Cultural ramblings

This was a knock-out performance. It was the first time I've witnessed Winterreise sung by a woman. When trying to recall the last time a notable woman sang it in the New York City area, people I know could only summon Elisabeth Söderström from 1985. 

Alice Coote had a stand with the music by her side. Although she did refer to it now and then, by the end I felt it was more of a "security blanket" than an excuse for lack of memory. She clearly had thought out every line and understood every word. I set my program and texts aside and watched the entire time--she not only made great effort to connect with the audience, but at times it felt so intense I wanted to turn my eyes away. 

I might be mistaken (or sexist) in my perception, but I wondered if being a woman gave her greater license to move, gesticulate slightly, and articulate with greater freedom than a man. (I'm thinking (recovering?) from Mark Padmore's recital some months ago and how his rendition was very restrained, so that any small deviation was all the more noticeable.) Probing my own expectations, I think there is an expectation that a woman will be more overt with expressing emotions (whereas a man will be more reserved). Ok - point your arrows. 

Being a mezzo soprano, Coote took most (but not all) the songs down a half or whole step. She has a register break in the middle of the staff (somewhere around G-A) and her choice of keys seem perfectly suited to her voice. Whether the tessitura was in the high or lower higher area, the choice of keys suited he voice so that only a few songs had her transversing the break. At the times she scaled that break, she was able to embue the sound with an emotion that suggested a traveler whose hope is broken (this happened a handful of times - one I remember was in Der greise Kopf). 

This ability to change her sound depending on the register added to her already impressive ability to shape words and phrases while summoning many different "colors" and shades to her sound and articulation of words. 

If I think of the Winterreise in my mind, there were a number of surprises. Many of the tempi were unexected, for example, I felt Gute Nacht went at a good clip, whereas Der Lindenbaum was very broad. But at no point did it seem that Coote (or Drake) couldn't sustain what was started. Drake especially didn't seem purely as an accompanist but seemed to have a very dynamic impact on many of the songs. At points his loudness (never ugly) seemed surprising, but it added to the intensity of Coote's interpretation. Quite a number of times he segued directly into the next song without a break - that definitely added to the intensity of the evening. 

 I should've written this last night when it was still fresh I could point to a number of details which have now receeded from memory. But the lushness of her voice, a intense and heartfelt interpretation, and a searing intensity to her presence made this a wonderful recital.

(Originally posted to LIEDER-L)

Labels: Alice Coote, Julius Drake, Lieder, Winterreise

Program:  http://bit.ly/hSWlTb



The most intriguing thing I found about Renee Fleming's Carnegie Hall recital was her programing.  Early Schoenberg, followed by Zemlinsky, Korngold, an interlude of Brad Mehldau, and concluding with Strauss.  Though it may all be classified as "late romantic music" in fact they're all different from one another, some of them playing to Fleming's strengths.


The first part of the program (Schoenberg, Zemlinsky and Korngold) seemed to have functioned as warm up pieces.  Rarely did they touch upon the singer's upper registers (until the Korngold) which gave Fleming a chance to work her middle range.  I'm not sure that these were the best choice of songs for her because occasionally she went so low, or turned a phrase in a certain way where the sound would just drop out.  Perhaps it was her tendency to look down at the first 5 rows of the orchestra.


By the time one sings one's second recital - anywhere - you should always know to project to the back of the auditorium - whether it's a small place or Carnegie Hall.  Fleming pointed her dead downward during the first half -- a guarantee that sound won't project further than the orchestra (or Parterre as Carnegie calls it).  Perhaps during intermission someone reminded Fleming of this, and the second half of the recital was much better because she consistently looked and projected upwards.


The Mehldau was tuneful, not jazzy, but I didn't find it terribly interesting music.  But what I did find surprising during these songs was that Fleming's communicative skills were **so** much better when the language was English (despite this being a English translation of Rainer Maria Rilke).



So why couldn't she use that a bit more during the Schoenberg and Korngold? Perhaps she was thinking that, due to the obscure poetry, she'd have a more detached attitude of understatement.  Maybe it's because I'm currently reading Sondheim's "Finishing The Hat" that I've been much more aware of words, even when I think it's wrong such as in Sondheim's belief that the words always come first.  But I even recall a master class with Barbara Cook where she told of first developing a relationship to the words, understanding why each one is there.


