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Yesterday, which was the first day of 'Eid-ul-Fitr, we went to hear the San Francisco Bach Choir sing a plethora of English Christmas Carols. They sang a few conventional Christmas carols, including God Rest You Merry Gentlemen and O Little Town of Bethlehem, but my favorite was Dunstable's Sancta Maria, non est tibi similis. It is a three-part motet, a processional respond and antiphon to the Virgin Mary. The soloists were very good, particularly the alto and bass. The motet goes as follows:
Sancta Maria, non est tibi similis
orta in mundo in mulieribus
Florens ut rosa, flagrans sicut lilium,
ora pro nobis, sancta Dei genitrix.
If your Latin is a bit shabby, the English goes thusly (kind of, my Latin isn't good):
Holy Mary, there are no other women
in the world such as you,
Blooming like a rose, glowing as a lily,
pray for us, holy Mother of God.
There was an incredible turn-out, and it was very crowded. People were fairly well-behaved, aside from the four small children seated next to me. At least their parents had the sense to leave at the intermission.
Part of the concert was by candlelight, for about ten carols the lights were turned off and the choir and musicians performed with candles, mostly. The bell people had small lights and not candles.
We saw Much Ado About Nothing last night at Berkeley Repertory. I was a bit skeptical because the Oresteia was not everything I had hoped it would be, but my expectations got a little out of hand, and I read two translations of the plays before viewing them, so I was a bit over-prepared.
Much Ado was wonderful though, the acting was especially good, it seemed that everyone was at a very high level. It was much more together than the recent production of King Lear put on by the San Francisco Shakespeare Festival.
One could tell that the choreography and set had been thought out extensively, sometimes I felt that it was a little too much like "Oh, look how clever we can be!" It just seemed a bit humorous, the way they carefully choreographed people to take away props on the set, running and spinning, silhouettes in the dark making pretty shapes. Then toward the end they had to get the Leonato crypt off the stage, the lights didn't dim and a stagehand simply went across and pushed it off. I wonder if that was a mistake, it seems silly to go through all the effort of setting up this complicated system of getting things on and off the stage, developing a certain aesthetic, and then just breaking it off. The set was altogether surreal, the opening scene uses two huge netted screens with painted birds flying; the backdrop is a painted blue sky with fluffy cumulus clouds; there is a hanging Georgian mansion stage right, that is all gables, windows, and false columns; and in the foreground, a slope with cloth long-stemmed red roses standing each on end. It reminded me of Magritte, a very strange dream world. The women's clothing was pretty, but not historical, and the men simply wore uniforms or suits. There is a masked ball that is also very lovely. I could have down without all the strange noises that were used for no apparent reason, that sounded like Philip Glass or bad Avro Paert.
As I said, the acting was quite excellent, especially Beatrice (Francesca Faridany), Benedick (Sterling Brown), and Leonato (Julian Lopez-Morillas). I especially liked when Leonato curses his daughter Hero, when he thinks she has been untrue to Claudio. Lopez-Morillas is an incredible actor, it was interesting to see him in a very different part than the Duke of Gloucester in King Lear. I thought the young actor that played Claudio was not as comfortable in his role as the others. He was also painfully thin, and it made me cringe to see him in the bathing scene they use for Act I, Scene I.
We had seen Geoff Hoyle, who played the Constable, in ACT's Juno and the Paycock as Joxer Daly. He was funny, although they put typewriters into his interrogation scene, which wasn't particularly funny.
Sometimes I wonder about the poor behavior of my fellow audience members. I sat next to a couple, the female of the pair took off her sneakers during the performance, and rested herself in a very strange manner upon her mate, it wasn't gross, it was just weird. The male of the pair kept massaging the small of her back, which caused a weird noise against the fabric of her clothing. From where the woman's head was, it didn't look like she could even see the play, because the people in front of her would be blocking her way. Why bother going, is what I want to know.
So it was a really nice holiday. I adore Budapest and had no idea that I would like it so much. Went to a Lutheran church, a Catholic cathedral complete with relic and singing choir, the northernmost Islamic shrine, and the biggest synagogue in Europe. The person taking donations at the entrance of the synagogue asked me if I was American, which no one has ever asked me before as far as I remember. It pleases me greatly, though I'm not sure it should, since we Americans have such a bad reputation as travelers. But I was on my best behavior, as I always strive to be when I'm abroad. One must keep up appearances, be a good example.
