Steve works part-time for the SF Giants but I am not a fan.  I was eager to go to the ballpark last Saturday–but not to watch a game.  Four of us went to see a free closed-circuit live broadcast from the San Francisco Opera House.  Yes, free.  This is the fourth one, and you should go to the next one.  The performance was Il Trovatore: 3,000 people viewed it at the opera, and 25,000 people viewed it from AT&T park.  Talk about big-screen TV–this one was 110′ by 60′.  My personal favorite was Dmitri Hvorostovsky, a Russian Baritone who makes a very appealing villain.

Prior to the event, because we registered online, my friend Janine received a notice that she could buy a picnic basket for two–for $50-60 per couple.  Fie on that! I made a picnic for us: Janine, her nine-year old daughter, Steve, and me.  It was a success, and seems worth sharing.

This menu was put together with ease of preparation in mind, and a child’s dining preferences, not forgetting my desire to eat lots of fantastic food while watching a tale of love, murder, treachery and death.

Crescent sandwich: Buy Pillsbury Crescent Rolls (you know you want to) and prepare according to instructions.  Just before rolling them up, lay a piece of top quality deli meat (maple ham, chicken, turkey, etc) cut or folded to generally fit the shape of the triangular dough.  If you are meticulously neat you could cut the meat to fit inside of the triangle.  I just folded a piece and let the meat show when it was rolled up, which made it easy to see what kind it was since I made ham rolls and chicken rolls.  Roll up with the dough.  Cook according to instructions.  These are best served hot, but for the picnic I allowed them to cool and put them in a plastic bag.  Quantity?  We had two packages of eight–with lots of other food.

Potato salad: from the deli

Cucumber salad: Slice English cucumbers (peel included) very thinly, preferably with a mandolin.  Sprinkle with salt.  Douse with your favorite vinaigrette dressing.  (It’s supposed to absorb the dressing)

Pasta salad: Boil Farfalle (aka bowtie, butterfly) pasta with peas and fresh corn cut from the cob.  (Adding vegetables about 10 minutes before you are ready to take the pasta out).  Slice cherry tomatoes and add after the pasta/corn/peas are cooked and drained.  Add chopped fresh basil, the juice of one lemon and toss with more of your favorite (garlicky!) vinaigrette dressing.

Snacks: chocolate covered cherries and toffee-covered almonds, milk chocolate Petite Ecolier LU cookies.  Couldn’t resist, and think about it: the storylines in opera are not about resisting temptation!

Dessert: I think I might have sort of invented this.  And I could have sold some to the people sitting behind us (picnic envy is part of the pre-opera entertainment).  At first I had the idea to make a Summer Pudding or English Trifle, but then I looked them up and it wasn’t what I wanted at all.  It ended up being something like a parfait, but in honor of the Italian opera, let’s call it a Perfetto.

The idea for this dessert started when Steve came back from a bulk food store on Saturday morning with eight half-pints of raspberries.  I had never seen so many of these little jewels in one place before.  Normally I just sprinkle some sugar over raspberries, but now I had enough to cook with abandon!

Raspberry sauce: in a saucepan, cook four cups of berries with a cup of sugar until it becomes a sauce.  Add a couple of tablespoons of raspberry liqueur–sherry or marsala would be another possibility.  As the sauce cools, add another cup of berries (for looks and texture as the other fruit has cooked down and fallen apart).

Cut up a purchased pound cake into cubes of about one inch. Chill bowl and the whip attachment in the freezer first, then whip heavy cream in mixer  to “stiff peak” stage (no added sugar).  Then it becomes a job of assembly.  In a deep bowl that holds about a quart, put cake pieces into a layer, cover with raspberry sauce, add another layer of cake and more raspberry sauce. Depending on the depth/width of the bowl and how much you have left you may add a third layer of cake/sauce.  Finally, add a thick layer of whipped cream, several inches. Add the cream at the last minute as you are packing up, cover with plastic wrap.  To serve, scoop through the whipped cream layer and pick up the cake soaked with raspberry sauce, and put a few scoops in those short, clear plastic beverage cups. Repeat as necessary!

Tips and tricks:

It is hard to give exact quantities here, but six halfpints of raspberries, one loaf pound cake, and one pint of whipping cream yielded leftover sauce, cake and cream beyond what was needed for the dessert which would serve 8 people.  I assembled the extras the next day into a sort of raspberry shortcake, which was very good but not as good as the Perfetto.  Steve said: “I like the way the dessert was soggy at the ballpark.”  There you have it!  There was something extra good about the way the flavors blended together (and were not at a very cold temperature) in the Perfetto.  Our youngest diner kept bobbing her head up and down, and saying “Yum” between bites.  An opera bobblehead! She had two helpings even after all the other food.  Bravissima!

Los aficionados a la música vocal podrán disfrutar este fin de semana de la visita a la Ciudad de México del Coro de Alumnos de la Universidad de Yale. El concierto tendrá lugar en la Sala Nezahualcóyotl, el domingo 9 de agosto a las 18:00 horas, y contará también  con la participación de la Milenium Sinfonietta, bajo la dirección de Jesús Medina. 

La tradición coral en Yale se remonta al año de 1812 cuando se integró la Sociedad de Música de la Universidad. Desde 1937 los graduados de la institución educativa continuaron con  su práctica musical a través de la fundación de la Asociación del Yale Glee Club. El  Coro de Alumnos se creó en 1997. Un año después realizó una gira por China, país en el que obtuvieron el primer premio en el Festival Internacional de Coros. En 2001 se presentó en el Stars of the White Nights International Arts Festival de San Petersburgo. En aquella ocasiónsus coristas compartieron el escenario con Valery Gergiev y la Orquesta Kirov en el célebre Teatro Mariinsky. De igual forma, el ensamble vocal fue seleccionado como el coro oficial de la ceremonia de apertura del 55º Anual Eisteddfod Internacional Musical en Llangollen, Gales y se convirtió en la primera agrupación en su tipo en ofrecer un concierto en el Palacio de Estado Kremlin, con la Filarmónica de Rusia y Dmitri Hvorostovsky.

