My Entertainment for the Week

Part of celebrating Black History Month for the Met, will be broadcasts showcasing amazing African American artists.

Yesterday Kathy Jarvis (of Edmonton) asked me what I had been watching last week as far as opera is concerned.  I only caught The Flying Dutchman, so I went out to look ahead for this week.

Feb 1 - Porgy and Bess

Feb 2 La Forza del Destino

Feb 3 Dialogues of the Carmelites

Feb 4 Cinderella (Rossini)

Feb 5 Marriage of Figaro

Feb 6 Ariade auf Naxos

Feb 7 Tosca - Puccini - soprano Shirley Verrett

As an aside, Camille A. Brown's troupe does the dancing in Porgy and Bess for anyone who missed seeing that in the past..

Arta

Doctor Atomic, A Surprise

June 26, 2020

 A couple of days ago I decided to take one last look at the National Theatre’s fabulous production of Andrea Levy’s epic novel, Small Island. On the way to “the theatre”,  my virtual theatre, I stopped by, on the screen, to see what was showing on metopera.org.

John Adams’s Dr. Atomic (libretto by Peter Sellars) was playing.

“What will it hurt if I just watch 15 minutes,” I thought, “since that is what I tell other people to do – just take a taste, don’t feel that you have to stay the whole opera.”

But that didn’t work for me.

After about 5 minutes I was spellbound, the kind of spell that makes a person sit still, as if any movement might break the spell.

I had to do my research on the opera after I had seen it. I should have gone out and done some looking before hand, but as I say, I was on the way to watching something else and just happened by Doctor Atomic.

 I am so glad I stopped and watched. I didn’t know until afterward that the aria, sung by Oppenheimer, uses text from Donne's Holy Sonnet XIV:

Batter my heart, three person’d God; For you
As yet but knock, breathe, knock, breathe, knock, breathe
Shine, and seek to mend;
Batter my heart, three person’d God;
That I may rise, and stand, o’erthrow me, and bend
Your force, to break, blow, break, blow, break, blow
burn and make me new.

I, like an usurpt town, to another due,
Labor to admit you, but Oh, to no end,
Reason your viceroy in me, me should defend,
But is captiv’d, and proves weak or untrue,
Yet dearly I love you, and would be lov’d fain,
But am betroth’d unto your enemy,
Divorce me, untie, or break that knot again,
Take me to you, imprison me, for I
Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.

I am not a fan of Donne, but I might be open to reading more of his sonnets.

Too much to think about. Too little time.

Loved it that I got lost in Doctor Atomic.

Arta

I beg you, watch Turandot

 Turnadot is streaming on metopera.org until 4:30 MST.

I watched it last night.

I tried not to watch it today, but I turned it on to help Wyona figure out how to get the subtitles on and now I can't turn it off.

I turned the sound off so I could help her, and just the visual is so fabulous -- that opening scene where the father and Liu come wandering in through the masses of humanity, so to speak, milling around on the stage, fighting, doing acrobatics.

And when the little children come in singing looking like they have shaved heads -- oh, such sublime notes.


And the trio of men who act as a Greek chorus, sort of -- their antics and then later when dancers take their parts in the big rituals.

Oh my gosh, just the curved toes of some of the shoes, or the stance when a foot is out at a 45 degree angle.

I am loving the costuming, the rich silks and brocades.

And the head of failed suitors on posts.

Or the dancers holding sticks with masks.

If by any chance you run by this post this morning, which is now afternoon, take a look at metopera.org.  Just copy and paste that into your window, and there will be an option for "streaming now".

One of the good things is that when you listen to Liu do that aria in the first act, and it makes you cry, you can move the bar back and listen again, something the real audience can't do.  And for me, that represents a chance to cry again over the same aria.  Cue it up at about 32 minutes into the opera if that is all you have time to hear.  When that last note is sung, it is crushing.

My favourite place to go anytime of the week, but today?

Well sublime before 4:30.  And I have no idea what is showing after that.  For one thing, it can't be bad!

