The 2006 Bayreuth Ring was supposed to be directed by Lars von Trier, which is why I got it into my head that 2006 would be the year I would make the hajj; Lars of course withdrew so I missed out on his scampish stylings and Bayreuth had to hustle to find a substitute, Tankred Dorst. This shuffle may account for a slightly underdone feel to the production, though I had always imagined that German directors grew up dreaming of Ring productions the way some American girls grow up planning their weddings, using the pre-fab irony of their Barbie and Ken dolls to deconstruct various ideal stagings. As I mentioned earlier Thielemann was the acknowledged hero of the production, and the orchestra was the best part, despite some flubs by Siegfried's horn and a few overly slow patches (I have to mention these things to show I'm paying musical attention). The singers were mostly solid but not really outstanding (though I mentioned earlier the disaster of the ill Siegmund and Robert Dean Smith's rescue of Act 2; he even maintained his composure during what has to be one of the most unfortunate possible prop mishaps, the premature snapping of Notung). Falk Struckmann effectively used movement to undercut his blustering, macho Wotan, as when his shoulders gave a defeated slight slump forward when he announces that retrieving the Ring will be left for one freer than himself.
The production was an odd combination of different standard approaches; the sets were mostly of the industrial/economic/modern-world style and the costumes were mostly from the mythic/timeless style. Sometimes a scene would start one way and end in the other, as when Nibelheim appeared looking like an industrial plant only to reveal an interior cave of naturalistic style. The outfits of the gods were fluted and pleated in a sort of retro-futuristic style, as if a costumer from the 1930s was trying to design a future race who would eventually be taught democracy by Buck Rogers. The costumes were identical in the first two operas except for color, being white in Rheingold and black in Walkure. Siegmund wore heavy furs and Siegfried wore sort of a mountain-man/Robinson Crusoe get-up that made him look more oafish than necessary. In Walkure the second act took place around a large reclining head of Richard Wagner, lifted no doubt from Syberberg's film of Parsifal. Various scenes were accompanied by groups of children or adults either imitating the action or just sitting in the background, which was sort of an interesting idea but not used consistently enough to have much effect; we'd see tramps camping out beneath the underpass while Brunhilde announced his death to Siegfried, and then hours would go by without any added spectators at all. At the end of Rheingold a group of children rushed on at the end and imitated the murder of Fasolt by his brother, which would have had more effect if the "murdered" child hadn't jumped right up.
Speaking of Rheingold. . . . this production was one of several I've seen that uses the same bizarre staging of the moment in which Freia is hidden by the Nibelung treasure to persuade the giants to accept the gold in place of her. I find this scene very moving in a way similar to Siegmund's refusal to enter Valhalla without Sieglinde, because Fasolt too cannot be persuaded to give up the woman he yearns for until the flash of her golden hair and the sparkle of her eye are completely hidden from his sight (by adding the tarnhelm and the Ring to the pile). It seems pretty obvious to me that Freia is supposed to stand there, the giants plant their spears on either side of her, and the gods pile up the gold to block her from their view. This production, like several others I've seen, inexplicably has Freia lie down on the ground during the scene. Here's a little science shout-out: gold is incredibly dense, which means it's too heavy to be piled on anyone; yes, she's a goddess, but these are gods who grow old and weaken and die. And if she's lying there obviously they can't cover the singer up completely, which makes nonsense of the scene: how can Fasolt complain that he can still see the gleam of her eye when he can clearly see her whole damn head, plus large portions of her torso, hands, and feet? I'm being very literal about this, but the giants are very literal fellows, which is both why they insist on the letter of their contract and agree to change only when the object of desire is blocked from their direct sight.
I did mention earlier that Fafner was the Worst. Dragon. Ever. When he appeared there was lots of smoke and little lighting, so I thought that what was supposed to be the mouth of his cave was actually his mouth (as if he was so large all we could see was his gaping jaws: a bit of a cop-out, but it can work). Then a longish silly neck with what looked like a seahorse head appeared, waved around a bit, and was promptly stabbed. That was it? He looked as if he could be taken by a couple of boy scouts out for a merit badge. There was another bizarre bit of staging, at the end of Gotterdammerung Act 1, when Siegfried, disguised as Gunther, is about to go in to the conquered Brunnhilde and he announces that Notung his sword shall separate the two of them. He sings this, then sits down outside and sends in Gunther, who has accompanied him. All this makes nonsense not only of his statement that Nothung shall lie between them but also of the entire second act: Gunther can't fear that Siegfried betrayed him with Brunnhilde if he knows perfectly well that he was there and not Siegfried. Gunther is not a coward and a cheat, but a king and a warrior: but he's still no match for the might of Siegfried and Brunnhilde. Rather than making Gunther worse, the point should be that Siegfried is just better. Forget the bunnies in Parsifal; it’s stuff like this that makes me wonder if the director is paying any attention at all to what's happening.
The ending of Gotterdammerung was lackadaisical. Lots of sophisticated types in evening clothes stood around Gibichung beneath banners showing the gods; they continued to stand around while allegedly Valhalla was burning and then the Rhine was flooding. I thought at least the banners of the gods would, if not burn – probably not a good move in a theater with a canvas ceiling – at least drop dramatically down. If the reign of the gods is over, why are the banners still standing? Maybe Dorst was making a point about the continuing hold of gods no one believes in any longer, but that's not what's going on at the end of this opera. And the staging could have used some action. When you listen to that music you feel certain that something vital is happening, but if you were watching this staging with, as it were, the sound turned off, you'd pretty much just see a bunch of people milling about, so that the end of the world looked considerably more sedate than the Munich railway station I arrived at the next day.
But I have to say, it is a thrill to hear the Ring in Bayreuth – Tankred, all is forgiven, almost.
Showing posts with label Bayreuth. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bayreuth. Show all posts
03 January 2007
10 November 2006
my nights were sour. . . .
