Mark Morris Archives - Cultural Attaché https://culturalattache.co/tag/mark-morris/ The Guide to Arts and Culture events in and around Los Angeles Wed, 20 Dec 2023 20:17:13 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.6.2 Bo23: Isaac Mizrahi Is Singing Darling! https://culturalattache.co/2023/12/21/isaac-mizrahi-is-singing-darling/ https://culturalattache.co/2023/12/21/isaac-mizrahi-is-singing-darling/#respond Thu, 21 Dec 2023 08:01:00 +0000 https://culturalattache.co/?p=17947 "I feel like the songs choose me the way clothes choose you or the way a pastry chooses you when you walk into a bakery."

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THIS IS THE BEGINNING OF OUR BEST OF 23 REVIEW OF INTERVIEWS: He’s a fashion designer (obviously). He’s directed musicals. He’s designed clothes for opera. He’s been a judge on Project Runway. If you look closely he had a small part in Alan Parker’s 1980 film Fame (which makes since he went to La Guardia Arts). He’s also been booked several times at the Cafe Carlyle in New York City to sing some of his favorite songs. However you know Isaac Mizrahi, the singing part might comes as a bit of a surprise.

But it didn’t to Mizrahi. Fashion was the surprise, music was the first love.

On Saturday Mizrahi will be making his Los Angeles-area singing debut at The Wallis. So what better time to talk to the perfectly frank Mizrahi to discuss his passion for music, the songs and singers that inspire him and the place where fashion and music overlap.

What follows are excerpts from our conversation. To see the full interview, please go to our YouTube channel. And I recommend you do. Everything he says is even better when you hear his voice!

But before we get started…a little of the musical stylings of Isaac Mizrahi.

I saw an interview that you did before you started performing at the Carlyle and you said that the eighth grade version of you would have been very surprised that you went into fashion and would have assumed that you would have gone into music. What would that eighth grader think of you performing at venues like the Cafe Carlyle, somewhere in Beverly Hills or around the world?

I think that the eighth grader would have been way less surprised, but also extremely, extremely proud and happy. What I love is that I’ve lived this incredible life which kind of informs my stage presence, you know? I mean, even when I’m acting. I just got through on Broadway as Amos Hart in Chicago. When I’m actually playing a character that is really informed by the past like 35 years of my life pursuing something so fervently and doing a lot.

I do a lot, you know, And at the same time that I was making these clothes, I was I was still performing with my band and working with Ben Waltzer and doing these small gigs. Now it’s kind of taking center stage in my life.

There was a time when I thought I had kind of chosen the wrong path. I really mean it. Why did I do that fashion thing when it makes me so happy to be on stage and to be performing? I mean, fashion makes me happy, but in a completely different way. It’s the damage control side of me. I like being this this person who runs after people and re-ties their bows better, you know. So that’s sort of what that’s about. And I still do it. Let’s face it, I do have a really big fashion business and I’m very pleased about that. 

As you’re talking the idea of you playing Amos Hart is rather ironic to me. A man who isn’t visible, who isn’t being seen. That seems like it is exactly the polar opposite of you.

There is a part of that I can so relate to. You know, I don’t care who you are. I don’t care how flamboyant you are, how sort of like beautiful you are. There is a side of you that always feels not seen. That is what I tapped into.

You’re quoted as saying “I don’t like people to feel completely described by the clothes they wear of mine. I want them to feel that they’re describing themselves.” What can we learn about you from the songs you choose to perform and the way you choose to perform them?

The funny thing is this is going to sound like a trite answer to such a smart question. I feel like the songs choose me, you know, the way clothes choose you or the way a pastry chooses you when you walk into a bakery. The thing just calls out and you look at it, you go, I must eat that, you know? It’s the same way.

There are certain things that I feel really comfortable wearing because I feel like they fit well and there are certain songs that are just begging to be done by me. It’s really a very mysterious and emotional process by which you pick songs. At the end of the day, you know, when you’ve rehearsed it and put it together and it’s in the show, it makes a lot of sense.

There’s one thing I love about the press release that came out for the show at the Wallis, because it says you’ll be you’ll be performing soon-to-be classic songs. How do you define what a soon-to-be classic song is?

To me Billie Eilish is a genius, right? So if she writes something, it is soon-to-be classic, you know? You know what else is soon-to-be classic? Well, you’ll see. I don’t want to spoil stuff. 

I just wanted to get a definition of what soon-to-be classic is.

Isaac Mizrahi (©David Andrako/Courtesy The Wallis)

Some songs that may in the past have been considered silly fluff which I absolutely think are not silly fluff and I absolutely adore. Like my opening number, which at the Annenberg will probably be I’ll Plant My Own Tree from Valley of the Dolls. It’s this amazing arrangement that we killed ourselves over. I feel like maybe that’s not considered a classic, but soon-to-be considered classic after you hear my cover of it. And darling, you might hate it, so maybe it won’t be classic. That’s why I say perhaps soon-to-be classic.

Your Instagram account has a couple of photographs of encounters you had with Stephen Sondheim. His music is is apparently going to be part of your show. What do you remember most about your encounters with Steve? 

His is a kind of resonance in our backgrounds. He’s a native New Yorker and so am I, so there’s this kind of similarity in the way we see the world. There’s a similarity in our senses of humor. His wicked, wicked sense of humor. And I look up to him. Of course, everybody looks up to him.

I went to the revival of Merrily We Roll Along and I just cried for the entire two-and-a-half hours. I was just sobbing through the whole thing because there’s a way that he has of looking at the world that I always aspire to. There has never been a greater teacher to me in terms of, not necessarily how I look at musical theater, but just the way I look at life.

I groomed myself to be like a sort of a living, breathing Stephen Sondheim character. I can’t drink as much as all that because I’m allergic to it or something. But that’s the only thing about me that is not like typically Sondheim in, you know, not just in terms of the music that I do or my love of musical theater or something, but as an adult person. 

You don’t just have the perspective as a singer with Stephen Sondheim’s music. You have the perspective of having directed A Little Night Music in 2010 [at The Opera Theatre of St. Louis]. How does the director who had that experience influence the singer who now performs the songs?

Knowing Steve and really knowing this person for a very long time, he didn’t really regard singer’s voices to be the greatest things. He loved a good singer. Let’s face it. He loved Barbara Cook. He loved people who could really sing and produce a sound. But I think he valued more people who could tell stories like Beth Howland [the original “Amy” in Company]. He adored Beth Howland. He adored Barbara Barrie [the original “Sarah” in Company]. These are not necessarily people you would cast for their singing voices. He loved the way [Elaine] Stritch could sing.

I was supposed to have [Stritch] on my show. And they said, if you want to do a pre-interview with her the only time she could do it is 3:00 in the morning because she’s like this big insomniac. So I called her at 3:00 morning because I am, too. 

She said, Oh, I’m such a great raconteur, you know, blah, blah. And I thought, No, darling. I said you are a great musician. Kristin Chenoweth is amazing and she can produce almost an operatic sound. It’s an incredible instrument. And I know Sondheim adored the way she sang. But to me they are equals as musicians. Kristin Chenoweth and Elaine Stritch were the same to me.

What do you see as as what fashion and music have in common?

Clothing is a lot about styling, you know, put juxtaposing things next to each other that are extremely interesting that have not been done before. So I’m really good at arranging the song in the way that I want it to be presented and then perceived. But more than that, darling, don’t bother me if you’re going to do the song in exactly the same way or worse than the way the person who did it. I give it my way of making it something a little to me better, or at least better from my perspective. 

You have your riffs and and your patter that you bring into your concerts. I love the whole idea that you said in one of the clips on your Instagram page that when you get older you do not get better looking. 

It’s just the truth. 

What is your relationship to getting older? 

This is part of what I’m going to be talking about in this particular show. I’ve turned some kind of crazy corner on my whole life. I look at pictures and I’m reading Instagram and there’s like 17 complimentary comments. There’s one hateful thing that somebody says and I’ve started to like them. I started to like the haters almost more than I like the likers. It’s like liking the haters. I love these pictures of myself where I look like a fat old Jew. I love it. I recommend these pictures of me as a fat old queen.

It’s also nice to take the hate away from the haters, too, isn’t it?

By going “Darlings, I never meant for you to like me.” I adore the controversy. Yes.

You’ve directed a production of Peter and the Wolf, you’re singing around the world, you’ve directed opera, you’ve designed clothes for opera. Are you spending the next chapter of your life trying to prove F. Scott Fitzgerald wrong that there are truly second and third acts in American life? 

