I'm in New York City for two days.
It's a beautiful, warm sunny day. Not a cloud in the sky and the city is glorious. I had meetings at City Opera for a piece I'm staging in the fall and I'm having dinner tonight with a friend who I get to see so seldom that it almost seems criminal. I should be singing down the street, skipping to the rhythm of the traffic, throwing my hat up to the tops of the building.
This city turns me on like no other.
I am, however, under a pall of sadness and perhaps fear for my kitty, Lucius, my best friend for twelve years. In the two weeks that my husband was in Cooperstown breathing new life into me and us, his health declinded rapidly and as John arrives in San Diego this afternoon, we may be making decisions that mean the end of an incredible relationship of mutual love, laughter and comfort.
It kills me that I can't be there. It also kills me that, even being in the most distracting city in the world, I am no closer to shutting my mind from the grief-house in San Diego than I was yesterday in my little room in Richfield Springs.
It's the waiting that's unbearable.
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
Reasons for Not Writing...
1. My husband's come to town.
That could easily be the only reason for not blogging for the last week. I have to soak up every moment I have with him since he's near me so seldom. When he's around I want to spend all of my time leaning against his shoulder, walking hand-in-hand, talking rubbish with him.
But the list continues:
2. We're shooting a bit of an impromptu piece of screendance. The piece is about a woman who gets lost in the depths of the country after her car breaks down. I spent a lot of my free time before John arrived scouting remote locations, especially gravel roads. We've spent the last week running from deserted road to woodland field, pulling out our littl
e camera and shooting footage of me dancing. It's coming together well, but I feel like we spend half our time chasing the proper sky around. New York weather is so fickle in the summer. Our first two shooting days were brilliant sun and the third day was spitting rain and overcast. Today we were hoping for some clouds and as soon as we began to shoot the sun came out in all its brilliance. Murphy's law's been our co
nstant companion.3.John and I have this sudden and overwhelming obsession with Ricky Gervais' "Extras." Richard, my roommate, has both seasons on DVD and we can't seem to get enough. Daniel Radcliffe chucking a condom at Diana Riggs is reason enough for me to plop down in front of the telly.
4. I have a friend overseas who urged me to join Facebook. I'm obsessed. I don't know how to stop.
5. It takes bloody 1/2 an hour to get anywhere in this huge, bucolic county. I drive constantly. Makes me long for the city.
So it's after midnight and we're watching the last episode of Extras and we're driving to the
Berkshires tomorrow. . . hopefully to shoot a little more footage. Facebook is on a separate screen on my desktop and I'm leaning my head against my husband's shoulder. Finally I have time to write.
Sunday, July 15, 2007
Operatic Ecstasies
I had breakfast with some friends today and the topic of favorite operas came up. I mentioned “Figaro,” which I do love but one friend started talking about all of the “bits and pieces” of operas that she loves. This got me thinking. . . my favorite bits of opera can’t be confined to one composer and definitely not to one opera. My favorites come in tiny moments of sound, little smudges of voice, and those brief, fleeting moments of compositional genius when the emotion mixed with the perfect combination of instruments, of harmony, of voice-types creates an instant physical reaction – that puts me in a sweat or a frenzy. Following are a few that come to mind:
The first one I always think of are those last few bars of Britten’s “Death in Venice.” That little final tremolo up in the stratosphere finally fading into nothingness as Aschenbach lay dying is so simple and so fleeting, but it hits me right in my gut and all the hairs stand up on the back of my neck.
I love the moment in Puccini’s “La Fanciulla Del West” when all of the miners, from their gruff recits at the beginning, break into the sweetest pianissimo waltz refrain. Singing only “la” over and over and clapping out the “2,3” they sing a sweet simple version of the waltz theme for Minnie and Dick until the orchestra takes over with the first satisfying swell of said theme indicating the moment that Minnie and Dick fall in love…Of course that swell is undercut almost immediately by a looming darkness as the male chorus comes back in under the waltz wailing “Allacio” (sp) – “Hang Him!” as one of Dick’s cronies is brought in. In that 45 seconds of music, Puccini shows us tentative flirtation, love’s bloom, and that horrible foreshadowing of a relationship’s demise. Brilliant.
The prayer in “Hansel und Gretel,” “ Abends, will ich schlafen gehn,” makes me burst into tears every time I hear it no matter where I am, what I’m doing, or who I’m with. Perfection in its brevity and its mixture of sadness and hopefulness.
