musical intervals and harmonic relations between notes.

I always thought Baroque was the music closest to the act of creating, to perfect mathematical equations, the music of the cosmos. Fractals’ music. Baroque and its clavichords is what I am listening to right now, as I finish a 3D digital model. The model dances and takes form. Digital sculpture.

You must pardon if I wax poetic. I just finished ‘Death in Venice’ and my heart is full of poetry tonight.

As the granddaughter of legendary fashion designer Elsa Schiaparelli, Marisa Berenson was destined to lead a life that looked more like a fairytale. A life of elegance and glamour. Marisa as a fashion model came to prominence in the early 1960s — “I once was one of the highest paid models in the world“, she told The New York Times. Her legendary presence and her astonishing body have been the canvas for a succession of artworks and an audacious variety of art practices. However, her talent allowed her to subvert convention and redefine beauty. It is no wonder that Yves Saint Laurent dubbed her the “Girl of the Seventies” and during her fashion career she worked with some of the greatest photographers like Irving Penn, Henry Clarke, Patric Demarchelier. When she entered the world of cinema she participated in several prominent film roles, like the “Death in Venice”, but it was after “Cabaret”,1972, that she received some acclaim (including two Golden Globe nominations and a BAFTA nomination) and she met her best friend Liza Minelli. I read once in one of her interviews:

(during her first wedding with Jim Randall) “I remember my wedding dress had gone lost and arrived at the last minute, so Valentino had to iron it in my bathroom, while Andy(Warhol) took pictures. As i walked down the aisle Lisa handed me her wedding ring for good luck. I remember it like it was yesterday” (Harper’s Bazaar 2009)

In 2001, Marisa’s sister, actress/photographer Berry Berenson, was one of the 58 victims of the terrorist-hijacked plane that crashed into the World Trade Center on September 11. In a strange coincidence, at the same time as her sister’s death Berenson was flying from Paris to New York….

Baci e Abbracci

Ele

Image Source by © Condé Nast Archive/CORBIS

If Americans have so little sense of nuances, it isn’t that they’re incapable of grasping them– after all, American reality itself is sufficiently nuanced– but that they would be troubled by them.  To accept nuance is to accept ambiguity of judgment, argument, and hesitation; such complex situations force you to think.  They want to lead their lives by geometry, not by wisdom.  Geometry is taught, whereas wisdom is discovered, and only the first offers the refreshing certainties that a conscientious person needs.  So they choose to believe in a geometric world where every right angle is set against another, like their buildings and their streets.

– Simone de Beauvoir, America Day by Day, translated by Carol Cosman, Phoenix, 1998 (originally published 1954)

Lest you assume Ms de Beauvoir turns her nose up at us all, much of her book about her travels in America describes her delight in exploring our country.  If we can still refer to it as “our” country.  The America of just after World  War II was a conservative, awkward place, still wearing its braces and still broken out with the blemishes of a somewhat wild West.  You couldn’t drink much, or late, in Los Angeles.  People didn’t want to talk too much politics with her, although they felt they understood exactly what Europe needed.  Ah, how could they not show some bravado, having just inherited a burden of power they weren’t sure they asked for?

But I digress.  Americans still do tremble at nuance.  Our pound-the- drums two-party system insists we color within the lines.  Of course, I like that about us.  We are bold.  And it kind of makes me nuts, like when we can’t set up a reasonable national health care system because we have to pretend there are only two choices: socialized medicine and slightly tweaking our slightly imperfect current system.  Yes, let’s move on to Art.

Yet at the same time his heart swelled with delight over the adventure the outside world was about to embark upon.  For passion, like crime, is antithetical to the smooth operation and prosperity of day-to-day existence, and can only welcome every loosening of the fabric of society, every upheaval and disaster in the world, since it can vaguely hope to profit thereby.  And so Aschenbach felt a morose satisfaction at the officially concealed goings-on in the dirty alleyways of Venice, that nasty secret which had merged with his own innermost secret and which he, too, was so intent on keeping: he was in love and concerned only that Tadzio might leave, and he realized not without horror that in that event he would not know what to make of his life.

–Thomas Mann, Death in Venice, translated by Michael Henry Heim, Ecco, 2005.

I think this novel (barely a novel) might be one of the most beautiful things I have ever read.  I was so enchanted by it that I read it in one day, in a handful of sittings.  Even odder, I actually underlined and later looked up the words I wasn’t sure about, so I would know exactly what Mann meant (or what Heim thought he meant).  Sirocco.  Eflluvia. Matitudinal.  Apotheosis.  I never do that.  I have a vague idea, enough to keep going, and I keep going.  For this book, my blundering wasn’t good enough.

Crime and passion wait for ice storms and snow days, that is for sure.

