Whew it’s been a week!

Lucia di Lammermoor opens at the Chapman Music Hall here in Tulsa one week from today and I feel so lucky to be a part of this show. I’m in the chorus, so I’m singing (Tenor II) with about fifty others at various times in the performance. The rest of the time, I have a better-than-front-row seat for some of the loveliest voices I’ve ever heard. If you’re gonna be in Tulsa in the next couple of weeks, come see the opera.

I began to record some of the rehearsal yesterday to share with you. So beautiful, this music. I was in tears, man. But I had to stop.

It occurred to me that this recording of rehearsal might be against the rules. So I asked. It was. No video or audio of the rehearsals. Violation of various contracts with the artists, you know.

These people are professionals. They have agents and contracts and are making a living from singing for other people. They expect to get paid for doing this thing that they are very good at. I agree with that sentiment. I quit recording them and destroyed what I’d videoed.

As I’ve listened to them, and even more as I have listened to the younger members of the chorus who are currently training to be opera singers, I flash back nearly two decades to my own early training. To my voice teacher telling me that what I was doing was “Hot Shit!” and trying to encourage me to pursue a vocal-centric arts path.

Which I didn’t really do.

Which I find myself regretting.

And now, here I am with these pros and these kids, seeing what could have been.

I used to be really, really good.

I’m not gonna lie. Part of this experience really sucks. The temptation to regret, and to let regret have free rein, is so powerful.

Nothing could be more destructive.

The response I have to make to this set of things I should have done years ago is to DO THEM NOW.

I can still hone the voice. I can still audition for roles. I can still pursue the dream.

Is it harder now? Sure. I have “responsibilities” like every other adult.

But life ain’t getting any longer. I want to spend more of what time I get to spend in the world with these kinds of creative, artful endeavors.

So I am choosing that path.

Léa Seydoux as "Junie," the new girl in class in Christophe Honoré's "La Belle Personne"

 “The Beautiful Person,” set in Paris, in an upscale high-school, made me contemplate the unthinkable—if I ever had to do high-school over again, how would it go?  How would I react to the various opportunities—amorous and otherwise– that unfold?  Loosely inspired by the scandalous 17^th century novel La Princesse de Cleves by Madame de La Fayette, director Christophe Honoré (“Ma mère,” “Love Songs”) continues his exploration of French romantic intrigue.  Instead of Parisian aristocracy in the court of Henry II, Honoré and co-writer Gilles Taurand set their action in contemporary Paris in an upscale high school.  The students are interesting, beautiful, and unkempt– the teachers too–and they explore love and passion while trying to stay engaged with what seems a very loosely regimented but awesome program of poetry, humanities, Italian, English and math.  Junie (Léa Seydoux, “The Last Mistress”) is the new girl at school, a transfer student, who has come to live with her cousin Matthias just after the death of her mother.  Voluptuous, alabaster-skinned, with a tragic air, she becomes the object of male attention and is quickly welcomed into Matthias’ clique of school friends.  

Mild-mannered Otto (Gregoire Leprince-Ringuet), falls hard for her and their first conversation sets up a loose plot.  Otto tells her that Junie is also Néron’s tormentor in Racine’s 17^th  century tragic play “Brittancus” and they discuss how it ends badly for Junie who takes vows and never marries.  Later, egged on by his friends, Otto professes his love to Junie.  She tells him what she needs “Don’t lie to me and look after me, always.”   Otto agrees.  Junie French kisses him publicly in the school hall and the two become an item.   Junie is bursting with magnetic mystique ..she is photographed in the hallway by a student who is an amateur photographer; she is noticed by women as well.   At one point in the film, an evocative song on a jukebox plays lyrics that compliment what is going on throughout the film–  ”She was so pretty that I didn’t dare love her.”

 When newbie Junie arrives in Italian class, a student is in the midst of a presentation about Donizetti’s opera Lucia di Lammermoor.   Junie sits down by the teacher Mr. Nemour (Louis Garrel) and the two eye each other nervously.  She abruptly walks out, in tears, during Maria Callas’ spellbinding aria, leaving her books behind.  After this brief encounter, Mr. Nemour too falls hard for Junie and even steals a picture of her from her notebook.  Nemour, a dark-eyed dreamy lothario, who barely looks like he is out of high school, is in the midst of two affairs–one with a colleague (Florence Perin) and the other with a student Catherine (Anaïs Demoustier).   Nemours breaks it off with both women and confesses his love for Junie to his colleague who advises him that “loving a student is too easy.”  “Not this one” Nemours replies “I’m a total love-sick mess.”  To which his friend insighftfully replies “You seem more disappointed in love than in the concept of love at first sight.”   Indeed the complexity, no mess, that ensues is overwhelming.

Louis Garrel and Léa Seydoux in Christophe Honoré's "La Belle Personne"

 We get subtle hints that stalwart Junie is falling for Nemour but trying hard not to.  She is terribly afraid of giving in to what she assumes will be a grand, once in a life-time love and  denies herself Nemour but snacks on safe love with endearing Otto.  Meanwhile, a subplot emerges involving a love letter that is passed around and mistakenly thought to be Nemour’s but really involves Junie’s cousin Matthias (Esteban Carvajal-Alegria) and his affair with fellow student Martin (Martin Siméon).  Mathias has hidden his homosexuality and, in addition to Martin, has carried on with another student Henri (Simon Truxillo) who is in love with him and very vindictive.  The letter threatens to expose everything if the correct author and intended recipient are revealed.   But it’s all a mess.  The letter changes hands several times and when Junie reads it, she assumes that Nemour has written it to her and takes actions that push this volatile group into certain doom.