I know Fleming knows German.  So how come it didn't come out enough during the first half of the program?  Maybe that was part of her programming - the more distant, abstract, somber songs at the outset, and the warmer, rapturous ones at the end.


In any case, it did emerge in the second half - those Mehldau songs allowing Fleming to "thaw out" (there was a snow storm during the concert), so by the time she arrived at the Strauss set at the end, she was able to show off all her talents - strongly supported tone, wonderful mezza voce's, etc -- in one of the composers and style which I think is most appropriate for her voice.  By this time she was much more actively involved with the words and it made a big difference.


Her encores gave her a chance to relax.  Though not the best, the one which I felt most striking was "I Feel Pretty" from West Side Story. I don't think it's appropriate for her voice, and it was played way, way too fast by the otherwise superb Hartmut Höll (she was struggling to keep up with the piano and enunciate the words).  But that was the thing again!  - her understanding of the text seemed so much more at hand in English (maybe because it wasn't a song but theater music). If she could only map that on to her German in composers other than Strauss.  Her reading of Strauss's Morgen also gave her a chance to display her lovely mezza voces - they seemed almost perfect in the way they opened up to a lovely bouquet of sound.  


So I was surprised at what a satisfying concert this turned out to be.  Now to investigate up more of that early Schoenberg.


[Slightly altered from original posting to OPERA-L]

Labels: Lieder, Renee Fleming, soprano

This afternoon's concert of the Met Orchestra began with an unusual work, Mozart's recitative and aria Ch'io mi scordi di te?...non temer, amato bene, K. 505, composed probably as a farewell to Nancy Storace. It's unusual in that it contains a piano obbligato which James Levine played and conducted from (though most of the conducting must have been worked out in rehearsal, as the piano part during the aria was substantial). Though one always knew who was the primary soloist (mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato), the piano part added an interesting part, not so much in the vein of concerted instrument, but as part of the orchestra, adding idiomatic sound and ornamentation to the fairly light orchestra.

I've rarely been entranced by Charles Wuorinen's compositions since I first heard them beginning in 1974, when I attended the Manhattan School of Music for one year (before transferring to Mannes). I recall one of his interesting experiments: orchestration of a pre-Baroque musical work, apparently inspired by Webern's attempt at Bach's Ricercar from the Musikalische Opfer. Wuorinen's attempt wasn't as disorienting as was Webern's, but he was attempting to do similar things, crafting more dimensions of sonority than the original piece had, presumably as away to impart greater analytical understand of what was going on in the music. (I can't remember what it was -- perhaps a piece by Dufay? -- but I recall the tonal center of the work focused on A, for that pitch kept recurring with constantly changing sound quality due to the changes in orchestra.)

I was reminded of that experience in hearing his latest work, a world premiere, Time Regained, billed as a fantasy for piano and orchestra, with Peter Serkin as the pianist. This work, using Proust's idea of memory, incorporates many works which influenced Wuorinen: Machaut, Matteo da Perugia, Dufay, Gibbons. It was not quite a quodlibet because Wuorinen took enough compositional liberties to weave them into a new work, removing them from their original context. And yet the sound constantly made one think of works from these earlier eras. In three parts, I was disappointed with the first because too many ideas (or quotations) seemed to be expressed with out developing them in any recognizable organic way that would endear them to the ears of the listeners. I found this to be less in the second and third parts.

The most puzzling aspect of this piece was the piano. It was positioned in the same manner that a soloist would be positioned as if to play a piano concerto. But the piano writing was not at all concerto-like. Rather, the piano was treated as another member of the orchestra. It rarely had solo passages and sonically did not try to relate to the orchestra than anything other than another member. So what was the reasoning behind this? I wished the work made a bigger impression on me.