Durante su presentación en México, serán dirigidos por Jeffrey Douma,e interpretarán la Misa de Coronación K 317 y Laudate Dominum K 339 de Mozart, además de temas sacros, populares y contemporáneos de compositores como Randall Thompson, Rene Clausen, Jorge Córdoba y Fenno Heath, entre otros. 

Como es habitual, la Dirección de Música de la UNAM y Clásica México tienen 5 pases dobles. Si desean participar visiten CM

Concierto del Coro de Alumnos de la Universidad de Yale

Domingo 9 de agosto, 18:00 horas

Sala Nezahualcóyotl del Centro Cultural Universitario (Insurgentes Sur 3000, C.U.). 

Boletos en taquilla ($200.00 y $130.00)

 50% de descuento personal a maestros y estudiantes en general; ex alumnos y trabajadores de la UNAM; y jubilados del ISSSTE, IMSS e INAPAM con credencial vigente.

Acceso a niños mayores de cuatro años de edad.

Informes: 5622 7113 y en el sitio de la Dirección General de Música de la UNAM

Am 16. Oktober 1962 erblickte in Krasnojark (Sibirien) ein neuer Erdenbürger das Licht der Welt. Er wurde auf den Namen Dmitri Hvorostovsky getauft. Zu diesem Zeitpunkt konnte noch niemand ahnen, dass ein neuer Stern am Opernhimmel aufging.

Schon sehr früh zeigte sich sein musikalisches Talent, das Nahrung in der häuslichen Atmosphäre fand. Sein Vater spielte in der Freizeit Klavier und hatte eine sehr schöne Singstimme. Schallplatten von Caruso, Mario Lanza, Schaljapin und viele mehr waren in dem Wohnzimmerschrank zu finden.

Ab dem siebten Lebensjahr besuchte Dmitri Hvorostovsky neben der normalen Schule auch die Musikschule. Zum damaligen Zeitpunkt war er darüber nicht gerade begeistert. Liebte er doch auch das Herumtollen, wie es Kinder in diesem Alter gerne mögen. Doch seine Eltern waren die Führer auf seinem musikalischen Weg.

Der Erfolg blieb nicht aus. Er gewann einen musikalischen Wettbewerb nach dem anderen. Seit er 1989 aus dem renommierten BBC-Gesangswettbewerb “Cardiff Singer of the World” hervorging, singt er in allen großen Opernhäusern dieser Welt. Er bezaubert mit seinem samtigen, lyrischen, nuancenreichen Bariton das Publikum. Es ist nicht nur seine wunderbare Stimme, es ist auch sein zurückhaltender Charme, sein sparsam eingesetztes bezauberndes Lächeln und sein ausgesprochen gutes Aussehen, das die Menschen in seinen Bann zieht.

Dmitri Hvorostovsky lebt mit seiner zweiten Frau und den beiden Kindern in London. Doch den Kontakt zu seiner russischen Heimat hat der dadurch nicht verloren. Jedes Jahr geht er auf Konzert-Tournee durch die großen Städte seines Heimatlandes. Er ist immer wieder überwältigt von dem überaus herzlichen Empfang und dem nicht enden wollenden Applaus. Mit seinem Gesang trifft er mitten ins Herz seiner Landsleute, die die Musik als Seelennahrung brauchen.

Ich bin ein absoluter Fan des russischen Baritons Dmitri Hvorostovsky. Meine Aufmerksamkeit wurde durch You Tube geweckt. Ich war sofort von seiner Stimme und seinem Aussehen fasziniert. Bald besaß ich alle DVD`s, die es auf dem Musikmarkt zu kaufen gab. Der Wunsch, ihn live zu erleben, wurde immer größer. Diese Gelegenheit ergab sich bald. Ein Konzert zusammen mit Anna Netrebko wurde in Braunschweig anlässlich des Jubiläums “60 Jahre Volkswagen Finanzdienstleistungen” angeboten. Ich bemühte mich sofort um eine Karte und hurra, ich konnte noch eine erwerben. Das Konzert war schnell ausverkauft. Der Tag rückte immer näher. Dann, am 16. Mai 2009 stieg ich morgens in den Zug und fuhr dem großen Ereignis entgegen. Am frühen Nachmittag erreichte ich mein Ziel. Nun machte ich mich auf die Suche nach meinem vorbestellten Hotelzimmer. Das Hotel Garni lag idyllisch und war sehr ruhig. Die VW-Halle, in der das Konzert statt finden sollte, konnte ich sogar zu Fuß erreichen. Bis zum Beginn des Konzertes hatte ich noch viel Zeit. Ich schaute mich ein wenig in Braunschweig um. Von dem was ich sah, war ich sehr angetan. Diese Stadt ist eine Reise wert.