“Akhnaten,” Philips Glass’s Egyptian Opera yields two moments in my aural memory – perhaps because it was my first opera and such an amazing experience for me. The first is the transition into the first scene where the narrator, speaking of a pharaoh’s passage to heaven after death, yells out “On the wind. ON THE WIND!” and like a lightning crash those drums begin smacking out that syncopated heartbeat of triumph laced with a bit of fear, a bit of grief… The second is the first strains of the “Hymn to the Aten,” which make my heart swell, and then when the chorus joins in towards the end of the hymn when that swell finally bursts.
The trio of Gilda/Maddalena/Sparafucile in “Rigoletto” always blows me away… There’s something about the build at the beginning with the three of them in their own private hells…it’s a maddening trek up the hill and oh, so satisfying as the trio actually begins with Sparafucile’s proclamation and that huge crash from the orchestra. Eventually, as everything breaks loose, their voices and torment couple with the orchestra to create the perfect storm. Verdi gives it time to warm up, however, which is where his genius comes in. Like a teasing lover, he leads the music nearly to climax, and then pulls back to nearly nothing . . . to three little knocks and a tiny scared voice, to confusion among the siblings as they recit for the final time . . . He does this twice until you’re twisting in your seat, waiting for that little death, and finally with that final vocal cutoff he unleashes an orchestral tempest that trumps all three swells. Fabulous.
“Pensieri Voi Mi Tormentate” from Handel’s “Agrippina” is Handel at his absolute best. He starts out following the ABA form we all know so well, but then jumps into a tortured recit and returns to the A form again for one final blow. My favorite, tiny, moment is the beginning of each A section when “Agrippina” wails out “Pensieri,” and the oboe echos her in that hollow, horrifying strain. Each return to the A allows her a more ornamented version of “Pensieri” and the oboe is right there with her, like a twisted musical representation of her tortured thoughts, boring right into her brain.
In a completely non-operatic piece, Reinhold Gliere’s other-worldly, off-tempo Charleston from his ballet “The Red Poppy” is horrifying and life-changing. It’s written as if Master Gliere had never actually heard a Charleston, only read about it. It’s got the right time signature, the rhythm and basic structure but it carries a sense of horror and dysfunction inside of its joviality that makes the whole thing a little mixed up and tragic.
Most recently, the moment that knocks me out is the death sequence in Carlson's "Anna Karenina" where a distraught, drugged Anna stands at the train tracks in a trance and sings out, "How bright it is," letting the word "bright" linger on a downward spiraling scale. Her despair is pervasive and horrifying in that moment.
And finally, coming back to “Figaro,” the moment that gives me goosebumps is at the very, very end when the Count pulls everyone on stage and starts to call out the Countess before he knows the joke. From right after she reveals herself to him and the violins start to go nuts and the guys start singing piano (under their breaths), “Oh my god, I can’t believe this,” until their final “non so” and that long fermata where you’re not quite sure what the Count’s going to do, I am in goose-pimply frenzy.
There are many more delicious moments but these are the ones that sit in the front, easily-accessible place in my mind. The more I work in this business, the more moments I will add to my storehouse.
The first one I always think of are those last few bars of Britten’s “Death in Venice.” That little final tremolo up in the stratosphere finally fading into nothingness as Aschenbach lay dying is so simple and so fleeting, but it hits me right in my gut and all the hairs stand up on the back of my neck.
I love the moment in Puccini’s “La Fanciulla Del West” when all of the miners, from their gruff recits at the beginning, break into the sweetest pianissimo waltz refrain. Singing only “la” over and over and clapping out the “2,3” they sing a sweet simple version of the waltz theme for Minnie and Dick until the orchestra takes over with the first satisfying swell of said theme indicating the moment that Minnie and Dick fall in love…Of course that swell is undercut almost immediately by a looming darkness as the male chorus comes back in under the waltz wailing “Allacio” (sp) – “Hang Him!” as one of Dick’s cronies is brought in. In that 45 seconds of music, Puccini shows us tentative flirtation, love’s bloom, and that horrible foreshadowing of a relationship’s demise. Brilliant.