Ah, Tristan, the opera that ruined my life. . . . (“Do you want to go out for coffee?” “Well . . . is this going to end in an ecstatic love-death that will annihilate space and time? Because otherwise, I kinda have some stuff I need to get done. . . . those dishes aren’t going to wash themselves. . . .”). If I were limited to two operas, I think I would take Tristan und Isolde and Le Nozze di Figaro: between them you pretty much have the universe, with the ecstasy and sorrow of the former’s inward-looking lovers balanced by the latter’s earthy joys amid a complex, shifting social structure. I wonder if Tristan isn’t one of those works like King Lear that is almost too mighty for people to act out on stage, leaving every performance both deeply moving and inadequate.
Bayreuth had a wonderful cast for Tristan; it was everything else that came up short. Beforehand I was hearing raves about Nina Stemme’s Isolde, and she did have amazing power but, I felt, started to run out of gas during the liebestod, which is when you least want that to happen. The one who really impressed me was Robert Dean Smith, who sang a Tristan of brave sweetness and anguish. Our Kurwenal, John Wegner, was much steadier than the man who did the broadcast performance (that’s the paradox of opera reviewing – even if the performers had been the same, you’d get a different performance from evening to evening, and sometimes from act to act).
The production was baffling. The pictures that I saw beforehand made me think it would have a contemporary setting, which could be an interesting way of examining the mythic and heroic within the everyday. But the actual staging starts out looking like a 1930s luxury liner, as if everyone is going to break into “Anything Goes” and start tapdancing; the Cole Porter connotations have a way of reducing gestures that should be majestic to the Margaret-Dumontish. But when V (who has a keener fashion awareness than I do) saw pictures of the costumes she asked why it was set in the 1960s. I responded that I would have guessed the 1970s, based on the fake wood paneling and mustard yellow décor of the finale. Updating a work to contemporary times is one thing, but I'm not sure updating something to forty years ago has much point.
The costume designer certainly didn’t do anyone in the cast any favors. I had seen Stemme in SF Opera’s Flying Dutchman, and knew she could look better, but it wasn’t until Robert Dean Smith stepped into Siegmund’s furs for Act II of Walkure that I realized he could look like a big guy rather than an inflated boy, and Kwangchul Youn’s sensitively sung and moving King Mark looked distractingly like Kim Jong Il.
Tristan is like other operas turned inside out; instead of reflective moments amid action it has moments of action amid hours of soliloquy. This can certainly lead to staging problems, but the Bayreuth production dealt with most of them by simply having people stand facing the wood paneling when they weren’t singing, as if they were in time-out. This is not staging but surrender. The wounding of Tristan, which he clearly did to himself, was effective, but everything else just didn’t happen, so that you didn't get a sense of the bustle and pointless violence of the outside world breaking in on the two lovers.
Speaking of bustle and pointlessness intruding on one’s inner universe. . . this was the night I had to accept that Bayreuth audiences are really not much better than any others, rumors to the contrary. Why did the man behind me need to reach into his rustly crinkly plastic bag during all the quiet moments? Another mystery of opera-going. . . .
Bayreuth had a wonderful cast for Tristan; it was everything else that came up short. Beforehand I was hearing raves about Nina Stemme’s Isolde, and she did have amazing power but, I felt, started to run out of gas during the liebestod, which is when you least want that to happen. The one who really impressed me was Robert Dean Smith, who sang a Tristan of brave sweetness and anguish. Our Kurwenal, John Wegner, was much steadier than the man who did the broadcast performance (that’s the paradox of opera reviewing – even if the performers had been the same, you’d get a different performance from evening to evening, and sometimes from act to act).
The production was baffling. The pictures that I saw beforehand made me think it would have a contemporary setting, which could be an interesting way of examining the mythic and heroic within the everyday. But the actual staging starts out looking like a 1930s luxury liner, as if everyone is going to break into “Anything Goes” and start tapdancing; the Cole Porter connotations have a way of reducing gestures that should be majestic to the Margaret-Dumontish. But when V (who has a keener fashion awareness than I do) saw pictures of the costumes she asked why it was set in the 1960s. I responded that I would have guessed the 1970s, based on the fake wood paneling and mustard yellow décor of the finale. Updating a work to contemporary times is one thing, but I'm not sure updating something to forty years ago has much point.
The costume designer certainly didn’t do anyone in the cast any favors. I had seen Stemme in SF Opera’s Flying Dutchman, and knew she could look better, but it wasn’t until Robert Dean Smith stepped into Siegmund’s furs for Act II of Walkure that I realized he could look like a big guy rather than an inflated boy, and Kwangchul Youn’s sensitively sung and moving King Mark looked distractingly like Kim Jong Il.
Tristan is like other operas turned inside out; instead of reflective moments amid action it has moments of action amid hours of soliloquy. This can certainly lead to staging problems, but the Bayreuth production dealt with most of them by simply having people stand facing the wood paneling when they weren’t singing, as if they were in time-out. This is not staging but surrender. The wounding of Tristan, which he clearly did to himself, was effective, but everything else just didn’t happen, so that you didn't get a sense of the bustle and pointless violence of the outside world breaking in on the two lovers.
Speaking of bustle and pointlessness intruding on one’s inner universe. . . this was the night I had to accept that Bayreuth audiences are really not much better than any others, rumors to the contrary. Why did the man behind me need to reach into his rustly crinkly plastic bag during all the quiet moments? Another mystery of opera-going. . . .