 This has all the makings of a great drama but falls short.  The performances of the lead characters lack real depth and it’s very hard to get inside their heads, with the exception of Otto.  Léa Seydoux and Louis Garrel are enthralling to look at…and, based on looks alone, we can certainly envision them in bed together, but how would that happen?  Their conversation is basically flat and they fail to connect naturally or with any tenderness…time after time.  Junie is cold or indifferent, sending Nemour into confusion after confusion.  By the time they finally come to an understanding, it is too late.  And even when it is too late, we don’t get any feeling of implosion.  Junie’s constraint, fear of succumbing to her passion, is what needs to be further explored.  The potential is there but there’s no spark.  Nicole (Chantal Neuwirth), a maternal and wise older woman who works at the local café where they all hang-out, takes a shine to Junie, and delivers one of the most authentic, but too brief, performances in the film.   The cinematography is marvelous, capturing gray, drizzly Paris and some candid close-ups.  The sountrack ranges from opera to Nick Drake , the lyrics tracking or accentuating the action in the film.  

Screens Sundance Kabuki Theatre, September 4-10, 2009: 2:05 pm, 4:05 pm, 7:15 pm, 9:35 pm. Saturday and Sunday matinees at 11:40 am.

So today, amid no furniture, I watched the re-broadcast of Lucia di Lammermoor from the Met in HD series.  I think the Met in HD is a great idea still getting its legs.  This production was worlds better than the Boheme I saw with Gheorghiu and Vargas last year, but when we saw it in theatres my boyfriend and I were the only people with all of their original teeth.

What started as a few Tweets in reaction to seeing this production on the small screen and on our home turf turned into a full blown Live Tweet of the performance–a concept many opera, dance, and orchestral companies are considering implementing into their concert series.  This reminds me of Vancouver Opera’s recent Blogger Night at the Opera, allowing a live-feed but with less pressure to write longer posts.  In fact, the bite-sized comments, facts, thoughts, questions, praises, and critiques are the perfect medium to allow a continual flow during the performance without causing Tweeps to get too caught up in what to say.  Most of these tweets took me all of five seconds to hammer out.  More blog platforms (including WordPress, on which this blog is hosted) are also offering templates that allow for these Bridget Jones-like entries, which could be kept for posterity on the company website (and not clog up a ton of Twitter/Facebook feeds, which is exactly what I inflicted on my poor, unsuspecting friends and colleagues).

But what really would have been fun is to have gone head-to-head, tweet-to-tweet with a Met staffer who had worked on the piece, offering two sides of the coin.

The impressions from my side are below (read from the bottom up)…

• And we’re at curtain, concluding my live Tweeting of the Lucia broadcast. Which, if nothing else, clogged up everyone’s feeds quite nicely.
• I got nothing new to say for Tu Che a Dio; except that in the Who’s Afraid of Opera version, they do it first. (Thanks, Mom)
• These mourners totally remind me of Eleanor Rigby.
• Technically, it’s good. But Beczala is losing me in the final inning pathos-wise. Maybe Rolando > Piotr? http://tiny.cc/SVphO
• Finally, a high note!
• Sorry, Anna. You can never, ever top Dessay’s scream (@ 7:52 in this clip): http://tiny.cc/EGrYY
• Revisiting the sexual tension between Lucia & Enrico by having her imagine him as Edgardo. Love these little intricacies.
• Anthony, this one’s for you: Where’s the high E?
• But kind of amazing how I didn’t pick up on the missed notes in the mad scene the first time around.
• Seeing the mad scene again is making me think this isn’t Anna’s role. Or it isn’t her time for the role. But she’s such. A. Good. Actress.
• (Spoiler alert): With all this teetering on suicide from Lucia and Edgardo, why does L’s ghost need to help E shove the knife in @ the end?
• You could save that set for Rusalka and do a killer “Song to the Moon.”
• Raimondo totally knows that all hell is about to break loose. And then enter Lucia.
• Can someone explain the red dress to white dress switch? Were they doing an Asian wedding in 19th Century Scotland?
• There’s barely anything on the set but two amazing singers. Yes, that’s really all you need.
• Dear Mariusz Kwiecien (Part II): You can run me through with your conquering sword any time
• I’m tempted to make a Polish joke, but Beczala and Kwiecien going at it in the oft-cut scene is just too damn good.
• And, as always, thanks to Viewers Like You. I think that was one of my first sentences as a kid.
• And now a word from our sponsors: Thanks, Toll Brothers! Rock on Irene Diamond Fund! Go NEA! Love Vivian Milstein! Hats off to CPB!
• G-d, between that top note and the scrim that comes down at the end I could live in the Act 2 finale.
• I love this one chorus member who knows, because he’s behind Netrebs, he’ll probably be on camera and works it like he’s on ANTM.
• I’m so picky about Enrico’s “Rispondi,” and Beczala knocks it out of the park. (Wish the Yankees could do the same…)
• Oh, shut up, R, you totally want them to kill one another. That “lives by the sword” bit is irony at its finest.
• Still can’t decide how I feel about the sextet staging. But boy is it clever. Especially when Lucia PTFO’s.
• Enrico is such a shyster.
• Is the Raim./Luc. duet really necessary? I get that it adds to R’s profile as the orchestrator of the tragedy, but it’s not working for me.
• Aaaaand now Netrebs is singing from the floor. I forgot about this part–the gift that keeps on giving! (Seriously)
• This productions remains one of the best explorations of the character of Enrico. Wish they had given Raimondo the prominence he’s due.
• This Lucia/Enrico relationship borders on incestuous at times in that sort of Donna Tartt/”The Secret History” kind of way.
• Geez, some of these camera angles just scream “bad indie film.” And don’t do Netrebs and her baby weight any favors.
• Ha! I never noticed that ghostface killa makes an appearance in the background of the Act II opening as well.
• Oh, are we not doing intermission chats? Was that only if I paid $25 for a movie ticket and sat in a room full of septuagenarians?
• Still, I love me a full-throated tenor.
• Piotr Beczala > Rolando Villazon (maybe), but needs more pathos in the voice. What was that “Ah, Lucia” about?
• I guess I’m live-Tweeting this Lucia-cast (after seeing it in HD in Feb.): Anna Netrebko sees dead people.
• Dear Mariusz Kwiecien: I can’t decide on what I love more; your name or your sustained note at the end of Act I Scene i.
• My apartment may be nearly empty, but at least I have Lucia on PBS to fill the void.