We went to the Hungarian State Opera twice to see La Bohème and Manon Lescaut. They were having a Puccini Festival, so now I've seen more Puccini than anything else as far as opera goes. The opera house is so gorgeous, inside and out, though I've only been on the inside of five opera houses. The Markgräfliches Opernhaus in Bayreauth is the most fancy I've seen and the Wiener Volksoper the least.
The Museum of Fine Arts in Budapest has an incredible collection of Spanish paintings, especially good El Grecos and a couple of nice Goyas (also some very boring ones).
Vienna was less eventful, just stopped in for 3 days to see amazing art at the Kunsthistorisches Museum and the Bildungsakademie. Caravaggio's Madonna of the Rosary made tears well up in my eyes, made me all shaky. And then there are three late Rembrandt self-portraits that are uncanny, like looking into the great painter's soul itself. We also went to see Mozart's Abduction from the Seraglio at the Volksoper, and the difference between Puccini and Mozart was marked. Mozart is just incredible, even difference between his stereotype of "oriental" music and Saint-Saëns's shows this. The romantics just don't compare, not even to me, a person who really doesn't have much musical sense one way or other. I'm visual to a fault. The set and costumes were not to my taste, the set consisted of a modern glass palace that spun around, and the costumes were retro 40's. However, the singing was marvelous and so was the acting.
Two weekends ago I went to see Falstaff with a friend who graduated in Linguistics with me. It was much fun, the opera is funny and the staging was excellent. They had a wonderful model landscape background that included minute houses and even cows, and they did a fabulous rainy scene at the beginning. The crayoning on the walls that Nannetta and Fenton do is a bit much though. I've been told by my composer friend that the opera is horribly unmelodic. I suppose it is true, there is a lot of tittering. Anna Netrebko, who played Nannetta, has a beautiful voice, and is also very lovely to look
Last weekend we went to see rfd in Romeo and Juliet. She was excellent as Friar John, she makes an extremely convincing young boy, not only because she is lithe and small, but because of her carriage. I really liked how she draped her upper body on the gates, especially during the last scene. The set used for the production was beautiful and clever, it was in the California mission style. My biggest complaint about the play was the strange use of accents. Only Juliet and the nurse did not have accents, the rest of the Capulets had a Southern accent, which didn't make sense to me as the play was set in California, not Georgia. The Montagues had Spanish accents. It might have worked if they had modernized the language of the play, but in Elizabethan it just got really garbled. Plus some of the actors were better at doing their accents than others, some couldn't keep consistent with themselves. It is a beautiful play though, Romeo and Juliet, I never expected to like it as much as I do. It made me cry, which was surprising.
Halloween is my favourite holiday, though I think I could do without the time change that always happens before it. We went to Tosca with our lovely friends G and Loretta. We had a splendid time. The opera was beautiful, all the singing was adequate. Eva Urbanová has a pretty voice. It was odd seeing the same production again with different singers, but I liked it, everything was nicely familiar. The second act was especially good, the music is best in that act. For some reason I find the overtures in Tosca to be strange, I don't know what it is.
Quite a few of the audience were dressed in costume, which was fun. I went dressed in an Egyptian belly dance costume that I don't dance in as I do a different style of belly dance. It consists of a forest green velvet top and a matching skirt that is half velvet and half chiffon in a lighter shade. There are silvery beads and sequins here and there as trim. It is a very silly outfit.
Yesterday I went and saw Saint-Saëns most famous opera Samson et Dalila with my father, who was here for the weekend, ostensibly for a pre-auction showing at Butterfields that didn't happen. The opera was the best one overall that I've seen this season. The music and singing were all fairly good, and Olga Borodina, the mezzo-soprano who played Dalila, has just an incredible voice. She's a good actress too. Sergey Larin has a nice voice as well, but he was only really brilliant in the first scene of Act III, when he laments to God as he turns a millstone in prison. He was able to sing beautifully despite being in some odd doubled-over positions that probably aren't ideal for singing. Timothy Noble (Priest) and René Pape (An Old Hebrew) had very lovely voices that were consistently good throughout the performance. There were also two ballets in this opera, and the corps du ballet was quite good as they were in Arshak II. The dancers were the same as far as I could tell.