So, since I am wondering what comes next, the trouble is, all of them are good.  Tonight Don Giovanni, then tomorrow Gounod's Faust, then Massenet's Manon.

All glorious.  No wonder I haven't done my income tax, yet.

Arta

Thomas Adès’s The Tempest

Thomas Adès’s
The Tempest

I only dropped in on met opera for a few minutes last night, believing I was too tired to watch, but thought, even having Renee Fleming walk across the stage and to hear her tell me what was going on last night would be soul-satisfying.

Indeed, I don’t remember now who was introducing the show – but I can describe the pearl necklace that was being worn by the presenter.

Even better, she was announcing Thomas Adès’s The Tempest. The opening scene with Ariel hanging from that chandelier over a ranging storm, caught me. And the unusual music – I just kept listening, trying to name the interval, looking for repetition of the phrases, listening to the high G’s and F’s being sung, and oh my, the new libretto.

Delicious.

I watched to the end.

Thanks metopera.org.

Arta

My Take on Akhnaten

Bridges, left, as Nefertiti and
Costanzo as Akhnaten
wore long red robes that trailed behind them like Christo banners.
(Karen Almond/Met Opera)

Rebecca arranged her flight to Australia somewhat around the Met-Live broadcast of Philip Glass’s Akhnaten. 

We had seen the preview in previous opera’s – jugglers and singers together in pre-performance practice.

As usual, opera does not disappoint.

There are live interviews with performers who have just finished Act I, for example.

Or a pre-programmed interview with the conductor, this time Karen Kamenesk, who may be the foremost conductor on presenting Philip Glass’s music. I don’t follow him as many do. But I do go out to the internet and do my homework about the music. I may purse this out of a sense of shame that I don’t know more about opera off the top of my head. I do go to performances, but I can’t say I have read a book about famous 20th Century operas for example. I go merely out of a pursuit of pleasure. I don’t think I have ever been disappointed – not in the performances, nor in the encores.

In the live transmission, the satellites failed us during the climax of the first act and we missed seeing Akhnaten climbing the stairs to the sun, nor hearing the music around that ascent. But there is even something to be said in that moment as a space that reminds me of the exquisite pleasure of even seeing any of this performance live. There is a rocking repetition to Glass’s music in this opera – rocking in the sense of a rhythm going on and on. And a sublime sense of quiet when the opera is over – though I also felt a sense of loss in that quiet.

Mary and Leo took their kids to see the opera -- those lucky kids!

For a review from the Washington Post, click here.

Arta

Turandot and The Merry Wives of Windsor

Photo by Chris Young

I am looking forward to the week-end: live transmissions of Turandot on Saturday and then Shakespeare's The Merry Wives of Windsor on the next day.

Yes, I took on the job of researching both – listening to some of the famous arias for the opera and learning the three riddles that the Calif must answer in order to win the hand of Turandot.

And in the case of Stratford's The Merry Wives of Windsor I took a look at the plot and the major players and even some of the famous lines that I will have washing over me.

I am sure i have lived my life by the following quote: "Better three hours too soon than a minute too late."   (Ford, Act 2 Scene 2)

This is going to be the Thanksgiving week-end that I have always dreamed of.

Arta

La Traviata

Diana Damrau and Juan-Diego Flórez
in La Traviata.
Photo: Marty Sohl/The Metropolitan Opera

Rebecca and I were talking about Saturday's opera, La Traviata.

I told her I had seen this latest production, but then I lost confidence when I tried to do a search on the blog and could see I didn't blog about it.

I guess if I didn't blog about it, I didn't see it.

But sometimes I do slip out of the house and just go down to the theatre on my own if there is no one around who wants to listen to Verdi for a few hours.

After reading the review in the Vulture, again, I am sure I saw the opera.  Not that I don't want to see it again.  The review is as memorable as the opera.  It mocks having a bed on the set all of the time. And it says that the chandelier looks like it is made out of Post-its and chicken wire. And it says about some of the costumes that even Elton John might consider them a bit much.  Talk about a review that makes a person want to go to the show!   I liked having the bed there in the centre.  I thought it worked, keeping in the forefront of my mind what was at stake so much of the time.