In Essen ist eine richtig schöne romantische Lucia zu sehen mit einer Sängerin in der Titelrolle (Petya Ivanova), die mit ihrer so ‚glockenklaren’, so einfühlsamen Stimme, sagen wir besser: mit ihrem Belcanto die Zuhörer  entrückt und die in Erscheinung und Auftreten geradezu eine Lucia wie aus dem Traumbuch der Romantiker ist. Auch der so fordernde und zugleich so verzweifelte Liebhaber und der böse Bube von Bruder können in Gesang und Spiel durchaus mithalten. Und das düstere Bühnenbild mit seinen Ruinen von Burgen und Kirchen bedient nicht minder die romantischen Klischees, wie man sie von Caspar und David Friedrich und William Turner kennt. Romantik pur in Essen. Wir haben die Lucia unlängst als billige Aktualisierung in Frankfurt gesehen – und uns mehr als geärgert.

Wir haben die Lucia vor ein paar Jahren in Nürnberg als Exponat aus dem Naturkundemuseum gesehen – und uns über die versuchte (und gescheiterte) Distanzierung von der romantischen Liebe amüsiert. So konsequent romantisch und so schön  wie hier in Essen habe ich die Lucia Lammermoor wohl noch nicht gesehen (für Inszenierung und Ausstattung zeichnet Ezio Toffolutti verantwortlich). Die historisierenden Produktionen  mag ich eigentlich nicht. Zu leicht geraten sie ins nur Museale, halten den Zuschauer auf Distanz und erwecken keine Emotionen. In Essen hat gerade das konsequent romantische Konzept, haben Musik und Belcanto auf hohen Niveau und die ’Liebe als Passion’ eine beeindruckende Donizetti Aufführung beschert, einen Opernabend, der wohl auch Madame Bovary gerührt hätte (natürlich zitiert das Programmheft das einschlägige Flaubert Kapitel) und der ihre sentimental-unglücklichen Nachfolgerinnen aus Ruhrgebiet und Münsterland nicht ungerührt gelassen hat. Und wie immer haben der arme Trottel Charles Bovary und seine Nachfolger nichts kapiert.

Die Premiere war am 4. März 2006. Wir sahen die Vorstellung vom 29. März 2009.

Las funciones de está Lucia se presentaban como unas de las más glamurosas en la temporada del Met: el retorno de la superstar rusa Anna Netrebko, conjuntamente con su pareja artística, el tenor Rolando Villazón. Pero Villazón se cayó del cartel en la primera función (en el que evidenció problemas notables en la voz), y tuvo que ser substituido por el polaco Piotr Beczala (que estaba haciendo el Lensky del Oneguin en el mismo teatro) y Filianotti (que actuaba en Rigoletto) el resto de las funciones.

Netrebko reaparecía después de seis meses de descanso por maternidad en esta ópera de Donizetti en donde la protagonista hace frente al amor, la traición, el asesinato y la locura.

Netrebko comienza la función de forma destacada. La voz es penetrante pero parece recubierta por una capa de miel, de manera que los sonidos son dulces y atercipelados. En todo caso, parece que ha crecido en volumen sin perder su encanto. Su Regnava en el silenzio es bueno, y en el dúo se muestra persuasiva y complacida con su amante, un Beczala acelerado, pero de timbre adecuadísimo y sobrado de facultades para el papel. En el duo con Enrico, su canto es conmovedor (“Soffriva nel pianto”, con bellos apianamientos y buen legato) y desesperado (“Se tradirmi…)

Anna Netrebko y Giuseppe Filianoti-”Sulla tomba”, Duo final del Acto I  (Met, febrero 2009)

Anna Netrebko y Mariusz Kwiecien -”Il pallor funesto, orrendo…Soffriva nel pianto” (Met, febrero 2009)

Pero en la Lucia, todo esto es calentamiento para la culminación que supone la escena de la locura, y es aquí donde no está a la altura.

Lucia tiene estipulados nada más y nada menos que 16 minutos de canto en el que ha de combinar líneas de quejumbrosa melodía con extrema coloratura y enrevesados fuegos artificiales vocales, y Netrebko simplemente carece de la agilidad vocal para llevarla a buen puerto. Sí es cierto que emite sonidos bellos y bien engarzados, pero literalmente se salta parte de la ornamentación y es incapaz, al final, de levantar el mi bemol sobreagudo que, aunque no escrito, es casi de obligatoria ejecución, más teniendo en cuenta que en el mismo teatro y en año y medio han pasado por allí las Lucias de Dessay y Damrau.