I sat at a bar and ate dinner on my white cloth napkin and had one glass of wine, and I thought when the book was over, my face would hold its expressions, and I would not know what to make of my life.  That last part was killer, but this is even worse (in a Michael Jackson sense of bad):

There is nothing more curious or delicate than a relationship between people who know each other only by sight, who encounter and observe each other daily– nay, hourly– yet are constrained by convention or personal caprice to keep up the pretense of being strangers, indifferent, avoiding a nod or a word.  There is a feeling of malaise and overwrought curiosity, the hysteria of an unsatisfied, unnaturally stifled need for mutual acknowledgment and communication, and above all a sort of strained esteem.  For a man loves and respects his fellow man only insofar as he is unable to assess him, and longing is a product of insufficient knowledge.

That just makes me want to hide under the bed.  Okay, one more:

The gods have many shapes.

The gods bring many things

to their accomplishment.

And what was most expected

has not been accomplished.

But god has found his way

for what no man expected.

So ends the play.

–The Bacchae by Euripides, translated by William Arrowsmith, University of Chicago Press, 1959

Like most regular people, I haven’t sat and read a lot of ancient Greek plays since college.  I did thoroughly enjoy reading all those plays in college, though.  The coolness and boldness of the language contrasts so sharply with the slung-around slyness of so much clever clever modern dialogue.  It’s pert without being snotty.  They did have the advantage of writing some of our first plays.  They weren’t so worried about sounding stale, I’m sure.

The other advantage they had was  a declining language, which freed them from having to string their sentences like a set of graduated pearls.  Ancient Greek words are hippie multicolored beads you can string to any length, shape, or pattern.  Which makes me slightly jealous, until I remember that we have more words.  So there, Euripedes.

Poetry not really being his thing, Phil had never, to his knowledge, read any W H Auden. Until last night, that is, when he read one of the celebrated poet’s works in the programme for Alan Bennett’s new play the The Habit of Art. He’s none the wiser about the poem, poetry or Auden.

Andrew, on the other hand, is far more literary having delivered a triumphant yet moving rendition of Colonel Fazackerley Butterworth-Toast as a precocious eight year old to a presumably stunned audience at the Cheltenham Festival of Performing Arts.

Phil’s closest brush with poetry was at the National Gallery’s Sitwell exhibition when he was nearly mown down by Sir Stephen Spender’s wheelchair shortly after which in the gallery’s shop he got the chance to marvel at Lady Spender’s splendid ignorance of the logistics involved in writing a cheque. He did however, once appear in a school production of Benjamin Britten’s Noye’s Fludde. Playing a wave. And he can still even sing Kyrie Eleison. And if you ask him very nicely he won’t.

All of which preamble brings the Whingers to their Monday night evening out at a preview of the most eagerly anticipated theatrical event of the year: the new Alan Bennett at the National Theatre.

And if that preamble seems even more cautious and circuitous than normal, that’s perhaps because Mister Bennett’s play is too. For this is a play within a play and occasionally the Whingers did wonder whether the esteemed National Treasure was a little disappointed that the play he really wanted to write (Caliban’s Day, about an imagined reuniting of the estranged Auden and Benjamin Britten late in their lives) didn’t quite have enough meat on it to warrant being, well, a play.

So instead we have a somewhat chaotic rehearsal for Caliban’s Day overseen (in the absence of the director) by the stage manager Kay (Frances de la Tour, excellent) 90 percent of whose energies must seemingly be devoted to humouring the actors. Sulking mostly in the background is the author Neil.

Phil would have preferred that we stay with the main story of Britten (Alex Jennings) visiting Auden to enlist his help with Death in Venice but Andrew was more than happy with Mister Bennett’s mischievous ribbing of the process of making theatre and its egos, frailties and silliness (not least the deeply lined WH Auden prosthetic mask). Phil, on the other hand, interpreted Britten’s struggle to write his opera and its mirroring in the troubles of the creatives trying to put the play together as Mister Bennett trying to tell us how hard it is to create art. He’s already chronicled that THOA wasn’t easy to write. Surely Britain’s National Treasure isn’t expecting his audience to sit through two and a half hours of introspective hand-wringing?

Fortunately, and as you’d expect, much of it is very funny. Despite the necessarily unattractive and evenly lit set (Bob Crowley) you arrive in the auditorium nicely assured you’re in comfy Bennett territory with Ambrosia creamed rice, Fray Bentos and a tin of Vim littering the set. When did you last see a tin of Vim? Probably, like Phil, in your mother’s hand as she scrubbed the kitchen floor with an old pair of underpants. And Jennings is particularly hilarious as the very camp actor and only slightly less camp Britten when he finally arrives at Auden’s shambolic Oxford cottage. Britten isn’t the only visitor that evening as there’s another gentleman caller in the form Stuart (the ever-excellent Stephen Wight).