Yes. The answer is very simple. One of the things that Steve used to say to me all the time, he’s like, “Oh, darling, you’re a polymath.” And I thought he was like Oh, you’re such a polymath, right? That means you suck at everything, whereas he is this great master.

By the way, Stephen Sondheim and Mark Morris, my friends. Go figure that out. They do one unbelievably exquisite thing. That’s all they do, right? Steve just wrote those words and that incredible music and made those shows. Mark just makes those masterful poetic dances. That’s all he does. Here I am doing cooking videos and I can’t not be that person. Now I’m kind of thinking of those words of Steve going, “Oh, you’re such a polymath.” And I think he really meant it as a compliment.

It must be nice to have that gift from Steve now that he’s no longer here.

It is. It really, really is. At least in my fantasy, by the way.

To see the full interview with Isaac Mizrahi, please go here.

Main Photo: Isaac Mizrahi (©David Andrako/Courtesy The Wallis)

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The Look of Love in Mark Morris’s Eyes https://culturalattache.co/2022/10/19/the-look-of-love-in-mark-morriss-eyes/ https://culturalattache.co/2022/10/19/the-look-of-love-in-mark-morriss-eyes/#respond Wed, 19 Oct 2022 18:49:13 +0000 https://culturalattache.co/?p=17158 "As Burt and I warned each other, it's not a jukebox show. It's not get slightly drunk and sing along. Although you're welcome to, you know, if you do it quietly."

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“It’s wonderful that this music is still fresh and new and old and ubiquitous and missing in action. It’s like you know or you don’t. Like folk music – like no one ever wrote it or you know every single bit that Mr. Bacharach and Mr. David did together.” That’s choreographer Mark Morris and, of course, the misters that he’s mentioning are composer Burt Bacharach and lyricist Hal David.

Who are they you ask? If you recognize any of these song titles you know their work: Alfie, (They Long to Be) Close to You, Do You Know the Way to San Jose, I’ll Never Fall in Love Again, I Say a Little Prayer, Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head, This Guy’s In Love with You, Walk on By, What the Wold Needs Now and The Look of Love.

The last song was written for the 1967 film Casino Royale. It earned Bacharach and David an Academy Award nomination. They didn’t win, but just three years later they did win the Oscar for Best Song for Raindrops which was featured in the film Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

Mark Morris (Photo by Beowulf Sheehan/Courtesy BroadStage)

Mark Morris, the innovative choreographer known as much for his outrageous statements as for his work, has created a new dance work centered around the work of these two legends. The Look of Love will have its world premiere this week at the BroadStage in Santa Monica (October 20th – 23rd). From there the show will travel to the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. (October 26th-29th) and Gogue Performing Arts Center at Auburn University in Alabama (November 8th) before the end of the year. The show will resume performances next year in multiple venues.

Last week I spoke via Zoom with the never self-censored Morris about this music, the work (and he was still working on it a week before its premiere) and if any of his work or his career has turned out the way he expected. What follows are excerpts that have been edited for length and clarity.

What was Bacharach’s response when you first reached out about creating The Look of Love?

I was getting ready to ask a whole bunch of questions and then he answered them: Be sure this isn’t boring. Have you thought of doing medleys, changing some of the tempi or male or female singers or include some other changes? It was basically almost a sort of carte blanche kind of thing. He said what about this? Well thank you those were all my questions. That will be all Mr. Bacharach. So it was really great.

What would you tell people is the reason to take interest in the music of Burt Bacharach, particularly if they don’t already know it? 

In one sense, I couldn’t care less. Listen to whatever the hell you want. But also I would slip in listen to this. I’m not trying to convert people to the church of Burt Bacharach or anything because I’m not a member of that. I just love the music.

This comes up a lot because five years ago I did a piece that re-looked at and listened to music from Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band for a piece of an evening called Pepperland. Don’t worry fans or enemies of mine. I’m not just doing a trip down memory lane from when I was 11 years old. I don’t even remember that so it’s not that. I’m trying to turn on a whole new generation to this music of this very broad period.

This piece with Mr. Bacharach’s music, in its very purest form, is very direct and very, very moving. It’s all been written to be performed live. We’re not doing a really complicated examination of the work. It’s what a great song, let’s listen to this and have some music and dancing.

The company of “The Look of Love” (Photo by Christopher Duggan/Courtesy BroadStage)

As someone who has known this material for a long time were there new discoveries that you made?

One thing that wasn’t much of a surprise is that these songs are hard to sing. [Marcy Harriell will be singing live with a band headed by Ethan Iverson] There are surprise shifts all the time. What people just hear as a sort of a modulation up toward the thrill, the payoff of the crescendo and the modulation to higher and higher until the big payoff at the end isn’t always true. Sometimes the bottom drops out or it goes another direction or goes chromatic or major and minor in the most wonderful [way]. Evident when you hear it, but surprising if you’re trying to make it up yourself. 

What influence does that have on what you create and what you ask your dancers to do?

I’m always dealing with the idea of how much text I’m going to use. Are we dancing the words or is that redundant? We hear them. Do you have to also do them? The thing with opera it’s like you’re singing it, you’re saying it. There’s supertitles, the music is saying it. How many modes of translation do we need: words, rhythm, music, the people, the dancers themselves, how they move, who they are. And of course, I decide what the choreography is, but it’s based on many things: text, rhythm, harmony, orchestration, probably barometric pressure and audiences. It affects all of it.

As Burt and I warned each other, it’s not a jukebox show. It’s not get slightly drunk and sing along. Although you’re welcome to if you do it quietly. I didn’t want it to be, first of all, a mess, you know? I didn’t want it to be a name that tune kind of thing or a grocery store. Although I admire the company called Muzak as it was and as it is. I love that. But it’s the idea that you’re led from one thing to another, not trying to make a Mamma Mia story out of things that aren’t really a story. 

The company of “The Look of Love” (Photo by Christopher Duggan/Courtesy BroadStage)

You were quoted as having said “No dance has ever turned out the way I thought it would, because I trust enough that I can start something with some ideas and then it takes itself somewhere.” How does that concept apply not just to The Look of Love, but to your entire career?

I’m tempted to say ask me in ten days because I have eight services starting tomorrow where I have to finish it. That seems like a lot because I have a lot of it done. I just have to do a little bit of what do you call that plaster? A little bit of caulking on the seams of it. That’s the tricky part. I have almost all of it done. It’s just it has to snap in – the capstone has to drop in. And all of those metaphors aside, I never know what the hell’s going to happen.

I still don’t know what the very beginning and the very end of my piece are. A lot of the stuff in between I can change it. The people I work with are brilliant enough where I can say, remember that thing we did two weeks ago that started on the other leg and you weren’t in it? Let’s do that. I can do that and it’ll just take a couple of minutes for people to come up with the solution because they’re used to that. Iit’s always live music. It’s always live them. So it happens. It’s not democratic. I make up the dances, but they do it. So the sooner I can pass them on so it’s out of my hands, the more comfortable, meaning accurate and inhabited, the piece will be. So it’s not what I thought it was going to be and it won’t be what I think right now it’s going to be. But I have a hunch and that’s going to be working soon. As more of us collect in the room, the more it’s going to finish itself. 

The company of “The Look of Love” (Photo by Christopher Duggan/Courtesy BroadStage)

It’s been 42 years since you formed your own company. How much does what that company look like today mirror what you imagined it might have been in 1980 when you formed it?

Let’s see. Every model of person is different, but there are new models every year of people. I don’t know how that keeps happening, but they differ not just because they’re of different relations, but also times change. People change. I’m still very close friends…You know in the COVID period I spent more time on the phone – or whatever we call the phone – with my ancient friends. My earliest dancers are all in their sixties and seventies. They were mostly the women in my company from way back. We talk more than we have in years, these wonderful women and men too. That was wasn’t even memory lane. It was like, can you believe what’s going on? Of course my dancers are a third my age now, so that changes everything.

I didn’t visualize a company in my mind. When I started the company I was just making up dances. I didn’t know what that dance was going to look like in 1984 or whenever until I made it up. That’s still true. We do pieces in my repertory that are actively in repertory, pieces that are 40 years old still. Occasionally I like them and if I don’t like them, we won’t do them. I’ll make up a new one. 

To see the full itinerary of Mark Morris Dance Group, please go here.