Anna Netrebko-“Spargi d’amaro pianto” (Met, febrero 2009)

Por su parte, el polaco Piotr Beczala (substituto del cada vez más discutido y discutible Rolando Villazón), presenta un Edgardo monolítico. La voz es perfecta para el papel, con un timbre brillante y fácil, pero se le nota muy acelerado, poco sutil en el dúo con su amada, donde impone una actitud a lo macho, más que de amante comprensivo. En el dúo con Enrico, esto juega a favor suyo, ya que está realmente espectacular (dolido y amenazante), pero en la escena final hace falta más contención expresiva, sobretodo en el aria, aunque la entrega tan grande en la stretta “Tu che a Dio…” pone la piel de gallina. Tiene un gran éxito.

Piotr Beczala en la escena final (Met, octubre 2008)

Como Enrico, Mariusz Kwiecien pone sus facultades al límite, sobretodo en la primera escena de la ópera, que lo coge un poco frío, pero consigue una buena caracterización de malo, malísimo dando buena réplica a sus compañeros.

Gran actuación del bajo ruso Ildar Abdrazakov como Raimondo, con un grave suficiente y un agudo espectacular, muy notable en sus intervenciones en solitario y con gran respuesta del público.

El resto de secundarios correctos, excepto un insufrible Michael Myers (el de viernes 13!!!) como Normanno completamente afónico.

Armiliato dirije la partitura sin apenas cortes, con una orquesta del Metropolitan que toca como los ángeles (vaya cuerda!!), y un coro que no pasa de rutinario.

Links de descarga: Parte I y Parte II

FICHA ARTISTICA:

Función :Sábado, 07-02-2009

Webcast : WUFT (320 Kbps), live

Gaetano Donizetti (1797-1848) : Lucia di Lammermoor (1835)

Anna Netrebko (soprano) : Miss Lucia

Piotr Beczala (tenor) : Sir Edgardo di Ravenswood

Mariusz Kwiecien (barítono) : Lord Enrico Ashton

Colin Lee (tenor) : Lord Arturo Bucklaw

Ildar Abdrazakov (bajo) : Raimondo Bidebent

Michaela Martens (mezzo-soprano) : Alisa

Michael Myers (tenor) : Normanno

The Metropolitan Opera Chorus and Orchestra

Director : Marco Armiliato

Btms^ for March 6. 

Beat the Tax. Shop before April 1st for all your favorite beers, wines, bourbons!

On this date:

 Verdi’s “La Traviata” premieres in Venice in 1853.

As it is across Europe and in major metropolitan areas in the U.S., Lexington and Louisville are quite the opera loving cities! Both have established opera programs that are well-respected, enjoy strong community support and showcase wonderful talents on stage, back stage and in the orchestra pit.

Tonight in Lexington:  UK Opera Theatre opens Lucia di Lammermoor by Gaetano Donizetti with four performances (March 6, 7; 13, 14 @ 7:30 p.m.) at the historic Lexington Opera House downtown at Short Street and Broadway. You can call (859) 257-4929 for tickets and information. 

For a luscious look at UK Opera’s production “Lucia” on-stage and behind the scenes, visit the Lexington Herald-Leader on-line at www.kentucky.com and see Culture reporter Rich Copley’s wonderful 6 minute film titled “Divas Gone Mad”.  And watch WKYT-27 Newsfirst’s ”Afternoon” program with news anchors Barbara Bailey and Bill Bryant today from 12:30 to 1 p.m. and enjoy a lovely aria from “Lucia” sung by Darla Diltz.

Kentucky Opera in Louisville will be presenting a concert opera of Tchaikovsky’s IOLANTA on March 21 at 8 p.m. And coming full circle here – on September 25 and 27, 2009, Kentucky Opera will be performing Verdi’s La Traviata. KO performs at the Kentucky Center for the Arts. Call (502)584-4500 for tickets and information.  

Aspirin patented by Felix Hoffman in 1899.

And many people are grateful. ‘Nuff said. 

Bob Wills of the Texas Playboys born in Texas in 1905.

For decades “The King of Western Swing” and his band the Texas Playboys played to huge crowds at venues in virtually every western state. They had a long string of hit records and had heavy rotation on radio stations across the nation. Current country sensation George Straight performs a Bob Wills song at every one of his concerts. The Texas-based band Asleep at the Wheel have done two Bob Wills tribute albums, both received rave reviews. If you’re not familiar with Wills and the Playboys, they are worth the search. We think you’ll be amazed. A Texas-sized toast to Bob a Lone Star beer, or how about some Bourbon and Branch Water. Wild Turkey would be just right!       

Shaquille O’Neal (basketball player born in New Jersey in 1972.

Standing 7 feet one inch in his size 23 shoes, this “Tiger” on the court has real “Magic” and brings “Heat” and has even brought out the “Sun(s)” when he ran in to the “Lakers”.  (Whew!!  Are we ever glad he’s never been a Knickerbocker!) Have a ball celebrating Shaq’s birthday at home tonight with a your own double-double.

Michelangelo (artist) born in Caprese, Italy in 1475.

Most famous for his Pieta and David sculptures and his painting of the Sistine Chapel ceiling, we here at LB are especially fond of  his statue of Bacchus, the Roman god of wine. We’ll drink to the artistry of Michelangelo with a masterful Italian wine from Antinori, a family of outstanding wine makers in Italy since 1180.  