Joyce DiDonato returned for orchestrations of some post-operatic Rossini songs. The real treat was the unannounced encore of "Non piu mesta" from Cenerentola. Having heard Bartoli do it so many times that one assumed she wanted it for her signature aria, it was nice to hear a different take on it. I think DiDonato did parts faster, but the true reward was that in the few opportune places, she gave a more personal musical stamp to her execution. I recall in the break between verses, there was a wonderful held note followed by a large leap - all done with great expressivity. Brava, Joyce.

I do like the Met Orchestra a lot, and sometimes I have to admit that their brashness can sometimes be attributed to the lack of opportunities for regularly playing orchestral music. But they had a great performance of Mendelssohn's Symphony no. 4. It was very fast, and yet I could hear how the strings had all their notes worked out, and even in the tough spots (in 6/8 meter where just the first note is an eighth-note rest, particularly for the cellos) it just seemed to go so smoothly. I have definitely heard the symphony played with more delicacy, but this performance style - more muscular, more "operatic" - that is, highlighting the dramatic elements of the composition - worked for me. The Saltarello (fourth movement) (momentarily reminding me of another minor conclusion to a work in 6/8, Rachmaninoff's Tarentella from the second Suite for two pianos, Op. 17) was taken at nearly a breathless pace and yet they all seemed to stay together. There was no chance for boredom as Levine took things at a fast clip. (I admit that until this performance, the fourth movement was probably my least favorite movement of this work, because it seemed not to go anywhere until after a long period of time.) But you could hear all the articulations of the 6 eighth notes despite the tempo. The fast tempo also allowed one to hear the bigger shape of phrase structure within the work. I'm not at all sure Levine could have done this job prior to his rest and losing weight, so bravo to him for fighting his phyiscal issues and allowing the results to be heard in his improved music-making.

Labels: Charles Wuorinen, James Levine, Met Orchestra

Road Show has had an unusually public (and apparently tortuous) development process. The various titles suggest the different emphases the creators and various others have thought of it:

• Gold - suggesting the show's core is the pursuit of money
• Wise Guys - underscoring Sondheim's stated idea that the show is like a modern version of a Bing Crosby-Bob Hope movie
• Bounce - suggesting that the relationship of the Mizner brothers is the central point
• Road Show - puts the emphasis less on the brothers' relationship than what happens to them
  

At some point in the gestation process Sondheim compared his work to a Bing Crosby-Bob Hope movie. I find Sondheim's allusion puzzling. Those movies are comedies complimented with musical interludes; the chemistry between Crosby and Hope is a typical one of straight man (the one who gets the women) set against a comic.  But their minimal relationship is always clearly secondary to their relationships to Dorothy Lamour or other women.  I have to work hard to see a comparable connection in Road Show. (Maybe he said it to generate publicity?)

In his book The American Film Musical, Rick Altman succinctly sums up the formula for all musicals: 1) people fall in love with one another; or 2) someone has a transformative experience leading to a new level of thinking or understanding. Most musicals are no. 1, but a work like The Wizard of Oz falls under no. 2. Many combine both (in a Shirley Temple film Shirly has the experience, but it's usually the adults who fall in love).  Although Altman doesn't say it, I feel one should not look at the genre cynically.  Rather, creators of these shows found early on that to achieve the maximum cathartic effect on the audience, the most elemental plots are best - subjects that nearly everyone can relate to.  It apparently boils down to these two ideas.

The problem with Road Show is that it doesn't use either. There is nothing about love, and neither of the protagonists ever reach a new level of understanding. One could say that the journey is what matters (hence the title), but the journey does not add appreciably to what we first see of the brothers.  In fact, the brothers' childish fight at the drama's outset foreshadows their later relationship - they were "born to fight" and continuing so until they die. Whatever drama Sondheim saw in the story is not carried over in his creation.

The choice of showing the final state of the brothers' relationship at the outset (when they've already died) dissipates the possibility of building up tension over the course of the show. Once the flashback begins one sees that the antipathy after they're dead was already present at the beginning--a situation that does not really change over the course of the show. So there's no transformative development there, and therefore not much reason to see it dramatized.