Main Photo: Mark Morris (Courtesy BroadStage)

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Myths and Legends: Week 54 at the Met https://culturalattache.co/2021/03/22/myths-and-legends-week-54-at-the-met/ https://culturalattache.co/2021/03/22/myths-and-legends-week-54-at-the-met/#respond Mon, 22 Mar 2021 07:01:00 +0000 https://culturalattache.co/?p=13499 Metropolitan Opera Website

March 22nd - March 28th

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Big stories about heroes, anti-heroes and mythology take center stage in Week 54 at the Met.

Of particular note this week is that two productions are being streamed for the very first time: a 1982-1983 season production of Mozart’s Idomeneo (remarkably the first time the opera had ever been performed at the Met) and a production of the composer’s Don Giovanni from the 2000-2001 season starring Bryn Terfel and Renée Fleming.

There is also the fourth showing of Strauss’ Elektra with Nina Stemme. If you haven’t seen this yet, I strongly urge you to do so. It’s a powerful production filled with amazing performances.

All productions become available at 7:30 PM EST/4:30 PM PST and remain available for 23 hours. Schedules and timings may be subject to change.

The Met is heavily promoting their Met Stars Live in Concert series and the planned resumption of performances in the 2021-2022 season, so you’ll have to go past those announcements and promos to find the streaming productions on the Metropolitan Opera website

If you read this column early enough on March 22nd, you might still have time to catch the 2019-2020 season production of Handel’s Agrippina that concludes a week celebrating Viewer’s Choice.

Here is the line-up for Week 54 at the Met:

Monday, March 22 – Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice

Conducted by James Levine; starring Danielle de Niese, Heidi Grant Murphy and Stephanie Blythe. This Mark Morris production is from the 2008-2009 season. This is an encore presentation of the production that was previously available on June 3rd and November 3rd. 

Once again the myth of Orpheus inspired a composer. Christoph Willibald Gluck’s opera, which premiered in Vienna in 1762, has a libretto by Ranieri de’ Calzabigi. (Others who have been so inspired include Haydn, Lizst and Stravinsky. The story is also the inspiration for the Tony Award-winning musical Hadestown.)

The Orpheus story is about a man who suddenly loses the love of his life, Euridice. He travels to the underworld to find her. He can bring her back, but only if he truly trusts in her love.

Anthony Tomassini, in his New York Times review of this production, began his review with singular praise for Blythe:

“With each performance the American mezzo-soprano Stephanie Blythe gives, it becomes increasingly apparent that a once-in-a-generation opera singer has arrived. Ms. Blythe’s latest triumph came on Friday night at the Metropolitan Opera: a vocally commanding and deeply poignant portrayal of Orfeo in a revival of Mark Morris’s 2007 production of Gluck’s sublime masterpiece Orfeo ed Euridice. This was Ms. Blythe’s first performance of Orfeo, a touchstone trouser role for many mezzo-sopranos, and she already owns it.”

Tuesday, March 23 – Berlioz’s La Damnation de Faust

Conducted by James Levine; starring Susan Graham, Marcello Giordani and John Relyea. This Robert Lepage production is from the 2008-2009 season. This is an encore presentation of the production that was previously available on May 25th and September 9th.

Hector Berlioz composed this work in 1845. He never envisioned La Damnation de Faust to be staged as an opera, but rather as a concert work. The first time it was performed as an opera was in 1893. The Metropolitan Opera first performed it as a concert in 1896. It would be ten more years before The Met would present it as a fully-staged opera.

Once again Goethe’s work serves as the inspiration for this story about the deal one man makes with the devil to save the woman he loves.

With Le Damnation de Faust, Lepage made his Metropolitan Opera debut. His extensive use of video in this production was one of the many points of both interest and discussion in 2008. Critics at the time wondered if this was a sign of what his then-upcoming Ring Cycle might be like.

Wednesday, March 24 – Gluck’s Iphigénie en Tauride

Conducted by Patrick Summers; starring Susan Graham, Plácido Domingo, Paul Groves and Gordon Hawkins. This revival of the 2007 Stephen Wadsworth production from the 2010-2011 season. This is an encore presentation of the production that was previously available on June 17th.

Christoph Willibald Gluck’s 1779 opera features a libretto by Nicolas-François Guillard. The opera had its world premiere in Paris.

A storm is raging on the island of Tauris. Iphigenia and Diana (the goddess) beg for relief from the storm. But the bigger storm brewing is the one inside Iphigenia who longs to be reunited with her brother, Orest, whom she believes to be dead after her mother killed her father and Orest killed their mother in revenge. Iphigenia must navigate what the gods want as she tries to quiet her pain.

The 2007 production of this opera marked the first time in 90 years that Gluck’s opera was performed at the Metropolitan Opera. Both Graham and Domingo were in that production, too. Zachary Woolfe, writing for the New York Times, said of the production being offered:

“An impassioned revival with those singers, which opened Saturday evening, confirms that there is no reason for this radiant opera not to be a repertory staple.”

Thursday, March 25 – Strauss’s Elektra STRONGLY RECOMMENDED!

Conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen; starring Nina Stemme, Adrianne Pieczonka, Waltraud Meier, Burkhard Ulrich and Eric Owens. This Patrice Chéreau production is from the 2015-2016 season. This is an encore presentation of the production that was previously available on April 20th, August 31st and November 26th.

Richard Strauss’s Elektra had its world premiere in Dresden in 1909. The libretto was written by Hugo von Hofmannsthal and was based on his 1903 drama of the same name.

For a one-act opera, Elektra has a tangled web of intrigue at its core. Simply put, Elektra is enraged by the murder of her father, King Agamemnon. Elektra’s mother, Klytämnestra, convinced her lover, Aegisth, to kill her husband. Once Elektra finds out, she is out for nothing short of total revenge and enlists her brother, Orest, to kill their mother.

When Elektra was first presented, critics were deeply divided. Perhaps none more so than Ernest Newman, then London’s most important former music critic and playwright George Bernard Shaw. Newman found the opera abhorrent. Shaw fiercely defended it. Their argument about the merits of Strauss’s opera were published in a series of letters in The Nation.

Of this production, The New York Times‘ Anthony Tommasini said,

“…nothing prepared me for the seething intensity, psychological insight and sheer theatrical inventiveness of this production on Thursday night, conducted by the brilliant Esa-Pekka Salonen, Mr. Chéreau’s partner in this venture from the start. A superb cast is headed by the smoldering soprano Nina Stemme in the title role.”

Friday, March 26 – Mozart’s Idomeneo FIRST SHOWING

Conducted by James Levine; starring Hildegard Behrens, Ileana Cotrubas, Frederica von Stade, Luciano Pavarotti and John Alexander. This Jean-Pierre Ponnelle production is from the 1982-1983 season.

Mozart’s opera had its world premiere in 1781 in Munich and has a libretto by Giambattista Varesco. 

Idomeneo tells the story of Idomeneus, the King of Crete, who in order to survive at sea promises Poseidon he will kill the first man he sees upon being rescued. His son, Idamante, learns that his father is in serious danger and fears he has perished. Mourning his father at the beach, he is overjoyed to see that he has survived. But in doing so becomes the first man his father sees. That’s when the story gets good!

This production marked the first time in the Met’s history that the opera was performed there. Donal Henahan, writing for the New York Times, was glad they finally got around to it:

“At any rate, the staging, however bizzarre at times, did not overpower the singers, who caught the powerful emotions that run beneath the surface of this Mozart score. Miss von Stade, a mezzosoprano in a part that originally was meant for castrato and later was given to a tenor, made a marvelously convincing young prince. Miss Cotrubas made an instant impression with her first aria, ‘Padre, germani, addio,’ and never let the side down thereafter. Miss Behrens flung herself into the villainous role of Elettra with vocal and dramatic abandon, actually stealing the last act from under Mr. Pavarotti’s nose. When she collapsed in a rage at the end and had to be carried off the stage, one could almost believe she had thrown a real fit.”

Saturday, March 27 – Mozart’s Don Giovanni FIRST SHOWING

Conducted by James Levine; starring Renée Fleming, Solveig Kringelborn, Hei-Kyung Hong, Paul Groves, Bryn Terfel, Ferruccio Furlanetto and Sergei Koptchak. This revival of the 1990 Franco Zeffirelli production is from the 2000-2001 season.

The legend of Don Juan inspired this opera by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The libretto is by Lorenzo da Ponte. Don Giovanni had its world premiere in 1787 in Prague.

Don Giovanni loves women. All women. Early in the opera he tries fleeing Donna Anna. In doing so her father, the Commendatore, awakens and challenges him to a duel. Giovanni kills the Commendatore – an event that will ultimately lead to his own descent into hell.