On the search through the blog, Rebecca did come up with an old post where I had seen the show with little Naomi.  Maybe in 2012.  She had cute little stars glued across the top of her forehead and I must have taken a picture of there, sitting, waiting for the opera to begin.

Some moments from the past are just too much.

Arta  

Women Are Like That

Met poster for Cossi Fan Tutte

The last time I went to the Moart's opera, Cosi Fan Tutte, I decided I wouldn’t go back to hear it again.

Of course, I didn’t remember that until the opera was over on Saturday.

I don’t feel that I have to miss the opera again after watching this production.

I will be watching for the overtures May 5, 7, 9, 13 and June 2nd and if I am close by I will attend again.

The title in English means “Women Are Like That”.

The libretto is hard to take. A cruel trick played by men on their financees. But this production is so smart, so sophisticated, so sassy, so able to challenge the male/female binary, the idea that we should be one way or another is challenged.

Setting the show in the 1950’s was a plus for me, for that is when I was a teen-ager. I watched Ferrando (Ben Bliss) and Guglielmo (Adam Plachetka) take on the persona of the boys I used to watch in the ‘50’s. The posture of leaning against a wall, brushing back their duck tails, giving those “je ne sais quois” shrugs of the shoulders (which were really saying, hey look at me, babe). I can only take it that the rest of the audience was more sophisticated than me, the girl raised on the prairies, for they weren’t laughing as I was.

The overture was supplemented with a pantomime from performers whom we were to see later in the show. They all climbed out of a small trunk on stage, carrying different signs, each of which could make the audience laugh. They lined up to let that word make a sentence. Then they ran to a new position and the sentence took on new meaning. They took their final bow, left the stage and the music for the overture finished.

 I thought to myself, “Hey, I think I just missed the overture!” I am pretty sure I didn't hear a note of it, even though it was being played by probably the world's best orchestra.

Boa constrictor snake charmers, Siamese twins, sword swallowers, strong men, the tattooed man, the bearded woman. The opera had it all.

Signs inviting people to the side shows were like the ones I used to see at the fairs in the 1950’s. I liked seeing those signs having a better analysis now of what they were saying.

All of this and then Mozart’s wonderful music and the voices of the opera singers bouncing off of a satellite and coming to a theatre near me.

Pure bliss.

Arta

The Road Trip - Cosi fan tutte

From the Met’s Così fan tutte.
Photo: Marty Sohl/The Metropolitan Opera

The Road Trip continues. Tomorrow Bonnie and David are going to an gaming shop for interactive games.  I am heading off to the opera, this time Cosi fan tutte, reviewed in Culture for Vultures by Justin Davidson.

A miracle that people can see this right across Canada. 

Tomorrow my viewing will be in Victoria, though I will be going alone.

I always look at the crowd at the opera and think to myself, these are my people.

Arta

Die Zauberflöte (Mozart)

Photo: Met Opera

Looks like the beginning of another Met Live Season.  Saturday's show is 3 hours, 45 minutes.

I couldn't find any reviews but did enjoy myself out on this site: The Magic Flute - Wikipedia.

Synopsis to The Magic Flute:

Met Music Director Emeritus James Levine conducts Tony Award winner Julie Taymor’s production of Mozart’s masterpiece, Die Zauberflöte.

Golda Schultz makes her Met debut as Pamina with Kathryn Lewek as the Queen of the Night, Charles Castronovo as the fairy tale prince Tamino, Markus Werba as the bird-catching Papageno, Christian Van Horn as Sprecher, and René Pape as Sarastro.

Arta

Romeo and Juliette at the Met - Part I

My Top Favourite Moments at the Show

Gounod's Romeo and Juliette
Photo: Met Website

1. Hearing the choreographer say that Diana Damrau was a charm to direct for she has such a natural sense of moving her body on the stage gave me a chance to really watch her movement during the second half. I can’t believe that I got such pleasure out of that.