Jetzt musste ich aber eilen, um mich umzuziehen. Ungefähr zwei Stunden vor Konzertbeginn machte ich mich auf den Weg. Das Wetter war angenehm. Schon von weitem erblickte ich die imposante Halle. Einige Besucher hatten sich ebenfalls eingefunden. Der rote Teppich wurde ausgerollt, Fackeln schmückten rechts und links den Weg zu den Eingängen. Es herrschte ein geschäftiges Treiben. Ich fragte einen der Bediensteten, ob eine Autogrammstunde vorgesehen sei. Er verneinte es. Ich ging zum Bühneneingang. Vielleicht konnte ich dort etwas erfahren. Die Sicherheitskräfte hüllten sich in Schweigen und zuckten mit den Schultern, als ich dort nach einer Autogrammstunde fragte. Sie ließen sich aber auf ein Gespräch ein über dies und das. Es war recht kurzweilig. In der Zwischenzeit drängten sich die Besucher vor den Eingängen. Programmverkäufer liefen umher und boten die Konzertprogramme an. Sie fanden großen Absatz. Ich kaufte mir natürlich auch eins. Endlich, endlich öffneten sich die Türen. Wir durften eintreten. Das ging aber auch nur etappenweise. Die Geduld wurde auf eine harte Probe gestellt. Nun war auch ich in der Halle. Doch auf seinen Platz durfte man noch lange nicht. Überall standen Wachposten. Ich schlenderte den Rundgang entlang. An verschiedenen Plätzen gab es Essbares und Getränke. Ich aß auch eine Kleinigkeit, großen Hunger hatte ich nicht. Ich war viel zu aufgeregt. Dann war es so weit. Die Türen öffneten sich zum Konzertsaal. Ich war erstaunt von der enormen Größe. Nachdem ich meinen Platz gefunden hatte, beobachtete ich das Treiben. Ganz langsam füllte sich der Saal. Die Besucher strömten von allen Seiten. Zum Schluss gab es keinen freien Platz mehr. Die Zugänge wurden geschlossen, die Lichter erloschen, das Orchester kam auf die erleuchtete Bühne. Kein Laut war aus dem Konzertsaal zu hören. Kein Husten, kein Füßescharren. Die Staatskapelle Weimar begann mit der Ouvertüre zu Don Giovanni. Danach betrat mein Idol die Bühne. Ich war überwältigt. Jugendlich und schlank stand er da, bekleidet mit einer schwarze Hose und einem schwarzen Hemd. Die silbergrauen Haare leuchteten. Sein volltönender weicher Bariton verzauberte. Seine Mimik, seine Gestik waren kultiviert. Ich spürte den Schmerz des Vaters um seine Tochter, als er die Arie des Rigoletto sang, ich spürte die sehnsüchtige Liebe, als er die Arie des Fürsten Jeletzky aus Pique Dame sang. Er hielt sein Publikum gefangen. Sein Lächeln, wenn er den Applaus entgegen nahm, ging zu Herzen. Wunderbar waren die Duette mit Anna Netrebko. Der Schlussapplaus war überwältigend. Das Konzert werde ich nie vergessen.

Ich hatte die Hoffnung immer noch nicht aufgegeben, ein Autogramm zu erhalten. Einem Impuls folgend, ging ich zum Bühnenausgang. Ein paar Fans hatten sich dort versammelt. Unsere Geduld wurde auf eine harte Probe gestellt. Erst verließen die Mitglieder des Orchesters das Gebäude. Ich hatte schon die Hoffnung aufgegeben und dachte, vielleicht hat Dmitri Hvorostovsky einen anderen Ausgang benutzt. Nein, er kam! Er sprang die Treppe voller Elan herunter. Sein Schritt wurde gemessen, sein Gesicht verschlossen, als er uns vor der Tür stehen sah. Tiefes Schweigen herrschte. Impulsiv reichte ich ihm meinen Kugelschreiber und das Programm. Er nahm es und gab mir das ersehnte Autogramm. Meinen Kugelschreiber benutzte er für die anderen Autogramme. Als er ihn zurückgab, schaute er mich an. Es passierte etwas merkwürdiges, ich konnte seinen Blick nicht erwidern. Er stand so nahe vor mir, zum Greifen nahe. Ich konnte nur ganz leise “danke” sagen. Wie auf Wolken schwebend hatte ich den Weg zum Hotel eingeschlagen. Da es schon sehr dunkel war, verfehlte ich die Richtung. Das bescherte mir einen unfreiwilligen einstündigen Spaziergang durch das nächtliche Braunschweig. Eine Passantin, die ich ansprach, beschrieb mir den Weg zum Hotel. Müde, aber sehr glücklich ließ ich mich ins Bett fallen.

Mein nächster Wunsch wäre, Dmitri Hvorostovsky in einer Oper zu erleben. Ich halte Ausschau.

The Berlin Wall fell, Communist in the rest of Eastern Europe started to crumble, and a young Russian (whose hair would soon turn a Siberian white) won Cardiff Singer of the World:

Música de Verão: Tosca, de Puccini, em Queluz, o jazz ao ar livre no Goethe-Institut de Lisboa e a pop dos Elysian Fields. Summer music: Puccini’s Tosca in Queluz National Palace, Jazz im Goethe-Garten in Lisbon and Elysian Fields’s pop by the nearest gin tonic.

Dmitri Hvorostovsky in all his glory. *swooooooooooooooooooooooooon* [1]

Go and watch it. [2]

Real Video Vriday follows. [3]

—

[1] No actual swoonage occured.

[2] I take no responsibility for your eyes.

Pagina manoscritta della Nona Sinfonia di Beethoven

7 maggio 1824 al Teatro di Porta Carinzia a Vienna ha luogo la prima esecuzione della Nona Sinfonia di Ludwig van Beethoven.

Casa natale di Johannes Brahms nella Speckstrasse di Amburgo

7 maggio 1833 nasce ad Amburgo Johannes Brahms.

Casa natale di P.I.Ciaikovski a Votkinsk

7 maggio 1840 nasce a Votkinsk Pyotr Ilyic Ciaikovski.

Il 7 maggio potrebbe candidarsi come “giornata della musica”.