Bernard Holland, writing for the New York Times, raved about all the performances, but singled out Terfel’s approach to the title character:

“Mr. Terfel comes to the Don with his own powerful if somewhat repugnant point of view. If the production is about period elegance, the character itself achieves a modern mean-spiritedness. Endearing naughtiness is replaced with outright sadism. This is a coldly obsessive figure for whom rape and murder is not offhand but committed with pleasure. On the other hand, this not very nice man sings like an angel. The articulation was wonderful, and Mr. Terfel commands such a depth of color that his ”La ci darem la mano” could soar out into the hall even at half voice. Volume does not necessarily conquer the Met’s bigness. Quality and focus have a better chance.”

Sunday, March 28 – Wagner’s Der Fliegende Holländer

Conducted by Valery Gergiev; starring Anja Kampe, Mihoko Fujimura, Sergey Skorokhodov, David Portillo, Evgeny Nikitin and Franz-Josef Selig. This François Girard production is from the 2019-2020 season.  This is an encore presentation of the production previously available on January 29th.

Richard Wagner’s opera, commonly billed by its English-language name, The Flying Dutchman, had its world premiere in Dresden in 1843. Wagner wrote the libretto and based it on The Memoirs of Mister von Schnabelewopski (Aus den Memoiren des Herrn von Schnabelewopski) by Henrich Heine.

Der Fliegende Holländer tells the story of a Dutch sea captain who claims he can sail safely anywhere in the world. The devil, hearing his boasting, condemned him to never die and to forever sail until he finds a woman willing to offer him eternal love. He can only leave the sea once every seven years. When he encounters Senta, he has found the woman that will end his curse. But she already has a fiancé. Whose love will win out?

Anthony Tommasini, writing in the New York Times, was not thrilled by this production. He did, however, single out Kampe’s performance.

“The soprano Anja Kampe, a leading Wagner soprano in Europe, made her belated Met debut as Senta; it’s good to finally have her here. Her singing was plush and warm, with lyrical sheen in tender phrases and steely intensity when Senta’s obsession takes hold. Despite some strained top notes, she was a standout.”

That’s it for Week 54 at the Met. Next week it’s all about being torn between two lovers as Love Triangles are the theme. Enjoy the week and enjoy the operas!

Photo: Bryn Terfel and Renée Fleming in Don Giovanni (Courtesy Metropolitan Opera)

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Best Bets: February 12th – February 15th https://culturalattache.co/2021/02/12/best-bets-february-12th-february-15th/ https://culturalattache.co/2021/02/12/best-bets-february-12th-february-15th/#respond Fri, 12 Feb 2021 08:01:00 +0000 https://culturalattache.co/?p=13072 Where to find your fix for culture this Valentine's Day Weekend which is also a holiday weekend!

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It’s Valentine’s Day weekend and it seems love is not the only thing in the air, so is dance. There are quite a few dance options in my Best Bets: February 12th – February 15th that all look terrific.

Our top pick this week is Heartbeat Opera’s Breathing Free, a powerful 45-minute film that is having its West Coast debut courtesy of The Broad Stage. Opera, spirituals, movement and imagery combine to explore the challenges Black men have of simply breathing without fear. I saw the film last year and can tell you this is easily one of the strongest works you’ll see all year.

If you are a fan of The Supremes and want to catch quite possibly Mary Wilson’s last performance (she passed away earlier this week), you will want to catch A Catalina Soulful Valentine fundraiser on Friday night.

It’s not all dance and topical issues this week, in fact, our first listing might find you mixing your own cocktails. Get your ice out of the freezer, get your cocktail shaker on standby and dig in!

Here are my Best Bets: February 12th – February 15th (we’re including Monday since it’s also a holiday weekend):

Dixie Longate (Courtesy Segerstrom Center for the Arts)

PLAY: Dixie’s Happy Hour – Segerstrom Center for the Arts – Now – February 21st

Dixie Longate hosting a happy hour? That will certainly have heavy emphasis on the happy. And probably on the adult side, too. Dixie, though a Southern girl at heart, has a quick wit and is never shy about sharing her thoughts.

With everything that has gone on the world since Dixie was last selling Tupperware locally, I can only imagine what she’ll have to say.

And what drinks she’ll make. I don’t believe Dixie has been in the Alabama slammer, but I bet she knows how to make a fierce one! Actually, she does have a pre-show margarita recipe to share.

There are performances every night through February 21st at 7:00 PM PST. Tickets are $35.

Cavan Conley and Esteban Hernandez in Thatcher’s “Colorforms” (©San Francisco Ballet)

BALLET: Digital Program 02 – San Francisco Ballet – Now – March 3rd $29 for 72 hour access

The world premiere of Colorforms, a new work by Myles Thatcher, is featured in San Francisco Ballet’s Digital Program 02. The work, set to Variations for Vibes, Pianos and Strings by Steve Reich, seeks to illuminate the parallels between the creation and consumption of art. The film, directed by Ezra Hurwitz, was shot in multiple San Francisco locations including the War Memorial Opera House where the San Francisco Ballet regularly performs.

Opening the program is Dwight Rhoden‘s Let’s Begin at the End which features music by Johann Sebastian Bach, Philip Glass and Michael Nyman. The work was created for SF Ballet’s 2018 Unbound and had its debut on April 26th of that year.

Closing out the program is Sandpaper Ballet by Mark Morris with music by Leroy Anderson. The work was created in 1999 for San Francisco Ballet. Composer Anderson is probably best-known for having written the popular holiday song, Sleigh Ride. Sandpaper Ballet was composed in 1954.

Tickets are $29 and allow for 72 hours of streaming.

Artists of The Royal Ballet in “Raymonda Act III” (Photo ©Tristram Kenton/Courtesy Royal Opera House)

BALLET: Raymonda Act III – Royal Opera House – Now – March 14th

Marius Petipa’s ballet, Raymonda, had its world premiere in St. Petersburg in 1898 and is set to the music of Alexander Glazunov. In 1948 the Kirov Ballet revived the ballet with new choreography by Konstantin Sergeyev. This latter choreography is the one most commonly used in performances of the ballet.

Ballet star Rudolf Nureyev dance the ballet with the Kirov. He would later stage a full-length version for the Royal Ballet in 1964. Five years later he tweaked the very popular third act. It is that version that will be seen in this film which comes from a 2003 tribute to Nureyev. (The event took place ten years after his death.)

The two acts leading up to the segment being presented depicts the story of two lovers, Raymonda and Jean de Brienne who plan to get married. Unfortunately Abderman shows up at her birthday party and makes his intentions clear. Jean de Brienne does not arrive for one more day. He does arrive just in time (in Act 2) to break up Abderman’s kidnapping attempt of Raymonda. A duel ensues between the two men and Abderman is killed.

So what’s left in Act III? A big celebration. The full ballet isn’t performed as often as is this third act.

Pavel Sorokin conducts with Natalia Osipova as Raymonda and Vadim Muntagirov as Jean de Brienne.

Tickets to stream this performance are £3 which at press time equals approximately $4.15

Julie Halston (Courtesy her Facebook page)

THEATRE TALK: Virtual Halston – Cast Party Network on YouTube – February 12th – 5:00 PM EST/2:00 PM PST

Fans of the original cast of The Producers will certainly recognize Julie Halston’s guests for this week’s Virtual Halston: Cady Huffman (who originated the role of Ulla and won both the Drama Desk Award and the Tony Award as Best Featured Actress in a Musical) and Brad Oscar (who originated the role of Franz Liebkind). Oscar would later assume the role of Max Bialystock (the role Nathan Lane created) as the show continued its successful run on Broadway.

The two will be reunited on this Friday’s virtual happy hour with Halston. It’s a holiday weekend, your work is being mostly done by remote, why not mix a drink early and join in the fun?

Francisco Reyes in “Yorick, La Historia de Hamlet” (Photo courtesy REDCAT)

PLAY: Yorick, La Historia de Hamlet – REDCAT – February 12th – February 14th

Hamlet’s soliloquies form the basis for this one-man show created by and starring Chilean actor Francisco Reyes. Yorick, the late court jester in Shakespeare’s play, is the narrator of Yorick, La Historia de Hamlet. Co-creator Simón Reyes wrote the script.

Joining Reyes in the performance are puppets that he manipulates. The puppets were created by Ismael Reyes.

The film is also uniquely lit by only candlelight. Music was composed by Miguel Miranda with songs by Rocío Reyes.