2. I liked having the music be so familiar and wondered why, since this isn’t a piece I have ever studied. My best guess is that this music is in the background over the years to many stage productions of this play, as well as in many movies.

3. I thought the visit to the costume room of the Met was lovely – getting us ready for Rusalka which I am going to have to give my attention to, knowing nothing about it.

4. Diana Damrau’s singing was electric. On some of her notes I just had to hold my breath and savour the exquisite moment of hearing sound like that.  Talk about practising being in the moment.  Listening to the Met is surely that.

5. Every time someone from the audience yelled “Bravo”, for the performance of Vittorio Grigolo I thought about Bonnie and me telling David that yelling that from the audience is acceptable opera behaviour. And booing is also acceptable we told him. I think David practised a bit of that latter (the booing), which made me laugh. At any rate, every bravo was well deserved.

6. I also enjoyed seeing the bouquets of flowers tossed and wondered how long a person would have to practise with a bouquet that was perfectly tied and weighted so that it got to the stage floor without breaking apart.

7. Hearing the set designer at the intermission was also interesting. Namely, the fact that the company had tried to somewhat neutralize the specificity of the time and place and make it so that it could have happened anywhere / anytime. That gave me pause for thought in the second half.

8. Of course, number 7 above then let me look at the costuming in a different way. I didn’t get enough close-ups of the costuming. I left wanting more.

9. As well, the conductor praised the joys of working with the orchestra, I was thinking about the met chorus and how they have learned to use costume and movement in such a professional way. They support, never over-shadow and are such a joy to watch and hear.  So many of them crowded on the stage, but it never looked overcrowded.

10. Romeo (Grigolo) looked like he could climb any balcony. When asked about his dexterity he looked at Diana Damrau and said, “We have been working out. And we have been practising the choreography of every move for weeks.” And that, I guess is one of the reasons why I am in love with the Opera Series.

11. One more thing.  At the end I was waiting for those last few famous lines in the play, which weren't there, of course.  In spirit, yes.  But I could hear myself saying them:

"A glooming peace this morning with it brings;
The sun, for sorrow, will not show his head:
Go hence, to have more talk of these sad things;
Some shall be pardon'd, and some punished:
For never was a story of more woe
Than this of Juliet and her Romeo."

12.  If you haven't seen the show and are waiting for the encore, here is a good article on the ball, balcony, bed and tomb. 

Arta

Romeo and Juliette - HD Live

Vittorio Grigolo and Diana Damrau as the title characters in
 “Roméo et Juliette.”Credit
Ken Howard/Metropolitan Opera

This opera by Gounod may be packed on Saturday.  It plays again on February 18th.

 I think I will get my tickets ahead and then hope that the weather is right and I feel like hitting the movie at 11 am on Saturday.

Here is a review from the New York Times:

Romeo and Juliette, Flush and Feverish at the Opera by Zachary Woolfe, Dec 22, 2016

Nothing to make one's heart sing like music does.

Arta

A horse, a road, and the sea

Image from Kaija Saariaho's
L'Amour de Loin

Kelvin, Rebecca and I have been going to events where the protagonist has been a horse, a road or a sea.

For us oldies that is hard – since we are used to having humans as the focal point of stories. 

Probably everyone reading here has already seen War Horse or read the book, and will agree, that in at least the book, the voice belongs to the horse. And in the stage play all of the events on stage are a series of vignettes that involve the horse.

London Road
From left, the prostitutes Vicky (Kate Fleetwood),
Hayley (Rosie Hilal) and Sarah (Amy Griffiths) Photo: Nicola Dove

London Road was a show that came out of workshops done by the National Theatre. A writer and a musician were paired up and told to create a story which became a cinematic oddity, a musical about a series of murders that happened in 2006 in Ipswich, an English town north of London.

