Maybe it’s the influence of the sultry air of summer, heavy, dirty, and mournful with thunderstorms that will never come, but in just two days last week, on ferry boat and BART train, I saw three women reading celebrated novels of adultery: two Anna Kareninas and one Madame Bovary. We all get the yen, and I too felt like putting down Paradise Lost, because even the deepest love can tire, oh, just a bit, after a dozen or so readings, and grabbing a ripe adulteress from the shelf, but I resisted and went back to the battle in Heaven. Reading about it (adultery, not warring angels) is so much easier than dealing with it oneself (well, I guess that's true of the angels as well); go for the glamour and avoid the work. By "glamour" I mean "deep insight into the human condition", of course.
If you’re tired of trains and arsenic, though, you may dazzle and entice your friends with some equally great but more obscure members – and who doesn’t like obscure members? – of the body of nineteenth-century adultery novels, lesser known only, I have no doubt, because they are written in Spanish and Portuguese: Leopoldo Alas’s La Regenta and Galdos’s Fortunata and Jacinta from Spain, and any of the novels of the great Eca de Queiros (sometimes spelled Queiroz) from Portugal. As a public service, because that is the sort of thing I do here, I will provide a pronunciation guide to Queiros’s name (which contains various cedillas and things which I am omitting out of laziness and ignorance). I myself have a wretched Portuguese accent, and speak only a few words, but since “I am offended” and “You are shameful” are among them, I am in reality fully equipped for life in Lisbon, though perhaps not in Rio.
Anyway, I asked my father, a native speaker, and here goes: AY – sa duh kay – ROYZH. Do that with a slight backward roll on the “R” and you’re close enough. My father then hastened to inform me that the family (meaning his older relatives) did not consider Queiros a decent author, which is really all the enticement one might need. (By the way, if you read The Maias, and you should, do not read any of the introductory material first, at least in the Penguin edition – there is a major plot point they blithely give away, and you should come across it on your own.) I also used to see every movie condemned by the Vatican until they got around to The da Vinci Code. Not even the Pope’s proscriptive thunder could make me want to sit through that. When I finally heard what the book was about, I was stunned: that’s it? Jesus had kids who now live in the south of France, undoubtedly sucking on Gauloises and sneering at Americans? Look, if they can’t turn water into wine, I’m not interested. What an odd tribute to the human obsession with bloodlines, and what a sad insight into what passes for religious discourse in this country.
Since I’m providing pronunciation guides to Portuguese names, I’m going to put it on the record that my last name is pronounced to rhyme with “jazz.” Any other pronunciation gets a correction from me, and when I occasionally have the pleasure of meeting someone who reads me, I hate for the very first thing I say to be a correction. My grandparents anglicized the pronunciation when they emigrated, and in one of my few faint gestures towards ancestral respect I insist on their pronunciation. Though perhaps what I’m respecting is anglicizing, on behalf of several branches on the other side of the family tree.
Speaking of unsatisfied yearnings and disappointment, I finally have DSL installed, and though the guy from AT&T who had to show up to repair the line here was extremely prompt and helpful, everything else, meaning mostly the speed, has been . . . unimpressive. I haven’t had the heart for my eagerly planned YouTube orgy, because it just takes so much more time than I thought it would. I mean, I’m glad I’m off dial-up, but mostly because it’s just embarrassing still to be on dial-up. If you don’t own a cell phone (I don't), people assume you’re making a statement, as opposed to just being befuddled and stuck in the past, and they might even think it’s some sort of intriguingly independent-minded and subversively Luddite anti-electronic-leash statement, as opposed to “I am unpopular and do not get calls and besides I hate figuring out new technology”, whereas with dial-up all you’re really saying is that you sure do miss 1997.