The work is performed in Spanish with English subtitles. There are only three showings of this highly-acclaimed film by Reyes. Friday, February 12th at 8:00 PM EST/5:00 PM PST; Saturday and Sunday at 6:00 PM EST/3:00 PM PST. Tickets range from $8 for students up to $15 for general admission.

Sly and the Family Stone (Courtesy SlyStoneMusic.com)

JAZZ: SF Jazz Collective – SFJAZZ – February 12th – 8:00 PM EST/5:00 PM PST

This weekend’s Fridays at Five concert celebrates the work of two very influential and different artists: Sly and the Family Stone and Miles Davis. As befitting such groundbreaking artists, this concert runs nearly two hours.

The San Francisco Jazz Collective, an octet, performs music from Stand! and Davis’ In a Silent Way. Both albums were released in 1969.

This concert, from November 2019, celebrates the 50th anniversary of both works. Stand! featured the songs I Want to Take You Higher and Everyday People. Davis was more austere with his recording – it only had two tracks, but ran 38 minutes.

The members of the SF Jazz Collective are bassist Matt Brewer; trumpeter Etienne Charles; drummer Obed Calvaire; vocalist Martin Luther McCoy; guitarist Adam Rogers; tenor saxophonist David Sánchez; pianist Edward Simon and vibraphonist Warren Wolf.

There is also a cameo appearance by Family Stone drummer Greg Errico. 

Tickets are $5 (which includes a one-month digital membership) or $60 (which includes an annual digital membership). This concert will stream just once.

Mary Wilson (Courtesy her Facebook page)

JAZZ/CABARET: A Catalina Soulful Valentine – February 12th – 9:00 PM EST/6:00 PM PST

Los Angeles nightclub, Catalina Jazz Club, has been severely impacted by the pandemic. They are doing everything they can to keep the doors open and amongst them is Friday night’s A Catalina Soulful Valentine.

For weeks they have been touting the appearance of Mary Wilson of The Supremes as one of their performers. Of course, she passed away earlier this week. But, her set was filmed in advance and will be seen in its entirety to both support Catalina Jazz Club and to honor her.

Sally Struthers and singer/musician Mr. Chris Norton serve as hosts. The list of performers includes Lucie Arnaz, Carole J. Bufford, Linda Purl, James Snyder, Nita Whitaker and more.

The show will air on Catalina’s Facebook page and Chris Isaacson Presents’ YouTube channel. There is no charge to watch the concert, but donations are definitely encouraged.

Douglas J. Cuomo (Courtesy his website)

JAZZ: Douglas J. Cuomo’s Seven Limbs featuring Nels Cline and Aizuri Quartet – CAP UCLA – February 12th – 10:00 PM EST/7:00 PM PST

Composer Douglas J. Cuomo’s Seven Limbs was meant to have its world premiere last year. We all know what happened to preclude that. This digital performance of the work had its world premiere earlier this week from The Moss Arts Center at Virginia Tech.

UCLA’s Center for the Art of Performance is making the film available on Friday with on demand opportunities beginning on Sunday for one week.

What is Seven Limbs? It is a 75-minute work for electric guitar and string quartet. Cuomo composed this specifically for the artists who perform it: Wilco guitarist Nels Cline and the Aizuri Quartet.

But what is it? Best to let the composer describe it for you:

“This piece is inspired by an ancient Buddhist purification ceremony called The Seven Limbs. It’s part of a meditation practice I do every day. The practice has lots of words; the piece has none. The feel of this ceremony is what I kept going to as I composed, and then at some point I realized I was setting text without using words. For me Seven Limbs is a dream-like piece; I can look inward to a new terrain and find out what’s there. Stillness, turmoil, suppleness, euphoria, high drama. I wrote it for Nels Cline and the Aizuri Quartet because, for composers, to write for great players is another kind of dream. Together, we offer you our dream, in the hope it makes some connection with you.”

CAP UCLA is making this performance free to view.

John Holiday (Photo by Fay Fox/Courtesy his website)

OPERA: Save the Boys – Opera Philadelphia – February 12th

Last week our top pick was musician/composer Tyshawn Sorey’s two-night gig at the Village Vanguard. He returns to our Best Bets this weekend with the debut of his twenty-minute song cycle Save the Boys.

Sorey uses Frances Ellen Watkins Harper’s 1887 poem of the same name as the inspiration for this work.

Harper was an Black women’s rights activist and abolitionist.

Performing Save the Boys is the vocalist for whom it was written: countertenor John Holiday. If his name sounds familiar, perhaps you saw him on the most recently concluded season of The Voice. In 2019 I interviewed Holiday. You can read that interview here.

Holiday is accompanied on the piano by Opera Philadelphia’s Grant Loehnig.

Tickets are $10 which allows for a seven-day rental.

A scene from “Cosí fan tutte” (Photo by Cory Weaver/Courtesy San Francisco Opera)

OPERA: Cosí fan tutte – San Francisco Opera – February 13th – February 14th

Conducted by Nicola Luisotti; starring Ellie Dehn, Susannah Biller, Marco Vinco, Francesco Demuro and Philippe Sly. This revival of the 2004 John Cox production is from the 2012-2013 season.

Mozart’s Cosí fan tutte had its world premiere in Vienna in 1790. Lorenzo Da Ponte, who wrote the libertti for The Marriage of Figaro and Don Giovanni, wrote the libretto.

Ferrando and Guglielmo are vacationing with their fiancées, Dorabella and Fiordiligi. They are sisters. Don Alfonso challenges the men to a bet revolving around the women and their ability to be faithful. Using disguise, deception and a wicked sense of humor, Mozart’s opera ends happily ever after for one and all.

Joshua Kosman, writing for the San Francisco Chronicle, raved about Sly’s performance as Guglielmo , “In the ensemble cast of six, the standout performance was the precocious and phenomenally assured company debut of Adler Fellow Philippe Sly as Guglielmo. Adler Fellows don’t often get cast at this level, but then again, Adler Fellows this gifted and accomplished are rare indeed.

“Sly’s singing was at once robust and lyrical, with a beautiful range of tonal colors and the ability to combine virility and tenderness in a single phrase.”

Composer Anna Clyne (Photo by Christina Kernohan/Courtesy of the composer)

CLASSICAL MUSIC: Anna Clyne’s Stride – Detroit Symphony Orchestra – February 13th – 7:30 PM EST/4:30 PM PST

It must be daunting for a composer to have a world premiere or relatively new work precede one of the stalwart compositions in classical music. Such is the status of British composer Anna Clyne who’s Stride will be performed by members of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra prior to their performance of Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 6 in B-flat Major, BWV 1051.

But it is Clyne’s composition that is most interesting about this concert. The Australian Chamber Orchestra commissioned Clyde to write a piece as part of their celebration of the 250th anniversary of Beethoven’s Birth. The Covid-19 pandemic forced the cancellation of many of their performances last year, but they were able to return on November 14th with the world premiere of Stride.

The work weaves themes from Beethoven’s Pathetique Sonata throughout and also includes nods to other composers, most notably Bernard Herrmann (best known for his film scores for director Alfred Hitchcock).

Tickets are $12 to stream the concert.

Arthur Mitchell (Courtesy New York City Center)

DANCE: John Henry – Dance Theatre of Harlem on Stage Access – Debuts February 13th – 8:00 PM EST/5:00 PM PST

Dance Theatre of Harlem gave the world premiere performance of Arthur Mitchell’s John Henry on June 28, 1988. Before getting into her review, Anna Kisselgoff of the New York Times reported, “…its premiere at the company’s opening at the City Center Tuesday night roused cheering fans out of their seats during the curtain calls. Mr. Mitchell, the troupe’s founder and artistic director, stayed in the spirit of things by throwing himself into a choreographed clog dance to acknowledge the applause.”

With music by Milton Rosenstock, Dance Theatre of Harlem will make available, via Stage Access, a performance filmed in Denmark at Danmarks Radio. The performance will remain available through February 19th.

Stage Access offers up a 7-day free trial with two subscription options: an annual plan of $69.99 or a monthly plan of $7.99

Breathing Free

TOP PICK: OPERA/MOVEMENT: Breathing Free – The Broad Stage – February 13th – 10:00 PM EST/7:00 PM PST

Earlier this week I published an interview with Michael Blakk Powell, a formerly incarcerated man who was a member of the Kuji Mens Chorus at Marion Correctional Institute in Ohio. Through his participation in that chorus, he found himself learning German to perform music from Beethoven’s Fidelio.

