Sunday, April 26, 2009
OPERA: Die Vögel
This afternoon I had the delightful experience of attending Die Vögel (The Birds), an opera by Walter Braunfels. This opera is a continuation of Los Angeles Opera's "Recovered Voices" program, which seeks to rediscover the works of Jewish composers of the early 20th century which had been surpressed by the Nazi regime. They have been giving new life to lost gems, restoring them to their rightful place in the opera canon. I found Die Vögel to be a charming work. Historically, Braunfels was strongly influenced by Wagner (upon seeing Tristan and Isolde, Braunfels decided to drop his law career and pursue music instead), but at least in this work, I found much more influence of other Germans, notably Richard Strauss and Mozart. How can an opera featuring birds, and opening with two guys carrying bird cages, not call to mind The Magic Flute? And some of the Nightingale's arias featured coloratura ornamentation worthy of the Queen of the Night. The story itself was fanciful and allegorical in a Magic Flute sort of way, based on Aristophanes' play The Birds, though made less farcical and with a changed ending (to support the established order rather than overthrow it), giving it more of a story arc and an opportunity to insert a romance. All the performers were strong, but two young stars making their LA Opera debut were particularly captivating. Désirée Rancatore's exquisitely beautiful soprano voice and graceful bearing as the Nightingale made it easy to see her allure, and how Good Hope could fall in love with her. And the honey-golden tenor of the handsome Brandon Jovanovich made Good Hope's passionate arias soar. Their nocturne duet in Act II was so moving, just sigh-inducingly beautiful. Another notable voice was baritone Brian Mulligan, as Prometheus, rich, deep, powerful and commanding. The play was charmingly visualized by director Darko Tresnjak (whom we knew from his Shakespeare work at The Old Globe in San Diego), with a large chorus swirling around in vibrant many-colored costumes, and a bird city in the clouds looking like classical Athens done as birdhouses. The one awkward piece of staging was the conquest of the city by Zeus, which was anticlimactically undramatic, with the birdhouses being gingerly dismantled. A plot-irrelevant thunderstorm from the evening before was more dramatically staged than the actual battle which is the climax of the story. But the final scene is touching, where the two adventurers return to the human world, Loyal Friend shrugging off the experience having learned nothing, and Good Hope having been profoundly moved. "Now I will go back down the mountain, for I have lived," he sings. I left very grateful to James Conlon, not only for his fine conducting, but his leadership in the "Recovered Voices" program for bringing us this unjustly neglected gem.
Sunday, April 12, 2009
OPERA: Wagner's Ring (the first half)
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The particular staging put on by Los Angeles Opera is by German artist/director/designer Achim Freyer, and has been controversial, if you read the reviews (and judging by some booing mixed with the applause when Freyer appeared for the curtain call at the close of Das Rheingold). While it's unabashedly modern and at times abstract, which will not be to the liking of traditionalists, I've been favorably impressed. In Das Rheingold, Freyer has realized this epic world with larger-than-life costumes for all the characters, and even larger doppelganger representations of the gods and the giants. I'd read complaints of the singers not being able to project from under all the weight of these oversize costumes, but perhaps they'd solved that problem by the time we saw it, because bass Vitalij Kowaljow projected Wotan (the Zeus-like ruler of these gods) strong and clear, and likewise for the others. I thought the larger-than-life visuals were appropriate for these larger-than-life gods and giants, and Freyer's stage, topped by a "sky" decorated with symbolic objects like Wotan's eye and a cartoon Valhalla, conjured a magical world (even if it was a bit reminiscent of Space Mountain at the same time). His visual motifs suited the grand gestures and motifs of Wagner's music. Admittedly, some of the symbolism eluded me completely (like the vintage aircraft thing), and others (like Fricka's freaky-long arms) were quirky, intriguing, and memorable, even if puzzling. Perhaps Fricka (goddess of marriage and wife of the filandering Wotan) is eternally reaching for something beyond her grasp. Her arms reminded me of that allegory of heaven and hell where people's arms are too long to feed themselves. But I think most of the visual motifs worked well to make characters readily recognizable. In the special effects department, you can't expect the operatic stage to compete with motion picture special effects, but when the dwarf Alberich transformed himself into a dragon, it was quite visually impressive.