Clearly the interest is not in the brothers themselves but their allegorical implications. It would appear that Wilson Mizner stands for greed, opportunism, cheating - all those characteristics which are evil and are a part of United States history. What about Addison? He unwillingly falls in with some of his brother's schemes, and then seems to be unavoidably drawn into them, leading to both their downfalls. Presumably the viewer should be drawn into Addison's world, although with minimal character development that is very hard to do. We see someone who is trying to escape his brother and never succeeds. Perhaps Addison stands for what the ordinary person thinks of themselves: trying to always escape evil but never fully being able to.

(I'm thinking of Morton Gould's Billion Dollar Baby which has a vaguely similar theme. In that show, the "evil" protagonist in the form of a gold-digger is provided with more deeply drawn character. We see how she becomes more opportunistic - and smile in satisfaction when she is given a final comeuppance due to the 1929 stock market crash - something that never happens in Road Show.)

So Road Show has inherent structural problems that can't be solved without substantially changing the story. What about the music?

I've always had problems with Sondheim's relationship to music. He feels music exists to help tell the story (no problem there), but that it should always be subserviant to the text. In so doing, I've felt that Sondheim violates what music is about. However you want it to function, music tells its own story, with or without text. To fully work with it, one must realize how music achieves this through respecting what the music wants to do and how it wants to behave.

I find it telling that the best part of the show was removed from it: the song "A Little House For Mama" (as heard on the cast recording of Bounce). Within it one can feel something for Addison - it seems to be the way of letting the audience achieve some identification with Addison, because he reaches out to a mother that never offered love.  It makes us identify with him.

For me, the best song conceived for the show is You. The point of the song is to show both how Addison becomes a star architect and how his friend and business partner, Hollis Bessemer, becomes his lover. But more than that, the gradual build up to a tremendous climax strongly suggests that, at one point, this song might have been the finale of act 1 (although typical musicals of today introduce an element of doubt prior to the act 1 curtain - a cliff-hanger).  It's so infrequent that Sondheim allows music to breathe this way - to allow itself to grow and provide a strong foundation for the parallel narrative, of the growth of Florida real estate, of Addison's aspirations, and the growing "friendship" between Addison and Hollis.

Labels: Bounce, musicals, Road Show, Sondheim

I was hoping to get a little insight into the life of Simone Weil during this oratorio, which had its premiere at the Mostly Mozart festival - held at the Rose Building (at Columbus Circle) on Wednesday night, Aug. 13 (the hall usually used for Jazz at Lincoln Center). I got no such thing. Instead, the text--written by Amin Maalouf (Saariaho's collaborator on previous operas) and sung by Dawn Upshaw--was mostly a reflection on Simone Weil's death, with a couple of reflections portraying her victimhood. On a few occasions, quotations from Weil's own words were spoken by a recording in the voice of French actress Dominique Blanc. I've been casually listening to Saariaho over the years, and I'd say that what I initially perceived as coarse dissonances has been mitigated over time. Now it's mostly fairly attractive sounds - especially that tinkling effect, like one of those glass decorations people hang outside of their window so that the wind will pass through them and make noise. Ah, the price of popularity. I felt the text was ridiculous. After about the first 10 minutes of objectification without meaning, the work seemed like a constant obsession with death, dying, and how Weil died (by suicide, denying herself food so that she could emulate how French children were dying). Maybe the world sees things differently nowadays, but I still see most suicides as the ultimate act of selfishness, and in general, an act that is execrable. Weil definitely fits into that category. But Maalouf's text seemed to have barely any philosophic strength - the individual portrayed could have been anyone enjoying the agony of dying (yes, there were allusions to Jesus). At those few times when the speaker spoke the words of Weil, they were always paradoxical (and...sorry...sometimes idiotic and infantile) statements, like the one saying that it's impossible to love tangible things, only intangible things. (Sometimes I wished Weil's parents were around to shake some sense into her.) Even worse, Saariaho chose an actor for these recitations. This was a colossal mistake, because the actor did what they were supposed to and emphasized the consonants for greater meaning, and spoke in a low voice to add seriousness to it. But that doesn't work in a musical setting! So all I could hear of the spoken text were the sounds of the consonants, because Saariaho's orchestration was in the same range as the voice, blocking it almost entirely (the amplification worked, but was still useless). Fortunately there were supertitles that allowed the audience to the text. At this point I wanted Weil's parents to also shake some sense into Saariaho - a composer of that vintage should know better. Once this had a great effect: the actress spoke the words and all you heard were the consonances - and then the chorus began *speaking* and repeating the same words with the same consonances continuing on, like an echo, gradually getting louder and being eventually imbuing it with pitch. It was a nice effect. It's nice to see and hear that Dawn Upshaw has apparently conquered the cancer that was afflicting her. There was a lovely passage for soprano and English horn where I felt Dawn Upshaw's lower register (not a strength in the past) really blended well with the instrument. It nice duet section that had a strong effect. Peter Sellers came up with a staging that, in addition to Dawn Upshaw, used a ballet dancer to visualize either the angst in the music or its paroxysms of agony. Fortunately he acted more like a stylized actor than a ballet dancer, although it was a distraction from the music (perhaps wisely, since I was in a very geriatric section which I think tends not to listen to contemporary music). (It reminded me of how much Peter Sellers's work is over-rated.) Saariaho knows how to achieve various sounds (especially that very likable "tinkling glass" sound which occurs in notable places here) and knows how to keep them at various interesting paces. Sometimes they whooshed away like turbulent weather, and other times they were sustained, in no hurry to move on. She clearly knows how to write for soprano and Dawn Upshaw's very American-accented French was nearly always clear, even when she was lying on her back, suggesting Weil's resignation of life. Even though there was a big chorus, it seemed very under-utilized. What's the point if you're only going to use a chorus in a sprinkling of passages? At 75 minutes, the 15-tableau score is on the long side ("Die already!" you want to say to Simone...and to Saariaho). The lack of adequate program notes was a disadvantage (perhaps the Weil Estate asked for too much money, or Maalouf felt printing his text was a violation of something - but it would have helped). In generally I feel the work should be rethought and certainly condensed. If something could be done about that text, it might help. Maybe get rid of it altogether. [originally posted to OPERA-L]