Festeggiamolo  con loro

(Otto Klemperer e la NPO alla Festival Hall 1970)

(Hélène Grimaud)

(Dmitri Hvorostovsky al Met 1999, dirige Gergiev)

This was a terrific performance, with Sondra Radvanovsky and Roberto Alagna in superb voice as Leonora and Manrico. They could not have been better in this dress rehearsal for a new run of Trovatore, performed in a co-production with the Teatro Real in Madrid by Elijah Moshinsky, with good set designs by Dante Ferretti, costumes by Anne Tilby, and excellent fight sequences by William Hobbs. The orchestra played beautifully under the direction of Carlo Rizzi, and the supporting cast all sang well. Dmitri Hvorostovsky brought a sensitivity to the Count di Luna making him a slightly more sympathetic character than is sometimes the case. This fitted in well with the production, because at the end he stabs Manrico on stage and, told that he’s just killed his brother, holds him in his arms as he dies. Manrico’s surrogate mother, the gypsy Azucena, was well sung by Malgorzata Walewska, making her debut at Covent Garden, and Ferrando was Mikhail Petrenko. Altogether the cast worked well together, and the staging was very effective indeed, but what really put this into the stratosphere was Roberto Alagna as the troubadour Manrico, and Sondra Radvanovsky, whom I also saw as a superb Leonora in Chicago in November 2006.

For the 0.01% of you not hep to the recent Facebook phenom, a survey is currently going around like herpes asking users to list 25 random facts about themselves and then tagging one person for each fact so that they, in turn, post two dozen-plus factoids about themselves.  It’s the sort of viral communications that curls my toes.  But writer buddy Ayun Halliday took it to the next level: being a memoirist, most of us know more about Ayun than we probably care to admit, so she gave a list of 25 films, performances, books, and the like that shaped who she is in some way.

I’m drinking Ayun’s Kool-Aid.  Not only do the following 25 things explain who I am, they explain how I view the world, particularly the arts world.  And if every Gen X and Gen Y-er did one of these, we would strike arts management gold.

1.  “Who’s Afraid of Opera” (Joan Sutherland and Co., first watched ca. 1987)
I still get uncontrollably excited/giddy when meet someone else who remembers seeing these cheeseball operas, done in budget TV glory and condensed to 30 minutes.  My grandparents owned three of the four series on laser-disc, and I had the fourth and final installation on VHS, rendering all my copies unwatchable in this day and age.  But I remember nights where, as my mother completed her med residency, I would watch Joan and her puppet friends break down Rossini, Gounod, Donizetti, Verdi, Offenbach, and Thomas.  This is what gave me the opera bug, and what led to a four-year old me trick-or-treating in suburban Rhode Island as Mephistophele–not the devil (I corrected people).

2.  Title Unremembered–Series of Chagall Etudes (Moscow, 2004 January)
I may not be able to remember the title (in my defense, it was the coldest theater in the world, I had no clue how to handle jet-lag, and it was my first time out of the country which left me totally zonked), but I remember how maddeningly dedicated these Muscovite thesps were to their art.  I was studying at the Moscow Art Theatre School over winter break from my first semester at college, and etudes were the bread-and-butter of MXAT students.  While I’m also fuzzy on all of the production details and minutae–burning a film screen with a projection of Chagall himself dancing, children dressed as Jewish elders, little to no dialogue–I remember the transformative feeling I felt while leaving the theater.  Less than a year later, I converted to Judaism.

3.  War and Peace (Leo Tolstoy, 2006 Summer-Fall)
“Should I read War and Peace?” I asked my older friend while gabbing on the phone in Barnes and Noble.
“Absolutely,” she said, “I read it while living in Europe.  You can skip the 40-page descriptions of the horses in battle, though.”
I actually didn’t skip any of it and lugged around a 1200+ page, gradually disintegrating, Modern Library classic edition around in my purse for a good five months.  People looked at me funny.  But actually, it wasn’t that hard to read.  It was amazing escapism while feeding into my Russophilia, and it totally got my mind off summer in New York with no air conditioner.  It’s unironically one of my top 5 favorite books.  The BBC miniseries with Anthony Hopkins is pretty stellar, too, and the theme song still reverberates in my head.

4.  Hannah and Her Sisters (Woody Allen, 2008 November)
At the risk of going full Russophile, I’ll table Love and Death (my all-time Woody Allen fave) and offer up Hannah and Her Sisters, a close second.  If it had Diane Keaton, it may have gone to the top, but some of the moments here are so gob-smackingly nuanced, complex, and satisfying that I could probably watch it over and over and still find something new each time.  Double points for his use of Bach.  This was one of the few Allen films I hadn’t seen, but a week after becoming a victim of Bushonomics, I Netflixed it and, like Woody’s character with Duck Soup, felt instantly better and saw the world in rational perspective.

4.  Kremerata Baltica  (Mostly Mozart Festival, 2006 August)
A marathon two-evening performance featuring all of Mozart’s violin concerti and some other gems and crazy pieces.  The KB “get” something about Mozart that allows them to completely turn music on its ear, whether it’s in the traditional Violin Concerto No. 5 or a combo of Eine Kleine Nachtmusik and Scotland the Brave/Auld Lang Syne (true story).  I’ve never been so riveted at an orchestral concert.  Required listening and watching for any classical musician/singer today.

5.  Slice to Sharp  (Jorma Elo / New York City Ballet, 2006 June)
During college, I ushered at the New York State Theatre (before it was the Koch Theatre), covering both New York City Opera and New York City Ballet (plus the Lincoln Center/Mostly Mozart Festivals).  It took me a while to get fully into both ballet and Vivaldi, but this neatly covered both in one fell swoop.  Elo’s manipulation of the dancers’ bodies–movements that complemented and contrasted the pretty structured Vivaldi–was a rush.  Simply watching it gave you a runner’s high.   And on the night of its premiere, the audience went wild.  I want to see opera with that same verve and energy and connective disjointedness.