The musical was adored by the critics. Musically its interest was that dialogue/lyrics that occurred were words spoken by townspeople at the time of the murder. These conversations were collected by Alecky Blythe and turned into songs. Still, Rebecca and I found ourselves singing bits of them the next day – to our delight, for we had wondered if the songs were memorable as we drove home that night. I was charmed by the “feel” of the musical – so very English. We watched the version of the show where there was a Q & A afterwards with Rufus Norris, the show’s director, and with some of the cast. All that fun for us occurred around London Road in Ipswich.

Kaia Saariaho’s opera, L’Amour de Loin, is a story about the sea, a story about a pilgrim who travels from one place to another and then back again delivering messages about love: unrequited, a distant love, love from afar, an ethereal love. The sea was represented by 28,000 LED lights on stage -- a remarkable sight.

Kelvin, Rebecca and I had a rousing discussion about the show as we waited for his Access Calgary ride to pick him up and take him home. Did we like the show or not?  That remains to be seen.  I had no idea that the show was built on an 11th century fable about Jaufre Rudel, the Prince of Blaye.

I was curious at the intermission for many seats were left empty. I hand it to the Met Opera, for they filled the time with interviews with Susanna Phillips (Clemence), Tamara Mumford (The Pilgrim,) Susanna Malkki (the conductor), Kaija Saariaho (the composer), Pacido Domingo, the Lighting Designer, the Lightscape Image Designer … and they even had time to tell us again that as wonderful as it is to see this in HD Live, it is even better to visit the Met in person, or to visit our local opera houses.

I concur.

So why did so many people leave?

I have no answer.  Rebecca and I were curious about the music before hand and had gone to u-tube to listen to some of what we were about to hear.  That little trick always prepares me so that I have fewer surprises than if I hadn't done my self-imposed homework. I just can't help myself.  I wonder if that would have helped others.

Arta

On the town

... waiting for the show to begin ...

Rebecca visits Kelvin just during a week when good theatre is going on.

Today we saw War Horse at noon

It didn't matter to Rebecca nor to me, that we had just seen the show not more than a week ago.

Kelvin wanted to go and the timing was right.

None of us cared that we had seen it before:  this was Kelvin's second time, this was Rebecca's third time, and this was Arta's sixth time.

Some shows are just good enough to be seen more than once.

After a good time at the movies, we ate at the food court afterwards, at a delicious curry spot called Delice.

What was fun was that the couple serving at the kiosk were also tending their small grand daughter behind the counter.

... an unusual window dressing ...

She was a little thing, but knew to bring a paper plate to her grandmother when she was hungry.
I heard Rebecca say to the grandmother, "Feed her first. I can wait and she is hungry."

... kiosks in Eau Claire Market ...

Rebecca had ordered a mango lassi for Kelvin and her.  She remarked on the odd taste -- yeasty and she also said she felt like there was some carbonation in it. Unexpected.  We googled it when we got home and found a plethora of recipes and a desire to try more of the unusual.  And yes, there is a lassi with that unusual flavour and texture.

Tomorrow we are going to go to London Road.  You can find it reviewed by Rotten Tomatoes

Tamara Mumford, left, and Eric Owens
in “L’Amour de Loin,”
by Kaija Saariaho
Credit
Sara Krulwich/The New York Times

Saturday is the opera:  L'Amour de Loin.

There will be a need to go to that early.

Chinook always fills up with opera lovers.

Here is Anthony Tommasini's longish and informative review.

And Tuesday we are going to see Allegiance.  If you want to join us and want to know something of the plot, here it is in a NY Times, review.

Tonight on Facebook Catherine asked how it is that Rebecca timed her visit to see all of the good shows.  Just good luck, I think.  But seeing all of these is an ambitious project.

War Horse wore us all out today.

Arta

Don Giovanni at MetLive

Don Giovanni Peter Mattei, left, in the title role, 
and Luca Pisaroni as Leporello in this new staging, by Michael Grandage, 
at the Metropolitan Opera. 
Mr. Mattei was a late substitution for the injured Mariusz Kwiecien. 
Credit Marty Sohl/Metropolitan Opera

Bonnie reminded me that Don Giovanni is the production at the opera this Saturday.