Labels: contemporary music, La Passion de Simone, oratorio, Saariaho, Simone Weil

APPLAUSE - February 7, 2008 at the Encores! series at New York City Center.
(Expanded notes of a message origianlly posted to Castrec-L)

The evening began with an announcement that Christine Ebersole, despite having missed many rehearsals and still suffering from the flu, had agreed to appear. It's possible that the announcement explained why the performance seemed somewhat disorganized. Certain characters, such as Karen and Buzz Richards (Kate Burton and Chip Zien) did well, no doubt because of their own independence of Margo (not to mention extremely self-reliant actors). Unfortunately Margo's boyfriend, Bill Sampson (played by Michael Park) seemed amorphous. I understand that without a Margo to rehearse, he must have felt lost - but something would have been better than nothing. Park seemed to merely say the words, and look confused, especially during scenes of act 2, where the relationship with Margo is reaching a showdown.

I figure that I must give Ebersole some slack. Having seen her in a number of things over the years, I saw that she was going light. She held herself well if somewhat restrained. At the outset her voice was a little shaky (she never hit any of the uppe notes on the "But Alive" motive that goes through her first song). But by the end of the act she sounded more secure. Frankly, if she was going to go on, she must have been in fairly good shape. Many on the Castrec-L list claimed that she was too nice a person, and therefore was miscast. She's nice, but she also can exude a certain toughness, even meanness when she wants to. That wasn't in evidence here, so maybe its lack was a result of recovering from illness. I felt she could have been a little tougher, but otherwise she presented a different view of the Margo character, one that could elicit sympathy.

The main thing that struck me about the show (as a work) was how lousy it was. A number of people around me left during intermission, and what I heard of the audience's post-curtain talk was not at all flattering.

I think the main problem is the source material. ALL ABOUT EVE is so legendary that any derivative is going to pale in comparison. (How could Charles Strouse/Lee Adams have the hubris to consider the line "Fasten your seatbelts - it's going to be a bumpy night" for a song? Repeat that line once and it looses its effect. Repeat it multiple times and it looses meaning and because a trivial game.)

