Italics are mine

Shostakovich Quartets at CMS

 I had the very good fortune to attend two of the four concerts the Jerusalem Quartet gave in New York's Alice Tully Hall last week, where it played the full fifteen quartets of Dmitri Shostakovich as one of the key events of the 2012-2013 season at the Chamber Music Society.

It's hard to put in words what an outstanding job Wu Han and David Finckel (cellist of my favorite string quartet, the Emerson, for a few more months), the wife-and-husband team at the artistic helm of CMS, as well as their whole team have done in making such a high-quality event possible:

• a dedicated multi-media website with biographical information on Shostakovich, a timeline to put the concerts in context and, most importantly, a vast repository of audio notes, audio clips, lecture videos, performance video and - my favorite - a "follow the score" tool where the viewer can follow along with the musical score to the first movement of the 8th quartet.
• lectures by on Shostakovich's life and works, as well as more targeted lectures focused on the program of each concert, by the excellent Michael Parloff. (The 2 hour-lecture on Shostakovich's life and works was streamed online for free.)

Watch the Emerson String Quartet play the 3rd movement of String Quartet No 3 below (left), and Michael Parloff's lecture on the life and works of Shostakovich (right). You can watch the other Parloff lectures on YouTube in their entirety.

I attended the first and third concerts, where the Jerusalem Quartet presented Quartets No 1, 5, 6, 12 and 3, 7, 13, 14, respectively. The Jerusalem Quartet got standing ovations both nights I was there, and I have to say they were amply deserved. Here is a video of them playing Quartet No 3, courtesy of Vimeo. A video of them playing Quartet No 8 is also available from the website.

I had felt compelled to come because of Shostakovich's personal story and the difficult line he had to toe in the middle of Stalinism to be able to compose and have his music heard while living in times of terrible dictatorship. (This is a topic I'm particularly interested in because of my forthcoming novella and the general theme of my fiction writing.)

 I bought the box set of the Emerson String Quartet playing the full Shostakovich quartets, and will definitely get the recording by the Jerusalem Quartet, which covers Quartets 1, 4, 6, 8, 9 and 11. I've listened to the box set (5 CDs) in its entirety already, and the quartets are simply spell-binding. There is none of the dissonance you hear sometimes in the symphonies of twentieth-century composers - frankly I like Shostakovich's quartets even more than I like his symphonies, but I have to admit I hadn't been as spellbound when I'd bought this after reading Music for Silenced Voices by Wendy Lesser. So the talent of the Emerson String Quartet (in recordings) and the Jerusalem Quartet (in live performances) probably played an important role in my discovering new favorite works.

Here are some other albums and books I own about Shostakovich. (I'll spare you my detailed opinion on each, but feel free to leave a comment if you're interested in hearing more!)

 

I also have the CDs on the life and music of Shostakovich by the always informative Robert Greenberg of the Teaching Company. You can tell that when I'm passionate about something (in this case, the way an artist hung on to his ability to create masterpieces in spite of harrowing circumstances), I don't do things halfway.

Finally, I also got the poster of the cycle at the Chamber Music Society, and I can't find a good picture file to show you what it looks like, but it is depicted on the first page of this PDF document. Nice, uh?

 If you've read that far, you probably have an interest in Shostakovich too, and I highly recommend the Emerson & Jerusalem recordings of the quartets. I haven't heard the Jerusalem recording itself, but if it's half as good as the live performances, it'll be worth every penny. And of course, please consider subscribing to the Chamber Music Society's 2013-2014 season - it is easily the best chamber music program in the nation!

 

PTDC 2013

On March 15 I headed to New York City for a performance by my favorite modern dance company, the Paul Taylor Dance Company, which I discovered in Paris last year, had the opportunity to see again in Silver Spring, MD in September and watched in the Oscar-nominated documentary "Dancemaker", which I blogged about here.