There are also some rather enjoyable pops at the National itself. The suggestion that the Cottesloe could be converted into a billiard hall was presumably written to play to the Whingers’ gallery, even if they were sitting in the front row of the stalls. It’s the best suggestion they’d heard in years.

And there was an undeniable frisson when a woman (also in the front row) was unable to silence her mobile phone, and rather than locating it and turning it off waited until it went off again five minutes later. With Griffiths famous for reprimanding a similar transgressor from the stage the Whingers held their breath. But alas he managed to ignore it

There was a lot of head scratching among the Whingers entourage afterwards (Webcowgirl and Helen Smith among others) as to what exactly Bennett was getting at. Phil thought he might be having an oblique pop at modern X Factor style fame after Stuart’s speech about Auden and Britten’s celebrity and what would the rest of us be remembered for. But he won’t be going into print with that theory.

All the elements of The History Boys are in place: author, cast, director (Nicholas Hytner), designer. And whilst it’s nice to see Bennett releasing his theatrical corsets as he ages, few people, at the time, seemed willing to mention how decidedly dodgy that play was.

Whilst the Whingers would rather be holding tickets for a new Bennett than almost any other contemporary playwright, he probably needs to move away from foolish old men lusting after younger ones. The Whingers would hate to be the ones to suggest that Britain’s National Treasure is morphing into a gay Benny Hill. Bennett Hill perhaps? There, we didn’t say that did we?

Footnote

Phil had been disappointed that ill health required Michael Gambon (initially cast as Auden) to pull out and be replaced by Richard Griffiths although, for various reasons, it seems quite the thing at the moment: Richard Briars and Adrian Scarborough (because he’s in The Habit of Art) had pulled out of Endgame, Kate Ashfield left Mrs Klein to be replaced by Zoe Waites and Matt Lucas was replaced by Con O’Neil in Prick Up Your Ears. There currently seem to be more withdrawals on the London stage than in a Catholic marriage.

Finally, the quintessential piece of literature based in Venice, Thomas Mann’s Death in Venice.  I knew little of this novella, and when I read about the story it soon became akin to Lolita, Nabokov’s masterpiece.

Death in Venice follows Gustav von Aschenbach, a famous German author in the autumn years of his life.  After a stare down with a ginger haired man (the ginger-haired play a literal and metaphorical part in this story) in Munich, von Aschenbach decides to take a holiday in Venice. 

He takes leave at a hotel on the Lido (it’s like a touristy beach just outside of Venice, you don’t need to got there) where he sets up to relax and enjoy himself.  While waiting for dinner one night he takes site of a young boy who he falls smitten for.  Disturbing, yes, von Aschenbach becomes obsessed with the boy stalking him and his family throughout Venice.  As disease falls over Venice, von Aschenbach resigns himself to further study of the young lad. 

The novella blurs the line of appropriateness and casts Venice as the hedonistic den that it once was casinos and retreats for the very wealthy.  It is stunningly written, psychological and gives a light to Venice that is untouched by the other novels from the book club.  A must read for the pending traveler, but more so for anyone who reads.

Not drawn in by health problems but by my desire to let Venice reveal itself to me, I successfully entered the world of Visconti.

Not astonished by an excruciating beautiful Polish boy, but by the subsequent statue, I crossed the legal limit inside the display space.

I took the photo of the magnificent fashionable lady who has never encountered a deeper distress.

Film is our era’s entertainment channel par excellence, and it is one of the best ways to capture a time’s values and customs. Had film existed in Classical Greece, there would be thousands of movies dealing with pederasty. Whenever pederasty was accepted, however, film, unlike other art forms, had not yet been invented. That is why there is no extensive pederastic filmography… At least not as extensive as the hundreds of thousands of paintings, sculptures, novels or plays dealing with it.

Luckily, I have had the opportunity to watch a decent sample of pederastic filmography, however. I believe the following five movies are quite representative of the different approaches filmmakers have taken in dealing with such a taboo subject.

• Death in Venice (1971): Directed by Luchino Visconti, it is the film adaptation of Thomas Mann’s novella Death in Venice. It is the story of Gustav von Aschenbach, a German composer who becomes obsessed with a Polish boy (Tadzio, played by Björn Andrésen) while visiting Venice. The film can be quite dull for the modern viewer, but some people say it’s worth watching just to see Andrésen, who they claim is the “most beautiful boy in the world”. Personally, though I love the story’s leitmotif, I find the film adaptation to be rather tedious, and Andrésen’s beauty much overrated.