Speaking of missing things, I'm really going to miss subscribing to the San Francisco Opera. I felt a restless melancholy earlier tonight as I prepared for tomorrow night's date with Lucia di Lammermoor by tearing my second-to-the-last subscription opera ticket from the subscriber ticket sheet I received last summer as I have every summer since 1992. Then comes Ariodante next Friday, and then farewell to Orchestra Left D5, and farewell to my sixteen-or-so years of subscribing and donating. I’ll undoubtedly end up at some of the operas next season, but it's not quite the same. I’ll be damned if I’m going to encourage Gockley as he drains all artistic excitement from the opera house. Technical toys are no substitute. I know I’ve already said I’ll be damned if I encourage the Opera's bold retreat to 1953, but I’ll say it again: I’ll be damned if I pay for a ticket to La Boheme or the lovely though exhausted standards Gockley is trotting out for the walled-in tastes of those who think, or rather who wish, that the musical world stopped with Rosenkavalier. The Opera’s upcoming schedule is not a season, it is a surrender. Oh, here I go again, an obsessive and spurned lover. I do wish them every happiness. What do I know. Maybe they were right to dump me, or, rather, in that classic move, to maneuver things so I felt compelled to dump them. Maybe it all really has been downhill since Zinka stopped singing Gioconda.
Under the circumstances, the San Francisco Symphony is looming larger and more gratefully in my mind. I am, needless to say, way behind in posting, so expect the drawn-out summer nights to be filled with Proustian (long, ravishingly self-indulgent) reminiscences of concerts from months ago (look, it’s all memory as soon as you stop applauding anyway), but I do wish I had written sooner about some of the Symphony concerts, just because I’m so glad to see a big musical organization that seems to be pointed in the right direction. I’m heading there Saturday night for my favorite Beethoven symphony and the new piece by Magnus Lindberg, but even though I’ve been eagerly anticipating this concert all season, still (and watch me ouroboros this whole thing, right here!) part of this faithless lover’s heart will be longing for the exotic charms to be found in hanging with the cool kids at the Columbarium. Go, and live without regrets.
18 comments:
I woke up this morning, read your post and promptly ordered The Maias and La Regenta. Such is the power of your blog!
I remember when I was a kid really wanting to see a movie called The Moon is Blue, directed by Otto Preminger, because I heard my mother telling someone that it had been condemned by the Vatican. William Holden (!) and David Niven play bachelors who compete with each other to overcome a young woman's goal to remain a virgin until marriage. Let me tell you that I felt pretty grown up when I got a chance to watch it, and due to the condemnation, I was sure that the virginity would be gone by closing credits. I don't want to write any spoilers here, but let's just remind ourselves that the movie was made in 1953. Something tells me that the two novels will have a bigger payoff.
Yeah, I'm expecting a huge, huge spike in the sales of Eca de Queiros. I did offer to lend you my copy of The Maias, if you want to cancel your order and get something else instead.
William Holden, eh? Sounds like . . . More than Heaven Allows! That plus a Vatican condemnation! The movie sounds "sophisticated" in that kind of painful way -- watching a movie like that made in 1953 when it's 1973 (rough guess on the time) would lead to a certain sense of ironic disjunction.
Let me guess the ending -- it's a threesome! How very Noel Coward. Interesting you didn't mention the actress. Perhaps she is sort of an afterthought, or that was just the pinnacle of her career. I should look up her name. I haven't seen the film.
Maybe you should hang out with the cool kids at the Columbarium. I certainly would if I could (although it should be hotter than hell). Instead, I'll be videotaping a Cole Porter musical for the dollars it brings towards the rent.
As for the Symphony concert, the Lindberg is absolutely awesome (though extremely loud), but the Beethoven on Thursday afternoon was godawful. May it have gotten better by Saturday night.
Heavens, 16 years of subscribing at SF Opera. A full subscription? I've never gotten the whole season, only one of the half ones, and I'm not going to now, though I'll probably go to every production in standing room.
The 7th is my favorite too.
OT, You know, I thought about looking for you in standing room at Lucia last Friday, but then I read (I guess in your comment on Lisa's blog?) that the 7th was your favorite and you would be at the symphony, and besides I realized that the only clue I had to your appearance is that there was a good chance you would be wearing a spectacular hat, which maybe isn't enough to go on. Apparently I don't look anything like the image people get when they only know me through my blog; I never quite have the nerve to ask why, though I have the general sense that in person I just look less like the weeping, weeping aesthete I am inside.
I wish I could do standing room, but for a number of reasons (an unwillingness to stand for hours being one of them) I just can't. I get the feeling there would be a lot of space invasion going on, and there's the whole anxiety about getting in and getting your spot. . . . Luckily I have no financial sense at all and happily pay extravagant prices to sit.