I'll go and see PTDC again, but as far as the March 15 performance was concerned, I have to say I was disappointed. The dancers, of course, were phenomenal as always. After seeing most of them in the three performances of PTDC I've attended so far, I definitely recognize my favorite dancers in the list of cast members. Perhaps because of the types of dances performed, with spare staging and a handful of dancers on stage (twelve at most), it seems that a connection is created more easily than with classical ballet companies such as ABT or NYCB.(And performing arts in the twenty-first century are all about audience engagement.)

Michael Trusnovec in particular danced in the three parts of the program I attended in New York City, and his presence alone made it well worth the trip. (The New York Times in this article: "In the years since 2008 the company's senior dancer has been Michael Trusnovec, who often performs two lead roles per evening. He's a true exemplar, one whose virile grace and perfect economy distinguish all he does. Neither a heartthrob nor a personality, he's a chameleon: the beauty, selflessness and focus of his performing make him one of America's most luminous dancers. He's a dream partner to all of the company's women. And in one central respect he's just like Mr. Taylor: He's unknowable.") The NYT also gives praise to Trusnovec here, and rightfully so. When the company's lead male dancer decides to move on, he'll be a very tough act to follow.

Now, about the dances... where do I start? The March 15 program consisted of Scudorama, Perpetual Dawn ("World premiere", and frankly the world wouldn't have been worse off without it - mediocre at best, through no fault of the dancers), and finally Brandenburgs.

I didn't care for Scudorama, which the NYT describes as "ugly rather than pretty", in constrast with the ballet Aureole that Paul Taylor had created a short time earlier. More from the NYT article: "The start of ''Scudorama'' looks like an aftermath, with bodies strewn across the stage. Throughout the piece dancers are stepped over indifferently or crawl across the rear unnoticed or pitch themselves on top of one another in a pile (the first of many such heaps in Mr. Taylor's oeuvre)."

I wasn't surprised to read that the ballet hadn't been performed for a decade until 2007 - no big loss there. Curiously, as I watched again an excerpt on YouTube before writing this post, the segment I saw struck me as quite good. (No pitching of oneself onto a pile there. Watch the video and judge for yourself.) So perhaps it's the sort of ballet that you enjoy more and more with time? It'll never enthrall me as Piazzolla Caldera did in Paris last year, but I understand that modern dance doesn't have to be pretty and that there might be a worthwhile message in there anyway, so my goal was to enjoy two of the three parts of the program.

Watch an excerpt of Scudorama:

Watch an excerpt of Piazzolla Caldera:

Unfortunately, I hated Perpetual Dawn. Just hated it. The PTDC website describes it as follows: "Set to sprightly concertos by Baroque composer Johann David Heinichen, Perpetual Dawn depicts young people experiencing the awakening of love, perhaps for the very first time." Vapid would describe it more accurately. Coming right before The Brandenburgs, which was celebrating its 25th anniversary and was also set to classical music, but provided many more opportunities to showcase the dancers' skills as well as more beautiful costumes with fluid lines, and also spared us the vapid (that word again! but there's no better way to describe it) decor of Perpetual Dawn, it's fair to say the "world premiere" was crushed in the comparison. Since this contrasted a new work with an old one, one has to wonder (based solely on that performance) whether perhaps the choreographer's talents are declining. I hope they don't - but when you see Perpertual Dawn, the question has to cross your mind.

Anyway, I love the PTDC dancers so much that I'll go next year again without a doubt. That time, though, I'll study the dances as much as I can before deciding on which night to attend. As long as Trusnovec (and Michelle Fleet and Parisa Khobdeh, magnificent) remain on the payroll, however, it is safe to say I can get over any weakness in the program.

Enjoy this video before looking up where to see PTDC in action next:

Review of “Too Cool for School”

“Too Cool for School”, just published by HBH Press, is a memoir by teacher and essayist Elizabeth Collins, a graduate of the prestigious Iowa Writers’ Workshop and longtime resident of the Philadelphia area, about her years teaching English at a private, Catholic high school – and more precisely, the horrifying incident that put an end to her time there.

