Music & Memories
In the process of reinstalling the OS on my creaky and cranky laptop, I’m going through my music collection. There has to be an easier way to do this than saving everything to an external hard drive, copying it back onto the reinstalled laptop, and creating playlists for each album. Syncing my iTouch to iTunes will also wipe the iTouch clean, I’m assuming, including contacts and notes. The process would be so much more convenient if it were possible to pull data off the iTouch and onto my laptop; is this possible, or does the data transfer only go from iTunes to iTouch? It’s a remarkably stupid way of running things, that and the inability to sync an Apple mp3 player to more than one computer without wiping its contents. My trusty, old, workhorse Zen Creative Jukebox might have been lacking in aesthetic appeal, but I could pull songs from the mp3 player to the laptop and vice versa, and it worked with any computer on which the Zen software had been installed.
But enough of my anti-iPod/-iTouch/-iTunes ranting! What I meant to write about was today’s trip down memory lane, courtesy of going through my mp3 collection. Certain albums and mixes remind me of certain places and times in my life, because I tend to listen to albums obsessively for a period of time, then discard it in favor of something else. Freezepop’s Fancy Ultra Fresh brings to mind hot summer days in Rome, black cobblestones, riding up the Gianicolo on the red 44 bus, Latin, and a crush on a classmate. The Killers’ Hot Fuzz reminds me of living in Boston, walking home late at night and talking with my best friend from high school, who was also commuting home at the same time, even though he was two hours behind me. And so it goes: certain sounds evoke memories of people and places–the interior of a bus, singing in a bar, hours alone in a dark room, the dim glow of red lights and the tang of developer and fixer. One memory triggers the next, forming a chain of reminiscences.
Miscellany
I’ve been working on some labor-intensive projects lately and so haven’t been around much. Then I took this past weekend to be away from the internet almost entirely, aside from checking in on email and reading The French Laundry At Home in conjunction with reading TFL Cookbook. I’ve been reading a lot of cookbooks and cooking-related books this past week as a sort of escapism and an antidote to the project-related stress. Unfortunately, the projects look to be kicking up again in the next few weeks.
Good: Went to see L’Elisir d’Amore again on Sunday because I wanted to see Ramon Vargas again and hear “Una Furtiva Lagrima,” his big aria in Act II.
Bad: Ramon Vargas was out sick and Adler Fellow Alek Shrader was subbing for him.
Good: Alek Shrader has a beautiful tenor voice, a charming stage presence, and despite a tendency to overdo the vibrato at the beginning, did a wonderful job as Nemorino. “Una Furtiva Lagrima” was tender and warm and Shrader was great as an awkward, naive Nemorino. Vargas played up the comic side and was utterly charming, but I also liked Shrader’s more subtle approach.
Bad: the three little kids in front of me that thought it was appropriate to stand up, whisper, and eat candy out of noisy cellophane bags during the show.
Good: The little kids shut up when I got completely fed up with them and said, “Shhh!” after they started talking during the middle of “Una Furtiva Lagrima.”.
Bad: They started talking again after the aria was over.
Bad: Their parents also thought it was appropriate to whisper and eat candy out of noisy cellophane bags during the show.
Angry: People who go to the opera to talk during the opera should not go. I understand that they want to take their kids and give them a treat or god knows what–but the opera does productions specifically “for Families” every year. If they can’t make those or want to go to the full-length show, then they should make their kids behave. If kids cannot sit down and shut up for two and a half hours, they should not be at the opera because they are spoiling it for everyone sitting within earshot of them.
Good: I spent the past weekend reading Ruhlman’s books, The Soul of a Chef and The Reach of a Chef, and learned that the kitchens at the French Laundry and Per Se are extraordinarily clean for restaurant kitchens. They’re spic and span, they’re so clean that Keller can walk around in socks without stepping into any spills or sticky spots. In a restaurant kitchen! According to Ruhlman, this is because Keller is a stickler about cleanliness and perfection and doing a job correctly and without mess because mess means waste.
Bad: I read this and immediately thought, “If they can do this in a restaurant kitchen, I can do it in my kitchen!” This is reason #1 why I would be a terrible person to live with. I like my apartment clean and neat in very specific ways, and it bothers me when it’s not.
Good: Kitchen is now clean, with counters and stove scrubbed, floor swept, pots and pans thoroughly cleaned and scrubbed free of burned-on oil coats, and knives sharpened.
Bad: Still haven’t scrubbed the floor.
Good: Have successfully maintained the rituals and high levels of cleanliness for three and a half whole days.
Good: I have comp tickets to the Adler Fellow Gala Concert.