 Btms^

Cristiano Olivieri

Tratto da Cubia n° 89 – Febbraio 2009

Glorie fiorentine per il tenore di Cattolica Cristiano Olivieri, impegnato in questi giorni al teatro del Maggio Musicale di Firenze nell’allestimento dei “Pagliacci” di Ruggero Leoncavallo. Lo spettacolo, diretto da Patrick Fournillier, porta la firma prestigiosa del regista Franco Zeffirelli, anch’egli fiorentino. Cristiano sta sostenendo il ruolo di Peppe-Arlecchino, ruolo che aveva già sostenuto due anni fa nella stagione dell’Arena di Verona.
Zeffirelli vuole con sé Cristiano anche nella ripresa dello spettacolo che si farà al Teatro dell’Opera di Roma nel prossimo maggio.
Questi “Pagliacci” sono un allestimento famoso nato anni fa per il teatro La Scala di Milano (tra gli interpreti di allora Placido Domingo) di cui è in distribuzione anche un Dvd, che Zeffirelli ha ripreso e in parte modificato, ma di grande impatto visivo come è nel suo stile (in scena, oltre ad animali e moto d’epoca, roulotte, saltimbanchi e comparse d’ogni tipo).
Sempre a Firenze, lo scorso gennaio Cristiano aveva partecipato alla messa in scena di Lucia di Lammermoor per la regia di Graham Vick nel ruolo di Lord Arturo.
Il prossimo 21 marzo Olivieri sarà invece nel cast di Turandot, che inaugurerà il prestigioso Teatro Petruzzelli a Bari, restaurato dopo l’incendio doloso che lo ha tenuto chiuso per più di dieci anni e ora riaperto non senza polemiche. Lo spettacolo è nell’occhio della critica anche per la prima esecuzione assoluta del nuovo finale dell’opera scritto da Roberto De Simone, che curerà anche la regia.

According to the AP, the Met made “a travesty” of the bel canto gem, La Sonnambula:

“This time she [Mary Zimmerman] and her production teammates have done the opera a disservice, and they deserved the boos to which they were subjected at their curtain call.”

Across the pond (and the Continent), however, Moscow’s Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Musical Theater, of all places, is having a great season.  Writes The Moscow Times:

“No Moscow opera season in post-Soviet times has come close to matching the one that began last September in its abundance of high-quality, new stage productions and performances in concert form. Over the past few weeks, still more have been added to the season’s remarkable number of operatic success stories, first with the Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Musical Theater’s brilliantly conceived, mostly well-executed new production of Gaetano Donizetti’s bel canto masterpiece “Lucia di Lammermoor,” an opera absent from the repertoire of local companies since the 1890s.”

That is to imply the opera scene, until now, was better UNDER the Iron Curtain.  With fewer resources, less audacious directors, and State regulation…

Perhaps we should send our general managers and artistic directors over there to observe.  Or just buy them a case of vodka over here.

I spent part of the weekend crunching on farmer’s market kettle corn and writing my latest column for Classical Singer Magazine, part of it seeing the Batsheva Dance Company at UCLA, and another part of it mulling over a post from The Urbanophile that I read on Wednesday.  I dig Aaron M. Renn’s take on the life of the second city–and urban anthropology/sociology in general.  Yet I couldn’t help but pick apart some of his thoughts on audience cultivation.  With (in all sincerity), nothing but admiration and respect.

The Urbanophile Writes:

Drew McManus, who runs a blog called Adaptistration, is publicizing Take a Friend to the Orchestra Week (TAFTO). The idea is that an existing patron, by sponsoring someone new to orchestra attendance, will create another classical music fan. It’s an excellent idea and one I heartily support, though one I think is likely to bear only limited fruit in building sustainable audiences for the long term.

The premise if TAFTO seems to be that if we expose people to classical music, they will like it. This is based on two assumptions that I think are both flawed:

1. Gaining an appreciation for classical music requires no work or effort, merely exposure. (There is some debate on this point, granted. Guest blogger Marc Geelhoed suggests having your guests listen to a recording several times casually before attending, suggesting at least some effort. I certainly support this. Alex Shapiro suggests that a raw, unmediated experience, where the music does the talking for itself, will do the trick).

2. Large numbers of people, probably a majority of people, are likely to enjoy classical music and even become big fans if they can only be introduced to it.

Mass Culture Mozart Responds:

At one of the opera companies I worked for, we tried a similar initiative (I believe it was called Friends Bringing Friends).  I actually came on after its first (and perhaps only?) go-around, in which it barely covered its operating costs.  My outsider’s opinion, going over this in a marketing “retreat” was that it was gone about in the wrong way.  There was very little incentive for the established theatre go-er to bring a friend (except for a discounted ticket), and it was targeted to the entirely wrong age group.

What this opera company had that many others lack is a young subscriber base.  It wasn’t huge, but it was enough to have a segmented base that could be targeted with specifically positioned programs such as FBF.  The under-40s, especially the late 20s and early 30s, are the true practicioners of buzz/word of mouth/viral marketing.  They are building their social circles (especially those fresh out of college or grad school), looking to maximize their time in urban areas like New York, San Francisco, or Chicago, and many are considered the touch-point in their group of friends.

This is where marketing segmentation is highly important.  My mother isn’t at a point in her life where she’s asking friends to take a night off from their families and personal lives/commitments and go to the opera with her.  Also at this point, though she’s still keen on saving money, her friends aren’t as fazed by a $50 opera ticket as their Gen X/Gen Y children would be.  Take me with one of my opera-virgin friends, though, and we’d most likely be on that like white on rice.

