Bert on the set of Doctor Atomic
Caturday Met Broadcast
Bert on the set of Doctor Atomic
Cuz you're the best mom I'll ever know
Precious Auntie, Amy Tan, Crazy Mom
We're your Daughters
Boys, off with your pee-pee
We're your Daughters
Boys, we fly through air
We're your Daughters
"Dragon breathe fog from nostril"
All you gotta wear's a wig, "Lootie"...
And Amy's there!
BONUS TRACKS
Inspired by the Tattler:
What would an Assmaster aria for Margaret Cho be like, set atop a Chinatown restaurant lazy susan? Mommy so curious!
Ancient Chinese Stuff, huh?
4
I'm marking the fourth anniversary of The Standing Room with (what else) standing room tickets to Billy Budd and Kaija Saariaho's Adriana Mater at Santa Fe Opera*. Thanks, as always, for reading and following along. And extra thanks to the guy who handed me a second-row orchestra seat for Adriana Mater ten minutes to curtain (just moments after I had the pleasure of meeting Mr. & Mr. OutWestArts).
~~~~~~
* Not verbatim, but close enough:
SFO: Hello, Santa Fe Opera box office.
M. C—: Hi, I'd like to buy two standing room tickets.
SFO: Sure, I can help you with that. For which operas, sir?
M. C—: Billy Budd and Adriana Mater.
Pause.
SFO: Are you an opera fan?
M. C—: Uhhhh...... I dunno, I guess some people might say so... Why?
SFO: Because those two operas aren't most people's top choices. The guy who called before you is going to Marriage of Figaro three times.
Photo from Santa Fe Opera parking lot
New York Stories:
War and Piece
Not pictured: The guy who stole my wallet
One night in December, when I was back East for some M6 rehearsals, I had one of those typical, overbooked New York nights where there was simply too much to hear. So after passing the early part of the frigid evening wandering through the East Village, bundled up tightly for Unsilent Night, I found shelter uptown in the decidedly warmer climes of the Met standing room to catch War &... (a.k.a. intermission + the second act of Prokofiev's War & Peace).
Grateful to have a chance to warm up, I took off my jacket and placed it on the ground before the curtain rose. Sometime before Moscow caught fire, my intrepid companion for the evening, Sr. R-, left the hall to use the restroom. Mesmerized as I was by the rotating wedge and the horse (because, really, when there's a horse on the stage, you can't look at anything else, can you?) I was only vaguely aware of the gentleman who slid into Sr. R-'s position at the rail. If I had to make a guess, I'd say he was a not-thin not-fat white guy in his 30s with brown hair and a roundish head, standard issue white sneakers and an unremarkable blue jacket. I didn't pay much attention as he was only there for a scene or so, and he left before the end of the show. Sr. R- and I capped the evening over drinks across the street afterwards, and when I went to cover the check, to thank him for weathering wind and cold both outside and on the stage, I discovered my wallet (which had been in my jacket pocket) was gone.
Here I must give a hearty shout-out to the security staff at the Met stage entrance, who at 1am on a freezing, wet New York winter night were the kindest, most understanding people you could imagine. They heard me when I said I needed my ID for my flight on Monday, they checked the lost and found, and most amazingly allowed me to look in the theater by my standing room place while the strike was going on. So thank you; I try not to depend on the kindness of strangers, but it certainly is appreciated when offered.
Of course I emerged empty-handed, and I went back to start the credit card cancellation process. It was at this point I discovered that someone had gone straight home after the show to order hundreds of dollars of INTERNET PORN. Because isn't that what everyone does after four hours of War & Peace? Don't you turn into a total horndog after watching Napoleon's army retreat across Russia? I'm sure 80% of the audience that night found themselves with the uncontrollable urge to settle in and pull a wad after listening to Ramey ruminate on the greatness of the Russian people.
It was pretty nasty porn, too. (I checked.)
On Thursday, two months later, the day before heading back to New York, I got a package in the mail. A padded envelope that cost $1.89 at the post office. $1.81 in postage. No return address but NY, NY. And my wallet, with everything in it except for the (signficant amount of) cash.
And a note, scribbled on a Priority Mail label.
