The Standing Room

Professional Wrestling with a Full Orchestra

Stephen Colbert interviews Nathan Gunn ("Do you perform with clothes on?")

5/8 UPDATE: Guess who was on TV again tonight.

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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.)

EPILOGUE

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

Just Call Me P. Dingo

Mr. Burns: My boy, you are a star...

Homer: Woo hoo!

Mr. Burns: An opera star!

Homer: Oh.

—"The Homer of Seville," The Simpsons (Season 19, 9/30/07).  Plácido, aka P. Dingo, comes on at 10:50.

h/t Opera-L

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

For Beth

Swiss Miss conveniently obstructed from view

I figured that $10 standing room only seats meant we'd be locked in a small cage behind the fur-coat room. No one was going to see us. It's probably half homeless shelter anyway. Who pays $10 to wear a gown?

"What the hell are you wearing?!?!"

Marching towards me was a horrified homosexual in a tuxedo.

Oh god.

This was as close to the coveted red carpet as I'd ever been. Christ, I majored in fashion design and I'm wearing jeans to the Opening Night of the Opera.

According to Mike, I had one choice. Which is how I ended up in the ladies room, shoving my jeans in my handbag with one hand and covering my ass with the other.

SFGate's resident cewebrity Beth Spotswood joined sfmike and me, both formally clad, in standing room for her first opera outing, at opening night of the fall season. (We were not invited to partake in any of the 1300 lbs. of lamb served afterwards.) Detailed report as time permits. For now I'll just say that I particularly appreciated the inspiration to have Olga Borodina as Dalila hide an icepick à la Basic Instinct.

(thank god there's no police questioning scene in Samson)

Alas

Is that a magpie in the sky?

Pigeons are definitely not alas. They have nothing to do with alas and they have nothing to do with hooray (not even when you tie red, white, and blue ribbons on them and let them loose at band concerts); they have nothing to do with mercy me or isn't that fine, either.

—James Thurber, "There's an Owl in My Room," New Yorker, 11.17.34, via Noisy=Restful

Work Ethic

Second in a series.

On Don Giovanni at Covent Garden: I am so sick. I am with cold since last weekend; I go out of opera house wearing too little clothes! Maybe I do not sing next performance.

On Puritani at the Met: I agree to sing this opera, then open score and don't like, it's crap, I want to cancel. And Met production was so dull, stage director no help. I had to do something, so I get on floor. Is fun to be a mad person; you are free, you do what you like.

On Otello at La Scala: I say OK to this, now I don't feel like it. Who knows?

On Je veux vivre: Is terrible, that piece! I am always singing sharp or cracking the high notes. Ooh, it make me scared.

On Sempre libera: Also I do not like. Very difficult, I panic!

On focus: I going shopping. Is therapy for the mind. I am thinking more about the shoes than the music. ... Not true! [laughs]

On language skills: I am now never in Russia, I am Austrian citizen.... But I do not read [German newspapers]. I do not understand German. I am learning!

On paying dues at the Kirov: What I washed? Entrance of theatre after performance starts. In Russia is winter half the year and public bring in big mud, poo. But I was useless. Old lady did work for me; she was always drunk, but very fast. Usually I sneak backstage with my girlfriend. We flirt with ballet dancers, try on their jewellery! Ah, the life is good!

—Anna Netrebko, Hitting the High Notes, Guardian (9.2.07)

HAPPY LABOR DAY