A New York Times opera review provides enough information for me to know where to go to get more ideas.

I have never seen this opera before, though it is a staple of the New York repertory.  I am thrilled to be hearing something new on Saturday.

I don't know what it is that there is to teach kids at the opera, but David has learned one thing quickly, and that is at the opera intermission, the concession is open.  Good work, David, on learning the art of going to the opera and the ballet and truly enjoying them.

As an aside, I was reminding Rebecca that Miss Saigon is tomorrow and she had absolutely missed the fact that it was on.  She rang off with me to go buy tickets!

Arta

Tristan and Isolde - a Saturday morning to die for

Nina Steeme

Sasha Arutyunova for The New York Times

Michael Cooper writes on or around Tristan and  Isolde when he talks about Nina Stemme in his article "Nina Stemme Takes on her Biggest Opera Assignment Yet."

Tonight, I am pretty sure that I have been poking around the internet too long when I see a note on my computer screen telling me that I have already read my 10 free articles with the New York Times for this month, and  asking me, do I want to subscribe.

But I can't help going out and finding reviews.  They all seem just too delicious to me, in my search to get informed before I go to performances.

Today's opera was a thrill for many reasons.  Sitting beside David was fun -- his first opera.  Grade VI seems like a good time to start.

I was worried about the length for him as a first time viewer, but then thinking that it is no longer than a ride from the Shuswap to Calgary, I could see that the length was no problem.

I loved sitting beside Bonnie in the opera as well -- 3 generations of us, listening to Wager.

The themes are dark and complicated, but I believe David will only hear and see what he has the intellectual capacity to understand in the arts, so there was no problem there.  He did tell his mother that one of the themes was about sex and did she feel that was appropriate for him.  I guess she felt it was, for she let him go.

I don't know if it is just me, or if this happens to other people, but there are times listening to Wagner when I can feel chills going up and down my spine, or even the hair raising on my arms when I heard some of the music.

I was interested to hear Maestro Rattle say that in the second act, when the voice of Brangane is heard off stage with her warning to the lovers, that he has to concentrate on not being overcome with the richness of the sound himself.  I was glad to hear him say that and to listen more intensely when those strains were heard.

I shake my head at myself, when I listen to the opera and to the educational add-ons.  I heard someone pronounce maestro in a new way, and then he made it plural with maestri, something I had never thought about.

Many of the melodies of Tristan und Isolde are familiar to me now.  Familiar but not boring.

Arta

Elektra - The Afterward

Elecktra was everything it was built up to be, and more.

I am accustomed to have a couple of intermissions and seeing backstage as sets are being changed.  But this was an opera in one act.  The Met arranged for a short pre-recorded video with the conductor, Esa-Pekka Salonen, and Elektra, Nina Stemme.

Kelvin wondered who the man was who came on stage  after the performance and during the applause, for we hadn't seen him during the show.  Kelvin was right.  The conductor joined the singers on stage, but this was the first time we had seen him during the erformance.  No "Maestro to the pit", no cameras following him to the podium, no bowing to the audience from the pit, no cameras focusing on him as he conducted.

We only viewed the stage.  And there was no overture.  I take that back.  There was an overture.  What we saw was women preparing to clean the courtyard of the palace, one of the sweeping the steps on her knees.  What we heard was the scratching of the broom.  Scratch.  Scratch.  Scratch.

I began to wonder about the artistic merit of the sound which seem interminable.

Scratch.  Scratch.  Scratch.  No sound from the orchestra.  Many women entered the room, all throwing sand onto the cobble stones to be swept or mopped, though we couldn't yet tell which.

I was familiar with the characters, having done so much pre-viewing reading, and then watching a u-tube version of the opera last night helped as well.  In fact, I liked comparing that first madness scene in the courtyard with what I had seen the night before.  There was less physical violence in today's production.  And the costuming was more abstract.