The prayer in “Hansel und Gretel,” “ Abends, will ich schlafen gehn,” makes me burst into tears every time I hear it no matter where I am, what I’m doing, or who I’m with. Perfection in its brevity and its mixture of sadness and hopefulness.
“Akhnaten,” Philips Glass’s Egyptian Opera yields two moments in my aural memory – perhaps because it was my first opera and such an amazing experience for me. The first is the transition into the first scene where the narrator, speaking of a pharaoh’s passage to heaven after death, yells out “On the wind. ON THE WIND!” and like a lightning crash those drums begin smacking out that syncopated heartbeat of triumph laced with a bit of fear, a bit of grief… The second is the first strains of the “Hymn to the Aten,” which make my heart swell, and then when the chorus joins in towards the end of the hymn when that swell finally bursts.
The trio of Gilda/Maddalena/Sparafucile in “Rigoletto” always blows me away… There’s something about the build at the beginning with the three of them in their own private hells…it’s a maddening trek up the hill and oh, so satisfying as the trio actually begins with Sparafucile’s proclamation and that huge crash from the orchestra. Eventually, as everything breaks loose, their voices and torment couple with the orchestra to create the perfect storm. Verdi gives it time to warm up, however, which is where his genius comes in. Like a teasing lover, he leads the music nearly to climax, and then pulls back to nearly nothing . . . to three little knocks and a tiny scared voice, to confusion among the siblings as they recit for the final time . . . He does this twice until you’re twisting in your seat, waiting for that little death, and finally with that final vocal cutoff he unleashes an orchestral tempest that trumps all three swells. Fabulous.
“Pensieri Voi Mi Tormentate” from Handel’s “Agrippina” is Handel at his absolute best. He starts out following the ABA form we all know so well, but then jumps into a tortured recit and returns to the A form again for one final blow. My favorite, tiny, moment is the beginning of each A section when “Agrippina” wails out “Pensieri,” and the oboe echos her in that hollow, horrifying strain. Each return to the A allows her a more ornamented version of “Pensieri” and the oboe is right there with her, like a twisted musical representation of her tortured thoughts, boring right into her brain.
In a completely non-operatic piece, Reinhold Gliere’s other-worldly, off-tempo Charleston from his ballet “The Red Poppy” is horrifying and life-changing. It’s written as if Master Gliere had never actually heard a Charleston, only read about it. It’s got the right time signature, the rhythm and basic structure but it carries a sense of horror and dysfunction inside of its joviality that makes the whole thing a little mixed up and tragic.
Most recently, the moment that knocks me out is the death sequence in Carlson's "Anna Karenina" where a distraught, drugged Anna stands at the train tracks in a trance and sings out, "How bright it is," letting the word "bright" linger on a downward spiraling scale. Her despair is pervasive and horrifying in that moment.
And finally, coming back to “Figaro,” the moment that gives me goosebumps is at the very, very end when the Count pulls everyone on stage and starts to call out the Countess before he knows the joke. From right after she reveals herself to him and the violins start to go nuts and the guys start singing piano (under their breaths), “Oh my god, I can’t believe this,” until their final “non so” and that long fermata where you’re not quite sure what the Count’s going to do, I am in goose-pimply frenzy.
There are many more delicious moments but these are the ones that sit in the front, easily-accessible place in my mind. The more I work in this business, the more moments I will add to my storehouse.
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
Endless Possibilities
We opened. I know I mentioned this in the last post, but it's such a great feeling. Read a really nice review of our little show here. Lillian and I enjoyed champagne on the lawn in the middle of the afternoon. It was a matinee opening, which I find a little strange. The only other place I've ever opened a show in the afternoon was at NYCO, and I found that a little weird as well. Opening nights should be exactly that. . . nights. As exciting as it was to get the Gluck open, there was something a little anticlimactic about opening the show as the sun leaked through the windows and under the doors. This is not to mention the fact that Offenbach's "Orpheus in the Underworld," which had many of our chorus members in it (including Juliet Petrus, the young artist who went on in place of a sick Jill Gardner as the leading role), opened the night before. Our chorus was tired but still riding on the adrenalin of a great season opener, so they rallied to put on a beautiful show.
I understand the reasoning behind an evening opener followed by a matinee opener the next day. Cooperstown is a little weekender resort town for people from the city. Tickets sales are much stronger when people can take in two shows over the weekend and still be back in the city by Sunday night. It's always lovely to drive into the theater lot and see tons of couples and families having picnics on the lawn. Sometimes it makes me wish I was only an audience member.