Good: Ji Young Yang, who has a voice like silver bells, and Alek Shrader are singing scenes from Semele together.
Good: Heidi Melton, Andrew Bidlack (excellent as the Fool in Boris Godunov this year), and Kenneth Kellogg!
Small Moments
In the midst of it all, there are small moments that make me laugh or smile and remember that I’m here and that I will not lie down and die, goddamnit. Those small moments are usually political, such as this conversation I had while phonebanking for No on Prop. 4:
Voter: I’m 53–
PD: thinks, “Oh, shit,” because, “I’m [age],” is usually followed by, “so [Prop. 4] doesn’t matter to me.”
Voter: –and when I was 15, Planned Parenthood saved my life. They were there for me when I needed help. So I’ll vote no on Prop. 4!
Then there are the non-political moments that nevertheless remind me why I fell in love with my friends to begin with and why life is worth living wholeheartedly and fighting for.
Via text message:
PD: L’Elisir d’Amore was too delightful!
M: Did it elicit un furtiva lagrima?
PD: ILU! [Short, of course, for "I love you"]
The silly jokes, the bright sparks of wit, the shared love of music and opera–that’s part of why I fell in love to begin with, and these brief respites recharge my spirit all out of proportion to their brevity.
L’Elisir d’Amore genuinely was excellent. Ramon Vargas (Nemorino), Inva Mula (Adina), and Ji Young Yang (Giannetta) were spectacular! It took me a while to warm up to Vargas and Mula, but they did a fantastic job and had great chemistry. Vargas in particular was good at acting as well as singing. I would love to hear more of Yang’s delicate, fragile soprano and am thinking of going to L’Elisir d’Amore for Families, when she’ll be singing Adina. The more I hear her, the more I like her–I was lukewarm about her performance as the Rose (The Little Prince) last May, didn’t particularly notice her as Juliette (Die Tote Stadt), was entranced by her aria as Xenia (Boris Godunov) last week, and thoroughly enjoyed her turn as Giannetta tonight. She has a distinctive voice that stood out even during chorus pieces, once I knew what to listen for. Like birdsong or high, silver bells.
Die Tote Stadt
[From last night; forgot to finish and post it.]
Ugh. I just got back from the SFO production of Die Tote Stadt and my ears are still ringing. I had high hopes for the show, since Lucas Meacham was singing Frank/Fritz, and he’s one of the best baritones I’ve ever heard live, both clear and lush. I was looking forward to seeing him again and to seeing Torsten Kerl (Paul) and Emily Magee (Marietta) – I hadn’t seen or heard them before, but I’ve liked a lot of the singers I’ve seen at SFO. They do a great job of bringing in not just the already-famous superstars, such as Gheorghiu and Dessay, but lesser-known, excellent singers, such as Misha Didyk and Gerard Powers.
Well, Kerl and Magee might’ve been brilliant, but it was hard to tell, because they and the orchestra performed at one volume the entire night: fortissimo. It was so loud that I wanted ear plugs, and if there was any subtlety or nuance in the libretto, the volume stomped all over it. I think that Kerl and Magee are good, but their voices lacked any distinctive timbre or characteristics that would make them unique and instantly recognizable. They were able to sing over the blasting orchestra, however, which certainly took some skill and physical stamina. The orchestration felt like this: (Mahler + Puccini) x (Turnage’s volume)*
On the plus side, Meacham’s “Tanzlied” was brilliant: pure, tender, lush, clear, and strange. That whole scene in Act II is bizarre and the Surrealist staging that SFO used (created for the 2004 Salzburg Festival) made everything, well, strange, and Meacham’s singing and acting reflected the tender sentiments of “Tanzlied” but also reflected the utter weirdness of the dream and the entire opera. Katharine Tier (Brigitta), was also great; she had a quiet, understated presence that fit the role of maid to an obsessed mourner and although she had only a few lines at the beginning, I really liked her voice. She was the Third Lady in the Magic Flute and Suzy in La Rondine last year, and although those were bit parts, I remember noticing and liking her then, too.
I didn’t like the staging much. It was overblown and ridiculously over the top, with floating images of Marie’s portrait; the dance troupe appearing in white costumes reminiscent of GHOSTS!! and SCARY CLOWNS!! (hackneyed, much?); and the separate room blew the whole “it was just a dream” surreal aspect by making it literal and removing any sense of uncertainty over the shifting boundaries between reality and thought. SFO’s productions are usually staged in an elaborate, tech-heavy fashion even when they’re minimalist (Ariodante) or conceptual and spare (The Bonesetter’s Daughter, Die Zauberflote), and while most of the time that works, occasionally it’s just much too much, spectacle for its own sake. I thought this was true of both the Rake’s Progress last year and with Die Tote Stadt – enough with the tilting floor! Enough with the moving screens! Enough with skewed ceiling panel that hangs down at a weird, disjointed angle! I’m sure it represented something, but hell if I can figure out what.