6.  La Clemenza di Tito (The Estates Theater, Prague, 2007 May)
I have a fascination with trouser roles for mezzo-sopranos in opera, to the point where I wrote a play about one during my brief stint as a Fordham University playwriting major.  There’s a forced physicality in those roles that you don’t neccessarily see in sopranos singing heroines.  There’s a visual that automatically goes with the description–Ace-bandaged breasts, short hair, britches–but in the latter part of the 20th/early 21st Century, the pants role has also been played with visually.  Rather than wigs, hair is cut or put in a ponytail.  The 5 o’clock shadow is left in the makeup kit.  It automatically lends a sexuality to the opera that has disappeared with our progressive social mores.
Also shifting is operatic sets.  Mozart almost automatically generates baroque structures for miles, but this production of Clemenza in Prague was (presumably modeled after the set for a Paris production), white.  White-as-crack-on-Christmas-morning, white.  It was all about the singers, all about the music, all about the performers.  And it was one of the first Mozart operas I’d seen live that made it all work, like a Tim Gunn-mentored dress on the runway.  And Kate Aldrich was hot stuff to boot.
This video isn’t part of the Prague production, nor does it have Aldrich, but Vesselina Kasarova was also one of the first mezzos to get me on my trouser role kick.  The chemistry here is also pretty great.

7.  Goodbye, Lenin! (2004, Summer)
The scene where the mother first steps outside after the fall of the Berlin Wall.  And Yann Tiersen’s score.  Four years later I went to Berlin.

8.  Special Topics in Calamity Physics (Marisha Pessl, 2007 April)
Because I am Blue Van Meer.  It took me a while to buy the book–I’m unconscionably oblivious to bestsellers until months, if not years after the fact–but after reading Pessl’s New York Diet on Grub Street, I found her oddly compelling and figured it’d be a good read for the bus/subway.  I wound up devouring the thing during every waking moment–commute, slyly at work, an entire precious Saturday afternoon.  It made being smart and cultured (and slightly outcast as a result) feel okay.

9.  Amadeus (Milos Forman, first watched ca. 1990, first re-watched 2003 January)
All I remember from the first period that I watched this movie was the scene where Tom Hulce chases Elizabeth Berridge around under the table.  In fact, for a period of time, I watched it specifically for that scene.  The tape got lost somewhere around my eighth birthday.  I saw it again in 2003 when I received the Director’s Cut on DVD and it was like rekindling a romance.  That movie, to this day, has not aged a bit.  Shaffer’s descriptions of Mozart’s music are some of the most beautiful descriptions of music.  More than that, the film made Mozart a pop-culture icon in the late 80s.
My newest obsession with the film, however, is the making-of featurette on Disc 2.  One of the best making-ofs ever, it balances anecdotes (like F. Murray Abraham and a chandelier in communist Prague) with real insight into the artistic process.  I wish I could delve into the heads of the designers, directors, actors, and writers for everything on this list.

10.  Desk Set (Katharine Hepburn/Spencer Tracy, 2002 Winter)
I wanted to be Katharine Hepburn’s character in this film when I was a kid.  One of the earliest examples of geek chic.

11. God The Band (1999 Winter)
Long before Kristen Schaal and Flight of the Conchords, there was me, growing up in Rhode Island, obsessed with God The Band.  Though I wasn’t nearly as bad as Mel, GTB was still one of the first bands I really truly liked (rather than liking because everyone else in my school liked ‘em), discovered on my own, and still listen to ten years later.  They played fun music AND wore ruffled tuxedo shirts the likes of which I haven’t seen since my parent’s wedding photos in the early 80s.  It’s also highly probable that I still have a schoolgirl crush on Mugwump Jizm.

12.  Werther (Metropolitan Opera, January 2004)
I love putting this story right below something involving God The Band.  It was one of the coldest nights of the year, I had just woken up from a 23 hour nap thanks to my first jet lag, and Roberto Alagna got a hard-on while singing “Pourquoi Me Reveiller?”  That’s the kind of thing that sticks with you like oatmeal to ribs.

13.  Geoff Dyer (2002, 2004, and 2005, Various Months)
Geoff made me the traveler I am today.  Out of Sheer Rage was recommended to me after I read some stuff by Alain de Botton and expressed an interest in DH Lawrence.  I started reading it in high school, put it down for a few years, and picked it up on a flight to Paris.  The day I got back from Paris, I bought his collection of essays, Yoga for People Who Can’t Be Bothered to Do It, and then the next year read Paris Trance (A Romance), which sealed the trifecta for me.  Though I have read and enjoyed several of his other books, his eye for detail in Trance, quirky humour in Rage, and sentences in Yoga like: “I was happy to be here in this chair-intensive café in the autumn of my drug-taking years, with my soon-to-be-ex-girlfriend, Dazed, who a few weeks later would succumb to one of her periodic bouts of severe depression” (interrupting an otherwise breezy-ish essay) make me wish I’d written them.  I’d written before reading Dyer, but I don’t think I’d still be writing today if it weren’t for his works.

14.  Rose Rage (Duke Theater/Chicago Shakespeare Theater, 2004 September)
Seeing Henry IV parts I, II, and III in one marathon production (with a dinner break that my gal-pal and I spent eating sweet and sour chicken and egg rolls at Ollie’s Noodle Shop) is like seeing all four parts of the Ring Cycle at once.  We came out wired.  For three of the Bard’s lesser-known but just-as-violent-as-Macbeth plays, the company used cabbages and offal as the outlets for beheadings, stabbings, and other murders and set the whole of the performance in a Victorian butcher shop.  Never have I reacted so sharply to a vegetable being chopped.  I still talk about it.

15.  Batsheva Dance Company – Telophaza (Lincoln Center Festival, 2006 July)
The audience interaction, use of “I’m on Fire,” and crazy Israeli music was one thing.  But when they got to the end blow-out with nightclub lighting, bagpipe dance music, and a post-coital chick crawling towards a camera projected onto the stage, it was something else altogether.  Also, the way they contorted their bodies while still making it look like dance rather than epilepsy and when they show a symphony of movement in standing still.