30 October 2006
Dutch Treat
My favorite production as a production at the Bayreuth festival was oddly enough the opera I was least excited about seeing, Der Fliegende Hollander. I really like it, but I wouldn't travel halfway around the world to see it on its own, and I would have been thrilled to hear Tannhauser or Lohengrin in its place (not Meistersinger -- I wobble a lot on that one). But this production (directed by Claus Guth) was sharp, imaginative, and suggestive. The setting was an Escher-like living room, divided in half by a huge staircase sweeping up the left side of the stage, with the upper portion of the room the mirror image of the bottom. The Dutchman (John Tomlinson) and Daland (Jaakko Ryhanen) were also mirror images of each other. The spinning maidens were a choreographed chorus of almost-identical platinum blondes with bright red lipstick and the same dark dresses; they looked like shopgirls from a 1930s film. I can't even describe how effective they were on stage, almost bringing down the house as they sang beautifully and moved in unison. They looked both normal and slightly menacing and off-putting, as the somewhat awkward brunette Senta (Adrienne Dugger) moved spacily among them. You could see that she never fit in; no wonder she was drawn to the romantic image of the doomed wanderer. The sailor chorus had the same effect of looking both conventional and grotesque; some of them were in painted half-masks so that at first glance you couldn't quite tell where the grotesquerie was coming from, until you realized the unnaturally puffed-out roundness of the upper half of their faces was due to the mask. They looked like marionettes, with their herky-jerky movements. The chorus is not a huge feature of most of the operas in the festival, but they did themselves proud when they did appear.
The resemblance between the Dutchman and Senta's father was used to suggest a psychosexual disturbance as the cause of Senta's obsession. Afterwards I heard some of the audience object to this, sometimes from sheer boredom at the inevitability of such an interpretation these days, and I respect the groans at yet another molestation motivation being slapped on a work, but I thought it was handled delicately enough so that it was suggestive rather than reductive: you could read it as a case of molestation if you were so inclined (I wasn't, particularly), or you could just see it as an indication of Senta's troubled relationship with the most important male in her life up to then, her father (who, as a sea captain, would also have been something of a wanderer), being projected onto another wandering seaman. A contemporary audience probably needs such an understandable motivation, instead of simply being presented with these odd events. Perhaps our post-Freudian insistence on theories of motivation has made us less subtle and realistic than the Romantics: instead of labelling and reducing the inner life into an acceptable because categorized form, they presented the rich and strange phenomena of life, open to poetic interpretation.
The resemblance between the Dutchman and Senta's father was used to suggest a psychosexual disturbance as the cause of Senta's obsession. Afterwards I heard some of the audience object to this, sometimes from sheer boredom at the inevitability of such an interpretation these days, and I respect the groans at yet another molestation motivation being slapped on a work, but I thought it was handled delicately enough so that it was suggestive rather than reductive: you could read it as a case of molestation if you were so inclined (I wasn't, particularly), or you could just see it as an indication of Senta's troubled relationship with the most important male in her life up to then, her father (who, as a sea captain, would also have been something of a wanderer), being projected onto another wandering seaman. A contemporary audience probably needs such an understandable motivation, instead of simply being presented with these odd events. Perhaps our post-Freudian insistence on theories of motivation has made us less subtle and realistic than the Romantics: instead of labelling and reducing the inner life into an acceptable because categorized form, they presented the rich and strange phenomena of life, open to poetic interpretation.
regie theater
I try to avoid posting in language that would, as they used to say, bring a blush to the cheek of modesty, but I realized this morning that yesterday's entry used the words "fucking," "shit," and "blow job." But these words arose organically from the subject, because I was talking about . . . Parsifal. . . .
29 October 2006
Swan Dive
This is going to be long, but I find that so suitable for Parsifal. . . .
Digression One: Mein lieber Schwan!
My first viewing of Parsifal was in the form of the Hans-Jurgen Syberberg film, at Boston's long-gone Exeter Street Theater (a handsome romanesque revival building that was first turned into a furniture store -- sort of a proto-Ikea -- and then a Waterstone's bookstore, which is what it might still be for all I know). I had heard the music but didn't know the story in any detail. I nodded off briefly. (This had nothing to do with boredom; my body will sleep when it's tired no matter how interested I am in what I'm doing.) When I came to, Gurnemanz was berating Parsifal at length for shooting a swan. And I thought: what's the deal with the swan? Was it a very special swan? Why are they so upset?
Once VCRs arrived, I rented Syberberg's film again (the sweet beauty of VCRs: if I fell asleep, I could just stop or rewind the film). This time I was there for the whole swan incident, but I still didn't really understand the intensity of the reaction from Gurnemanz and company.
Several years later, I had spent a mostly sleepless night once again, tormented by the mechanical thumping of numerous stereo systems (I was living way too close to several colleges, among them Berklee). I was preparing to go for an early-morning run along the Charles River, hoping exercise would at least reduce my disgust with everything around me. Across from my apartment I saw a flock of pigeons pecking snacks from the trash left in the gutter. A group of little boys was walking down the sidewalk, spotted the pigeons, and immediately ran towards them yelling, just to frighten them away. Why? Why not leave the birds in peace? Why not enjoy their iridescent neck feathers and just go your own way? The children saw something smaller and weaker and had to disrupt it, just because they could. My disgusted mood only deepened.
I won't claim I made the connection right away, but eventually I realized that's why Gurnemanz is so angry when Parsifal kills the swan: he didn't need to. He saw something flying along and shot it for the joy of killing. I hadn't missed something special about the swan. It was a sentient being, and it needed no more sacredness to make killing it a sin. When Parsifal breaks his bow after the rebuke, the wrathful Gurnemanz doesn't pay much attention, but it's a major step in the holy fool's moral development.
This is the way the meanings of Parsifal have come to me, slowly, in irregular bursts. Parsifal has always fascinated me, but I won't claim even now that I, or anyone, can completely understand it as it vibrates deeply in our hearts.
Nonetheless (on to Schlingensief's notorious interpretation, my first opera at Bayreuth), I feel free to say that this production got it all completely wrong. Much as I love to sneer at overly conservative opera audiences, I have to give them this one. I hardly know where to start. I'm tempted to say Parsifal is all about sex and the production isn't sexy, and leave it at that, but there's so much more.
The setting was sort of a cargo cult/Heart of Darkness/junkyard mishmash that rotated around, though each section looked roughly the same, so Monsalvat and the Grail Hall and Klingsor's garden and the flowery meadow for the Good Friday music all looked pretty much the same. There was no development in the characters either. Parsifal and Kundry both have doppelgangers who (respectively) baptize or wash feet or whatever long before the character has reached that stage. Gurnemanz, not Parsifal, breaks the swan-killing bow, thereby completely missing that Parsifal has made a leap forward in understanding another creature's suffering.