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In Act II, I couldn't help but be distracted by the strange echoes of Prop 8 rhetoric when Fricka harangues Wotan about how the sanctity of marriage must be upheld. (Nothing intentional there, and the metaphor is inapt; it was just an odd juxtaposition with current events.) But thanks to Freyer's visual motifs, and having Das Rheingold fresh in mind, we immediately recognize Wotan the one-eyed and Fricka the long-armed when they appear, and we recall their backstories. (Opera is much more enjoyable when you don't have to struggle to keep the characters straight.) Finally, the much anticipated Act III delivered on the heightened expectations. It opens with the famous Ride of the Valkyries (now cue the Apocalypse Now helicopters and napalm), with the semi-immortal daughters of Wotan looking a bit bride-of-Frankenstein-ish and riding metallic steeds, half skeletal horses and half Harley-Davidson. But somehow that's appropriate for these fearsome demi-goddesses who haunt battlefields and gather the bodies of fallen heroes. In the end, when the most spirited Valkyrie Brünnhilde must be punished for disobeying Wotan's command (even though she did what he really wanted her to do), the circle of flames that surrounds her enchanted sleep is symbolically spectacular. No real flames, as other productions do, but bright red cartoonish flames suited this abstract staging, and they enchanted my eyes. In a final inspired touch, we see Siegfried (the foretold hero of the latter half of the saga, readily identifiable thanks to Freyer's visual motifs) cross the circle of flames, foreshadowing the next installment. I eagerly await.
Saturday, April 11, 2009
FILM: Adventureland
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Wednesday, April 08, 2009
BOOKS: A Thousand Splendid Suns
My heart and mind are still racing, having just finished Khaled Hosseini's breathtaking epic novel A Thousand Splendid Suns. All week, I have been commuting with anxious nerves, shaking with rage, or tears running down my cheeks, as I have been making my way through this marvelous story of two women spanning several decades of Afghanistan's tumultuous recent history. The two women, whose stories begin many years and hundreds of miles apart, come together in a surprising and inspiring way. The epic tale not only spans the monarchy, the communists, the warlords, the Taliban, and beyond, the horrors of a war-torn city, the despicable injustices of Islamist rule, conflicts of traditionalists versus the more modern-minded, and the conflicts between compassion and the cruel treatment of women and illegitimate children under cover of traditional Afghan and Muslim codes of honor. Hosseini illustrates these grand themes with an engrossing story and vivid memorable characters. I loved his descriptions of children, how they perceived the people around them, and how those perceptions changed as they matured. The recurring themes of memory were hauntingly poignant, how even the greatest memories can be like trying to hold water in your fingers, but also how the memory of someone lost who once shaped us can mark us indelibly and affect us years later. And it is also the story of a city, Kabul, vividly described, once a place where children played in the streets and women gossiped around a communal tandoor, then later a place where people hid inside as rockets and bullets strafed the city skies, and then later the place where religious fanatics enforced beards on men, burqas on women (never unaccompanied), and prohibited music and kite-flying. While there is a lot of sorrow and pain in this story (how could there not be?), Maryam and Laila persist and inspire. Their spirit is like a weed growing up from a dry river bed toward the sun, despite being parched by drought and ravaged by fire, there is a dignity and beauty in its endurance. Though the book ended in a very fitting place, I was sorry to see it end, as I am reluctant to let go of its characters. I think I will remember them for a long time.
Wednesday, April 01, 2009
BOOKS: The Conservative Soul
On a business trip last week, I finally had the chance to finish The Conservative Soul. It's Andrew Sullivan's political analysis of the last couple of decades, on where he thinks the "right wing" has gone off the rails, and what he thinks true conservatism ought to be. Even though it's a couple years old now, his analysis is still very relevant and astute (in some ways even more so, as we watch the crack up of the right in the wake of their 2008 losses). Though he touches on many particular hot-button issues by way of example, his focus is more on philosophical underpinnings and the motivations for broad political trends and alignments. Starting from an assessment of the particular vacuums after the collapse of the "old left" that enabled the rise of the "new right", he diagnoses the "fundamentalist psyche" (a need for absolute truth arbitrated by central authorities and authoritative texts), the "theoconservative project" (to "recapture" the public square from the "false neutrality" of secular liberalism), and its ascendancy in the "Bush crucible". He then sets out to propose an alternative "conservatism of doubt" and a "politics of freedom". While some details of his account are anchored in the specifics of American politics in a particular time, some of his philosophical work, particularly in the chapter about natural law and in his latter positive chapters, are quite profound and less tied to this moment in history. His dissection of natural law (as it is wielded today) versus the implications of Darwin and "nature" is keenly argued and very insightful. His presentation of his preferred understanding of conservatism, as articulated in Montaigne and Oakeshott, leading to his political philosophy manifesto, extrapolating from Hobbes, is compelling. (Makes me want to work through his bibliography of those classic philosophers.) In his classic style, Sullivan writes eloquently, deftly weaving deep philosophical argument with crackling contemporary examples and personal experiences and insights. Full of thought-provoking ideas from his distinctive perspective, lucidly expressed, this book was a pleasure to read.
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