Without giving too much away, I’ll say it involves the (unnamed) parents of one of her then-students, prominent members in the local community and donors to the school, who took offense at Collins when she mentioned on her blog that she was “’dismayed’ to have recently heard a student’s speech that did not effectively utilize tone.” The student’s speech was on “Obama’s lies”, although Collins had “warned against choosing highly divisive, political issues”, and included the vehement, strident refrain “You lie! You lie!” This went against the purpose of the assignment, which had been to convey ideas in a civil tone using Abraham Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address as a model.

Collins was dumbfounded that her instructions could have led to such a result and wrote a blog post about the lesson. Readers of Collins’s blog, probably students who’d been in the classroom with her, then told or text-messaged the classmate who had given the “You lie!” speech about the post, although Collins never named her. The student then unleashed the fury of her wealthy parents.

Their reaction seems so disproportionate to the offense that you can only stare at the page in stunned horror while you read this story of idealism vs money, and (spoiler alert) idealism doesn’t win. Wouldn’t it have been better for all involved if the parents had encouraged their daughter to use Collins’s teachings to write a powerful yet civil speech against the President’s policies, which she has the right to disagree with? This, of course, betrays my background as an educator always looking for teaching moments. Other people, it seems, prefer more extreme reactions.

The innumerable ways Collins was attacked and pilloried, which she describes unflinchingly in the book, are truly frightening – leading to Collins losing her job after school administrators preferred to side with the donors. She recounts for instance how a meeting involving the parents and school administrators included the following hurled at her: “I will laugh as you and your family die in the street!” (Die, really? Not only Collins herself but her two little girls? Wow, is all I have to say.) When you finish the book you can only be inspired by Collins’s determination not to let herself be destroyed by such a traumatic, shattering experience.

This is perhaps the first book that takes stock of our new, Internet-driven era where wealth makes some apparently believe they can behave in rulers from the Gilded Age, where anonymity on public forums turns others into hate-spewing vipers, and where freedom of speech only seems to exist when the speech matches what the listener wants to hear. The book is mesmerizing because it bears witness to this new time – it is not just Elizabeth Collins’s story, but that of the epoch we live in.

Disclosure: I read an early draft of the manuscript and as such am mentioned in the book’s acknowledgments. Months after reading that draft, I continue to find what happened to Collins (both her treatment at her school and the nasty anonymous comments about her online) absolutely appalling. Her book deserves to be widely read.

"Norma" at Kennedy Center

On Saturday I had the good fortune to attend the premiere of the opera Norma in a new production by the Washington National Opera (WNO) at the Kennedy Center. I’d never attended an opera in DC before (I see enough operas in NYC and Philly already) and had very low expectations given the pictures I’d seen of a recent production of Cosi fan tutte, which showed sets and costumes worthy of a soap opera – and not a very successful one at that.

 I’d never seen Norma before either, but I’d enjoyed watching Angela Meade in the DVD of The Audition, so I figured that, in the worst-case scenario, at least I’d get to watch and hear a rising star of the operatic world in live performance. Well, ladies and gentlemen, this Norma is a home run, and if you care at all about opera and are able to get to DC before March 24, you really want to buy yourself a ticket.

The production is quite simply amazing. The voices are superb – not only Angela Meade’s, although she does give a show-stopping performance, but also those of Dolora Zajick as Amalgisa and Rafael Davila as Pollione. You’ll find yourself leaning forward to the edge of your seat while Meade mesmerizes you with her singing and it dawns on you that you’re witnessing something truly extraordinary. (Yes, she got plenty of “brava” when she was done.)

The melodic line is very enjoyable – this is bel canto, after all – and the stage set as well as the costumes are gorgeous without being distracting, with spare lines and subdued colors throughout. You can admire the excellent color scheme in white, brown and grey in these photographs posted on the Kennedy Center's website. The stage never feels overcrowded even when it’s filled with extras, and the whole space is very well-used allowing both sides of the audience to feel close to the action, in a modern production that sets a standard worthy of the best opera houses. This is how modern productions should be done. What a treat.

You can listen to Meade sing Norma in recital in the YouTube video below, uploaded by GiordaniFoundation.