And then there are the bunnies, eviscerated, decaying, or just hopping around in projections. The day after the performance I was speaking to a woman at the hotel breakfast who was with the southern California Wagner Society. They had gone to hear a lecture about the production (I believe from the director, but the only participant I know for sure is the Klingsor, John Wegner). The bunnies were discussed. Apparently bunnies have many cultural connotations throughout the world, particularly in India. Unfortunately the performance was not happening in India. Here are my associations with bunny rabbits: mindless fucking, Easter candy (hollow except for the ears), Bugs and Elmer Fudd (you see a bunny at Bayreuth, I defy you not to hear "Kill the WAB - bit! Kill the WAB - bit!"), my oldest sister's childhood pet that defecated little round balls of shit and did little else before dying, the song "Don't Be the Bunny" from Urinetown the Musical, and Matt Groening's Life in Hell bunnies (when they brought out life-size blank dolls shaped exactly like the Life in Hell rabbits with big red marks over the genital region, all I could think of was "Could you please show us on the doll where the heil'gen Speer touched you inappropriately? And would you confirm that this caused you a never-easing wound?"). I suppose you could wrap your mind around those associations as an aid to seeing into Parsifal, but you could do that with almost anything (such is the power and also the ambiguity of this myth). The problem with counting on cultural associations that are not native to your audience is that most people are not going to get it, and those who do will do so only because they've been told what to think. They're reacting from specific and not general information: instead of being open to the poetic images and reverberations of the stage pictures, they are slotting them into the previously assigned categories and feeling smug because they are people in the know, people with insider information that is not available to just anyone. A performance should be accessible to anyone who is willing to open up to it and think about it, not just those who have been given their secret decoder rings.
There were lots of projections. I think some of them might have been of the syphilis spyrochete (either I read this somewhere or I guessed: I don't think most audience members, excepting any doctors, would recognize those little squiggly things). I've read that Wagner once confided to someone that Amfortas had venereal disease. But a remark like that must be from the trickster in him: no one could possibly listen to that music and think that ache could be cured with a few shots of penicillin. It's an absurdly literal interpretation in a production that barely pays attention to literal meanings in any other point (even the spear is actually a shepherd's crook; the only standard stage picture was one they probably should have changed, which was dressing Parsifal in the conventional Jesus/Apollo long white robes and shoulder-length blond locks, not a look many men can pull off).
The Grail ceremony was a blood sacrifice enacted by participants from all the major belief systems, from Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, and Jewish (because Wagner's art is more comprehensive than his tormented mind) traditions. I could see what they were getting at, and it had a certain power, but if the most sacred ceremony involves killing an animal and splashing its blood around, then what difference does it make if an ordinary swan is killed? It makes their reaction in that opening scene as overdone as I first thought it was long ago.
The Klingsor was an obvious case of ignoring the words and actions of the drama. Perhaps Wagner was to blame here for not composing the role for some nineteenth century David Daniels, but even a cursory reading of the libretto will tell you that Klingsor castrated himself (to cure the wound that will not heal) and was cast out from the Grail knights for this destructive evasion of that mighty force; hence his attempt to destroy the rest of the knights with the seductions of the Flower Maidens (showing perhaps that there is no resistance except through his method of self-mutilation). So does it make any sense at all for Klingsor to be not just powerful in a magicky kind of way but obviously the most virile man around? Why would the director have Kundry give him a blow job? I'm not really up on the mechanics of this, but is that even possibly when the man has been castrated? Klingsor (and I should say John Wegner gave an excellent performance) wore little but a loincloth for most of his performance, displaying his forceful, muscular physique, and like the dedicated performer of Othello in Nicholas Nickleby, he had blacked his whole body to play the part. Yes, Klingsor for some reason was portrayed as a black man, while Parsifal, Gurnemanz, Kundry, Amfortas, Titurel, and the Grail Knights were all white. What exactly was the message there, making the evil character black? To my American eyes the only thing genuinely shocking about this supposedly shocking performance was the minstrel-show make-up on a couple of the attendants (complete with the white outline around their mouths). There was a disturbing objectification of black bodies throughout: there was a large black woman who was required to walk around naked except for a little skirt (Kundry's doppelganger mentioned above was a midget, another example of objectifying the different, though all I could think of when I saw her was the outraged outburst of Peter Dinklage's character in Living in Oblivion, who was furious that once again he had to play in a dream sequence because he's a dwarf: "Does anybody even really have dreams about dwarves?").
Digression Two: More Fallout
I'm going to go on several tangents here, starting with Dr. Atomic: I still feel that it is one of the few operas where you can't do color-blind casting, because in a work claiming to deal with the moral problems of that time and place, you can't just pretend that there was no deep moral problem caused by segregation. But I will also admit that part of my discomfort was that the only black singer was cast as a buffoonish general. At least they partially avoided the temptation of making the darker-skinned characters wiser, more truthful and moral; they shoved that silly simplification onto their portrayal of the women. (I say they partially avoided the temptation because there was the American Indian nanny.) Maybe I would have had a different reaction to the black general if there had been another black person on stage, say, Audra McDonald as Mrs. Oppenheimer, a role I believe she going to sing in New York (and I'm going to go all Laurence Sterne and go off on another digression: I heard McDonald at Symphony Hall last spring, and she introduced The Glamorous Life by saying, "I'm going to sing a song from A Little Night Music: no, I ain't gonna sing The Miller's Son" and I realized how rarefied the air was in which it was not even within the realm of possibility that the hackneyed song no one wanted to hear from that musical would be Send in the Clowns; I was giddy on the esoteric heights. . . .). Of course, the whole problem of color-blind casting in Dr. Atomic would be solved if they revised it to be more of a meditative oratorio rather than an attempt to portray the actual events leading up to the A-bomb test, a revision they should undertake anyway.