16.  Orlando (New York City Opera, 2005 April)
The first time Handel REALLY clicked for me.  I was ushering for this performance and first saw a Sunday matinee under the haze of a few bellinis at Cafe Lalo brunch from 45 minutes earlier.  Maybe that helped, but Matthew White singing “Verdi allori” certainly sealed the deal.  And coming in from the misty rain to a warm and lush green set was sort of delicious.

17.  Faust (The Metropolitan Opera, 2005 May-ish)
Went for Alagna and because I’d never seen this (a favorite) live, but stayed for Dmitri Hvorostovsky.  He had this brilliant white hair and dark navy soldier’s uniform which you completely forgot about the moment he opened his mouth.  When he finished “Avant de quitter ces lieux,” there was first silence.  Then a roar of bravos.  THEN came the applause.  Some of the production was cheeseball and had plenty of WTF moments, but I was still in my own little world by the end and was apparently told by an usher that I had to clear out of the theatre 5 minutes after everyone else had left.  I still have a photo/article from Vanity Fair featuring Dmitri, Rene, and Roberto called “The Three Tens.”

18.  New York Magazine (First read summer 2003-ish)
Specifically, these articles (in no particular order):
Up With Grups
Change Your Life (not fair, I know)
Vanishing Act (Spalding’s suicide helped me cope with my father’s death)
The Education of Alexandra Polier
Blogs to Riches
The Fast Supper
Can’t Get No Satisfaction
Say Everything
Alone Together
And Grub Street’s New York Diet.  It appeals to the foodie voyeur in me.  What people eat is so telling of whether or not I’d like them in real life.  New York got me through so many temp jobs and thankfully shaped my consciousness for the better while I was dying of boredom, phone logs, and fluorescent lights.

19.  Anthony Bourdain’s Live From Beirut Special (2008 August)
Being Syrian, it was hard to watch a country that my grandmother left and a country I felt proud to be a part of wreak such havoc.  Somehow, seeing it all through the food refraction made it the most palpable.  One day after watching this on my iPod (while going through Germany and Austria), Russia invaded Georgia.

20.  Hilary Hahn and Chris Thile in Concert (Housing Works Bookstore, 2006 October)
Hilary was the first classical recording artist that I began to actively follow (as opposed to following a composer) as a teen.  She was about my age and one of the things that made me want to travel most was reading her online journal and poring over her photos.  I think, somewhat as a result, we probably share similar worldviews.
But first seeing her live sitting on the floor of the Housing Works Bookstore on the LES–sitting two feet away from her spiffy boots, I may add–made her less of a classical icon and more of just a really cool musician.  A really cool musician who played a Bach duet with mandolin jamming folk artist Chris Thile (who looked like he was making country love to his instrument) and a solo version of Erlkoening–all parts at once.  And afterwards my boyfriend and I browsed dusty old books and ate at 30s Tokyo sexpot restaurant Kenka.
We saw her recently with the LA Phil.  While she was genius, it just wasn’t the same.

21.  Moonstruck (First watched 1988-ish)
This is my family’s movie–or more specifially, mine and my mother’s movie.  She has the exact same La Boheme poster that hangs in Nic Cage’s apartment.  When we run out of things to talk about at lunch, I’ll lean in and say “And then, there’s copper…which is the only pipe I use.”  It’s silly, but it’s so how I feel about my family sometimes that I probably wouldn’t be who I am today if i didn’t cook up a big plate of spaghetti and meatballs and watch this every now and then.

22.  Pink Martini (2002 Summer)
I had their first CD for about a year before I first listened to it–after spending a summer in New York at Barnard College–and it blew my small-town mind.  No one had ever told me you could make a CD that represented about 20 different cultures.

23.  I Was Told There’d Be Cake (Sloane Miller, 2008 Summer)
There’s a pattern here, like STiCP, I was reluctant to pick this up because it seemed like one of those books that everyone was reading.  But I read the entire thing cover-to-cover on a plane ride and was howling while doing window-seat yoga to keep the circulation going.  There are some things that Crosely talks about that I am honestly not sure I’d ever share–but I was thinking them all the same.  It’s really refreshing to read an essayist whose pop culture references speak to my generation without making Oregon Trail or summer camp seem embarassingly lame.

24.  AngloMania (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2006 Summer)
I wanted to live in this exhibition.  The perfect mix of punk rock and high culture.

25.  Lucia di Lammermoor (Donizetti, Too Many Times to Recall)
I’ve actually only seen this live once, but it’s my grandfather’s favorite opera, one of my mother’s favorite operas, and, through cultural/familial osmosis, mine as well.  If I could only listen to one opera for the rest of my life, I think I could go with this one.  And if I could only pick two pieces, they’d be Edgardo’s death scene (at the end of the opera) and the Sextet (from Act II).  Every time I listen to them I find something new in the music.

I know it seems incredible, but this is the way I work: I never decide the events leading up to the ending until the… End.

I have a chapter by chapter outline, but the ending is always pretty vague, and tends to change quite a bit over the months involved in writing a book. I just started Chapter 19 of Wintermoon Ice, which will be the final chapter. Yesterday I put the final plot twist in place. Why wait so long?

Well, the thing about plot twists is, you want them to come out of nowhere. The reader must be surprised and yet, the twist device must sit “naturally” within the arc of the story. A tall order. For me, it is easier to decide at the end, and go back and salt the story with tiny clues. This time I had two ideas in mind. I tried the first, but ran into logistical problems almost immediately. (How to get the body back up the stairs, basically.) Nothing worked. Nothing seemed natural. So taking a Taoist approach, I bagged this twist and went on to the next one.