• Du Er Ikke Alene (You are not alone, 1978): An endearing Danish coming-of-age film, it tells the story of two boarding school boys, Bo and Kim, who fall in love with each other. It was one of the first films that dealt with boy-exclusive pederasty, that is, a homosexual relationship between two underage boys, with one being older than the other. It has a very 1970s “liberated” feel to it. Too bad Kim’s hair makes him look a tad too girlish.

• Voor Een Verloren Soldaat (For a Lost Soldier, 1993): Walking the line between pedophilia and pederasty, this Dutch film, based on a true story, portrays the romantic and sexual relationship between a 22 year-old Canadian soldier and a 12 year-old Dutch boy during the North American liberation of Nazi-occupied 1944 Holland. The film is an adaptation of the book written by choreographer Rudi van Dantzig, who viewed his relationship with the soldier in a very positive light. The film is a bit slow at times, but the story and its treatment definitely make it worth watching.

• The Man Without a Face (1993): Probably the most mainstream of these titles, this Mel Gibson film is a beautiful coming-of-age story about the friendship between Chuck, a 13-year-old boy (superbly played by Nick Stahl) and a deeply scarred former teacher (Gibson). The film is an adaptation of Isabelle Holland’s 1972 novel of the same name, and, while the book makes it clear that the relationship was also sexual, the film is much more ambiguous. It is nonetheless a beautiful story, with excellent acting, and a truly great portrayal of an emotional pederastic relationship, and of people’s irrational fears towards it. Quite probably one of the best films ever made.

• L.I.E. (2001): Long Island Expressway (L.I.E.) is one of the most recent films dealing with pederasty.  Directed by Michael Cuesta, it’s the story about a tumultuous relationship between a 15-year-old boy (played by Paul Dano), and an older man, known as “Big John”. The film differs from the previous titles in that it does not seem to romanticize the relationship, but rather realistically explores it. Released in the 21st Century, in the middle of the Hysteric Era, the film received an NC-17 rating from the MPAA, even though it does not graphically portray any sexual activity between the boy and “Big John”. The film does carry some 21st century prejudices in its portrayal, but it is nonetheless a refreshing film… And a brave one at that.

All of these films can be watched or bought online, and most of them are available on YouTube or other online streaming websites. If you can suggest other titles, please feel free to do so.

The RSO Vienna works councils, Geert Langelaar (left) and Bernhard Ziegler(right) at the press conference of Sept. 11, 2009. Photo Credit: Matthias Wurz

“The RSO Vienna and the Gordian knot; that’s how you might want to call the whole affair,” works council Bernhard Ziegler paused for a moment and the audience was on the edge of their seats for him to continue. Dressed in black, wearing the orchestra’s T-shirt with defiance, he looked up from his notes and smiled nervously. Little did one expect that the press conference on the uncertain future of the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra (RSO Vienna) on Sept. 11 at Presseclub Concordia, would include a short excursion into Greek mythology.

But Ziegler was not referring to the so-called ‘Alexandrian Solution’, when Alexander the Great famously cut the knot of his ox-cart with his sword as he could untie it – the legend that led to his conquest of the Persian Empire in 333 B.C. However, the well-read orchestra’s works council cited a lesser-known version of the story, where the Macedonian monarch opened the knot by simply pulling out the cart’s dowel.

Scene I: Unravelling the ‘Gordian Knot’

The same  indeed is true today for the RSO Vienna, Ziegler concluded – one of Austria’s most prestigious orchestras fighting for its survival: not the drastic action, like ‘outsourcing’ the orchestra of the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation (ORF) or even its dissolution is needed, but the simple solution, the provision of adequate funding for the RSO Vienna, as it requires only about EUR 8.5 million – about 0.8% of the corporation’s annual budget – plus EUR 1.2 million revenue generated by the orchestra each year.

Besides, the RSO Vienna celebrates the 40^th anniversary of its foundation in fall 2009. The exquisite programming ranges from Mozart and Beethoven to present day, including 15 premiere performances of contemporary composers. The orchestra indeed covers a prominent spot in Austria’s musical life by promoting “music that begins with Gustav Mahler, and does not end there”, as Ziegler added, hence promoting contemporary Austrian composers. The list of those is long, and Friedrich Cerha, Heinz Karl Gruber, Olga Neuwirth or Kurt Schwertsik are just the prominent ones.

At Austria’s largest annual festival of contemporary music, Wien Modern, initiated in 1988 by Claudio Abbado, the RSO Vienna is an essential cornerstone of the programming, co-organized by the Musikverein and Wiener Konzerthaus. It was no surprise that their Managing Directors, Dr. Thomas Angyan (Musikverein) and Bernhard Kerres (Konzerthaus) joint those who are seriously concerned for the future of the orchestra.

The festival Wien Modern is just impossible without the RSO Vienna, Angyan and Kerres stated in unison. The disappearance of such an eminent ensemble would have disastrous consequences for the city of Vienna as a musical center.