:) ?!?
Vingt Regards:
XIX. No Word from M. C—
My mouth is still full from a weekend of gluttony, which included an early dinner and late drinks on Friday—with just enough time to slot in the first act of The Rake's Progress (video) on opening night. What a welcome relief to see a creative, simple, witty, beautiful, insightful production that avoided both the staid and the silly (at least in Act I). Hopefully they'll fix Baba's beard glue by the time I go back for Act II.
Bloggers were out in force: the Tattler, Out West and sfmike have already weighed in, and I expect we'll hear from SFist Ced and Reverberate Patrick presently.
[Confidential to pjwv: Last-minute change of plans; I looked around at intermission but Your Rakishness was nowhere to be found...]
~~~~~~
Vingt Regards / I. Strange Bedfellows / II. A New Era, Indeed / III. Hommage à Paolo Conte / IV. Hommage à S. Bar. / V. They Speak According to the Book / VI. Overheard in New York / VII. In Rotation: August 2007 / VIII. LA Phil's New Housemate / IX. Apples and Amoebas / X. Sunday in the Park with Bert / XI. Epilogue / XII. Taking Stock / XIII. De Quadratis Magicis / XIV. TSR's Guide to SF Elections / XV. Good Vibrations / XVI. Found Object / XVII. By the Blue Purple Yellow Red Water / XVIII. It's Macbeth in a Box
Vingt Regards:
XVIII. It's Macbeth in a Box
1. Cut a hole in the box.
2. Put your junk in that box.
3. Make her open the box.
(I really have other things to focus on right now, but the reviews are in and I simply cannot believe no one else has used this joke yet.)
It is a terrible shame that the power of Hampson's absolutely magnificent performance as Macbeth is diluted by the most unacceptable singing I have heard in a long while, hurtling out of his counterpart. I concur with JKos's comment that Lukács has an "ultra-wide vibrato that often makes pitch a matter of guesswork." I'm guessing was that she was essaying an improv on Où va la jeune Hindoue where Vieni t'affretta was supposed to be; it would have borne just about as much resemblance. (I know I was not the only one wondering if Elza van den Heever was in blocking rehearsals on Monday after the dress.)
I'll leave it to others to analyze the typewriter. And I'm glad to hear they kept the terrifically amusing bit of staging where Lady MacB knocks down the door to Duncan's chamber with a Miss Piggy karate kick.
~~~~~~
Vingt Regards / I. Strange Bedfellows / II. A New Era, Indeed / III. Hommage à Paolo Conte / IV. Hommage à S. Bar. / V. They Speak According to the Book / VI. Overheard in New York / VII. In Rotation: August 2007 / VIII. LA Phil's New Housemate / IX. Apples and Amoebas / X. Sunday in the Park with Bert / XI. Epilogue / XII. Taking Stock / XIII. De Quadratis Magicis / XIV. TSR's Guide to SF Elections / XV. Good Vibrations / XVI. Found Object / XVII. By the Blue Purple Yellow Red Water
Vingt Regards:
II. A New Era, Indeed
One evening, after the curtain comes down on Iphigénie, I’m backstage with Gockley and his girlfriend, Linda Kemper, a nutritionist. I say I was knocked out by the intensely grim opera, with its stark stage and ghostly dancers dressed in black.
“Between you and me, it’s hard for me to empathize with these characters,” says Gockley. “But I respect it, if I can’t love it. It’s so dark and so symbolic that I’m not getting the deep resonance of what it’s supposed to mean to me.”
—Kevin Berger, "A knight at the opera," San Francisco magazine, 9/07
Oh well, too bad Iphigénie was only the most creative and engaging production of the past couple of seasons, from my humble vantage point. At least we'll get some more Tannhäusers to amuse ourselves with.