Yeah, I've subscribed to full seasons (and donated) for 16 years, and -- here I go again! -- no one at the Opera has bothered to contact me to find out why I haven't renewed, though as V pointed out the other day, given the average age of their audience, they probably figure that if I've already been around for 16 years I must be dead, or as good as, by now, instead of in the full bloom of cranky criticality.
I've only missed one main stage production in that time; unfortunately it wasn't one of the many inadequate Toscas, Bohemes, or Traviatas they've treated us to, but Don Carlos (not the last time but the one before), when I had the flu on what turned out to be the day of the final performance.
Perhaps it's my "I live in New York and am bored with being bored" perspective, but Kovalevska, Calleja, and Luisotti -- yes, even in Boheme -- seem to me worth a trip even for the most jaded.
Patrick, it was great to meet you. I'm not sure I had much of a mental picture of you. I just think of narwhals when I think of you, which isn't all that helpful or flattering, but it's a little funny, no?
O there is space invasion and anxiety in standing room, yes indeed, but only for the more popular operas. Usually it is best to find some friends to go with, this way it is harder for strangers to impose on one's "space bubble."
Have you written to the opera? Not sure how much good it does, but at least they should know that they are alienating their core audience.
I completely understand about the Toscas, Bohemes, and Traviatas. Just the thought of having to go to Boheme 3 times for the 3 different casts makes me feel weary, even though of course, I will be there.
JSU, Yes, I see your point, and I'm not saying that come November I won't be scrambling for tickets and regretting my false economy in not resubscribing. But, without wanting to go into too much detail, I had several unexpected and unfortunate expenses last year, and considering I already spend excessively on theater I had to cut back, and a season that left me uninterested before it began seemed like the logical place to start.
Also, I have always tended to go for composer and opera rather than just singer and conductor. Once someone asked me about a particular singer and I said I wasn't familiar with her; he gave me a strange look and pointed out that she was one the St Matthew Passion I had in my hand, and which I had just been listening to. I laughed. Eventually I would have taken the names in, but I was listening for Bach.
I do have my favorite performers (just about none of whom are featured next season), and though I have heard very positive things about the artists you mention, I'd rather check them out in something I want to spend the time and money on. I do tend to buy the expensive seats. I like to be able to see. So given the unfortunate need to make some choices about where I spend my time and money, I'd rather go to Symphony Hall or some of the smaller groups here.
If it were just a matter of one or two warhorses, I would just go, on the grounds that I might always fall in love again. But it's almost the entire season. In NYC you have such rich operatic offerings that I think you're probably spared the thought that every Boheme or Traviata is of necessity displacing something I would prefer to hear.
Though I do tend to use "Boheme" as shorthand for "stuff I'm sick of", I really couldn't listen to it again for a long while. My head would explode. I genuinely have Boheme issues. If only the performers you mention were doing Trovatore instead!
OT, it was great to meet you too. I'm very happy to be associated with narwhals. They are noble creatures, and I've always wished I could live underwater.
As for contacting the Opera and expressing my feelings, I kind of feel there's no point. For one thing, I already have expressed my feelings in this easily accessible format, and though I have no idea if anyone at the Opera follows the blogosphere, my entry on next season was picked up by a number of other people (in fact, that is the entry whose reception has surprised me the most), including Joshua Kosman and Lisa Hirsch, and since both of them are official critics I would be surprised if the opera folk didn't check out their blogs at least occasionally, and find my reaction through them. If anyone over there saw it, they felt no need to comment. What can they say, anyway?
Also, just the fact that a long-time subscriber didn't send in the usual renewal and donation would seem to warrant an inquiry from them, but they're sailing right along without me.
I don't actually think I am their core audience. For one thing, I don't have enough disposable income, and for another, my tastes are too wide-ranging, and despite my deep love for many of the classics of the repertoire eventually I'm going to want something different that they don't seem inclined to provide me.
I look forward to hearing about the Bohemes from you, which may be the closest I can stand to get to them. I also can't say the Opera has done the great Italian classics well enough in the past for me to look forward to a season of nothing but.
Patrick, I do think anyone who has been a supporter of the opera for as long as you have is considered part of a core audience, even if your tastes are unconventional. Also I do think the opera should be concerned about losing subscribers, even if they are not wealthy ones. Even if the opera administration is going to chase down a wider audience using technology and easily assessable works, they still need to be concerned about the people that have been supporting them year after year.