The only serious problem with the opera was the operation of the curtains. The placement of something must have been off because one of the curtains and the overscreen kept snagging each time they raised either of them. The audience was very immature about the whole thing, and whenever they mananged to get it okay, they would applaud. One would think that the stage crew would have it all set up correctly, as yesterday's performance was the last one.
It was a rather quiet weekend in which dinner with relatives ensued. There was a picnic and much lostness. The Asian Art Museum closed in Golden Gate Park after 35 years. It will reopen in the Civic Center, across from the library, but not until at least January 2003. There were so many people there saying good-bye. I walked through the Arabic calligraphy from Turkey exhibit again, looking out for letters I knew, scanning the letters from right-to-left, marveling at the tiny pocket calendars, the small paintings, and the gold-tooled leather book covers. Also went and looked at the Japanese Zen paintings, which I didn't care for. Wandered around upstairs and sketched some Indian statues, giggled when the guard stopped a lady from leaving Lord Ganesha an offering. Most of the Chinese jade collection was already tucked away, so no last look at that.
Last weekend we went and saw Thomas of Woodstock and Richard II, down at Pacific Repertory again. They are very different plays, but worked together nicely. The choreography was solid and the fight scenes were just amazingly done. All the acting was incredible, from the way the actors held themselves to the delivery of lines. Thomas of Woodstock is a lot more comic, because Richard II's advisors are so ridiculous, though it also has a tragic element, as England is being oppressed by her own and Thomas of Woodstock is mistreated and eventually is murdered. There weren't many people in the quiet audience, and they were most excited by the courtier's horse, with whom Thomas speaks to in a very sad but funny scene in which Thomas is mistaken for a groom and not the master of his house. The worked together nicely. The choreography was solid and the fight scenes were just amazingly done. All the acting was incredible, from the way the actors held themselves to the delivery of lines. Thomas of Woodstock is a lot more comic, because Richard II's advisors are so ridiculous, though it also has a tragic element, as England is being oppressed by her own and Thomas of Woodstock is mistreated and eventually is murdered. There weren't many people in the quiet audience, and they were most excited by the courtier's horse, with whom Thomas speaks to in a very sad but funny scene in which Thomas is mistaken for a groom and not the master of his house. The company used a different ending than the one I had read, which didn't surprise me much, since the original ending is lost. Apparently, there is only one copy of this play in the British Museum as a source. They also changed a few details of the play since they are playing the histories as a series. They kept Anne of Bohemia alive for Richard II, although the queen in that play is Richard's second wife, Isabella. This worked fine, it didn't disrupt anything.
Richard II was played out-of-doors in the Forest Theatre, and that was very nice, as the stage was a fine size and there were fires. They made use of the front sides of the theatre as well. I did get quite bitten by insects, but it was well worth it. Richard II is more tragic than either Edward III or Thomas of Woodstock, and more powerful. The character of Richard II is easier to sympathize with here than in Thomas of Woodstock, because he is a fallen king instead of the horrid, uncaring tyrant he was previously.
One would think it would be tiring to see two plays in one day, but it wasn't at all, it was exhilarating to see so much good theatre all at once. I just wish I could go out and see Henry IV now, but I must wait until next summer.
I'm in a really strange space right now. I feel overly well in a way, as if my mind were hovering just above my body. It reminds me of one of the case studies in The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, the Cupid's Disease story.
Last night we went to see San Francisco Shakespeare Festival production of King Lear. The play is just incredible. The production was good. The staging was done well and the set was nice but simple, though the space was not ideal. The choreography was excellent throughout and this came out especially in the fight scenes. The acting was adequate, some actors were really amazing and a few were clearly not as good. One thing that was bothersome was that the Fool was played by Gerald Hiken, who is a fine actor, but I had really pictured the Fool as young, since Lear refers to him as a boy and lad throughout the text. Then again, "boy" could also be used because the Fool's position is that of a servant. The Fool also has a true and almost noble quality to him, and he was played more as a buffoon in this production. Hiken played Firs in The Cherry Orchard, and was wonderful in that role as an old servant who is devoted to his masters and is forgotten by everyone in the end. In Lear it was often hard to understand him because he mumbled quite a bit.
