Friday Fabulosity: I Fought the Troll (and the Troll Lost)

Warning: catchy earworm autoplay, liberal (and dated) political views.  

http://www.tomsmithonline.com/freestuff/oddio/Final-IFoughtTheTroll.mp3

Friday Fabulosity: The Symphony of Inexorable Fate

I went to the Atlanta Symphony! They were presenting Tchaikovsky's Symphony No 4.Which is about Fate.

In a long letter, Tchaikovsky himself describes the symphony in prose almost as overwrought as the music.

The introduction is the germ of the whole symphony, unarguably the main idea. This is Fate, that inexorable force that prevents our aspirations to happiness from reaching their goal, that jealously ensures our well-being and peace are not unclouded, that hangs over our heads like the sword of Damocles, that with steadfast persistence poisons our souls. It is invincible, you will never master it. One can only resign oneself to fruitless sorrow. The joyless, hopeless feeling becomes more powerful and fierce. Would it not be better to turn away from reality and submerge oneself in dreams?

Oh joy! There is at least a sweet and tender dream appearing! A bright and gracious human form flits by and lures us on somewhere.

How lovely! And how remote the obsessive first allegro theme now sounds! The dreams have gradually taken full possession of the soul. All that was gloomy and joyless is forgotten. Here it is, here is happiness! No! They were dreams and Fate rouses us from them.

So life is a constant alternation between grim reality and evanescent visions and dreams of happiness...There is no haven. Sail upon that ocean until it seizes you and engulfs you in its depths. That is roughly the program of the first movement.

 That is one hell of a first movement. 

The second movement of the symphony expresses another phase of depression: that melancholy feeling that comes on in the evening, when you are sitting on your own, tired with work, and you take up a book but it falls out of your hands. Memories come flooding in. It is sad that so much has been and gone; it is pleasant to recollect one’s youth. One regrets the passing of time yet there is no wish to begin life anew. Life wears one out. It is pleasant to rest and reflect. There are so many memories! There have been happy moments when young blood coursed through the veins and life was good. There have also been difficult times, irreplaceable losses. But now that is all somewhere in the past. There is a sweet sadness in burying oneself in the past. 

The third movement does not express any precise feelings. These are whimsical arabesques, the elusive images that flash across one’s imagination when one has had a little wine to drink and is in the first stage of intoxication. One’s spirits are not happy, but neither are they sad. One does not think about anything: one gives free reign to one’s imagination that, for some reason, sets about painting strange pictures. Amongst them one recalls a picture of some roistering peasants and a street song. Then somewhere in the distance a military parade goes by. There is no connection between these images that are like those which flash through your mind as you are going to sleep. They have nothing to do with reality: they are strange, wild, and incoherent.

 Fortunately, we have an overly romanticized view of poverty to help us through all this. 

The fourth movement. If you find no cause for joy in yourself, look to others. Go amongst the common people and see now they know how to enjoy themselves, abandoning themselves completely to feelings of joy. Picture of a peasant celebration on a holiday. But scarcely have you managed to forget yourself and be distracted by the sight of other people’s pleasures than inexorable Fate appears once more and reminds you of its existence.But you are no concern of anyone else. They do not even turn round, they do not glance at you, and they have not noticed that you are lonely and sad. Oh! What fun it is for them! They are so lucky that all their feelings are simple and direct. Blame yourself and do not say that all the world is sad. There are simple but potent pleasures. Enjoy other people’s happiness. One can live despite everything.

The music is incredible.  As it was inexorably fated to be. 

An Outfit Fit For A Musician

The court suit of Johann Hummel.  Yes, that Hummel!  Images courtesy of the wonderful FIDM Museum, who post about their amazing collection online!

I think this is utterly fabulous!  That embroidery!  The ruffly shirtfront (neckcloth?)!  The embroidered waistcoat!

It is a great sadness to me that gentlemen these days dress primarily in boring, unrelieved black and white for formal occasions. 

Musical Coincidence

So I was listening to The Birthday Massacre's Pins and Needles album again*, and I noticed: the chorus for "Midnight" has the same melody as the chorus for "Deliver Me", by the David Crowly band (but I heard Sarah Brightman's cover first).

As far as I know, this is not parody, tribute, or plagiarism, simply different people at different times thinking "hey, this is a nice bit of melody", and doing very different things with it.  Have you ever encountered this phenomenon, gentle reader?