What you have to ensure AFTER you get them in once, though, is that you can keep them coming back.  Create bridges between your operas–I’m seeing the Sonnambula simulcast at the Met later this month because I was blown away by Mary Zimmerman’s staging of Lucia.  People buy Absurdistan off Amazon.com because it appears in the “If You Like This Book…” section for hundreds of other titles.  Ask the friend of the friend to bring one of THEIR friends in turn.

As to gaining an appreciation for classical music not requiring any work or effort…it’s an issue of semantics.  I hate the notion that, in order to like classical music or opera, you have to treat it like a college course.  This may stem from the fact that I’ve had some horrible music history professors in the past (and this was when I was a fully-developed classical music/opera fan).  I think if the friend who is initiating is excited enough for the performance, for the music, then the friend who is responding (to borrow a turn of phrase from Alan Brown), that could easily be enough.  I became a Bob Dylan fan from an ex-boyfriend, an early music fan from one of my best gal pals, and an Arcade Fire fan from an old roommate.  Taste is a matter of social osmosis.  In part, at least.

Friends Bringing Friends, Image (c) tejo_sempre

The last part of Aaron’s two-point shot (“if they can only be introduced to it”) is interesting.  I half-agree.  The fallacy, as he sees it, is akin to a parent saying that their kid will love string beans if they only try it.  I was force-fed string beans as a kid, hated them, got violently ill from them.  Turns out I am severely allergic.  Some people’s minds/bodies will always reject classical music.  That’s part of the way of the world.  On the flip side, when I was seven, you would NEVER have gotten me to eat sushi.  Now, I could probably give Jeremy Piven a run for his fish consumption.

It’s not just a one-time exposure, the same way arts marketing shouldn’t be a one-time “get-their-butt-in-the-seat” and then sit back and enjoy the ride of another longtime patron.  It’s about fostering relationships.  It’s about starting new audiences on shrimp tempura and California rolls, before working them up to eel and avocado and octopus.  Even Anthony Bourdain was once a picky eater.

The Urbanophile himself even validates this claim a bit, writing:

How did I learn to like classical music? Well, later in my 20’s I dated someone who loved opera and had a subscription. I went with her for two seasons. Later, after breaking up, I subscribed myself. Why I don’t know, because I didn’t like it all that much, truthfully. But by my fourth season, I finally “got it”. Part of this is because I got a course on tape (courtesy of new girlfriend who was now attending with me!) about opera that explained to me what was really going on and gave me my bearings. It was almost as if I had a zen-like flash of insight. It was like flipping a switch and somehow it all made sense. From there I branched out into other areas of classical music.

It’s what a lot of us do at the opera.  We see performances, performances in general of performances in a sub-genre (Baroque, Bel Canto, Modern), and we may not be immediately sure WHY we’re seeing them.  Maybe it’s to get laid, maybe it’s to be with friends, maybe it’s some reason we can’t exactly pinpoint, but our visceral reaction is that it’s somehow “right.”

What arts administrators have to do is pinpoint those with that gut feeling and keep them coming back for more.  The more rolls they wash down with sake and edamame, the more it’ll click.

So it can be done, in part, with exposure.  But there are other components to the cocktail.  We just have to be the bartenders.

The foodie revival reminds me a lot of what the opera revival can be.  Classical European (and multi-national/pan-ethnic techniques) being adopted by young, brazen chefs that could make Julia Child choke on her “bon appetit” and “that guy in the band with the big plastic glasses who’s already asking for grass-fed steak and knows about nibs,” per Grub Street/The New York Times, are making sure that artisanal products and local growers are staying afloat.  Even in this economy.

I remember reading an article in 2006 in which the writer referred to black-clad hipsters lining up for baroque operas at Brooklyn Academy of Music, and I also remember surveying a random sample of Gen X and Gen Y on opera attendance, only to be told by one that “I think if it were more marketed to our generation, y’know, sexier, more fast-paced, even more nerd chic (see the success of the Williamsburg Spelling Bee) rather than blue-haired lady nerdy, it would be infinitely more popular.”

Courtesy of The Williamsburg Spelling Bee

Nerds are having their revenge nowadays, how hard could it be to tailor another cultural niche to fit their current lifestyles?  Intimate nights in a club/art space with local microbrews and Lucia…Low-key production values with real-deal singers…Loft spaces…  A lot of luscious “l” words in play.

It’s not hard to make opera itself fast-paced, it’s the marketing that seems to lag.

UPDATE: Interesting article on Greenmarket promotion from today at LancasterFarming.com.  Opera promoters take note…

Perhaps I don’t read the Times as thoroughly as I ought to, but it seems Daniel Wakin’s recent article on the Metropolitan Opera’s simulcasts has garnered a lot of reader mail.  More than usual for an opera article.

“The dissenters say that the movement will lead to more conservative programming; that the voice will become subservient to appearance; that listeners will be trained to hear something electronic and lose an appreciation for a live experience,” Wakin wrote on February 13.  “Some worry that vocal training will change, de-emphasizing the ability to project, and that the Met’s effort is a deal with the Devil, because it will divert audiences from local opera houses to make the easier, cheaper trip to the mall.”

One of Gelb’s chief critics on this was then-General Manager designate of New York City Opera, Gerard Mortier:

“‘Opera’s essence must never be forgotten, he told the managers, who stirred in sympathy, according to one report. “It’s about the live experience of singing people on the stage,’ he said. He referred to the myth of Orpheus, whose song charmed the gods in Hades: ‘Orfeo went himself to the underworld to sing. He didn’t send his videocassette.’”