Now I’m happy!

Maybe other authors do it the other way round…

What I am listening to: Arie Antiche/Dmitri Hvorostovsky
What I am reading: The Red Cross Girls With Pershing to Victory/Margaret Vandercook

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Just back from a weekend visit to the Bay, and we were blessed with nice weather, even though it is the dead of winter here.  We counted eight sea lions on the beach, all young males.  One had a number shaved on its belly, and it looked pretty strange.

Last time we visited, in mid-June, someone had broken the lock off the shed door.  But nothing had been disturbed, even the small generator we keep in there.  Perhaps the thief was only after wood.  Even though the bay is surrounded by forest it is very, very wet, so campers have to bring firewood with them.   Drunk people will often go to extreme lengths to keep a fire going.

This time we replaced the rusty sliding bolt with a brand-new stainless steel one.  I hope it will keep curious people out of the shed.  But really we have been lucky.  Though the house is very isolated we have not had problems with vandalism, only rats.

We walked out to Long Point, which is close to the southernmost point on the South Island.  The wind felt like it came straight from Antarctica!

****

What I am listening to: Verdi Arias/Dmitri Hvorostovsky

What I am reading: Thuvia, Maid of Mars/ E R Burroughs

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Poland may not be the first place you think of for getting your operatic kicks.  However, one of opera’s most famous artists–Rafal Olbinski, check out one of his works below (a poster for Pelleas et Melisande)–just happens a native Pole.  Eastern Europe is a great place in general to check out opera for a handful of reasons: 1) the performances are usually innovative, 2) the houses attract a variety of big ticket musicians (many of whom, like Anna Netrebko and Dmitri Hvorostovsky, call Eastern Europe home), 3) the houses are historic and sitting in one is like being in a padded jewel-box, and 4) the tickets are far cheaper here than in Western Europe.

Case in point: Warsaw’s Teatr Wielki, which hosts the Opera Narodowa (aka National Opera) as well as Warsaw’s main ballet corps.  With Poland still on the Zloty, the highest cap for tickets here is $42 USD, and prices go as low as $8 USD.  Additionally, there are 30% discounts available for students and seniors.  The house is stunning and the performers superb.  Sunday at 6:00 pm is the opening night for one of our personal operatic favourites, Lucia di Lammermoor.  You’ll recognize Lucia’s Mad Scene from its use in The Fifth Element, and the famous (or infamous) Sextet from either music class, The Departed, or the Three Stooges.  And with the creative cast on the Wielki’s roster including mid-air acrobatics, we have a feeling this will be nice on the eyes as well as on the ears.

This weekend, you’ll also be able to catch the premiere of a more recent opera, Szeligowski’s The Students’ Revolt.  The first opera created in Poland after World War II, this piece is based heavily on folk music drama which originated in Russia, while centering around a very Polish story (based on true events).  And while we love our Italian opera, being in Eastern Europe seeing an Eastern European opera performed by Eastern Europeans is somewhat akin to seeing the Brits do Shakespeare.

Thanks, cecy_investigacion!

Teatr Wielki/Opera Narodowa
Plac Teatralny 1, Warsaw
692.02.00
http://www.teatrwielki.pl

I spent some time yesterday editing Ketha’s Daughter, instead of getting started on Book IV, which will be called Beyond the Gyre. I always have trouble with the first chapter of a book, just because it is the beginning of such a huge time investment. Not that I don’t enjoy writing, I do! But editing is something that can be done in little chunks, whereas writing, at least for me, is best accomplished in marathon sessions. Usually six to eight hours a day when doing the first draft. My family gets heartily sick of it, I can tell you.

But all this procrastinating won’t get me anywhere.

I did want to mention one of the best editing tools out there though–the human voice. When I finished Heart of Hythea, and I wanted to find out what people thought of it, I put it out chapter by chapter as a podcast on I tunes. It was a lot of fun to do, and it was downloaded by a few thousand people, some of whom did indeed leave helpful comments.

But the main advantage was that as I was recording the text and listening to the playback I found it was much easier to pick out awkward sentences and find places where the narrative did not flow well. Reading out loud works too, but not as well as listening to playback.

I continue to read my work and record it, but I haven’t done another podcast. Yet.
In case any of you are wondering how I manage to write when there is the chaos of a full household going on all around me, then I will give you the answer–headphones and music. Sometimes classical; right now I am listening to Bedrich Smetana’s String Quartet #1 in E minor. More often I listen to popular music sung in languages other than English. That way it provides a nice background, without me being distracted by words I know, and wanting to sing along. My favorites at the moment are Dmitri Hvorostovsky and Morten Harket.

Music however does not prevent me from being distracted by the cat–a large fluffy Maine Coon called Edmund. He keeps stepping on the keyboard and trying to bite me so I had better get him something to eat!

Feb 17, 2006 1:14 pm
Interesting new direction for the Met, although I am not really sure how new it really is. Seems like an extension of what they have been doing all along. Nice to see the ticket prices go down, although I doubt I can take advantage of it.

I am very glad to see that two of my favorite singers are making Met débuts next year: Ekaterina Siurina as Gilda in Rigoletto and Darina Takova as Marguerite in Gounod’s Faust. I really hope they can be heard on the radio broadcasts. Also good to see that Anna Netrebko is becoming a regular on the Met roster.

Don Carlos has an interesting cast:
Elisabeth de Valois: Patricia Racette
Eboli: Olga Borodina
Don Carlo: Johan Botha
Rodrigo: Dmitri Hvorostovsky
Philip II: René Pape
Grand Inquisitor: Samuel Ramey

Eboli is a favorite part when (rarely) done well. It will be interesting to hear what Olga Borodina will do with it. The male voices are all excellent. I get chills just thinking about the scene with the Inquisitor.