A word about Juliet Petrus. She went on at the last minute as Eurydice in "Orpheus in the Underworld." She was pulled out of a Monteverdi rehearsal at noon to go into emergency rehearsals and wig/costume fittings. Her advantage was that she'd done the role before, though not in this translation. But she knew the music and understood the intent. This is the reason that good covers are so important. Covers going on in place of principals is certainly not the norm, but it's not completely unusual. It's a wonderful opportunity for the young singer who jumps in to save the day, but is not all fun and games. I can't imagine the nerves that took hold as she left her rehearsal that afternoon and started cramming for a test (a sweaty, critic-filled, completely public test). It's the potential big break that everyone wants to be extremely prepared for but no one really wants.
I wasn't going to go to the opening since I'd seen the final dress, but as soon as I heard the news about Juliet I wanted to be there to support her. It was great to be in an opening night audience as it was...and the whole company came out to cheer her on to get her through her nerves. She looked terrific. I was so proud of her. She's not the first young singer I've seen go on as a cover for an opening (Ellie Dehn jumping in as the Countess in "Figaro" at Opera Pacific comes to mind), but the nerves and possibility is always overwhelming and puts me in a very maternal place about the singers I work with every day.
Speaking of covers, I had my own cover run for the Gluck/Berlioz on Monday. I was a nervous wreck for them (and myself, having staged them into the piece in a relatively short amount of time), and tried to steel myself by taking a few moments of silence and breath. It was my last bit of business besides minding the show for about a month. They (my covers) were spectacular. Katie Calcamuggio, my Orpheus cover, stopped the show after her bravura aria, "Amour Viens." People were screaming and stomping and I imagined her shaking behind the upstage wall the same way I was shaking and tearing up in the corner of the audience. I was living vicariously. I woke up on Tuesday morning and looked at my calendar, realizing the endless possibilites that lay before me. My husband is coming in next week, there are so many things I want to see and I have the time to actually finish books I've been reading, work on projects I've set aside and perhaps even be a little domestic. It's rare to look ahead to nothing. I think it almost makes me more uptight because I start trying to cram in too much.
So, for the time being I'm trying to take each day as it comes, trying not to push too much into each day, and trying to take in the country and experiences around me. For instance, I went and saw the midnight premiere of "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" in Oneonta with a bunch of Glimmerglass-ites last night. It was packed and full of sweaty, noisy teenagers shoving in popcorn and junior mints, and I had a fabulous time. This morning I woke up without an alarm, listened to a spectaular lecture by Arun Ghandi on NPR about his grandfather's teachings, did a little housework and drove to the theater to pick up the scenes I'm doing next month. On the way I saw the little gal above, chomping away at the grass in that field. I took the time to stop and watch her, say hello when she lifted her head.
I have two more glorious days like this before our next show.
Monday, July 09, 2007
Free At Last!
No writing for a while. We've been in production week. It's unbelievable how busy I get when we're about to open a show...if I'm not working, then I'm thinking about working or preparing to work. We opened yesterday afternoon to a very appreciative house and we had a cover run for our three amazing covers at Richfield Springs Central School this evening. It was my last responsibility beyond maintaining the show for several weeks.
It's amazing to look ahead and see free time. Free time to visit with my husband who arrives next week. Free time to work on the other irons I have sitting in the coals. Free time to relax and regroup for the next deluge which will come in the form of a Scenes program at the end of the Festival season. Right now I'm exhausted and crashing pretty hard, as I usually do once we open. It's time to sleep.
The picture is of our intrepid coach and accompanist, Leesa Dahl, who just played the entire opera straight through for our cover run this evening. I've snapped several shots of her throughout this rehearsal period and she always jokes with me, saying, "Oh great. That's going to end up on your blog tomorrow isn't it?" So the answer for this shot, Leesa peeking out from the pit like Kilroy during a scene shift rehearsal, is "Yep!" This is for you Leesa.
To bed...
Monday, July 02, 2007
Beverly Sills, 1929-2007
Beverly Sills died today. I heard that she was sick only two days ago. I don't even remember who told me. This has been a hard year already. Two opera giants in three months. The New York Times has a lovely article here.
She brought opera into our mainstream culture. I fear there's no one to fill her shoes in that respect.
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