Conesquently, Angyan and Kerres took their seats at the press conference, prominently chaired by Die Presse’s Dr. Walter Gürtelschmied, seconded by Ziegler’s colleague Geert Langelaar, as well as the orchestra’s current Music Director, French conductor Bertrand de Billy. Roland Geyer, Intendant of the Theater an der Wien equally lent his voice in support, as did the pianist Paul Gulda.

“For me it is unthinkable that the RSO Vienna might not exist (in the nearer future)”, Roland Geyer added defiantly. Since 2007 the ensemble serves as pit orchestra – shared with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra – at his Theater an der Wien, and just a few days later on Sept. 17, Scottish-born conductor Donald Runnicles would lead the orchestra in an acclaimed performance of Benjamin Britten’s Death in Venice.

“I have engaged the orchestra at the Theater an der Wien up to the 2012-13 season,” he added in an uncompromising tone, “and I am assuming that the orchestra will be performing at the opera house then.”

Scene II: Online Petition and Facebook Group

Violinist Johannes Fleischmann (left) and Roland Geyer (right), Intendant of the Theater an der Wien. Photo Credit: Matthias Wurz

In a different way, however, but very simple and effective in raising awareness of the RSO Vienna’s uncertain future was Johannes Fleischmann’s online petition in aide of the orchestra.

Fleischmann, a young Austrian violinist, who, while still studying at the Music University in Vienna, regularly performed with prestigious orchestras in Vienna, initiated  an online petition on March 28, 2009 and promoted it just through a Facebook group (Rettet das RSO) and word of mouth. The site is simple in its message and design: Preventing the ‘death’ of an orchestra. The response was overwhelming as 30,761 (Sept. 24) individuals listed – a staggering 1,231 pages –  have signed the petition to date, among others stars like Placido Domingo, Oscar-nominee Austrian actor Karl Markovics or the Nobel Laureate Elfriede Jelinek.

The possibility of closing down Austria’s only Radio Orchestra has certainly created an outcry from musicians and music professionals worldwide. As of Apr. 2, 2009, the future of the RSO is in disarray: Due to financial reasons, the ORF management has publicly acknowledged shutting down the ensemble of about 100 players was a viable option. In an unprecedented step, the orchestra manager, Christiane Goller, resigned a few weeks later as she evidently felt abandoned by the ORF Management.

“This is not the end today, it is the beginning,” Fleischmann indicated his determination to continue, “ and the activities will only cease when the RSO is saved.” It is hoped, so Fleischmann, that many more will sign the petition as to create public pressure on politics to take action for financial support.

Scene III: Betrand de Billy’s Battle

French Conductor Bertrand de Billy at the press conference, in disbelief. Photo Credit: Matthias Wurz

Conductor Bertrand de Billy, since September 2002 the RSO Vienna’s Music Director, was clearly not amused about the ORF management plans. Already on Jun. 27, 2008, in a ‘private’ press conference, not sanctioned by the ORF, he spoke of fears of plans to shut down the orchestra.

Ever since his appointment, de Billy courageously fought attempts of outsourcing the orchestra. And in direct words, the spirited French conductor reminds politicians that the ORF is a news corporation governed by public law with a cultural and educational mandate, and therefore it is the state’s responsibility to retain the RSO Vienna and provide sufficient financing.

“There is nothing more damning for the orchestra than uncertainty,” de Billy added passionately, who has lifted the RSO Vienna to international acclaim and evidently hates to see his achievements go down the drain. But desperate times call for desperate remedies, and so in 2008 the ORF management revived plans of breaking up the ORF corporate structure.

The latest financial figures, nevertheless, show how serious the situation is for the broadcasting corporation, with an expected debt of at least EUR 53 million, the most recent estimates are at EUR 60 million for 2009. The financial situation worsened in the second half of 2008 with a significant drop in advertisement sales due to the international economic crisis, and in 2009, the corporation expects about EUR 30 million less advertisement revenues, far below of the budgeted estimates.

The ORF’s debt  might significantly reduced if the government were to refund the TV and radio license fees waived for those who are exempted because of unemployment or low income, which amounted to EUR 57 million in 2008. But politicians are reluctant to do so, as national debt in the current economic crisis will rise exuberantly in the years to come.

The financial crisis ventilated the management plans of outsourcing the orchestra, where the ORF would guarantee the orchestra’s substance only for seven more years. And as of 2011, the the RSO Vienna would have to generate an additional EUR 1 million revenue without public support from either the City of Vienna or the state budget. A scenario de Billy strongly contested as the orchestra would not be able to survive, and dismissed the arguments stemming from the financial crisis.