Gloucester was played hauntingly by Julian Lopez-Morillas, he was probably the best actor of the whole play. His sons, Edgar and Edmund (Jonathan Rhys Williams and Will Springhorn Jr.), were also very good. The blinding scene of Gloucester, and Edgar playing at being mad were especially wonderful. Ray Reinhardt, Lear himself, was a bit of a disappointment, he was adequate. He did look very much the part, and his crazy scenes were the better ones. The bad daughters, Regan and Goneril (Jenny Lord and Kay Kostopoulos), weren't terrific, but they came across as very bitchy, which I suppose is appropriate. But Cordelia (Shannon Barry) was cloying, and didn't have much stage-presence at all.
As an aside, something very strange happened at the performance. The fire alarm started going off during Act II, Scene IV, while King Lear was arguing with Regan and Goneril over who he would live with, and how many knights he should have. The cast was very good at ignoring the alarm, and no one left the audience until the stage manager or someone directed the actors to stop and for us all to file out. We waited in the cold for several minutes, and it was very disjointed.
Last Wednesday we made the trip down to Carmel for the first play of their ten play series of all Shakespeare's histories. King Edward III has been recently accepted by some scholars into the Shakespeare canon. It was played in Pacific Repertory's Circle Theatre, which is tiny and round, and the audience surrounds the stage on four sides. They made excellent use of space, all the choreography was superbly done and all the actors were able to carry off the choreography well. The play itself is good, though not all together historic. The basic storyline is Edward III going to war with France to claim the crown, since his mother was sister to the previous king of France. The actors were all very good, especially John Oswald, who played Edward III, and David Mendelsohn, who played Prince Edward. Three of the actors in this production were also in The Cherry Orchard during the summer, and it was nice to see how good they really were at acting, as they were barely recognizable in their Shakespearian parts.
Yesterday we just decided to try to see the rescheduled performance of Tigran Chukhadjian's Arshak II, and managed to finagle inexpensive tickets for the orchestra. The performance was supposed to have happened last Tuesday, but most of San Francisco shutdown that day, and it was cancelled. The performance started with a moment of silence, and then we sang America, the Beautiful. The opera itself was very nice. It was composed in 1868 but was never performed in its full form until the San Francisco Opera premiered it September 9, 2001. The libretto is loosely based on King Arshak II who ruled Armenia in the 4th century. The staging was the most impressive part of the production. The tiered walls were imposing and they moved to change scenes. The costumes were lovely. There were two ballets, one that involved women in white fluttering and floating beneath the cage were Queen Olympia was being held prisoner, and one with men and slave women that was celebratory. It was strange for the music to go on so long without singing, but the dancing was gorgeous. As for the singing, Arshak II, sung by baritone Christopher Robertson, was not as good as Gordon Gietz (Valinace) nor Philip Webb (Prince Knel). Queen Olympia, Arshak II's first wife, was sung by Hasmik Papian, and her voice was excellent, very sweet, clear, and under control. In contrast was Arshak II's second wife Paransema, who was wasn't nearly as good, her voice was more breathy and less under control. I believe the part was sung by mezzo soprano Mzia Nioradze, though Nora Gubisch should have done that particular performance, but she was ill. The music itself was very pretty. The ending was a bit quiet for how tragic the storyline was, but it was definitely a worthwhile experience.
Last Friday we went to the opening night of the San Francisco Opera. They played Verdi's Rigoletto. The soprano Désirée Rancatore was very good, her voice is sweet and light. Maybe just slightly cold, slightly frail. The tenor Frank Lopardo was acceptable, a bit inconsistent. His voice was not as strong as the title baritone Stephan Pyatnychko, who was amazing. Pyatnychko's voice was rich and warm, and just beautiful.
The set was clever, but certain details made it odd. They did a good job with the river scene, and the way they moved the set around was done well. However, the stripped down nature of much of the set was not aesthetically appropriate, the arches without any ornamentation looked like concrete and the stairs used in an interior space was made hideous with a metal railing at the top which looked like one you would find in a modern office building. The lighting was also strange. One of the interior areas was always lit red, and the adjacent outdoor area was lit yellow.