Nina Stemme as Elektra

Kelvin said he wished that he had been more "up" on his Greek mythology.  I don't know if that would have helped.  The synopsis that was handed out at the door was about all a person would need.  However, getting that in hand as you turn in your ticket, doesn't give much time for reading, and then the theatre is darkened by the time Kelvin is settled in and ready to read.

What did I like about today's performance?

1. I always love the close up's on the singer's faces as they are forming the vowels that they will linger on, or watch them put the last consonant on a word.  I do not tired of that.

2. I want to clap at the end of a show.  I always want to, but that seems a little ridiculous, sitting in a theatre with the performers on the other side of the continent.  I did love the standing ovation from the crowd who was at the Met today. I imagined that some of that applause for them was mine.

3. There was a green necklace on Klytamnestra's neck that was to die for.  You would have to have been there to know what I mean. Where does the Met come up with a piece of jewellery like that?

See that necklace on Waltraud Meier, the middle figure?
... green gems, stunning ...
I thought only Wyona could find pieces like that in foreign markets.

4. The curtain call -- what would that have stood out?  Perhaps it was that the women involved in that first scene all had a chance to take their bow and the audience was loving them.  But it was more than that.  Each of the five singers took their own bow, with different gestures and were equally loved by the audience.

5. The producer of this version of Elektra does not have her die at the end.  After her triumphal dance she sit stone-like as the orchestra finishes the music.  That was nice. Better to see someone live than someone die.

6. There was a lot going on in in the orchestra.  The pit was packed with 20 more musicians than it normally holds.  Some of the instrumental runs just put shivers up my spine.  We only had one shot of the orchestra.  That was when the camera panned out and we could see them, applauding as though the performers on stage, as though they had been part of the audience.  Rehearsals must have been a joy.  Do you know it is legendary, that during the intermissions, the Met orchestra go out and have a game of poker?  No poker today.  Just one act.  One critique said he had no catharsis.  You be the judge.

7.  Eric Owens (Orest) had been interviewed last week during the intermission of Robert Devereaux  He had asked where he gets his energy to enter later in the opera.  He said something like it is easy for he just has to feed off of the energy of the singers who are already on stage in intense action.  I was thinking about that when he made his entrance.  Such power!

Well, that is it for April!

May is full of theatre and dance.

May 7 - Stratford Festival HD - The Adventures of Pericles
May 19 - In the Gallery - Painting the Modern Garden: Monet to Matisse
May 21 - Hangmen which got the Olivier Award for the Best New Play 2016
May 23 - BBC's Shakespeare Live, though I may have the date wrong there.
May 22 - Royal Ballet - Frankenstein

May is my birthday month.  I am going to try to do it all.

Arta

Roberto Devereux - Again

Sondra Radvanovsky as Elisabetta
and Matthew Polenzani as Roberto
Photo by Ken Howard/Metropolitan Opera.

I met Kelvin at the opera this morning. Should there be an encore  of Roberto Devereux where you live, this is an opera not to be missed.

The singing by the four principals was exquisite.

 The costuming of the chorus was interesting, as was their placement on the sides of the action, as though they were an audience. The camera explored the orchestra pit in a new way. The imagery about time, life and death would have been a mystery to me if I had not read the reviews. Thank you New York Times, The Guardian and The Tribune.

There was assigned seating so I drove to the theatre yesterday, hoping to find some disabled seating.  There was none, so I selected a seat I thought would be comfortable for Kelvin.  When I went to pay for the tickets they were four dollars more than their regular price.  The ticket seller told me that the price of all of the other movies has gone down, but not the Met Series.  They have increased.

By the end of the performance I wasn't the least bit resentful of the extra money.

A joy to be able to go.

As we were waiting for the taxi to pick Kelvin up and take him back to Seton AgeCare, I asked him if he wanted to see Stratford's Hamlet next week.  He is all in.  Perhaps we will be sitting there with some of you, ie same performance, different cities.

Arta

Roberto Devereux Reviews

Since the Donizetti opera, Roberto Devereux, is tomorrow, I went out to read some reviews.  Below are three of them.  I couldn't stop at three but had to read and read and read even more.