Back to Klingsor. He not only returns in Act Three, he even regains the spear. According to my informant who heard the lecture, Wegner, who was very committed to the production, said this was to show that Klingsor has also been redeemed, though how and where and by whom is completely unclear; certainly the audience members I heard afterward were completely baffled, possibly because it's the opposite of what Wagner actually wrote. You can make a case for the sympathetic qualities of Alberich -- I personally find him very sympathetic -- but you really can't with Klingsor. If it's so easy to redeem everyone, why does it take so long?
My informant also told me that the naked black woman was cast because she had the exact build of the Venus of Willendorf. I told her I had noticed that (she was duly impressed) but I still found the display of her body exploitative, more like the Hottentot Venus than the Venus of Willendorf. She also told me that the many Arabic verses written all over were new this year; I, having painfully learned that everything is ruled by fashions, told her I had guessed that (she was doubly duly impressed). But there you have this production: there was no way into much of what they did unless you were in the privileged position of hearing personally from those behind the scenes. The performance was undoubtedly sincere and serious in its intention , but ended up looking trendy and wrong-headed. While watching it (from my excellent third row seat, the best I had for the festival) I was increasingly irritated, but as days went by most of the staging was so irrelevant it sort of slid off my memory and I was left with the very fine musical performance. Not a gesamkuntswerk, but not a total loss by any means.
Digression One: Mein lieber Schwan!
My first viewing of Parsifal was in the form of the Hans-Jurgen Syberberg film, at Boston's long-gone Exeter Street Theater (a handsome romanesque revival building that was first turned into a furniture store -- sort of a proto-Ikea -- and then a Waterstone's bookstore, which is what it might still be for all I know). I had heard the music but didn't know the story in any detail. I nodded off briefly. (This had nothing to do with boredom; my body will sleep when it's tired no matter how interested I am in what I'm doing.) When I came to, Gurnemanz was berating Parsifal at length for shooting a swan. And I thought: what's the deal with the swan? Was it a very special swan? Why are they so upset?
Once VCRs arrived, I rented Syberberg's film again (the sweet beauty of VCRs: if I fell asleep, I could just stop or rewind the film). This time I was there for the whole swan incident, but I still didn't really understand the intensity of the reaction from Gurnemanz and company.
Several years later, I had spent a mostly sleepless night once again, tormented by the mechanical thumping of numerous stereo systems (I was living way too close to several colleges, among them Berklee). I was preparing to go for an early-morning run along the Charles River, hoping exercise would at least reduce my disgust with everything around me. Across from my apartment I saw a flock of pigeons pecking snacks from the trash left in the gutter. A group of little boys was walking down the sidewalk, spotted the pigeons, and immediately ran towards them yelling, just to frighten them away. Why? Why not leave the birds in peace? Why not enjoy their iridescent neck feathers and just go your own way? The children saw something smaller and weaker and had to disrupt it, just because they could. My disgusted mood only deepened.
I won't claim I made the connection right away, but eventually I realized that's why Gurnemanz is so angry when Parsifal kills the swan: he didn't need to. He saw something flying along and shot it for the joy of killing. I hadn't missed something special about the swan. It was a sentient being, and it needed no more sacredness to make killing it a sin. When Parsifal breaks his bow after the rebuke, the wrathful Gurnemanz doesn't pay much attention, but it's a major step in the holy fool's moral development.
This is the way the meanings of Parsifal have come to me, slowly, in irregular bursts. Parsifal has always fascinated me, but I won't claim even now that I, or anyone, can completely understand it as it vibrates deeply in our hearts.
Nonetheless (on to Schlingensief's notorious interpretation, my first opera at Bayreuth), I feel free to say that this production got it all completely wrong. Much as I love to sneer at overly conservative opera audiences, I have to give them this one. I hardly know where to start. I'm tempted to say Parsifal is all about sex and the production isn't sexy, and leave it at that, but there's so much more.
The setting was sort of a cargo cult/Heart of Darkness/junkyard mishmash that rotated around, though each section looked roughly the same, so Monsalvat and the Grail Hall and Klingsor's garden and the flowery meadow for the Good Friday music all looked pretty much the same. There was no development in the characters either. Parsifal and Kundry both have doppelgangers who (respectively) baptize or wash feet or whatever long before the character has reached that stage. Gurnemanz, not Parsifal, breaks the swan-killing bow, thereby completely missing that Parsifal has made a leap forward in understanding another creature's suffering.
And then there are the bunnies, eviscerated, decaying, or just hopping around in projections. The day after the performance I was speaking to a woman at the hotel breakfast who was with the southern California Wagner Society. They had gone to hear a lecture about the production (I believe from the director, but the only participant I know for sure is the Klingsor, John Wegner). The bunnies were discussed. Apparently bunnies have many cultural connotations throughout the world, particularly in India. Unfortunately the performance was not happening in India. Here are my associations with bunny rabbits: mindless fucking, Easter candy (hollow except for the ears), Bugs and Elmer Fudd (you see a bunny at Bayreuth, I defy you not to hear "Kill the WAB - bit! Kill the WAB - bit!"), my oldest sister's childhood pet that defecated little round balls of shit and did little else before dying, the song "Don't Be the Bunny" from Urinetown the Musical, and Matt Groening's Life in Hell bunnies (when they brought out life-size blank dolls shaped exactly like the Life in Hell rabbits with big red marks over the genital region, all I could think of was "Could you please show us on the doll where the heil'gen Speer touched you inappropriately? And would you confirm that this caused you a never-easing wound?"). I suppose you could wrap your mind around those associations as an aid to seeing into Parsifal, but you could do that with almost anything (such is the power and also the ambiguity of this myth). The problem with counting on cultural associations that are not native to your audience is that most people are not going to get it, and those who do will do so only because they've been told what to think. They're reacting from specific and not general information: instead of being open to the poetic images and reverberations of the stage pictures, they are slotting them into the previously assigned categories and feeling smug because they are people in the know, people with insider information that is not available to just anyone. A performance should be accessible to anyone who is willing to open up to it and think about it, not just those who have been given their secret decoder rings.