“We have a financial crisis, yes, but it is not responsible for everything,” he stated in an interview with the Austrian daily Der Standard on Apr. 3, 2009. “The dissolution of the RSO will not save the ORF.” A phrase reiterated today.

Also de Billy’s appeal to the audience to fight for the orchestra on Mar. 26, 2009 at the beginning of a performance or Richard Strauss’ Don Juan followed by the world premiere of Austrian composer Thomas Larcher’s Violin Concerto at the Musikverein, was as legendary as his press conferences.

“I am glad, that this time I am not organizing a press conference,” the conductor commented jokingly. And with reference to the orchestra’s 40^th concert season, de Billy added “The orchestra is younger than me. I am 44 years old, and I also like to stay young.”

Scene IV: Endangering Musical Quality

The conductor and orchestral musicians, side by side: Bertrand de Billy (left) and Geert Langelaar (right). Photo Credit: Matthias Wurz

Once the excitement and discussion of the press conference ebbed off, Dutch-born violinist and workers council Geert Langelaar took some time to enlighten us on the drama backstage in an informal talk. Having graduated from the Music University in Vienna, where he was admitted to the class of violinist Günther Pichler (Alban Berg Quartet), Langelaar joint the orchestra permanently in December 1987.

“None other has done as much as de Billy. Without him and his action, the RSO might not have survived in earlier outsourcing attempts, “ Langelaar comments with a soft but serious tone. Nvertheless, the current situation is unprecedented indeed and certainly leaves its toll on the musicians.

Not surprisingly, Apr. 2, 2009 was a day he remembered well: It was late afternoon when the press release with the possible dissolution of the orchestra went public and was made known to the orchestra just before the performance that evening, a concert performance of Hector Berlioz’s La Damnation de Faust at the Konzerthaus.

“Despite the difficult circumstances, it was still one of the best performances we ever did,” Langelaar added thoughtfully. And he confirmed the amazing musical development of the orchestra under de Billy’s direction.

“He felt it was important also to study the Classical Period and perform its works in concert, so that the RSO has a beautiful ensemble and sound quality that also is then audible in contemporary music.” And so the ensemble changed, Langelaar added, “it has become very young and grew from a medium quality orchestra to one of the top.”

But it is not the quality that bleaks the orchestra’s future, but the talk of closure. But even if the RSO Vienna survives this crisis, the artistic damage has already been done.

“The loss of excellent players to more economically sound orchestras shows its toll,” Langelaar’s face is full of concern. “So, announcements like those of Theater an der Wien Director Roland Geyer today are very helpful to the orchestra’s survival.”

But politics needs to act, he reinstated the press conference’s message. Three demands were put onto the table, which also requests the inclusion of the RSO Vienna in the ORF Rundfunkgesetz (Broadcasting Law), so that the orchestra becomes part of the ORF’s mandate. And certainly no outsourcing of the orchestra, as currently suggested; but it all boils down to finances. The question is, whether politicians will take notice.

Signing the petition, at least, should force them to listen to the demands: www.onlinepetition.at

Wie hat euch die Vorstellung gefallen?

Hundert SchülerInnen, die am Jugendprojekt teilgenommen haben, saßen heute – gespannt? fasziniert? gelangweilt? überfordert? begeistert? – in der Generalprobe zu DEATH IN VENICE. Wie sind die Reaktionen?

Tom Stuart, der Choreografen von DEATH IN VENICE hat sich Zeit genommen, den SchülerInnen Rede und Antwort zu stehen und von seiner Arbeit zu erzählen. Außerdem haben wir über Novelle von Thomas Mann, den Film von Luchino Visconti und das Ballett von John Neumeier gesprochen – im Vergleich zur Oper.

Nach seiner jahrelangen Beherrschtheit zerbricht Gustav von Aschenbach an der Spannung zwischen dem Streben nach formvollendeter Schönheit im Werk und einer heftigen, fieberhaften Leidenschaft. DEATH IN VENICE ist Benjamin Brittens letzte Oper – und zugleich seine persönlichste, die er seinem langjährigen Freund Peter Pears gewidmet hat.

SchülerInnen des Musikgymnasiums Wien haben bereits heute die Hauptprobe mit Orchester besucht – was sagt ihr dazu?

Stanley Kubrick’s film “2001: A Space Odyssey” is famous for among other things, its innovative use of classical music. Traditionally, film scores had been composed of music written specifically for the film itself. But in an interview with writer Michel Ciment, Kubrick stated, “However good our best film composers may be, they are not a Beethoven, a Mozart or a Brahms. Why use music which is less good when there is such a multitude of great orchestral music available from the past and from our own time? When you are editing a film, it’s very helpful to be able to try out different pieces of music to see how they work with the scene. . . . Well, with a little more care and thought, these temporary tracks can become the final score.”