Justin Davidson in The Vulture is enough of a good review that a person might want to see this opera.

Heidi Waleson in The Wall Street Journal gives another fine review.

I got stuck on Tommasini's New York Times review.  There was a slide show of 22 photos and a utube clip of a duet in Act I.  Lucky for me that I am retired and have the time to read through all of this.

I met a friend at the grocery store today and when she asked me how I was keeping busy.

I told her it was with all of the HD Live performances.

She said that if it were one of the Beatles, she would be interested, but no opera.

That made me laugh.

Yes, there is music for everyone.  I think saw the Beatles when I was 16 and I would probably go to a performance of that as well, especially if it were in the form of a musical.

Or even a Beatles opera would do.

Arta

P.S. If you have time, read this clip from the NewYorkTimesClassical Review:

" The eye for historical detail in McVicar’s staging is even keener than in his other productions of the cycle. Moritz Junge’s handsome costumes take their inspiration from Elizabethan-era portraiture; Essex’s first costume, a flashy black surcoat finished with silver threading over black plate armor (admittedly an odd choice for court dress) is lifted directly from a William Segar portrait. This is more heavily symbolic than the other productions have been, as well. Always looming behind the set (a clever, sliding black-and-gold room of state with an upper balcony) is an enormous reproduction of the Hampton Court astronomical clock. To the right and left of the main center-stage doors stand recessed statues of Death and Time, likely pulled from an anonymous “Allegorical Portrait” of Elizabeth. The mysterious funeral staged during the overture is only explained when its sarcophagus reappears in the final scene as Elizabeth proclaims her own end. Death, we are to understand, is everywhere, and the Queen is running out of time–a strong central idea, though one presented with a heavy hand. "

Lulu - a second run

 ...the two of us at the theatre ...
 ...trying to get the marquee of LULU into our selfie ...

One of the best surprises this morning was meeting Gillian at the National Theatre Live Opera.

She had decided to come, unbeknownst to us and had purchased her ticket ahead of us.

We arrived at the theatre with 8 minutes to spare – just enough time to settle into our seats.

This encore was 9 am – a surprise to Rebecca as well who slipped out of bed thinking she could get in one hour’s work done before we left for the theatre. Everyone lives like that – looking for the time to do a 20 minute job, a 10 minute job, or even a “what can I get done in 90 seconds job”. No, there was only time to grab a banana for food at the intermission, and a piece of bread for breakfast. Sufficient, but not a full scale healthy breakfast. I am keeping to the rule than anything you eat is breakfast, as long as you eat it within 2 hours of getting up.

This was my second viewing of Lulu. I knew I was going back after the first presentation. There is a big why not question if a person has the expendable income and the time and interest. On the second viewing I spent more of my time watching the visuals projected on the screen behind the actors. Marlis Peterson get the five star award for her portrayal of Lulu in this film. She acts, she sings, and she is incredibly flexible, doing one of those moves where she bends down to pick up a piece of paper, but she only bends at the waist and her arms can touch the floor. Everyone seems to be lithe at the opera’s these days. That would be except Schigolch (Franz Grundheber) in Lulu whose first appearance at the Met was over 50 years ago. When he came on stage for his bow he was doing an exaggerated shuffle but he still can do as the younger people in opera and the theatre who are now climbing up and down ladders or running up and down stairs at a rate no 70 year old can manage.

Wyona said she went to see the opera live in Calgary – a composer who has the lush melodies of Mahler, she said. Berg of Lulu was a student of Schoenberg so there was dissonance for the whole four hours. I would hear a theme repeated and hope to hear it again, but then there would be another and then a third so all I could do was gather themes, never really take hold on any of them. Kettridge, the visual artist, said that he had to listen to the opera four times to get a start on it … and then eight times to get a feel for the images he would paint for the backdrop. Lulu is not music I would turn on to peel carrots to in the morning, nor to put on for an evening for easy listening. This is music to listen to with a score in hand, or to see performed and let the visuals and the sound work their own magic.

So … now I have seen it 2 times. Six to go.

Arta