There were lots of projections. I think some of them might have been of the syphilis spyrochete (either I read this somewhere or I guessed: I don't think most audience members, excepting any doctors, would recognize those little squiggly things). I've read that Wagner once confided to someone that Amfortas had venereal disease. But a remark like that must be from the trickster in him: no one could possibly listen to that music and think that ache could be cured with a few shots of penicillin. It's an absurdly literal interpretation in a production that barely pays attention to literal meanings in any other point (even the spear is actually a shepherd's crook; the only standard stage picture was one they probably should have changed, which was dressing Parsifal in the conventional Jesus/Apollo long white robes and shoulder-length blond locks, not a look many men can pull off).
The Grail ceremony was a blood sacrifice enacted by participants from all the major belief systems, from Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, and Jewish (because Wagner's art is more comprehensive than his tormented mind) traditions. I could see what they were getting at, and it had a certain power, but if the most sacred ceremony involves killing an animal and splashing its blood around, then what difference does it make if an ordinary swan is killed? It makes their reaction in that opening scene as overdone as I first thought it was long ago.
The Klingsor was an obvious case of ignoring the words and actions of the drama. Perhaps Wagner was to blame here for not composing the role for some nineteenth century David Daniels, but even a cursory reading of the libretto will tell you that Klingsor castrated himself (to cure the wound that will not heal) and was cast out from the Grail knights for this destructive evasion of that mighty force; hence his attempt to destroy the rest of the knights with the seductions of the Flower Maidens (showing perhaps that there is no resistance except through his method of self-mutilation). So does it make any sense at all for Klingsor to be not just powerful in a magicky kind of way but obviously the most virile man around? Why would the director have Kundry give him a blow job? I'm not really up on the mechanics of this, but is that even possibly when the man has been castrated? Klingsor (and I should say John Wegner gave an excellent performance) wore little but a loincloth for most of his performance, displaying his forceful, muscular physique, and like the dedicated performer of Othello in Nicholas Nickleby, he had blacked his whole body to play the part. Yes, Klingsor for some reason was portrayed as a black man, while Parsifal, Gurnemanz, Kundry, Amfortas, Titurel, and the Grail Knights were all white. What exactly was the message there, making the evil character black? To my American eyes the only thing genuinely shocking about this supposedly shocking performance was the minstrel-show make-up on a couple of the attendants (complete with the white outline around their mouths). There was a disturbing objectification of black bodies throughout: there was a large black woman who was required to walk around naked except for a little skirt (Kundry's doppelganger mentioned above was a midget, another example of objectifying the different, though all I could think of when I saw her was the outraged outburst of Peter Dinklage's character in Living in Oblivion, who was furious that once again he had to play in a dream sequence because he's a dwarf: "Does anybody even really have dreams about dwarves?").
Digression Two: More Fallout
I'm going to go on several tangents here, starting with Dr. Atomic: I still feel that it is one of the few operas where you can't do color-blind casting, because in a work claiming to deal with the moral problems of that time and place, you can't just pretend that there was no deep moral problem caused by segregation. But I will also admit that part of my discomfort was that the only black singer was cast as a buffoonish general. At least they partially avoided the temptation of making the darker-skinned characters wiser, more truthful and moral; they shoved that silly simplification onto their portrayal of the women. (I say they partially avoided the temptation because there was the American Indian nanny.) Maybe I would have had a different reaction to the black general if there had been another black person on stage, say, Audra McDonald as Mrs. Oppenheimer, a role I believe she going to sing in New York (and I'm going to go all Laurence Sterne and go off on another digression: I heard McDonald at Symphony Hall last spring, and she introduced The Glamorous Life by saying, "I'm going to sing a song from A Little Night Music: no, I ain't gonna sing The Miller's Son" and I realized how rarefied the air was in which it was not even within the realm of possibility that the hackneyed song no one wanted to hear from that musical would be Send in the Clowns; I was giddy on the esoteric heights. . . .). Of course, the whole problem of color-blind casting in Dr. Atomic would be solved if they revised it to be more of a meditative oratorio rather than an attempt to portray the actual events leading up to the A-bomb test, a revision they should undertake anyway.
Back to Klingsor. He not only returns in Act Three, he even regains the spear. According to my informant who heard the lecture, Wegner, who was very committed to the production, said this was to show that Klingsor has also been redeemed, though how and where and by whom is completely unclear; certainly the audience members I heard afterward were completely baffled, possibly because it's the opposite of what Wagner actually wrote. You can make a case for the sympathetic qualities of Alberich -- I personally find him very sympathetic -- but you really can't with Klingsor. If it's so easy to redeem everyone, why does it take so long?
My informant also told me that the naked black woman was cast because she had the exact build of the Venus of Willendorf. I told her I had noticed that (she was duly impressed) but I still found the display of her body exploitative, more like the Hottentot Venus than the Venus of Willendorf. She also told me that the many Arabic verses written all over were new this year; I, having painfully learned that everything is ruled by fashions, told her I had guessed that (she was doubly duly impressed). But there you have this production: there was no way into much of what they did unless you were in the privileged position of hearing personally from those behind the scenes. The performance was undoubtedly sincere and serious in its intention , but ended up looking trendy and wrong-headed. While watching it (from my excellent third row seat, the best I had for the festival) I was increasingly irritated, but as days went by most of the staging was so irrelevant it sort of slid off my memory and I was left with the very fine musical performance. Not a gesamkuntswerk, but not a total loss by any means.
20 October 2006
Apres le deluge, moi (Munich roundup)
I enjoyed my three and a half days (too brief) in Munich though I didn't see it at its best (nor, I suppose, did it see me at my best) -- I was already worn out from Bayreuth and the record-breaking cold and incessant rain didn't help. I like to walk around in strange cities, but not so much in the rain and wind. My last afternoon there it finally cleared up. It's amazing how much more you can see when an umbrella isn't blocking your view. And by then I had figured out roughly where all the circular streets were going, and had adjusted to the difference between small-town Bayreuth, where it's easier to strike up a conversation because everyone has a ready subject in the Wagner festival, and big-city Munich, where the usual indifference, semi-friendly or not, prevails. I had also learned to avoid the outside of the sidewalks, which are given over to bicyclists, who are marginally more considerate than their American cousins but still hazardous to pedestrians.