Doctor Atomic Live in HD

While Wakin does his best to maintain a non-biased, journalistic integrity, he has a tone that often slips into his articles that subtly suggests his opinion is behind every word he writes.  Maybe that’s why so many people wrote in to defend the Met in HD, and why so many were published in the Times and on their website:

“I still regularly attend live concerts, but that does not diminish my enjoyment of listening to recorded audio performances; nor does listening to records lessen my desire to attend concerts,” wrote Richard Agins of Hartford.  “They are different but not mutually exclusive experiences. There may be pros and cons to opera at the multiplex, but any downside is tempered by the benefits to those who can’t just saunter over to the Met and to those for whom the cinema is the only place they will likely ever see an opera performance.”

Angela Gheorghiu in the La Rondine Simulcast

Carol Johnson of Anchorage brought up the obvious financial advantage, particularly for out-of-towners (especially out-of-towners who can see Russia from their front yard):

“For $22 I can see Anna Netrebko in a recent Met performance of “Lucia di Lammermoor.” While we do have local opera that I do attend (the Anchorage Opera this month performed “Barber of Seville”), the cheapest tickets were $60, putting them out of reach of many, especially in these tough economic times.”

And Paul Epstein of Huntingdon Valley, PA, made a criticism that I share, but one that seems to have gotten better since the first simulcast I saw (La boheme last spring).

“While close-ups in televised opera frequently offer too much information, they pose a more serious problem: the lack of wide-angle shots showing the entire stage.  In the focus on revealing every facial nuance, what is lost is a sense of the physical context — architectural scale, the placement and movement of choral groupings, the spatial relationships of secondary characters.”

2007's Screening of Romeo et Juliette w/Anna Netrebko

But I think the best note came from Willis Harte in Iowa City:

“Time will surely tell whether the effort by Peter Gelb and the Metropolitan Opera to beam Renée Fleming and company into movie theaters worldwide is a deal with the Devil, as some would argue. Perhaps local opera houses, including our own Cedar Rapids Opera Theater here in eastern Iowa, will soon see interest wane and ticket sales sag.

And in the age of high-definition close-ups, it isn’t hard to imagine a time when, as Mr. Wakin writes, “the voice will become subservient to appearance.”

Karita Mattila Before Baring it All in HD

Still, there is something indescribably sublime about being able to trudge through the snow and cold, as my 13-year-old son and I have done every few weeks this fall and winter, to catch a live performance of “Thaïs,” “Doctor Atomic” or “Salome.”

The 15 minutes it takes to walk from home to the nearby mall is just time enough for me to provide my son a synopsis and convince him that there are worse ways to spend a Saturday afternoon. As the lights go down and the stage manager calls “Maestro Levine (or Maestro Armiliato) to the pit,” we settle into our back-row seats, snacks in hand, eager for the show to begin.

It’s not perfect, of course. My son still wonders why we seem to be the only people younger than 60 at each performance. And then there are occasional technical difficulties, like the loss of audio at the end of Act II of “La Rondine” in January.

As for those who would say that all this doesn’t come without cost, it might be worth recalling that when the Metropolitan Opera first opened in 1883, its opening-night performance was of Gounod’s “Faust.” More than 125 years later, the Met, it seems, still knows a thing or two about deals with the Devil.”

The HD Simulcasts aren’t perfect.  Not yet.  But for those of us who don’t live in New York or, even worse, don’t live near an opera company, it’s an awfully convenient way to get a fach fix or an intro to Idomeneo.  We forget how sparse companies are in the United States, especially compared to their high concentration in Europe.  And, sad though it seems to say, I’d much rather sit in a sticky-floored Century City AMC with a bunch of septugenarian opera queens and biddies from Beverly Hills at 10:00 am on a Saturday morning than go down to LA Opera and, more often than not, be disappointed.  But that’s one reason (out of many) that I’m moving back to New York.

If you’ve got 2 minutes…
Fill out this survey so that I can make a client happy and get some insight into what gets your motor running.

If you’ve got 5 minutes…
Check out this video (on the RH side) with my pal Frank Ferko discussing 20th Century composer Olivier Messiaen.

Stanford is one of those rare places in California where classical music is thriving (most of those cities, incidentally, are up north, a phenom I’ll discuss later).  While you NorCalers may not have $40 to shell out for a concert, Frank makes it uber-compelling.   Both Frank and Olivier have sounds that make 20th Century music accessible without compromising quality or artistic vision–I mean, Frank makes the organ and Hildegard von Bingen sound modern.

What I especially love about Frank, though, is that, while he is significantly older than me (that happens a lot with my friends), he talks to me and my 20-something friends as if we’re peers.  He knows more about music than I probably ever will (being a composer and having multiple degrees in the subject and all), but you never feel like you’re being talked town to.  I had a music professor at Fordham University who, without getting to know any of her students, assumed none of us knew or cared about Bach, Beethoven, and the boys.  The movie may seem like nothing at a little over 300 seconds, but it says a lot about how we should be presenting music (at least in its academic incarnation).

If you’ve got more than 5 minutes…
Please take a nap for me.  I’m still wired from the Met’s Lucia di Lammermoor simulcast last night.

Oh, and THIS is how you design a performing arts website, especially one affiliated with a university:

NOTE: The Big Red Apple is now TheBigRedApple.net

To view this post at its new location click HERE!

A few additions to my last post:

Tonight there will be an “architecture duel.”  That’s right, I said an “architecture duel.” According to the NYTimes:

Architecture competitions are usually staid affairs involving scale models and renderings filled with happy people. Not so tonight, for the fifth installment of the party-giving LVHRD’s “architecture duel.” In the past, competitors have made bridges out of cheese and wilderness sites out of straws. This battle, in Dumbo, pits Weiss/Manfredi, who recently designed the Olympic Sculpture Park in Seattle, against Front Studio, masters of making the most out of a small space. They will make stuff using a secret material for a yet-to-be-revealed theme. As always, though, the real winner is you: there’s free beer and Dewar’s.