I'll be sure to tattle my silly little head off, and hope to at least be entertaining, if nothing else.
OT, I think I'm too much of an opera fan to be considered part of the core audience, which sounds paradoxical, I admit. Years ago I knew someone who got a "here's an extra 20% off" certificate from Amazon for any item, and someone else in my office was outraged since he spent a bundle on Amazon every week. And I told him that's why he and I would never get such discount offers: you don't need to hook someone who's already an addict.
From the Opera's point of view, someone who just can't stay away (and even if I skip out on La Traviemeosca, chances are that in a few years I will want to hear even the overly-familiar pieces again) is not a constituency they need to care too much about. (You see the same thing in politics, where Obama shamefully compromises on FISA because his supporters have no where else to go, and the assumption, however mistaken, is that the vast majority of people want to play it safe or don't care.)
There is a far greater number of conservative opera goers (who also probably have more cash for donations than I do) who are happy to sit there year after year hearing the same four works over and over, for whatever reason. Those are the people who break out in a cold sweat at the thought of anything radical and modern (i.e., any post-Turandot opera) and who are liable to stay home rather than subject themselves to anything unfamiliar, and those are the people the Opera cares about placating.
The Opera's decision to avoid challenging its audience and instead to follow it passively and conservatively is a complete abdication of their artistic responsibility to the art form, I think, but it's a market-driven decision. Whether or not it's a wise decision is another matter. I think they're mistaken to concentrate on an aging demographic that is bound to be disgruntled because they're not hearing Pavarotti and Sutherland in 1972 instead of reaching out to those who simply do not even think of going to the opera house for anything artistically or intellectually bold or adventurous.
My boredom with the upcoming season is apparently not universal, so I will assume the Opera House knows what it's doing, more or less, financially at least.
Your title made me think of "Pigeon, Sing Cuccu!," E.B. White's fabulous riff on the original. Here's the first stanza:
"Earth is a hoyden, loud rejoyce;
Pigeon, sing cuccu!
The green girl, spring, has found her voice,
My heart is piercèd through."
Hi from an nyc fan.
--the culturist
http://blogs.wnyc.org/culturist/
Hi Claudia,
I hadn't seen White's parody before; thanks for posting it. That poem always makes me think of a two-panel New Yorker cartoon from several years ago: in the first panel a medieval troubador is wandering past a couple of laboring peasants and he's doing the whole "Sumer is i-cumen in" thing, and in the second panel he's just left and one peasant is saying to the other, "What the hell was that all about?" Cracks me up every time.
By the way I tried to add you to my blogroll but when I clicked on the link to see if I could get to your blog I got a message saying they weren't accepting new bloggers. Huh? Is it possible to link to you?
That's fabulous!
Hmm ... I have sent a note to the tech folks asking them to look into it - this is stone age but, since we've been talking about the middle ages, did you try just cutting and pasting "http://blogs.wnyc.org/culturist/"
into your blogroll?
I'll let you know what they say. And Happy Fourth.
c
Claudia, I typed the address along with the usual other codes into the blog template, which is how I've added other blogs. It did work, in that I obviously was brought somewhere else, but it just wouldn't let me into your blog.
I did once try going to WNYC to find your blog, and I couldn't, but I was at work so maybe I didn't search hard enough. I have found it through statcounter, though.
Happy Fourth to you too. I will only consider this a happy holiday if my house isn't burnt down by illegal fireworks. Half of California is burning to the ground, and people still blow these things off, which I guess is nicely metaphorical for America these days anyway. First we get the explosions, then we get all the dogs howling, then we get the sirens. . . .
I am writing with the hope that you are sitting in your singe-free house. Illegal fireworks abound out here, too - in my Brooklyn neighborhood, Bed-Stuy, the first association sadly is not wildfires but gunshots.
That's really irritating about the blog - sorry, at least I am able to link to you on my blogroll. I have asked the station's tech folks about it. And yeah, you cannot get to it from wnyc's site. Sigh.
Hi Claudia,
Yes, I'm happy to say the fire danger seems to be so great that even the people who normally blow up illegal fireworks got the message, so there seems to be minimal damage.
I'll try again to link to your blog (for the next couple of weeks my non-work-related computer access is a little sporadic, so I may not get a chance to try right away). If your tech guys have a solution please let me know.
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