The film is the story of Eve as told by Margo and Karen. (I wonder if it was Mankiewicz's intention to continue telling the story also from Bill Sampson's and Lloyd Richard's point of view - though considering the love interest, probably not.) As colorful a character as Margo Channing is, she's only the first half of the film. The second half is narrated by Karen, which necessarily demotes Margo to a participatory (rather than narrating) character. Strouse/Adams chose not to do this in the musical but instead to keep Margo as the lead character, unfortunately with not enough material to compensate for what wasn't written.

But the main issue in adapting the film to stage is that the film is really a psychological story about relationships. That doesn't make for good drama, despite the fact that it's externally about the stage. For the musical, Strouse/Adams chose to make it a vehicle for the Margo character. That's a fundamental misreading of what the story is about. Margo is a victim, so automatically she's really secondary to Eve. Eve is the person who really undergoes change. The change is not really a character change -- she always is an extremely self-interested person--but one of how she relates to the audience, who discovers her true character only gradually.

The film is very good in having dual and conflicting threads - is Margo a bitch or is there truth to what she says? Is Eve good or bad? I think the viewer is held in suspense for some time before the answers become clear. It's not an even a consistent progression that gets you to the conclusion. Somehow, with the addition of songs and the reduced ability to intercut scenes, that progression has to be sacrificed in favor of musical theater's typical set pieces (i.e. the songs are a climax to almost each scene). That holds up things and offers a much more choppy progression of scenes and development.

Unlike the movie, in APPLAUSE, I found myself wondering about Eve only by the end of act 1. (In the movie, doubts are voiced much earlier, by Birdie (Thelma Ritter) immediately after Eve's initial recollection, with the syrupy but great music suggesting there's something more going on here -- "Nothing but the dogs lapping at her rear end." And of course, you know something is "about" Eve from the very start of the film, before the flashback.) There is nothing in the musical to clue you in.

So in the musical, what is the character of Margo? The body of the show seems to indicate someone not much different from the film. However, her expository song "But Alive" seems to indicate something else: Someone without cynicism, someone who enjoys life, who is just starting on a journey, who is ready to face all of life's challenging with enthusiasm. It sounds like Maria as she's about to join the Von Trapp family in THE SOUND OF MUSIC. The song has a nice (even catchy) tune but for the wrong character in the wrong musical.

The title song "Applause" is the one song I knew prior to seeing this production. None of the leading characters play a part in it - it is solely reserved for the chorus of theater gypsies. It's not organic. This song has the right sound and right lyrics - but it should be for the leading characters. It would have been more appropriate if this song had more of an expository function, or resolved a difficulty that arose in the course of act 1. But it doesn't, and thus feels like a throwaway number. Intellectually we know it relates to Margo and Eve, but they're never given a chance to hear or relate to it.

In the second half of ALL ABOUT EVEN, the narrative moves away from Margo as a narrating character as it dwells on the growing maturation of relationship between her and Bill, which creates a counterpoint to Eve's abortive attempts to steal away boyfriends and husbands. Even Karen and Lloyd have development, which allows Karen to mature, especially when she realizes the horror of the trick she's played on Margo.

Act 2 of APPLAUSE is a terrible problem. There is no character development of the two couples. Thus it becomes one very long drawn out wait for Eve to be unmasked. When that wait is interrupted by song, it means you have to wait longer and it made me dislike the show all the more. I liked the idea of the song "Inner Thoughts," but it's more appropriate to the original film's idea (where one hears the inner voices of the protagonists Margo and Karen among them). The rest of the songs of the act seemed very uninspired. If the chorus got a nice tune from the title song in act 1, their act 2 song "She's No Long a Gypsy" seemed a clinker.

A few changes to the story I liked - I thought it was a great idea to make the Thelma Ritter character (Margo's dresser) into a gay man (played well by Mario Cantone, but I would have liked more queeniness/bitchiness - that would have led us on to Eve earlier). Of course the danger would have been in upstaging Margo but, I'm all for letting people use the best of their talents.

Unfortunately there was not much to applaud on this Encores! presentation.

Labels: Charles Strouse, film adaptations, Lee Adams, musicals