This weekend I bought too many books. I also read and saw Iphigenia in Aulis. The performers pronounced "Iphigenia" differently than Merriam-Webster.
If you are in Berkeley next weekend, I highly recommend going to see the Shotgun Players in their production of Euripides' tragedy. It is a free performance, and is about 2 hours long with a 10 minute intermission. Do get there half an hour early to get a seat, and bring blankets. They sell some food, and you can also buy a program for $2. Initially, I was very skeptical about the whole thing, being a free performance, if nothing else, the audience would most likely be obnoxious. This was true, people laughed for no apparent reason, even though the actors weren't even trying to be inappropriately amusing. They also put on a goofy prologue about the family history of Agamemnon and Menelaus, tracing the line from Tantalus to Atreus, as the audience probably did not read the play before hand and know its history.
The use of masks was excellent. Some of the actors had masks, and others did not, but it worked really well. The costuming was not impressive, for the most part consisted of simple tunics and painted-over sandals.
The choreography, most notably in the chorus, was very good, despite a bit of awkwardness in some of the actors. They were able to carry it off naturally and beautifully, even though they all had different body types and levels of dance ability.
The sound, provided by the Goatsong trio, was also done well. The percussive accompaniment really added to the whole experience.
The acting was at an even level, very consistent. Clytemnestra and Agamemnon were especially good, though there were parts when Clytemnestra was in hysterics and the acting hit a few brief false notes. The part of Achilles was made rather buffoon-like, but not horribly so. All the main characters had to play multiple parts, and they were convincing in each of their parts.
It should be mentioned that they do use the spurious ending that scholars agree was written by an interloper. It involves an Abraham and Isaac sort of "Oh nevermind, let's kill this goat instead of your child" finish.
So we managed to get tickets to The Cherry Orchard after a rather tiresome series of events involving early rising, extensive driving, traffic, waiting in line, waiting in general, and being crowded. We only got in by the skin of our teeth, ten minutes after the play started, even though we had arrived at the theatre an hour before the play was supposed to start. We had to look for seats, but thankfully, there were two seats on the aisle of the second row. However, the people who had bought tickets for these seats arrived late, even though the play started 15 minutes late, and forced us to give up our seats, since they had been sitting in the very back. So we moved, but to better seats in the center.
At any rate, it was all worth it, since the production was amazing. All the actors were consistently good, and the whole thing came together very well. It was the best play I've seen since we saw Long Day's Journey Into Night at the ACT in Spring of 1999.
The rest of the weekend was quite fine as well. I read much, painted, and went walking on the waterfront for a few hours. There are all manner of odd paintings at the waterfront that are a cross between Goya and Chagall. Strange, but it is fitting for the area, which is very urban and falling apart.
Simon Boccanegra was excellent. Samuel Ramey (Jacopo Fiesco) and Paolo Gavanelli (Simon Boccanegra) were especially amazing. We got to see Carol Vaness again, who was in Don Giovanni as Donna Elvira and Tosca (as Tosca). She was the sole soprano in the production, and she was, predictably, awful. However, the opera is more focused on the lower voices, the main parts are baritone and bass. All and all it was a wonderful opera, the kind that gives you shivers.
So last night I went to see The Clouds, the Ocean, and Everything In Between, a play by Michael Premsrirat of 18 Mighty Mountain Warriors fame. It's a play about identity and the nature of modern life, how there aren't answers. I have to say, I was really impressed. The acting was really good and the play had a sense of rhythm to it, all of the resonating cadences came together well. At the same time, it wasn't a pleasant or easy experience, it wasn't "entertaining". And I count that as a good thing, but by the time the play ended I felt drained and off-centre.
Premsrirat's ethnic background is Filipino and Thai, and all the actors in the play are also of mixed heritage. One issue that was brought up was phenotype vs. genotype, the idea that society identifies and categorizes people on racial lines by how they look, such that there are people of mixed heritage who can pass as white, and there are those that simply cannot. How different are the experiences of these people on opposite sides of the mixed hertiage spectrum are.
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