The acting wasn’t so great, either. Die Tote Stadt isn’t an inherently uninteresting story, and I think it would make a better play than an opera (in fact, it was a book, then a play, then someone translated the play into German and Korngold turned it into an opera). The reason for that is that psychological dramas about a person living in the past and dwelling in a shrine to a dead spouse and finding someone that resembles the dead spouse and having a dream about being seduced and then killing the doppelganger and then finding out it was all a dream and a sign to move on and deciding to leave the house of the dead and move somewhere else because the dead will never actually come back to life require extremely skilled, nuanced acting to convincingly portray the psychological currents and the tensions between the characters. It’s a character-driven story and that requires actors capable of showing that characterization both in their singing and in their acting. While Kerl and Magee might ordinarily have been able to show that nuance through their singing, the volume at which they and the orchestra were performing overrode any attempts at shading. Their acting was either wooden (Kerl) or overdone (Magee and the dance troupe in Act II) and lacked the chemistry necessary for a gripping, convincing performance. It’s not impossible to be a great singer and a great actor; the production of La Rondine last year was fabulous because the cast were great singers and they were also good actors, at ease in their bodies and their characterizations. Natalie Dessay was phenomenal as Lucia last season and although the mad scene is one that lends itself to over the top, ridiculous melodrama (she goes mad and kills her husband at their wedding, then staggers around in a bloodstained bridal gown and sings that she can hear the sweet voice of her true love, much to the horror of the guests at the wedding banquet), she blew it out of the water in a show of virtuosity that was both emotionally and musically heartwrenching. Acting and singing, together. Sadly, hard to do when you’re constantly at fff.
Joshua Kosman, the SF Chronicle’s music critic, also had this point to add (SF Chron):
The opera offers a nod to the weird and rather unsavory 19th century tradition that sees female sexuality as the irresistible path to damnation and death. In his unsuccessful struggle to resist Marietta’s erotic allure, Paul joins the ranks of his tenor forebears from such operas as “Carmen,” “Samson and Delilah” and (more or less) “Parsifal.”
The grim joke is that Paul – in his prudishness, his mania and his grief – completely misconstrues Marietta’s mission. Her sexual power is there to lure him back to life, away from the fatal precipice on which he’s perched; in one of the opera’s most extraordinary stretches of music, she opposes her own quasi-religious commitment to pleasure against his death-steeped cult of the past.
But Decker turns this point around, fitting Marietta out with a spectral white nightie and ghastly bald wig and transforming her energy into shrieky agitation. Instead of a revivifying spirit, Marietta becomes a succubus – justifying not only Paul’s insanity but also the entire operatic tradition of woman as bloodsucker.
That nuance completely slipped past me. I think the show would’ve been much more interesting if it had interpreted the work that way; as it is, the over the top, obvious melodrama of the interpretation and staging was of a piece with the over the top volume of the orchestra and singing.
* Either Gaffigan or Shwartz called The Asteroids the “loudest piece ever performed in Davies [Symphony Hall].”
Photos: Adverts
Some photos of ads and signs that caught my attention.
I like this ad:
SEX MAY SELL.
BUT, IT HAS NOTHING TO DO
WITH MAKING GREAT VODKA.
Truer words, y0. Sadly, the picture’s too blurry to see who the manufacturer is – I snapped this through a bus window yesterday, when it was drizzling that odd mist-rain that SF gets, the stuff that’s not heavy enough to be rain but too discrete to be mist. Teeny little rain drops blown about by the wind, whirling up and down through the air.
Photoblogging
A photo post, to celebrate having working wireless and to provide some filler material for my brain tonight. Taken with the camera on an LG Chocolate phone. Images below the cut.
Monday, June 2
I had copies of my apartment keys made for a friend (should’ve done it a lot sooner, but oh, well, it didn’t occur to me), and found a cute, tacky tourist kitsch SF keychain to put them on while I was getting lightbulbs at Walgreens (they stock an amazing amount of touristy SF junk). The best part of it is that the round thing in the center spins: on one side is a cable car and on the other, the GG bridge!