*My uncontested favorite from Pins and Needles is "Shallow Grave."

Dreams of Symphonic Rock

I want to hear Floor Jansen, Sharon den Adel, and Charlotte Wessels singing Nightwish's "Bless the Child" (or pretty much any of the Nightwish opus) as a trio.  den Adel as descant/highest treble counterpoint, Jansen as main soprano, Wessels as contralto counterpoint/harmony.  There should be more great music for duets and trios. 

Full choruses, too, while I'm dreaming.  Not just solo + choral backup, which rock has some of, but baroque-type chorus work.  I was listening to the Orchestra of the Antipodes' Messiah recently.  They have a lovely, light touch and great balance between all the voices, and between chorus and orchestra.  More of that type of vocal and instrumental working together, please.

Requiescat in Pace

Anime News Network reports that Origa, the gorgeous voice from Ghost in the Shell, has passed away.  We will miss her.

Swan Lake from Russia, with Love

For the first time in years, I made it back to one of my favorite places in Atlanta, the converted and still part-time shriner temple which is now the Fox theatre, one of the most fun architectural (though, alas, not acoustical, which is why the opera doesn't perform there) buildings around.  Shriners have a seriously fun sense of architecture.  The Russian State Ballet was in town to perform Swan Lake.  There were ballerinas in the lobby in full swan maiden regalia, available for photos and autographs (at a silly price, of course.) After an attempt to be a dignified adult who does not need her photo taken with a ballerina, I abandoned that project and had my photo taken with a ballerina.  She signed it "From Russia, with love!" and drew a little stick ballerina after her name.

Once I have my OWN apartment, which cannot happen fast enough, this will be
a decoration in my dance room. 

It was a simple, actually quite low budget, production of Swan Lake, no programs, recorded music and a rather small ensemble.  Nonetheless, the sets were quite classic, and it's hard to be lovelier than the softly painted forest and lake backdrops of a simple production.  Likewise the costumes were both classic and exquisite.  The Evil Von Rothbart had a feathery headdress, wild face paint, and bat wings.  The swans looked exactly as the swans always look, which is always pretty.  The palace scenes were filled with women in lovely floating dresses, accompanied my swains in velvet tops with sparkles.  Also a jester in red and purple who completely stole the show with comic antics and gorgeous floating leaps.  Though that did, unfortunately, do a little more to show up the prince who has, at best, the personality of mayonnaise.  It's not the fault of the production, it's a problem in the ballet itself.  This prince is boring.  The other inherent problem with the ballet is that invariably Odile is more interesting, and more interestingly costumed, than Odette, but what can you do, while still being faithful to the source material?  Though the production did use one of the alternate endings, in which Odette and her forgettable prince live happily ever after.  I disapprove.  I deeply believe that everyone should die at the end of Swan Lake.  Oh well.

Despite mostly faithfulness to the source material and the classic choreography of Petipa (which I honestly don't like) the second act wasn't boring.  The music, while canned, emphasized horns and percussion, which is good because without that the music just becomes impossibly saccharine.  Furthermore, the pas de deux between Odette and the prince was shortened, which helps, in favor of more and more constant movement of the swan maidens.  Any time 15-20 dancers in white move together, the effect is beautiful.  And of course, the famous pas de quatre is still the exact same as the way everyone does it, and it's still cool.

It was the palace scenes that really shone.  In the first act, the prince was dancing with two princesses, each in gold with puffy sleeves, and surrounded by ladies and peasants in white and cream or bronze and brown.  In the third act, the princesses were all properly county coded, and danced by themselves, the Spanish princess with her tambourine, and the Russian princess with her handkerchief (I loved the Russian princess.  Not only was her handkerchief choreography precisely with the music, she had on a white gown with puffy sleeves and pale blue accents.).  They were all quite properly snubbed when the prince declined to propse to any of them despite their really fabulous performances.  When Odile entered, stealing the show in her black tutu with sparkly green wing accents, she brought with her a pair of flamenco dancers as retinue.  The flamenco pair did a balletic flamenco together in black with gold and red accents, and both were phenomenally and skinny and generally impressive and probably evil.