And yes, it also means that I believe the WaPo review (also see this post) misses the mark, to put it nicely. Interestingly my neighbor on the evening of the performance had mentioned this reviewer as someone who sometimes writes very puzzling reviews. Thankfully, the commenter named “alexbodenham” summarizes my thoughts perfectly, both about the Norma production and about my views on such critics. Oh well. I had a wonderful, memorable evening at Kennedy Center and the WaPo reviewer didn't. Guess which shoes I prefer being in?

As an amusing side note, when I attended a concert by the National Symphony Orchestra the big line outside the building afterward was for the shuttle back to the Foggy Bottom metro station, but after the opera the long line was in front of the taxi stand (there also seemed to be quite a few black towncars idling nearby) - on Saturday it was very easy for me to hop into a shuttle bus. Upper class or not, everyone heartily applauded Angela Meade and the rest of the cast at the end of the performance, and the three leading ladies (the two female singers and the director Anne Bogart) received well-deserved bouquets of flowers afterward.

Here are links to two reviews I recommend: one from DCMetroTheaterArts and one from Opera Warhorses, where Saturday's performance is rightfully described as “dazzling” and “legend-making.”

The WNO production made me love "Norma" so much that I began to search for a good recording of the opera on Amazon as soon as I got home – something I rarely do, given the number of recordings I already have. I think I've settled for this one. The production is definitely worth a trip and the voices are spell-binding. Run to Kennedy Center while you can.

Additional resources:

• "Opera Insight" at the Kennedy Center, where members of the Domingo-Cafritz Young Artist Program perform musical highlights from WNO’s productions of Puccini’s Manon Lescaut and Bellini’s Norma.
• A WNO blog post about "Bellini's Art of Drama Through Music".

Enjoy! This Norma production is a gem.

Theater and Paris

In honor of the "DC Francophonie Festival", which started yesterday and will run until April 13, I decided to write a post about an event I attended last year during my trip to Paris - a talk by theater actor, director and set designer E. Ruf, of the prestigious Comédie-Française, which was held at the Vieux-Colombier theater as part of the "Ecole d'Acteurs" series and was recorded for one of the national radio stations. An abridged version of the discussion was broadcast on the radio in August and is now posted online - if you understand French, you can listen to it below. If you don't, read on.

"Ecole d'Acteurs" is a series of talks by "sociétaires" (actors who are hired for ten-year renewable contracts after they've proved themselves as entry-level"pensionnaires") of the Comédie-Française, which allows the public a look behind the scenes in the training and career of today's top French theater actors. Only a few talks are held each season, with a different actor each time.

It was a stroke of good fortune that, as I returned to Paris for the first time in many, many years, I managed to attend the talk given by Ruf, of all people, because he had a leading role in the very first play I saw when I moved to Paris for college, and I remember it to this day. It was Lucrèce Borgia, and I saw the play at the Opéra-Comique because the main performance hall, Salle Richelieu, was being renovated. That was in November 1994. Ruf played Gennaro opposite the great Christine Fersen as Lucrèce Borgia (Fersen who met a tragic death in May 2008 when she took her own life - a truly terrible end for a very talented actress). I can't resist linking to a video in French of a short news segment about the 1994 production - you can see Ruf, Fersen and the rest of the cast in a truly amazing production.

Back to "Ecoles d'Acteurs", a wonderful concept to connect an audience of theater-lovers with the actors of the very best French theater company. Ruf spends some time describing his theater education, which took a more meandering path than most, and mentions his beginnings at the Comédie-Française, which correspond to the time I saw him as Gennaro.

One thing about Ruf is that he has always seemed drawn to many different aspects of theater - for several years he had his own theater company, he taught theater at the Conservatoire and Cours Florent, and already back then he designed theater sets. He has also dabbled into direction and set design for opera, and has appeared in supporting roles in many movies, unfortunately not in roles that match his talent.

He explains in the "Ecoles d'Acteurs" broadcast that he had to put an end to his theater company because it was taking up too much of his time and preferred to focus on set design because of the alone-ness inherent in (part of) the job. (And of course if you know me you know that this hits close to home for me too.) You can enjoy a glimpse of what Ruf's theater company was like in the video below.