Read the rest of this entry »
Music: Grosse Fuge
The weekend before last, M got me hooked on Beethoven’s late string quartets. I like Shostakovich and Bartok, and late Beethoven contains same elements I like in their music–unexpected leaps from one measure to the next, discordant modulations–only about a hundred years prior to the Modern composers and a hundred times more complicated and amazing. I haven’t listened to anything else for the past week and a half and the Grosse Fuge is always playing in my head: while making dinner, at work, waking up in the morning, thinking, etc. I went to the symphony last week and usually after a concert I’ll have that music in my head for the next few days. This time, I haven’t heard anything but the string quartets. They’re intense, beautiful, challenging, frightening, and cathartic. It’s music that stirs my emotions at a subconscious level in a way I’ve rarely experienced, especially with a recording and not a live performance. It touches the same parts of my mind that photography does and it’s such a relief to give into that wordless, creative side of my brain, which has so few outlets that it’s running rampant with Beethoven now.
My favorite piece out of the late string quartets is Grosse Fuge in Bb, which was the original ending for Op. 130 but proved unbearably awesome and so Beethoven’s publisher insisted that he write a new piece to replace Grosse Fuge as the final movement. It’s an incredibly complicated, intricate double fugue; rather than the standard structure of a single fugue line with the other lines playing variations and harmony, in Grosse Fuge there are TWO fugue lines that simultaneously serve as independent melodies and as harmonies to each other. O_O;; *
My first encounter with Grosse Fuge: there I was, innocently ironing and chatting with M while listening to Beethoven. All of a sudden, the music switched over to the next track and I was knocked head over heels.
P: what would i listen to if i wanted to hear the milieu of the time? [innocently toddling along]
P: for a comparison/contrast
P: OMG GROSSE FUGUE [Stark, thundering chords introduce Grosse Fuge. *falls ass over tea kettle*]
M: there’s a real dearth during the time he [Beethoven] was composing, actually
M: hahahahaha
M: :D
P: ahhhhhhhhh
M: an appropriate reaction
P: what is this suddenly mellow section around 5:00?
P: who is he trying to fool?
P: and the hints of wanting to break back out into psychotic-ness
M: mmm the BEST is the coda at the end
M: when he hints as if he’s going to start the whole thing over again
P: tease!
M: :D
P: …this stuff sounds borderline atonal
P: or at least key shifts like mad
P: auralgasm
P: that brief pause
M: idk, that part right around 9:00 is my fav
P: is just like … i need that temporary abatement
P: to catch my breath
M: yeah … beethoven is one of the great masters of extending dissonance and giving you just what you can handle
P: i am fairly certain this is more than i can handle
P: my brain is asploding
File at megaupload: Grosse Fuge in Bb, Op. 133, recorded by the Emerson String Quartet. The Grosse Fuge is on my list of things (sensual experiences, that is) that are better than sex.
————————————-
*Beethoven anecdote and fugal structure info from M.
Non lasciarmi solo
I went to La Rondine tonight at SF Opera, the last performance of the run, and it was fantastic. The singing was gorgeous, the acting was passionate, and staging was beautiful, and the show was perfect, wonderful. The final duet between Ruggero (Misha Didyk) and Magda (Angela Gheorghiu) was exquisite and brought me and the person next to me to tears. Non lasciarmi solo! No! Non lasciarmi solo! The Lisette/Prunier duet at the end of Act I was more tender than any of the other times I saw it, with nuances of real affection between them, the way he held her waist as they walked off stage, the way she leaned into him. Everyone was alive tonight, just a touch extra vivid, so even Rambaldo (Philip Skinner), a minor part, was forceful and expressive.
Vi trascina il destino!…
Forse, come la rondine,
migrerete oltre il mare,
verso un chiaro paese
di sogno… Verso il sole,
verso l’Amore…
E forse…
MAGDA
Sono venuta a te contaminata!
RUGGERO
Che m’importa!
MAGDA
Tu non sai tutto!
RUGGERO
So che sei mia!
MAGDA
Trionfando sono passata
tra la vergogna e l’oro!
RUGGERO
No! Non dirmi!… Non voglio!…
MAGDA
Tu m’hai dato un tesoro…
La tua fede, il tuo amore,
ma non devo ingannarti!
RUGGERO
Quale inganno?…
MAGDA
Posso esser l’amante, non la sposa.
La sposa che tua madre vuole e crede!
RUGGERO
Taci! Le tue parole
son la mia perdizione!
Che farò senza te che m’hai svelato
quanto si possa amare?…
Ma non sai che distruggi la mia vita!
FMR: Opera
Nov. 4-19, 2006, WNO production of Madama Butterfly: Lieutenant Pinkerton sung by Arturo Chacon-Cruz (source here). Tenor to keep an ear out for.
May 2008 – get tickets for SFO/Cal Perf’s Little Prince
Nov. 13 – La Rondine (Angela Gheorghiu!)
Nov. 14 – Macbeth (read Macbeth)
Nov. 19 – Rake’s Progress
