Degas in Boston

Degas liked naked women and portrayed them throughout his career of more than fifty years.  Currently the MFA (Museum of Fine Arts) in Boston has a major show.  We bought tickets ($65) ahead of time which included an audio tour and catalogue and importantly the privilege of cutting the line only to find there was no line.  Caveat emptor.  We now have two catalogues which I would not have bought but will have no trouble figuring out what to do with.  The catalogue is extensive and scholarly and if your interested, quite readable.

Back to Degas and the show which is enormous.  How well you like the show might have something to do with your comfort with nudes.  Much is said about painting: influences,sites, subjects, techniques, time and the fact that many of these were not shown during his lifetime, his habit of not painting faces--this material was scandalous but we never discuss that.  This is art, not sociology but surely social issues intrude.  A nude prostitute whose face was clearly visible was marked for life and eternity, actually.

What struck me particularly was that many of these women were caught in movements which would last only a fraction of a second.  I do not believe that cameras of the time could have caught it although they could now.  A question photography produced was "Why, a painting?  Why not a photograph?"  This was an answer of the day.  Too, there is the texture of the medium--many were monoprints, monoprints reworked, pencil, and so on.  They are quite absorbing and quite lovely.

And not a ballet dancer in the lot.

Kommilitonen! by Peter Maxwell Davies

Kommiltonen! was written to be performed by students jointly for Julliard School and the Royal Academy of Music.  They wanted a piece not only for students but about students noted David Pountney, the librettist, in the program.  Planned at a time when students were not active, it focuses on three incidents of student action with three very different outcomes. (And then there was Occupy Wall Street, not in the opera, but activity seems to be in style again).  The three stories are interwoven--apparently straight line story telling is dead.  Too bad. The three stories require three different musical idioms, German, American and Chinese.  This is a rich work providing opportunity to consider history, philosophy, musical style, artistic choices, performance choices--it could be a college major all by itself. 

The three incidents are the White Rose movement of the Scholl brother and sister in Nazi Germany/  The story of James Meredith and his entry into the University of Mississippi in the 60's, and the Chinese Cultural Revolution.  Three historical incidents.   The Scholls were executed by the Nazis.  Meredith graduated but remained ever controversial.  Wu accommodates to the government, matures to write the  history of the cultural revolution and sings that he knows who murdered his parents but will not reveal their names.

David Maxwell Davies has said that he did not want to write music that would turn students off to twenty-first century music for life.  He was also mindful of the limits of students.  The music is modern but I thought effective.  One does long for a rouse one can go out singing at the ending, but the ending he created is certainly effective.

I found this moving and wish it a long life.

Burmese Days as a play

George Orwell is best known as the author of 1984 and of Animal Farm with one of my favorite lines which I remember as, "All pigs are equal, but some pigs are more equal than other pigs."  However, his first novel first novel was Burmese Days based on his time as a military policeman in Burma.  This has now been adapted as a play by Ryan Mitchell which is being performed at 59E59. 

The play is a well told story of betrayal and intrigue in Burma between the wars as we used to say in the old days, but what makes the play compelling is the skill of a cast of English actors who can shift from character to character across ethnic lines just by changing posture and voice (and accent).  They are amazing, all of them.

Well done.

Burning, play

Burning, a new play by Thomas Bradshaw has a very attractive cast which is a good thing because we see them all, and I do mean all.  The program has a very firm bum on the cover, and I do not believe that any were missed in the production.  Enlightened people may not care, but then why is it on the cover?

This is the story of an artist who withholds his ethnicity from the public because he want his work judged only on the merit of the work and who leaves his blond wife to travel to Germany where his work will be shown in a gallery run by neo-Nazis.  It does not seem as if this will turn out well.  It is also the story of love in its many permutations.  Many questions may be asked about art and history and what matters and what doesn't and do we care about these people.

It is not boring.  One is absorbed throughout so I guess we must care about these people, but one also has the feeling that cliches are being aired, and there is less being said than imagined.

Recommended cautiously.

Two operas by Charpentier

Charpentier compposed in the time of Louis XIV but the official patent to write operas was held by Lully so Charpentier had to work within limitattions.  he was normally limited as to the size of his orchestra and the number of singers.  He also needed to secure the good opinion of Louis.  He wrote an Opera about Orpheus, The Descente d'Orphee aux Enfers,  which may or not be unifinished and another in praise of Louis, La Couronne de Fleurs, which Louis.

The current performance by the Boston Early Music Festival interweaves the two pieces so we may be fairly sure that Charpentier did not see them performed thus.  The music, instruments, costumes, dance and performance, however, are as true the time of composition as it is possible to make them.  The voices were remarkable--well you can say that about anything, can't you?  The voices were lovely. Boston Early Music performances are as authentic as to instruments, style, dance and production as possible, and this was done as a "court stating," that is, the orchestra was on stage, but the singers and dancers were in costume and enacted the scenes.  The program contained and extensive essay on the works and production

This was a lovely evening but not a stirring one.  I must confess to fading out at times.  At one point Orpheus was leading Euridice off the stage and toward a side exit, but I never saw them walk through it.  My husband assures me they left without incident.

Satyagraha,, opera by Philip Glass

It isn't new any more, and you may have seen it at your local movie theater.  Nevertheless I only saw it recently and some thoughts.

Satyagraha, the opera by Phillip Glass tells the story of Ghandi and his politial awakening in Africa by showing scenes from his life sung to a libretto in Sanskrit, an essentially dead language and based on the Bhagavad Gita, a classic of Indian literature.  The Bhagavad Gita tells of Prince Arjuna's conversation with Lord (God) Krishna before a battle is to start.  It was beloved by Ghandi but not directly about the story of the opera.    Africa is where Ghandhi first worked out his methods and thephilosophy of struggle that he later used to free India from colonial rule.  The production makes use of corrugated iron and newspapers from the time.  It is wonderfully creative folding the newspaper into puppets at one point.   There is no attempt to literally translate what the singers are singing but phrases are flashed on the wall from time to time to give one the sense of what is sung.  The scenes are not arranged in chronological order.  The opera has been described as meditative, and it is necessary to let it flow without struggling to make it like something familiar.  An Indian friend commented that the Indian texts have been passed orally exactly the same way for centuries, but in Glass they are difficult to understand as they are reset musically.

It sound impossible--essentially a pantomime to impossible words and minimalist music.  It is not easy, but it works.  It has been described as a masterpiece and is not only worth seeing but worth study.

Opera in NY

According to the Bel Canto Society, there are more than fifty organization in NY that perform opera, and if you think that is a lot, reflect that in 1989 there were around 80.  (I just lost the exact number.)

Anway below is a list of some of the less well-known companies we have run into--just in case you want to try something new:

American Opera Projects
Amore
Amato
Brooklyn Repertory Opera
Bronx
Chelsea
dell Arte Opera Ensemble
Empire
Gotham
Light Opera of NY
Morningside Opera Brooklyn
New York Lyric Opera
New York Opera Forum
Opera Company of 
Opera Feroce
Opera Manhattan
Opera Moderne
Opera Oggi NY
Opera Worksho
Pocket Opera of NY
Regina
Vertical Players
Village Light Opera
Williamsburg Opera

Plus the music schools and the obvious candidates