The final act was very anticlimactic for me, because I've seen at least 4 different versions of this now, and I keep waiting for all the principles to die.  I was still waiting for them to die when the curtain went down.  Apart from that, it was a lovely rendition of one of the classics, lovely enough to gloss over some of the weaknesses inherent to this ballet (I think it could really stand some major overhauls to the typical Petipa choreography, frankly.  More swan maidens, less Odette and Siegfried, and more of Odile.  Also, I wish Odile and Odette were two different ballerinas and more attention was paid to Odile.  As Neko-sensei remarks in Princess Tutu, "who is to say that the love of Odile is less pure than that of Odette?").  Regardless of my opinions on the inherent structure of the ballet, it was a joy and a delight to watch the dancers of the Russian State Ballet.  There was one minor bobble--the prince had to put his hand down as he landed a leap and promptly sank into a kneeling position he started to tip sideways--and two minor wardrobe malfunctions.  Von Rothbart's headdress fell off during the first act and the flamenco princess was developing a rip in the back of her skirt.  Live productions are sometimes plagued by such issues, and while I would have appreciated being less distracted during the flamenco performance, overall this was a pleasing production that made me happy.

Abductions with Musical Accompaniment: the Utah Opera's Die Entführung aus dem Serail

A night at the opera!  My first such since before Tanzania!  How delightful!  The plans were the best laid, and as such, ganged aft agley, as my lovely sister was stricken sickly and I drove myself the whole way accompanied only by music and guilt.  Nevertheless, the Utah opera was presenting Die Entführung aus dem Serail, and while I fully expected it to be rather sexist and rather racist, because Mozart, I also expected the music to be breathtakingly lovely, because Mozart.

Music-wise, I was not disappointed.  The orchestra was fantastic.  I made friends with a knowledgeable lady sitting beside me who said that the Utah orchestra and opera are now one entity, so we were hearing the Utah Symphony Orchestra.  They played the heart and soul, not to mention the blood and the guts, out of that music.  A thousand bravissimis to the orchestra.  Seriously.  I was swept away from the first notes of one of Mozart's most kick-butt overtures.

I was also swept away by the entrance of the tenor, because he was wearing a really sparkly purple waistcoat and pretty gold shoes.  Between his costume, his sweet voice, and the orchestra, he made Mozart tenor arias not boring!  This is an accomplishment.  Then he stopped singing and I lost some of my enchantment. Entführung is, of course, a singspiel, with lots and lots of spoken dialogue which, presumably for reasons, was rendered into English while the sung pieces remained in German, which made the transition between singing and speaking very jarring indeed.  To make matters worse, throughout the presentation, several of the cast were having projection issues, but since I was close enough to see their mouths moving and just couldn't hear them, the general impression was that they were singing in dubbed-in German.

To continue, Pedrillo, in a nice green, was adequate, but not fabulous.  It seemed as if he wasn't quite fully committed to what he was doing on stage.  He did achieve full commitment and a beautiful moment in act three with his comic serenade, but until then he was rather shown to a disadvantage at having to share with stage with, first, Osmin, and later Blonde.  Osmin was wonderful.  Gustav Andreassen is not only a great bass (with a few projection issues at the beginning, but most of them were having those.  The orchestra was fully committed to their dynamics and the singers couldn't always keep up), he is the sort to dance about doing headslides while gleefully singing about executing people.  He was also in pretty red (stereotypical, but oh well) Turkish-ish robes and pretty red shoes.

The costumes were all rather wonderful, actually, with the notably notable exception of Konstanze's.  It's cake-topper pink poof, with presumably several layers of Crinoline of Doom beneath, and topped with a wig that looked like a toy poodle might have died on her head.

Konstanze, with the head of the Pasha taking up space in the foreground.
The Pasha is struggling to have real facial expressions. 