Ruf won a 2007 Moliere (the French "Tony Award") for the set he designed for Cyrano de Bergerac at the Comédie-Française and directed a new production of Peer Gynt last year, to enormous acclaim. In his early forties now, he left the roles of "jeunes premiers" (the handsome faces in the top young roles) some time ago, and doesn't seem to miss it one bit. In fact he seems to have no interest whatsoever in fame and groupies, and sounded in "Ecole d'Acteurs" quite relieved to be past the age to be the object of teenage crushes.

At times in his career he has appeared to actively try to disappear behind his very long hair - such as here, here and there, although he had cut it for the "Ecole d'Acteurs" event - and sounded uncomfortable with attention outside the theater, but he spoke with obvious pride of his role on the administration council of the Comédie-Française.

It is wonderful to watch someone you saw on stage when he was just starting out succeed in his career as an actor, and whenever I want to draw from the dreams and aspirations I had when I first moved to Paris at age 17 (something I have needed to do repeatedly over the past few years, and which seems to be finally bearing fruit) I reconnect with my old spirit by looking up what Ruf has been up to - invariably something of great quality that everyone in Paris is raving about, such as that production of Peer Gynt, which the broadcast covers at length in the second half. I'm actually headed back to Paris this summer after all - didn't think I would, but it seems my lucky stars have decided otherwise - and of course whatever I do in my free time, there will some theater at the Comédie-Française in the mix.

Roots, or "Red Brick, Black Mountain, White Clay"

 I grabbed a copy of "Red Brick, Black Mountain, White Clay: Reflections on Art, Family and Survival" by Christopher Benfey at the bookstore of the National Gallery of Art last time I was in DC. Until I saw an announcement about Benfey serving as the keynote speaker for the Baltimore show of the American Craft Council, I'd never heard of his book, but it turns out it was a New York Times Notable Book of 2012 ("Mixing memoir, family saga, travelogue and cultural ­history", in the NYT's words). Since I admire the art of German émigrés Josef and Anni Albers - as well as Jugtown pottery - and love anything about crafts and Black Mountain College, the book was an obvious buy.

Benfey has a complex family history that weaves together Nazi Europe, which his father escaped from, and Quaker America, which his mother belonged to, to end up rooted in North Carolina's rural Piedmont - "among centuries-old folk potteries, tobacco farms, and clay pits" (from the book description). This allows him a unique personal touch that helps his multi-faceted narrative become a real page-turner.

What I liked most about "Red Brick..." is its emphasis on ancestry, memory, roots and the real things (some) people make - what gives you a sense of connectedness and belonging to a place. I have lacked this sense of rootedness in my own life, both to a place and to a family, and while I have high hopes to have found a new place to call home (although I won't be able to move for a while), the book made me feel more grounded by proxy. The fact that the North Carolina area it focuses on, which includes Asheville, NC, caught my attention a while back as a haven for many artists only helped sustain my interest.

The book sags a little toward the end, when the author spends far too many pages recounting the long-ago quest for white clay - this could have been told far more powerfully in a more succint manner - but it is a very minor flaw in an original book that will charm anyone interested in craft, history and unusual memoirs.

The YouTube channel of PBS's "Craft in America" (craftinamerica2007) has many insightful videos about Jugtown pottery, but nothing rivals the "Origins" episode itself, which includes a segment about Vernon, Pam and Travis Owens at Jugtown. Below is a preview of the episode.

The last word will go to Christopher Benfey and his book trailer.

Random things I love

• Standord Social Innovation Review
• American Craft magazine
• The 9'' buddha statue I just got from Amazon (splendid)
• Katharine Graham's Washington, which I bought at Kramerbooks 
• Condoleezza Rice's No Greater Honor, about her years in Washington
• My cherry blossom ornament/bookmark
• The album by the Lumineers
• True Refuge CD by Tara Brach
• Health Affairs magazine
• Capital Teas Earl Grey
• My acrylics paints
• Light.