My first full day in Munich I spent at the Alte Pinakothek, which has art from the middle ages through the eighteenth century. Though much smaller than I thought it would be (I was expecting something along the lines of the Metropolitan or the National Gallery) it's chockful of rich chocolatey Old Master goodness. They have two Grunewalds, which I believe is one more than in the entire United States. They have a plenitude of Rubens; my favorite was the martyrdom of St. Lawrence, in which he gives the saint Judas's traditional red hair, the better to show off fabulous orange, yellow, and reddish lights and highlights from the fire under the grill (Lawrence is the one who was barbecued to his glorious death). Even the subtleties of 21st century color printing can't quite reproduce the light he captured. I teeter-totter between buying inadequate copies of such works or just relying on memory. Another favorite of mine, Memling's Seven Joys of the Virgin, was only available in tiny forms that shrank the crowded delightful canvas down into illegibility. Most of the stuff I like in museums is not what is featured in their gift shops in poster, postcard, or mug form: instead we get yet more versions of whatever Impressionists they happen to own (the Impressionists are the Boheme of the museum world: yes, I suppose it's all lovely, but enough already). In fact I bought a lot of postcards but not much else in Munich; I thought there would be World Cup merchandise all over, but if there was it was hidden from me with tasteful discretion. And at the airport I was unable to find a suitable addition to my collection of Inappropriate Shotglasses: Hummel, you let me down.
My second day there I spent at the Neue Pinakothek, which takes up where the Alte leaves off and goes up to the post-Impressionists. For this museum I used the audio guide, which turned out to be surprisingly informative. (I especially love it when museums get in little digs about their superiority: "Although X painted several versions of the sunflowers/Madonna and Child/mountain scene, the version in [our city] is generally considered [I love that they don't say by whom] to be the original/from the master's own hand/better than the others.") This museum featured more local heroes than the Alte, what with all the German classicists and the Nazarenes. Hans von Marees, who came later in the century, painted shadowy symbolist canvases that were new and very appealing to me.
My third day I decided to forego the contemporary art museum, third in the triumvirate, since there is a certain international flavor to all modern art museums, with their Twomblys and their Keifers and their Warhols, and go for the Munich-specific Residenz, which was the royal residence of the rulers of Bavaria from medieval times down to, as they note with no further explanation, 1918. Walking through the Residenz is like walking through a survey of the major European artistic styles from the classics-venerating, grotteschi-decorated Renaissance to austere but sumptuous neo-classicism. There is an outdoor grotto dating from Shakespeare's time with mermaids and sea creatures formed of pebbles and sea shells, and a royal suite of rooms charmingly decorated with scenes from contemporary (18th century contemporary) German poets, leading to a throne room whose walls are covered with gold leaf (I took a close look and you can see the sheets delicately overlapping each other -- I wish the sun had been out when I was in that room).
By the time I left the Residenz the sun had finally come out and I noticed it glinting on golden highlights throughout the city: jewelry in the shop windows, clocks in the towers, crosses on the churches. I never even made it to the English Garden but the city was still beautifully green with trees and red and pink with geraniums and begonias. It's a remarkably clean city -- it may smell like an ashtray, but it doesn't look like one; I don't know where all the butts and wrappers were going, but they weren't being tossed in the street as in American cities. I walked around the formal garden behind the Residenz and in the round temple of Diana in the middle of the former royal gardens I came across another klezmer band, as I had on my first full day in Bayreuth. The walls inside the temple are decorated with dolphins made out of shells (as in the grotto inside the Residenz) shooting water into the small, shell-shaped fonts beneath them. Several old couples were dancing to the klezmer band, including two old women wearing bright red sweatshirts with Austria! in yellow script across the front. Little children and big dogs were running in and out of Diana's Temple. The leader of the band, a small violinist with permanently bugging eyes and thin short hair, tossed his scarf over his shoulders and kept the band playing until the sun started to get low in the sky, and then he packed up and went home.
My first full day in Munich I spent at the Alte Pinakothek, which has art from the middle ages through the eighteenth century. Though much smaller than I thought it would be (I was expecting something along the lines of the Metropolitan or the National Gallery) it's chockful of rich chocolatey Old Master goodness. They have two Grunewalds, which I believe is one more than in the entire United States. They have a plenitude of Rubens; my favorite was the martyrdom of St. Lawrence, in which he gives the saint Judas's traditional red hair, the better to show off fabulous orange, yellow, and reddish lights and highlights from the fire under the grill (Lawrence is the one who was barbecued to his glorious death). Even the subtleties of 21st century color printing can't quite reproduce the light he captured. I teeter-totter between buying inadequate copies of such works or just relying on memory. Another favorite of mine, Memling's Seven Joys of the Virgin, was only available in tiny forms that shrank the crowded delightful canvas down into illegibility. Most of the stuff I like in museums is not what is featured in their gift shops in poster, postcard, or mug form: instead we get yet more versions of whatever Impressionists they happen to own (the Impressionists are the Boheme of the museum world: yes, I suppose it's all lovely, but enough already). In fact I bought a lot of postcards but not much else in Munich; I thought there would be World Cup merchandise all over, but if there was it was hidden from me with tasteful discretion. And at the airport I was unable to find a suitable addition to my collection of Inappropriate Shotglasses: Hummel, you let me down.
My second day there I spent at the Neue Pinakothek, which takes up where the Alte leaves off and goes up to the post-Impressionists. For this museum I used the audio guide, which turned out to be surprisingly informative. (I especially love it when museums get in little digs about their superiority: "Although X painted several versions of the sunflowers/Madonna and Child/mountain scene, the version in [our city] is generally considered [I love that they don't say by whom] to be the original/from the master's own hand/better than the others.") This museum featured more local heroes than the Alte, what with all the German classicists and the Nazarenes. Hans von Marees, who came later in the century, painted shadowy symbolist canvases that were new and very appealing to me.