One of the two pieces in which that performance can be seen and heard is in Heartbeat Opera’s powerful Breathing Free. This 45-minute film combines movement and opera to explore the challenges Black men in particular face in simply being allowed to breathe freely.

Joining the Beethoven heard in Breathing Free are works by Black composers and lyricists Harry T. Burleigh, Florence Price, Langston Hughes, Anthony Davis and Thulani Davis. The project also uses Negro spirituals.

The cast includes bass-baritone Derrell Acon, tenor Curtis Bannister, soprano Kelly Griffin and dancers Randy Castillo, Tamrin Goldberg, Brian HallowDreamz Henry. Breathing Free was directed by Ethan Heard. Music Direction was by Jacob Ashworth and Daniel Schlosberg (who also did the arrangements of the music from Fidelio).

Tickets prices range from $10 – $75 based on what you can afford to pay. I strongly urge you to consider carving out time on Saturday night to see Breathing Free.

Laura Osnes (Courtesy Seth Concert Series)

CABARET: Laura Osnes – Seth Rudetsky Concert Series – February 14th – 8:00 PM EST/5:00 PM PST

You have to be a pretty versatile performer to believably portray Cinderella in one musical and Bonnie Parker in another. Add to that the ability to be Nellie Forbush in South Pacific and Sandy in Grease. Broadway star Laura Osnes has done them all.

She received Tony Award nominations for her performances in Rodgers + Hammerstein’s Cinderella and also for Frank Wildhorn’s musical about the outlaws Bonnie and Clyde.

Osnes is Seth Rudetsky’s concert guest this week. In addition to Sunday’s live performance there is an encore presentation February 15th at 3:00 PM EST/12:00 PM PST. Tickets are $25 for either showing.

Justin Hicks (Photo by Maria Baranova/Courtesy of Justin Hicks)

THEATRE: Justin Hicks’ Use Your Head for More – Baryshikov Arts Center – February 15th – March 1st

Looking at composer/creator/performer Justin Hicks’ website, he describes himself as “a multidisciplinary artist, and performer who uses music and sound to investigate themes of presence, identity, and value.” For this digital world premiere, Hicks has created a performance based on a transcript of a conversation he had with his mother. Use Your Head For More is offered up as a series of audiovisual portraits.

His work runs 30 minutes and was filmed at Hicks’ home in Bronx, New York. Two vocalists, Jasmine Enlow and Jade Hicks, collaborated with Hicks on Use Your Head for More.

There is no charge to watch Use Your Heard for More.

For those interesting in digging further into the project, there will be a live-streamed conversation between Hicks and Meshell Ndegeocello on February 24th at 8:00 PM EST/5:00 PM PST. You must register to watch the conversation. Registration for that opens up on February 15th.

Jim Caruso’s Pajama Cast Party (Courtesy Jim Caruso)

CABARET/OPERA/JAZZ: Jim Caruso’s Pajama Cast Party – February 15th – 8:00 PM EST/5:00 PM PST

It’s sad that we don’t often have Monday listings, because Pajama Cast Party would be on the list every week. Which means you need to check out Jim Caruso and his fabulous guests. This week they include opera star Zachary James, jazz singer/songwriter Lauren Kinhan, actress/singer Avery Sommers and comedian Gianmarco Soresi. They will share stories, songs, jokes and more during the show.

Cast Party is a weekly ritual for New Yorkers and it takes place at Birdland. This is a modified version, but no less entertaining – just less physically tangible. It’s also the 45th episode Caruso has done…so far. No doubt he’d love to be back at Birdland as much as the rest of us would!

That’s the complete list of my Best Bets: February 12th – February 15th. But you know I’ve got a few reminders for you as well!

Pianist Richard Goode performs works of Bach and Claude Debussy on Saturday in a performance from New York’s 92nd Street Y.

The Metropolitan Opera concludes their second week of Black History Month with performances of Akhnaten by Philip Glass on Friday (strongly recommended); Berlioz’s Les Troyens on Saturday and Wagner’s Die Walküre on Sunday. Plus here’s an early preview of Week 49 at the Met. They will be celebrating Franco Zeffirelli and launch the week with the 2007-2008 season production of Puccini’s La Bohème.

This week’s episode of In Concert at the Hollywood Bowl is called Música sin Fronteras (Music without Borders) and concludes the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s series on PBS. (Check your local listings).

The films.dance festival continues with this week’s Pássaro Distante. They debut a new film, and one of my favorites, Match on Monday, February 15th.

That ends all my Best Bets: February 12th – February 15th. There’s culture to enjoy with the family; culture to enjoy with that special someone and certainly great options for those going solo this year. Whatever you choose, be safe and have a wonderful weekend.

Main Photo: An image from Breathing Free (Courtesy The Broad Stage)

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Week 34 at the Met https://culturalattache.co/2020/11/02/week-34-at-the-met/ https://culturalattache.co/2020/11/02/week-34-at-the-met/#respond Mon, 02 Nov 2020 08:01:00 +0000 https://culturalattache.co/?p=11389 Metropolitan Opera Website

November 2nd - November 8th

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Week 34 at the Met is the first of a two-week series they are calling From the Baroque to the Present: A Two-Week Tour of Opera History.

This week’s series launches with a work by George Frideric Handel from 1725 and concludes with a work by Richard Wagner from 1868 (in a production that hasn’t been streamed yet).

Each production becomes available at 7:30 PM EDT/4:30 PM PDT on the Metropolitan Opera website. Every opera remains available for 23 hours. They are heavily promoting their Met Stars Live in Concert series and recently announced the cancellation of the full 2020-2021 season, so you’ll have to go past those announcements and promos to find the streaming productions. Schedules and timings may be subject to change.

If you read this column early enough on November 2nd, you might still have time to catch the 2011-2012 season production of Satyagraha that concludes last week’s Politics in Opera series. 

Monday, November 2 – Handel’s Rodelinda

Conducted by Harry Bicket; starring Renée Fleming, Stephanie Blythe, Andreas Scholl, Iestyn Davies, Joseph Kaiser and Shenyang. This revival of Stephen Wadsworth’s 2004 production is from the 2011-2012 season. This is an encore presentation of the production that was previously available on June 14th.

Handel’s opera had its world premiere in London in 1725. The libretto is by Nicola Francesco Haym who revised Antonio Salvi’s earlier libretto. Scholars have long considered Rodelinda to be amongst Handel’s finest works.

Queen Rodelinda’s husband has been vanquished and she is plotting her revenge. Multiple men have plans to take over the throne, but they have Rodelinda to contend with who is maneuvering herself to prevent that from happening. She is still faithful to her husband who is presumed dead.

Fleming and Blythe appeared at the Met in these role in the first revival of this production in 2006.

James R. Oestreich, in his review for the New York Times, said of Fleming’s return to Rodelinda, “But it would be asking too much of a singer like Ms. Fleming to revamp her technique in midcareer, so there was inevitably some disjunction between stage and pit. Ms. Fleming painted her coloratura in broad strokes, but it was enough that she threw herself and her voice wholeheartedly into the considerable drama.”

Tuesday, November 3 – Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice

Conducted by James Levine; starring Danielle de Niese, Heidi Grant Murphy and Stephanie Blythe. This Mark Morris production is from the 2008-2009 season. This is an encore presentation of the production that was previously available on June 3rd.

Once again the myth of Orpheus inspired a composer. Christoph Willibald Gluck’s opera, which premiered in Vienna in 1762, has a libretto by Ranieri de’ Calzabigi. (Others who have been so inspired include Haydn, Lizst and Stravinsky. The story is also the inspiration for the Tony Award-winning musical Hadestown.)

The Orpheus story is about a man who suddenly loses the love of his life, Euridice. He travels to the underworld to find her. He can bring her back, but only if he truly trusts in her love.

Anthony Tomassini, in his New York Times review of this production, began his review with singular praise for Blythe: “With each performance the American mezzo-soprano Stephanie Blythe gives, it becomes increasingly apparent that a once-in-a-generation opera singer has arrived. Ms. Blythe’s latest triumph came on Friday night at the Metropolitan Opera: a vocally commanding and deeply poignant portrayal of Orfeo in a revival of Mark Morris’s 2007 production of Gluck’s sublime masterpiece Orfeo ed Euridice. This was Ms. Blythe’s first performance of Orfeo, a touchstone trouser role for many mezzo-sopranos, and she already owns it.”