~~~~~~
Vingt Regards: I. Strange Bedfellows
Tannhäuser (and the Air Harp Contest at the Wartburg Train Station)
In the air again, this time back to Dairyland. I tend to watch in-flight movies with the sound off; I find movies are usually much more entertaining when I get to develop my own narrative. So, in that spirit, TSR presents:
Graham Vick’s Tannhäuser
The Silent Film Version
ACT I
A gaggle of women in Eileen Fisher sheaths and some half-dressed men run into a train station, which is positioned amid a field of 'aa, to reenact Janet Jackson’s Control video. They hop rhythmically as the sharp shards of cooled lava cut their bare feet. A redhead wrapped in a sheet assumes a wide stance to straddle a large man. He rises to practice strumming an air harp, ignoring the large, unwieldy harp behind him. A ring of fire sprouts up surrounding the redhead and the air harpist. [Perhaps this is where the Love is a burning thing and it makes a fiery ring cabaletta appears? –Ed.] The woman terrifies the man by opening up her sheet to flash him. The harp falls over on a child who has materialized.
Two people in black undress the child who has been crushed by the harp. They turn him horizontal and pass him through a hole in the tree growing in the train station. [There's a hole in the tree. Why’s a tree in the station? –Ed.] Suddenly the air harpist is surrounded by half-naked men crawling through the hall. Semi-legible English words like HATE and LECHERY and REDRUM are written in red on their fleshy torsos. A horse arrives, accompanied by clothed men carrying dead animals. The men sneer, then smile. The horse walks away, and the men stab the already dead animals.
ACT II
A lady in blue runs around the hall, opening up the windows and airing out the funk left by the animals. She develops vertigo from spinning around too much, and falls onto the lava. The air harpist returns and gathers with the lady in blue around the large harp, which has been painted silver. The hall fills with a horde of Blue Nuns and gentlemen with swords. Each man walks downstage individually and stops to gaze up at what I imagine is the train schedule (invisible to the audience). A half dozen men sit a circle in a roped off VIP area, with the lady in blue and the harp. A few stand and face the invisible schedule, but do not play the harp. The air harpist also stands and does not play the harp, but many around him suddenly feel a need to touch themselves in private places or crawl on the ground or dry hump the harp. Everyone becomes agitated and the VIP area is dismantled. The air harpist leaves, perhaps to catch a train to the Air Harp World Championships in Rome.
ACT III
The lady in blue is still in the atrium, sitting on the ground. In a flash she’s surrounded by the half-naked red-word men, who run in, wave their arms a bit, and run out again through the same door. She reaches out to a gentleman who has also been sitting around waiting; he strangles her. One of the people in black who has been sitting at the back of the hall walks over, the lady in blue stands up, and they exit, leaving her blue shawl on the ground as a picnic blanket. The air harpist returns, but given his disheveled state, clearly he did not win in Rome and is quite irritated by it. The redhead from Act I is carried in horizontally aloft by more half-naked men, accompanied by the Eileen Fisher women who either hold the front hem of their skirts in their teeth (showing us their coochies) or wrap the backs of their skirts around their heads like shawls (showing us their bums).
Suddenly the Wartburg Strangler gestures dramatically as the word “Elisabeth!” is projected above the stage, and all of the fluorescent lights in the terminal are turned on simultaneously. The redhead is carried out of the terminal. The coochie women are sucked into the lava. Clothed children surround the tree, which then grows unnaturally green leaves. Half-naked pre-pubescent boys emerge from the lava where the coochie women disappeared, with semi-legible words like PEACE and KIND and I SYMBOLIZE INNOCENCE AND REDEMPTION, GET IT? GET IT? are written in red on their torsos, words which are not washed off by the rain coming down through the train station’s broken skylights.
ENDE
(So what were you saying, vf?)
I have to admit, it's been a long time since I've laughed so heartily at the opera. When the kids started coming out of the ground, I was literally wiping the tears from my eyes.
NB: Peter Seiffert is fantastic throughout; his strength amazingly never falters and somehow he manages to kick it up a notch for the Act III Rome monologue. The whole experience was worth it just for him. And the horse (of course, of course).
Credit where it's due: Johnny Cash reference by heather wings
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"ridiculously talented ... thrillingly visceral ... fucking primal ... absolutely riveting ... they have the potential to become the Eighth Blackbird of new vocal music" —Darcy James Argue
"Tonight I saw virtuosity with intent - musical, dramatic, emotional, intellectual. And it was moving! Exciting! Beautiful! ... An unparalleled performance. Truly inspiring." —The Concert
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