Well for my money there’s never been music by any classical music composer let alone any other film composer that matched the beauty of film composer John Barry’s score for “Out of Africa”. So take that Stanley Kubrick.  Nevertheless, here’s a quiz that celebrates the use of classical music in some classic movies.

Answers to this quiz will appear next Monday, but if you just can’t wait to find out the answers til then, you can go to this page: http://www.sploofus.com/triviaquiz/classic_cinema_that_uses_classical_music.html 

It’s a great trivia web site. If you sign up with them, don’t worry I’ve found that  I don’t get any spam as a result. But please tell them “billkozy” sent ya. That’s my user name there. That way I’ll get lots of points worth no cash value whatsoever. Now on to this week’s quiz:

1. In that score for “2001: A Space Odyssey” the music from composers such as Aram Khachaturian and Johann Strauss II (“The Blue Danube”) is used, but it is especially famous for “Also sprach Zarathustra” by Richard Strauss, a musical piece now inexorably linked to the film’s depiction of the wonder and awe of space. Kubrick had at first hired a very well-respected film composer to write original music for the film, but wound up not using it at all and then sneakily not telling the composer. The composer only discovered this when he finally saw the movie. Who was this 15-time Oscar nominated composer whom Kubrick had actually worked with on a previous movie?

2. Stanley Kubrick’s next film, “A Clockwork Orange” also employed classical music. Coincidentally, composer Wendy Carlos had already been writing a score to the Anthony Burgess novel when a friend of hers alerted her to a London newspaper article mentioning that Kubrick had begun filming an adaptation. Wendy was already famous because of her electronic music album “Switched-On Bach” that adapted various famous classical music pieces, and when she learned after more time passed that Kubrick had  finished shooting, she contacted him and offered her work. They met and Kubrick liked the combination of a classical sound with a futuristic sound that the score suggested. What name was Wendy Carlos recognized as on the film credits?

3. Bach’s music is used again in the 1973 Ingmar Bergman film classic “Cries and Whispers”: “Suite No. 5 for solo Cello in C Minor, 4th mvt ‘Sarabande’”. One of the most cinematically influential scenes in the film occurs when two of the sisters in the story share the inner thoughts that they’d kept secret for so long, but without any dialogue, just the music “Mazurka in A minor, Op.17/4″. Who is the famous classical music composer of this piece?

4. Five years later, in 1978, Ingmar Bergman used the same two composers in his film “Autumn Sonata”: Bach’s “Suite Nr 4, Ess-dur” and “Préludium Nr 2a, a-moll” by Chopin.  Frédéric Chopin was played by actor Hugh Grant in what live action feature biographical film of Chopin’s life that naturally uses his music in the score?

5. Ludwig von Beethoven himself is portrayed in no less than two autobiographical films: by Gary Oldman in 1994’s “Immortal Beloved” and by Ian Hart in the 2003 TV movie “Eroica,” both films benefitting from a score of Beethoven’s fantastic music. All of the following films are biographies of classical music composers except for one. Which is the film that doesn’t exist?

A. Jim Broadbent as W. S. Gilbert and Allan Corduner as Sir Arthur Sullivan in “Topsy Turvy”
B. Richard Chamberlain as Pyotr Tchaikovsky in “The Music Lovers”
C. Robert Alda as George Gershwin and Darryl Hickman as Ira Gershwin in “I Got Rhythm”
D. Robert Powell as Gustav Mahler in “Mahler”
E. Roger Daltrey as Franz Liszt in “Lisztomania”

6.  The Gershwin Brothers movie is the bogus film above, although Woody Allen’s classic film “Manhattan” makes exquisite use of George Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue.” Coincidentally, director Ken Russell directed three of the films in the previous question, including “Mahler”. Gustav Mahler’s music (“Adagietto From Symphony No.5″ and “Sehr Langsam Misterioso From Symphony No.3″) provide the score to the classic Italian cinema adaptation of Thomas Mann’s novel “Death in Venice” (1971). What famed Italian director helmed that movie?

7. We turn to another Italian artist, this time a composer instead of a filmmaker: Antonio Vivaldi’s “Mandolin Concerto”  provides the score for what classic French cinema film by classic film director Francois Truffaut?

8. Truffaut’s fellow Frenchman Maurice Ravel’s “Bolero” features prominently in the Dudley Moore/Bo Derek comedy “10″ by Blake Edwards, but it provides the more prominent overal soundtrack to what worldwide classic film of the Japanese cinema?

9. Milos Forman’s Academy Award winner for Best Picture “Amadeus” is a biodrama featuring the music of its subject Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. In 1984, when the great film composer Maurice Jarre accepted his Academy Award for “Best Original Score” he jokingly thanked the Academy for not nominating “Amadeus” in the category, which of course it couldn’t since none of the music in the film is original but is instead that of Mozart’s. For what film did Jarre win his Oscar for Best Original Score that year?