Wednesday, November 4 – Mozart’s Idomeneo

Conducted by James Levine; starring Nadine Sierra, Elza van den Heever, Alice Coote, and Matthew Polenzani. This revival of the 1982 Jean-Pierre Ponnelle production from the 2016-2017 season. This is an encore presentation of the production that was previously available on May 18th and October 4th.

Mozart’s opera had its world premiere in 1781 in Munich and has a libretto by Giambattista Varesco. 

Idomeneo tells the story of Idomeneus, the King of Crete, who in order to survive at sea promises Poseidon he will kill the first man he sees upon being rescued. His son, Idamante, learns that his father is in serious danger and fears he has perished. Mourning his father at the beach, he is overjoyed to see that he has survived. But in doing so becomes the first man his father sees. That’s when the story gets good!

George Grella, writing in New York Classic Review, said of Nadine Sierra’s performance, “Her voice balanced youthful shine and, just under the surface, deep feeling. She was incandescent all night, singing with great ease and richness, and modulating naturally between moods of loss, love, regret, and pride.”

Thursday, November 5 – Rossini’s Semiramide

Conducted by Maurizio Benini; starring Angela Meade, Elizabeth DeShong, Javier Camarena, Ildar Abdrazakov and Ryan Speedo Green. This is a revival of John Copley’s 1990 production from the 2017-2018 season. This is an encore presentation of the production that was previously available on June 16th.

Voltaire’s Semiramis was the inspiration this Rossini opera. The libretto is by Gaetano Rossi. Semiramide had its world premiere in 1823 in Venice. This was the composer’s final Italian opera.

Queen Semiramide is a troubled and complicated woman. She and her lover, Assur, killed her husband, King Nino. Their son, Ninius, disappears and is presumed dead as Semiramide ascends to the throne. Years later she becomes enamored with a young warrior named Arsace. Guess who he turns out to be?

David Wright, writing in New York Classical Review, raved about Meade’s performance.

“Soprano Angela Meade anchored the cast with a fearless performance in the title role of the morally compromised and lovestruck queen, issuing a blizzard of sixteenth and thirty-second notes and dizzying leaps with expressive power to back them up.”

Friday, November 6 – Verdi’s La Forza del Destino

Conducted by James Levine; starring Leontyne Price, Giuseppe Giacomini, Leo Nucci and Bonaldo Giaiotti. This John Dexter production is from the 1983-1984 season. This is an encore presentation of the production that was previously available on June 18th and 19th.

This frequently performed Verdi opera had its world premiere in 1862 in St. Petersburg, Russia. The libretto is by Francesco Maria Piave, based on an 1835 Spanish drama, Don Álvaro o la fuerza del sino by Ángel de Saavedra.

Leonora is the daughter of the Marquis of Calatrava. She falls in love with Don Alvaro, but her father is dead-set against their getting married. A tragedy befalls all three leaving Leonora to find solace in a monastery.

This was one of Price’s greatest roles throughout her career. Bernard Holland, writing in the New York Times, raved about her performance.

“This was truly Miss Price’s evening. There were some jolting shifts of register, and Miss Price must protect her fragile upper notes with tender care; but her dramatic presence on stage and the overall impact of her singing went far beyond matters of technique. ‘Madre, pietosa Vergine’ had a stunning muted eloquence, and ‘Pace, pace, mio Dio!’ at the end had a sonorous beauty and power of communication that this listener – and I think everyone else in attendance – will think back upon for many years to come.”

Saturday, November 7 – Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette

Conducted by Plácido Domingo; starring Anna Netrebko, Roberto Alagna, Nathan Gunn and Robert Lloyd. This revival of Guy Joosten’s 2005 production is from the 2007-2008 season. This is an encore presentation of the production that was previously available on July 23rd.

Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet served as the inspiration for this five-act opera by Charles Gounod that had its world premiere in Paris in 1867. The libretto was written by Jules Barbier and Michel Carré.

The opera closely follows Shakespeare’s play about two star-crossed lovers from warring families. Their love only inflames the animosity between the Montagues and the Capulets. No matter what the young lovers do to be together, fate always seems to find a way to make their love impossible. When that happens, tragedy follows.

In her review for the New York Times, Anne Midgette said of the two leads: 

“You are not going to hear much better singing than this today. True, Anna Netrebko and Roberto Alagna can both be faulted. She is a little wild, flinging herself into roles and about the stage (especially, on Tuesday, at her first entrance); he has a certain emotional bluntness, and a certain monochrome tone. So much for the obligatory criticism. The bottom line is that Ms. Netrebko produced a luscious sound that you wanted to bathe in forever, especially in her first-act duet with Mr. Alagna. The ultimate measure for a singer should be, Is this a sound you want to listen to? The answer here was yes.”

Sunday, November 8 – Wagner’s Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg – March 28th

Conducted by James Levine; starring Annette Dasch, Johan Botha, Paul Appleby and Michael Volle. This revival of Otto Shenk’s 1993 production is from the 2014-2015 season.

Richard Wagner’s Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg had its world premiere in Munich is 1868. As with his other works, Wagner wrote the libretto. It is also a rare comedy from the composer. The opera is one of Wagner’s longest running nearly four-and-a-half hours.

At stake in the opera is the love of a young girl named Eva. She has been betrothed to whomever wins a singing contest. Walther von Stolzing is desperately in love with Eva and wants to compete, but the song he wants to sing doesn’t conform to the rules set out by the competition. With the help of a cobbler named Hans Sachs, he hopes to overcome the opposition to him, win the contest and ultimately marry Eva.

In his review for the New York Times, Anthony Tommasini raved about Johan Botha in the role of Walther. “The powerful tenor Johan Botha has excelled in the demanding role of Walther, the restless knight who has come to Nuremberg, where he instantly falls for Eva, the lovely daughter of Pogner, the wealthy goldsmith. He did so again on this night. Mr. Botha has a very hefty physique. He does not cut the figure of the dashing young knight of Wagner’s imagination. Yet he sang with so much romantic allure and freshness, especially during the glorious ‘Morning Dream Song’ (as Sachs names it), that Mr. Botha seemed the essence of a young man in love.”

That’s the full line-up for Week 34 at the Met – our first half of the Two-Week Tour of Opera History. Next week’s operas begin with a work by Tchaikovsky from 1892 and concludes with an opera from 2016 composed by Adés.

Enjoy the operas and enjoy your week.

Photo: Stephanie Blythe in Orfeo ed Eridice (Photo by Ken Howard/Courtesy Metropolitan Opera)

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Week 12 at the Met https://culturalattache.co/2020/06/01/week-12-at-the-met/ https://culturalattache.co/2020/06/01/week-12-at-the-met/#respond Mon, 01 Jun 2020 13:00:00 +0000 https://culturalattache.co/?p=9106 Met Opera Website

June 1st - June 7th

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What’s the best way to look at Week 12 at the Met? Is it that we are concluding our third full month of productions from the Metropolitan Opera’s archives? Has it really been three months already? Is it that there’s a wonderful mix of old, less old and very new available this week? Perhaps it’s all of it rolled into one.

The highlight for me this week is Friday’s showing of Thomas Adés’s The Exterminating Angel, based on the 1962 film by Luis Buñuel.

Each production becomes available at 7:30 PM EDT/4:30 PDT and remains available at the Met Opera website for 23 hours. This means you still have time on Monday, June 1st to catch Karita Matilla in Richard Strauss’ Salome up to 6:30 PM EDT/3:30 PM PDT.

Here is the line-up for Week 12 at the Met:

Monday, June 1 – Bellini’s I Puritani

Conducted by Patrick Summers and starring Anna Netrebko, Eric Cutler, Franco Vassallo and John Relyea. This is a revival of the 1976 Sandro Sequi production from the 2006-2007 season.

Vincenzo Bellini’s I Puritani had its world premiere in Paris in 1835. The libretto was written by Carlo Pepoli. This was the composer’s final work. He died eight months after the premiere of this opera.

I Puritani is set in 1650 England. Elvira (Netrebko) and Arturo (Cutler) are going to be married. He is a Royalist and she is a Puritan. (Puritanism was a religious reform movement that originated in the late 16th Century and believed that The Church of England and the Roman Catholic Church had too much in common and weren’t rooted in the text of the Bible.) Riccardo (Vassallo), a Puritan, is also in love with Elvira and believes himself to have already been promised her. The three must navigate not just their romantic entanglement, but also the political issues and intrigue surrounding the English Civil War.

This was the Metropolitan Opera’s first production of I Puritani in a decade. By the time this production opened in late 2006, it was the fourth new role for Netrebko that year. The New York Times reported that on opening night the soprano received a lengthy ovation at the the conclusion of the second act mad scene.