At least she made up for it by being unable to project in the lower registers and becoming unpleasantly strident in the upper registers.  A lady sitting next to me who is more familiar with the Utah Opera assures me that Celena Shafer is normally quite good and pretty-voiced, and was just having an off night.  Nevertheless, between her vocal failings and her one acting trick of jerkily bending forward with every dramatic phrase (for emotion?) I was not impressed.  It would have been really funny if Konstanze's music in any way supported anything but tragedy and tragic resolve, but it doesn't, and the wonderful wonderful orchestra continued to be fully committed to performing the heart and soul out of the music.  Her scenes with the Pasha just made all her problems worse.  The artistic director, who deserves all credit for having the surname of McBeth, saw fit to cast himself in the strictly spoken role of Pasha Selim, where he demonstrated that for all his directorial prowess, he has almost no personality whatsoever on a stage and attempts to make up for it with a sparkling lavender and gold robe.  Far be it from me to ever discourage a man from standing about in a sparkling lavender and gold robe, but between his standing and and Konstanze's oddly jerky emoting, the tableaux created between them was approximately as compelling as a school of jellyfish with tutus.  Appropriately enough, his entrance was hailed by a chorus whose members all had remarkably bad posture.  Back to complaining about Celena Shafer's Konstanze:  she really bugged me during "Martern Aller Arten," which is a very powerful piece of music that I happen to love, that she performed so very poorly.  She got through it, though noticeably running out of breath at points.  I mean, sure, it's hard, but that's what coloraturas are paid for.  During the final phrases, she was on her knees clutching at the legs of the Pasha.  No.  Just no.  The final phrases are defiant, not supplicatory.  Listen to the music!   This piece is when Konstanze stops being whiny and possibly in love with the Pasha (which is hard to understand with this Pasha) and declares she will die rather than love him.  Any supplicating has to take place in the middle of the aria  and then only when she promises that the Pasha will be rewarded by heaven for having mercy.  When she is declaring that she will suffer torture and die, she should not be draped beseechingly on the Pasha or lying on the floor.  I am officially over her.  Actually, that's a lie.  Later on I ended up being fascinated, because Belmonte gives Konstanze the portrait of her that he has been carrying around with him.  I think to demonstrate how devoted he has been, but she spends the rest of the scene holding onto the portrait, alternately staring at it beatifically and clutching it to her breast.  She is doing this to a portrait of herself.  The unbridled narcissism was inspiring.

Amy Owen, singing Blonde, was significantly more fabulous.  She was great. Her opening aria sounded like she was working a little too hard, but ever after that she had a light and lovely tone.  Where her colleague soprano, was boring if not annoying, she easily held my attention and won my love.  Her Blonde is the type to play on swings, fondle the biceps of the supernumeraries, take off her shoes and dance barefoot, and lecture Osmin while standing on a chair.   Quick, the Shakespeare signal! Someone needs to compare her to a summer's day!  Also, I wish I could make some bilingual pun with "Aupres de ma Blonde" here, but I don't have the language skills.   Anyway, to repeat, she was great.  Especially when Pedrillo and Belmonte demand assurance of faithfulness from women who have been kidnapped by people to whom consent isn't really a thing, Blonde responds by slapping Pedrillo.  That is exactly the response that deserved.  Konstanze just gets mopey.

A slap and indignation is also not how I was expecting a Mozart opera to handle that.  Given the unapologetic misogyny of say, Cosi fan Tutti with regards to faithfulness, I was pleasantly surprised.  While I'm on the subject, Entfuhrung isn't quite as overtly racist as I was expecting either.  I mean, sure, the whole set up is "these evil dark/Islamic people have taken 'our' women" but by and large the Muslims get a fairly fair shake.  As is historically accurate (well, maybe not with the Ottoman Turks, my memory is shaky here, I think I'm actually thinking more the Arab leaders in the Crusades, e.g. Saladin, but probably to Mozart & co, Arabs/Turks/Moors/Persians are a sort of homogeneous conglomerate of Otherness), a Muslim leader demonstrates far better ethics than his European Christian counterparts, and that rather makes up for the icky "let's get the Muslim drunk despite his religion, ha ha ha!" scene.  In fact, Osmin rather transcends all attempts in the libretto to make him look foolish here, though that is mostly because Andreassen is such a phenomenally better actor than his colleagues on stage who are attempting to make him look theatrically foolish.  There is a giant and prominent crescent and star on the gates to the Pasha's garden, which is rather weird, since it's analogous to Christians just building steeples on the roofs of their homes, but meh, it's Utah.

It was a good night at the opera.  It wasn't the level of opera of, say, the Houston Grand Opera, but it was fun and entertaining despite some flaws.  Honestly, it would be worth it just to hear that music performed with such understanding and commitment by that orchestra.  Such music will cover a multitude of sins.

Happy Birthday, Emma Kirkby!

On this day, Emma Kirkby, one of my favorite Renaissance and baroque sopranos, was born.

Also, it's a good day for Pergolesi, and every day is a good day for Monteverdi.