10. For many people, the first time they heard Johann Pachelbel’s “Canon in D major” was in this classic movie, an Academy Award winner for Best Picture featuring this hauntingly melancholy piece throughout.

11. An Academy Award winner for Best Actor was Geoffrey Rush in 1996’s “Shine”. Rachmaninoff’s Rachmaninoff piano concerto 2 was part of the soundtrack along with the well-known “Flight of the Bumblebee.”  We’re all familiar with “Flight of the Bumblebee” but who was its composer?

12.   Johann Sebastian Bach’s “Toccata and Fugue in D minor” plays eerily in the classic Billy Wilder film “Sunset Boulevard.”  That same famous musical piece is featured in the classic animated feature film “Fantasia.” That very entertaining film features a few other of the classical music genre finest and most well-known works. Which of the following pieces is NOT part of the “Fantasia” soundtrack?

A. “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” by Felix Mendelssohn
B. “A Night on Bald Mountain” by Modest Mussorgsky
C. “Ave Maria” by Franz Schubert
D. “Rite of Spring” by Igor Stravinsky
E. “The Nutcracker Suite” by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

ANSWERS TO LAST MONDAY’S QUIZ OF THE WEEK, “Tune a Fish on Wry”:
1. I Am The Walrus
2. Vanilla Sky
3. Creeque Alley
4. Dolly Parton
5. Honky Cat
6. Jimmy Webb
7. Irving Berlin
8. Tangled Up In Blue
9. Stone Cold Crazy
10. Led Zeppelin

When you live romantically: Today I woke up in air conditioning and ate an orange. I went to the library on 42nd street with coffee and read a bit but was distracted by the thought of how sad it is that buildings like that won’t ever be built again. There were lots of tourists, too. I thought about whether or not I would be considered someone with a lot of friends or not. Afterwards I walked down to the book store in Union Square and took four impractical but romantic books (1) Thomas Mann’s “Death in Venice” (2) The selected poems of Ezra Pound (3) a beautiful copy of Jean Baudrillard’s “The Transparency of Evil” (4) Frank O’Hara’s “Lunch Poems”.  The subway was crowded and loud so I had a hard time concentrating on my new books. I checked to see if Michelangelo was working at the coffee shop but he wasn’t so I walked home and read a bit and watched some television.  I put on Dionne Warwick loudly and ate a grilled cheese and drink from a bottle of refrigerated wine and sat on my floor. I thought about how Dionne Warwick was labeled “The Black Pearl” when she arrived in Paris in 1963 and how good the French are with words because it’s such a smart description, even if it’s a bit racial for my taste. When she really gets going, her voice on “A House is Not a Home” is so flinty and touching that I almost can’t bear it.

The British Library Gates

The British Library conjures images of rows and rows of books– and indeed, as a copyright depository, it’s home to acres and acres of them.  But its curatorial role extends beyond print to audio.  And its creativity in applying new technology to its collections (c.f., here and here, e.g.) is making it’s recordings available in new ways too.

The BL’s Archival Sound Recording Project has already processed over 21,000 recordings– everything from spoken word performances of works in the print collection (often by the authors– c.f., here) to the sounds of amphibians (mostly frogs and toads) around the world (here); and it is experimenting with mash-ups, laying the recordings on maps, e.g., the music of India (here).

But perhaps the most immediately useful (or, at least, amusing) is this map of accents and dialects from all over Great Britain, “illustrated” by over 700 recordings.

As we offer thanks to the librarians among us, we might recall that it was on this date in 1911 that later-to-be Nobel Laureate Thomas Mann visited the Lido in Venice and crystallized the idea for his haunting novella Death In Venice.  While Mann was adamant throughout his life that the protagonist, Aschenbach, was in no way autobiographical, his posthumously-available diaries suggest that Mann was in fact infatuated at the shore with a young Polish boy (the 11 year old Wladyslaw Moes ) who became the model for Tadzio.

Der Tod in Venedig (Death in Venice), first printing, 1912

If you look at these pictures and don’t immediately think Visconti’s film classic “Death in Venice,” then get thee to a Blockbuster immediately and brush up on your culture!  Karl Lagerfeld debuted the Chanel Cruise collection last week in Venezia (at the same beach setting as the film), which included a smattering of men’s fashion.  The clothes (at least in the above pictures) look to be borrowed straight from Tadzio’s costume wardrobe.  And what an appropriate metaphor–isn’t the Kaiser with his legendary rigidity not dissimilar to the fictional German von Aschenbach himself? Sorry if this went over your head.

[Via the Fashionisto]