Check out all the details at LVHRD.

In case you missed it in the “comments,” on Wednesday, my friend S, who is my source for all things opera, has informed me that The MET Opera in HD is rebroadcasting Lucia di Lammermoor. This stunning opera, composed by Gaetano Donizetti, features Anna Netrebko and Piotr Beczala as Donizetti’s fragile title heroine and her lover, Edgardo, and Mariusz Kwiecien as Lucia’s tyrannical brother. Seeing opera in HD is the next best thing to experiencing it in person and if you haven’t fallen in love with opera yet this is a great introduction to the art form.

Finally, I am proud to announce that Dare Dukes read my last blog post and will be offering a free CD to anyone who makes his show Friday at Banjo Jims and says they heard about it from TheBigRedApple. I already own one of his CDs and you should too!

Enjoy your week and check back for more weekend events!

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.

Anna Netrebko sang the title role, and her lover Edgardo, heir to a rival clan and sworn enemy of her brother, was sung by Piotr Beczala, replacing Rolando Villazon. He did a fine job with his impassioned singing and stage presence, and Ms. Netrebko was excellent, managing this agonising part with strength and delicacy. Her domineering brother Enrico was brilliantly portrayed by Mariusz Kwiecien, showing a nastiness that made one wish him dead. Compelling her to marry, against her will, the wealthy Arturo, sung by Colin Lee, he drives her to insanity, and her mad scene was very effective. I remember Joan Sutherland doing this nearly forty years ago, and it is almost impossible to equal her, but Ms. Netrebko managed the scene with great skill and dramatic flair. As Raimondo, the family chaplain, Ildar Abradazakov sang strongly, and this was altogether an excellent cast, well led in the orchestra pit by Marco Armiliato, who brought a secure and sensitive performance form the orchestra.

The production by Mary Zimmerman transposes this Scottish nightmare from the seventeenth to the nineteenth century, and it worked well, giving a sense of spaciousness in the houses of Enrico and Edgardo, yet claustrophobia in the outside scene at night where Edgardo learns of his lover’s death. Designs were by Daniel Ostling and costumes by Mara Blumenfeld.

I went to see the Met’s HD Broadcast of Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor this afternoon. Lucky for me, Rolando Villazon was sick, I cannot stand him, beautiful voice, horrible acting, so a great young Polish tenor - Piotr Beczala - took his place and did a great job. Netrebko’s back and she’s as great as ever – madness scene was as mad as they come, although Netrebko was less “wild eyes” crazy and more “I look quiet but I am very crazy on the inside” – if you get a chance to see the encore on 2/18, you should give it a chance. Click here for more details (especially if you are a young philosophical type with nothing but philosophy on your mind, get a bit of a life, see an opera, will you?)

I’m at my parents’ house in the Chicago suburbs, and 90% of what’s on the news and talk radio is Blagojevich.  Since it’s local news, I learned something I hadn’t known otherwise: Blagojevich is a resident of Ravenswood Manor.

Anyone else feel a connection here?  Another ruler of another Ravenswood, selling his sister for financial and political gain… I especially like the way that, as I was fact-checking my memories of the plot differences between the book and the opera, Literary Encyclopedia describes how Ashton took the property by “dubious legal means.”

I’m holding my breath that at the next poetry reading, he recites Sir Walter Scott.

Palazzo Regio, Piazza Palazzo 2, Cagliari

Mercoledì 4 marzo ore 20,30

Musica senza tempo

Marco Scardella baritono

Francesca Zanatta soprano

Andrea Cossu pianoforte

Mozart, La ci darem la mano (da Don Giovanni)

Gounod, Je veux vivre (da Romeo et Juliette)

Rossini, Largo al factotum (da Il barbiere di Siviglia)

Donizetti, Regnava nel silenzio (da Lucia di Lammermoor)

Donizetti, Udite o Rustici (da Elisir d’amore)

Verdi, Caro nome (da Rigoletto)

Lehar, Tace il labbro (da Vedova allegra)

Mozart, Madamina il catalogo è questo (da Don Giovanni)

Verdi, Giunto è il dì supremo (da Don Carlos)

Puccini, Chi il bel sogno (da Rondine)

Donizetti, Quanto amore (da Elisir d’amore)

Mercoledì 11 marzo ore 20,30

Le Salon de Musique – Musica e Letteratura

Elena Pau voce recitante

Irma Toudjian pianoforte

Saroyan, La commedia umana

Musiche scelte da Irma Toudjian

Mercoledì 18 marzo ore 20,30

Suono di Pietra

Mario Faticoni voce recitante

Rita Atzeri voce recitante

Alessandro Olla pianoforte e altri strumenti

Musiche di Alessandro Olla

Mercoledì 25 marzo ore 20,30

Concerto per chitarra sola

Adam Marec

De Brossard, Oeuvers pour luth

Eben, Mare Nigrum

de Fossa, Fantasie sur ‘Les Follies d’Espagne’ Op. 12

Dibàk, La Valse

Dìaz Cano, Canciòn de Vida y Esperanza

Tansman, Hommage à Chopin

Castelnuovo-Tedesco, Aranci in Fiore

Castelnuovo-Tedesco, Tarantella

Domeniconi, Koyunbaba

Biglietteria: Ingresso gratuito