Tuesday, June 2 – Berg’s Lulu

Conducted by Lothar Koenigs and starring Marlis Petersen, Susan Graham, Daniel Brenna, Paul Groves, Johan Reuter and Franz Grundheber. This William Kentridge production is from the 2015-2016 season.

Alban Berg used two Frank Wedekind plays, Erdgeist and Die Büchse der Pandora, as the inspiration for this opera. The plays were both about the title character, Lulu. The composer died before finishing the final act of the opera. It’s debut in 1937 in Zurich was of the incomplete opera. In 1979 Friedrich Cerha’s orchestration of the act 3 sketches were added to the work Berg had completed and that version is commonly performed.

Lulu (Petersen) is the engineer of her own destruction. She’s a mysterious young woman whose fall from grace is depicted over the course of three acts.

Kentridge received wide praise from audiences and critics alike. What drew many people to this particular production was that soprano Petersen, who had performed Lulu for nearly twenty years, retired the role after these performances at the Met.

Wednesday, June 3 – Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice

Conducted by James Levine and starring Danielle de Niese, Heidi Grant Murphy and Stephanie Blythe. This Mark Morris production is from the 2008-2009 season.

Once again the myth of Orpheus inspired a composer. Christoph Willibald Gluck’s opera, which premiered in Vienna in 1762, has a libretto by Ranieri de’ Calzabigi. (Others who have been so inspired include Haydn, Lizst and Stravinsky. The story is also the inspiration for the Tony Award-winning musical Hadestown.)

The Orpheus story is about a man (Blythe) who suddenly loses the love of his life, Euridice (de Niese). He travels to the underworld to find her. He can bring her back, but only if he truly trusts in her love.

Mezzo-soprano Blythe is a highly-acclaimed singer whose work ranges from Wagner’s Ring Cycle to Ricky Ian Gordon’s 2014 opera 27 about Gertrude Stein. The reviews she received for this production at the Met Opera were overwhelmingly positive.

Thursday, June 4 – Puccini’s Tosca

Conducted by James Conlon and starring Shirley Verrett, Luciano Pavarotti and Cornell MacNeil. This Tito Gobbi production is from the 1978-1979 season.

It is quite likely that Puccini’s Tosca was the first opera to premiere in 1900. Its first performance was on January 14 in Rome. Based on Victorien Sardou’s 1887 play of the same name, Tosca‘s libretto was written by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa.

The setting for Tosca is Rome in 1800. The Napoleonic wars were raging and political unrest was omnipresent. The opera takes place over the course of slightly less than 24 hours. Floria Tosca (Verrett) is the object of Chief of Police Baron Scarpia’s (MacNeil) lust. He uses suspicions that her lover, Mario Cavaradossi (Pavarotti), aided a political prisoner who has escaped as an opportunity to get him out of his way which will leave Tosca for himself. After capturing Cavaradossi, Scarpia says that if Tosca doesn’t become his lover, he will have Cavaradossi killed.

When Pavarotti took on this role it was one of his first forays into more demanding roles that were tougher on his vocal chords. The tenor made his debut at the Metropolitan Opera six-and-a-half years prior to this Tosca in a production of Donizett’s La fille du régiment.

Friday, June 5 – Thomas Adès’s The Exterminating Angel

Conducted by Thomas Adès and starring Audrey Luna, Amanda Echalaz, Sally Matthews, Sophie Bevan, Alice Coote, Christine Rice, Iestyn Davies, Joseph Kaiser, Frédéric Antoun, David Portillo, David Adam Moore, Rod Gilfry, Kevin Burdette, Christian Van Horn and John Tomlinson. This Tom Cairns production was from the 2017-2018 season.

British composer Adés’s opera, based on the Luis Buñuel film from 1962, had its world premiere in Salzburg in 2016. Tom Cairns, who directed this production, wrote the libretto.

The Exterminating Angel depicts an elaborate dinner party where all the attendees suddenly and mysteriously cannot leave the room. As the hours turn into days, they lose any sense of privilege and pretense and are reduced to more animalistic tendencies.

If you saw the composer’s The Tempest a couple weeks ago, you know that Adés is one of our most compelling and intriguing composers.

Feel free to check out Anthony Tomassini’s review in the New York Times. I’ll just give you the last sentence from his review: “If you go to a single production this season, make it this one.”

Saturday, June 6 – Verdi’s Otello

Conducted by Yannick Nézet-Séguin and starring Sonya Yoncheva, Aleksandrs Antonenko and Željko Lučić. This Bartlett Sher production is from the 2015-2016 season.

Verdi’s opera based on Shakespeare’s play was his penultimate opera. (Falstaff was the last opera he composed.) It premiered in Milan in 1887 and features a libretto by Arrigo Boito.

Otello tells the story of a Moor (Antonenko) in the Venetian Army who is convinced by his ensign, Iago (Lučić), that Otello’s wife, Desdemona (Yoncheva), has been unfaithful.

This was Sher’s sixth production for the Metropolitan Opera. The production made history by being the first Metropolitan Opera production where the tenor singing the title role was not in blackface (that had been standard practice around the world.)

Critics were mixed in their reviews of the production, but Yoncheva received universal praise for her performance.

Sunday, June 7 – Massenet’s Thaïs

Conducted by Jesús López-Cobos and starring Renée Fleming, Michael Schade and Thomas Hampson. This John Cox production is from the 2007-2008 season.

Jules Massenet’s Thaïs had its world premiere in Paris in 1894. The libretto is by Louis Gallet based on the novel of the same name by Anatole France.

In this opera the Roman Empire is controlling Egypt. Athanaël (Hampson), a monk, has a lustful obsession with Thaïs (Fleming), which conflicts with his attempts to convert her to Christianity.

For sopranos who want to sing the title character, this is a great role. Fleming earned rave reviews for her performance this production, which originated at Lyric Opera Chicago in 2002. She and Hampson performed together in Thaïs in Chicago and have recorded the opera.

In his New York Times review of this production, Anthony Tomassini wrote, “But let’s face it. Thaïs is a diva spectacle, and Ms. Fleming plays it to the hilt. In Scene 2, during a party at Nicias’ well-appointed house, complete with solid-gold decorative palm trees, Athanaël appears, issuing apocalyptic threats to Thais, which Mr. Hampson sings chillingly. The guests ridicule the monk, forcing him to his knees and bedecking him with garlands in tribute to Venus. In the midst of a vocal outpouring, Ms. Fleming climbs a winding staircase just so she can deliver a triumphant high C from the top landing, then scurries back down to face the humiliated monk as the curtain falls.”

So ends Week 12 at the Met.

Here’s a sneak peak for Week 13: Marilyn Horne singing Rossini from 1986.

Photo: David Adam Moore, Christian Van Horn, Rod Gilfry, Christine Rice, Audrey Luna and Sir John Tomlinson in The Exterminating Angel. (Photo by Ken Howard/Courtesy of the Metropolitan Opera)

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Mark Morris Dance Group: Pepperland https://culturalattache.co/2019/06/12/mark-morris-dance-group-pepperland/ https://culturalattache.co/2019/06/12/mark-morris-dance-group-pepperland/#respond Wed, 12 Jun 2019 14:30:10 +0000 https://culturalattache.co/?p=5883 Segerstrom Hall

June 14th - 15th

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Sing the next four lines to the tune of “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer:” Bang! Bang! Mark Morris Dance Group’s show, Now comes to Segerstrom; Bang Bang! It is called “Pepperland,” Like the Beatles record chum!

In 2017, Mark Morris was commissioned by the City of Liverpool to come up with a work to celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the classic Beatles album Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. That work, Pepperland, is being performed three times this weekend at Segerstrom Hall in Costa Mesa.

This is a full-evening work that not only incorporates arrangements of songs from that landmark album, but also includes new music by Ethan Iverson. The new music allows Morris to work within more traditional dance structures and to flesh out The Beatles’ recording which in and of itself runs less than 40 minutes.

Mark Morris formed the Mark Morris Dance Group in 1980. Of this particular work, Morris says in an article on the Segerstrom Center’s website that Sgt. Pepper, “was abundant with new musical ideas; a new kind of studio-born performance; a never-before-heard confluence of music world conventions; a witty, sad, surprising, and moving musical trip. In a fully-staged, newly re-approached music and dance show, we accept[ed} the challenge of presenting a contemporary reading of this great artifact.”

Elizabeth Kurtzman created the color costumes for Pepperland.

For tickets to any of the three performances, go here.

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