Il Trovatore is widely acknowledged as opera’s most ridiculous libretto – an opinion I do not share. If you know something about Spanish theatre, you happen to know that the idea is really going over the top – especially during the days of Romanticism. And I tell you – Spanish language does make the 100% emotionalism believable. Verdi was well aware of this – and denied no expressive tools to produce raw, gutsy depiction of strong feelings on the stage. If you try to polish the proceedings, then your Trovatore is a lost case.

I would not say that the Met’s new Trovatore is a lost case – there is a lot to be cherished there, but the overall impression is of misfiring. A new production has been ordered from David McVicar, who claims to have found inspiration in the paintings of Goya. I am sure he is telling the truth, but the staging looked just like every other Trovatore you have seen in your life. And this may mean that he was respectful to the libretto (a rare quality these days), but the politeness we could witness at the Met – that, I am sure, does not come from Goya.  One must recognise that McVicar tries to throw in some spice by adding some prostitutes to the Soldiers Chorus and by having his prima donna throwing herself on the ground, crawling and panting at the least opportunity – but everybody seemed to be working hard for intensity and also a bit uncomfortable about the whole thing. Intensity is something you cannot fake – if you do not have it, better go for dignity, something Italian operatic directors are well aware of.

As much as Gianandrea Noseda’s conducting showed a loving eye for the score, trying to highlight accompanying figures, to keep rhythms precise and flowing and to highlight dramatic gestures, the orchestral sound was too recessed to produce any kind of true excitement. Noseda was an attentive conductor for his singers, helping them in every moment of need – and keeping the orchestra in medium volume levels was essencial for a cast almost devoid of dramatic voices, but other maestros have been able to keep a brighter edge to their orchestral sound that keeps the sparkles going when sheer volume is impossible. I would mention Riccardo Muti’s live from La Scala, where a similar lighter-voiced casting was employed.

Sondra Radvanosky’s abilities as a Verdian soprano have always been an object of dispute.  It is undeniable that she fulfils some key requirement – it is a sizeable voice, capable of morbidezza (even if the tone is too veiled for this repertoire), flexibility, mezza voce and some stunning high notes (she took every optional in alt available and some more). However, her low register is not positive and projecting as the role requires, she is a bit challenged by trills (a fault shared by many a soprano tackling this role) and her soft singing is not always true on pitch. Her Tacea la notte was a bit uneventful and its cabaletta (reduced to one verse) was uncomfortable. On the other hand, she achieved some soaring efects in D’ amor sul’ ali rosee (although true abandon was not really there), showed real purpose in the Miserere and, a few notes barred, was quite impressive in Tu vedrai. What is beyond doubt is her intelligence, she has a good ear to find musical-dramatic effects in the writing of the role of Leonora, to chilling effects in her dying scene.

Dolora Zajick is an acknowledged Azucena and, although she was not in her best voice (the basic tonal quality seemed too nasal and somewhat recessed), she did not pull away from any challenge thrown by Verdi – she tried every trill in Stride la vampa, offered some big chest voice low notes and some really powerful top notes (she even tried a not entirely successful high c in her big scene with Manrico). Although her diction was a bit cloudy, she never refused her phrasing the necessary tone colouring and showed no problem with high mezza voce.  If I have some remark about her Azucena, it would be that, although her anguish was palpable, her madness seemed a bit artifficial and there was no sense of danger in her.

I had doubts about Marcelo Alvarez’s Manrico, soon dispelled. His medium volume lyric tenor has enough projecting quality for a big house and he phrases with such musicianship and good taste that you cannot resist him. One feels he is a bit cautious with the heroic moments, but he never produces an ugly or unmusical sound. I doubt there are many tenors around who can offer such a sensitive and dulcet-toned Ah, si ben mio these days. The problem is that Di quella pira does not come in the combo – even if the aria is transposed down a half-tone, he still feels uncomfortable about it. He commendably dealt with articulating the tricky divisions most tenor just glide through, but in order to achieve his matte high b, he had to let his interventions with the chorus unsung and the repeat was avoided. It is true that he was announced to be indisposed, but his problems with this fearsome aria seemed to be more an issue of Fach than of health.

Dmitri Hvorostovsky’s velvety baritone is still a treat to the ears – his stylish Il balen is an example of that – but his ease with big high notes is not entirely here anymore. He has charisma and gets away with some awkward moments – he is also the person with more panache on stage (although the stage direction reduced much of his menacing attitude).  Finally, Kwangchul Youn is glamourous piece of casting in the role of Ferrando.

Duration 2:12

Chet Atkins (1924-2001)

_____

originally a poem in Ukrainian
   

by Yevhen Hrebinka (1812-48)
   

composer unknown
   

Dark Eyes (The Gypsy Anthem)
   

Eyes of ecstacy, always haunting me,
Always taunting me, with your mystery,
Tell me tenderly, you belong to me
For eternity–dark eyes talk to me!

Eyes so dark and dear, eyes of loveth here,
Beauty full and true, I’m in love with you.
Give me eyes of love, like the stars above.
You stole my heart. May we ever part!

Gypsy melody that has haunted me,
Won’t you set me free of all memory:
Of the time that’s waste, of the path we traced
Of the pain we taste–so endlessly!
   

_____

К. П. Гребенка

Очи черные, очи страстные !
Очи жгучие и прекрасные !
Как люблю я вас! Как боюсь я вас !
Знать, увидел вас я в недобрый час !

Ох, недаром вы глубины темней !
Вижу траур в вас по душе моей,
Вижу пламя в вас я победное:
Сожжено на нем сердце бедное.

Но не грустен я, не печален я,
Утешительна мне судьба моя:
Все, что лучшего в жизни бог дал нам,
В жертву отдал я огневым глазам !
   

_____

Duration 2:02

Dmitri Hvorostovsky (b. 1962)

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