My third day I decided to forego the contemporary art museum, third in the triumvirate, since there is a certain international flavor to all modern art museums, with their Twomblys and their Keifers and their Warhols, and go for the Munich-specific Residenz, which was the royal residence of the rulers of Bavaria from medieval times down to, as they note with no further explanation, 1918. Walking through the Residenz is like walking through a survey of the major European artistic styles from the classics-venerating, grotteschi-decorated Renaissance to austere but sumptuous neo-classicism. There is an outdoor grotto dating from Shakespeare's time with mermaids and sea creatures formed of pebbles and sea shells, and a royal suite of rooms charmingly decorated with scenes from contemporary (18th century contemporary) German poets, leading to a throne room whose walls are covered with gold leaf (I took a close look and you can see the sheets delicately overlapping each other -- I wish the sun had been out when I was in that room).
By the time I left the Residenz the sun had finally come out and I noticed it glinting on golden highlights throughout the city: jewelry in the shop windows, clocks in the towers, crosses on the churches. I never even made it to the English Garden but the city was still beautifully green with trees and red and pink with geraniums and begonias. It's a remarkably clean city -- it may smell like an ashtray, but it doesn't look like one; I don't know where all the butts and wrappers were going, but they weren't being tossed in the street as in American cities. I walked around the formal garden behind the Residenz and in the round temple of Diana in the middle of the former royal gardens I came across another klezmer band, as I had on my first full day in Bayreuth. The walls inside the temple are decorated with dolphins made out of shells (as in the grotto inside the Residenz) shooting water into the small, shell-shaped fonts beneath them. Several old couples were dancing to the klezmer band, including two old women wearing bright red sweatshirts with Austria! in yellow script across the front. Little children and big dogs were running in and out of Diana's Temple. The leader of the band, a small violinist with permanently bugging eyes and thin short hair, tossed his scarf over his shoulders and kept the band playing until the sun started to get low in the sky, and then he packed up and went home.
19 October 2006
one-point perspective (journeys)
In the crush and rush to leave after the previous evening's Gotterdammerung, I ended up leaving Bayreuth on the 10:00 a.m. to Nuremburg, transferring to Munich. I had intended to take the 11:00 but the ticket seller saw no point to that and put me on the 10:00, which was leaving about two minutes after I got to the train station. (I had shared a taxi with another traveler who had been waiting impatiently for his ride for about half an hour; I figured I'd better take one while I could.) I had to stand through several stops, doing my best to minimize the inconvenience to the snack vendor, the ticket checker, and assorted regular passengers caused by my big suitcases as well as my body in the narrow aisle of the train. People were even-tempered and gracious about the crowded train. I entertained myself by reading the write-up for an Australian Wagner society being composed on his laptop by the man seated on my right; when he paused for the mot juste I turned to the left and watched the three little girls and their youngish mother watching the American in the aisle. I was actually OK with standing, despite my motto "Never stand if you can sit and never sit if you can lie down," since I was interested in the Australian write-up, but when the mother pointed out to me a seat that opened up a few rows up the car I said Danke and went to sit down. It was one of the booth-type seats; opposite me was a young woman and her very young son. About ten minutes away from Nuremburg she asked me (first in German and then English) if I could watch her son for a moment while she used the WC. I said of course and pondered the utter impossibility of any woman anywhere in America ever asking a stranger, a man (a man with facial hair at that -- in the comics that's an inevitable sign of villainy), or a foreigner (much less a three-in-one like me) to watch her child. It's not as if there weren't plenty of people who could keep an eye on me while I kept an eye on him, but I just could not imagine an American woman ever making the request. The little boy of course started crying almost immediately after his mother left. I did my best to comfort him with my little German, and mostly ended up saying "Mama -- ein minute! ein minute!" in cheering tones, once I realized I knew how to say "stay back" but not "come back." We were getting closer to the station and I started to wonder what I would do if she didn't return in time -- I didn't want to miss my stop and connecting train, but I didn't feel I could just leave the boy there. I started to think of the movie possibilities -- sort of a combination of The Lady Vanishes (it's a freaky world out there! normal folk have a hidden darkness!) and The Kid (those adorable, incorrigible antics! followed by hugs, learning), but she returned in plenty of time, we parted graciously, and I went out into the pouring rain to wait for the Munich train.
After days of rain and record-breaking cold, the day I left Munich was gorgeously sunny and clear, with that autumnal crispness in the air. I took a taxi to the train station and saw a bus that went to the airport, so I figured that was a better bet than trying to figure out the trains. As I sat on the bus waiting for it to leave, I listened to the driver's radio, which was playing American pop -- here it would have been called an oldies station. I don't know where it fit on the spectrum over there. "California Dreaming" by the Mamas and the Papas came on. It seemed like such an incredibly obvious choice that I probably would have rejected it for a soundtrack on those grounds.
The line at the Munich Airport was almost as long as the one at SFO that I erroneously stood in (the United agent assured me I was in the right line, and then after an hour I discovered I had to go to a Lufthansa line). But this line only took about twenty minutes, since Lufthansa is fully staffed with people who know what they're doing. United, being an American corporation, is severely understaffed by overworked, undertrained people who can't keep up with the demands on them, the excuse for that being that United has "empowered" us with self-check-in machines, which no one can figure out how to work, so passengers mill around until one of the two employees can come over and help, so that they fall even farther behind in tagging the luggage, which apparently we are not "empowered" to do. But this cost-cutting pays off, because it means the CEO can add an extra million or two to his salary and perqs, which he can use to buy a second vacation house in Aspen, not that he ever uses it, because we're all just too important not to be at the office every day, until the company downsizes and dumps us. Plus they have national health insurance! I was feeling very unpatriotic when I reached the very helpful agent, who immediately told me that he loved San Francisco since "it's not boring like here." I almost said, "But you have the Alte Pinakothek!" but knew that wouldn't count for much. It's all perspective. He very nicely put me into a vacant seat in the emergency exit row. Unfortunately there was a squirmy child kicking the seat behind me, but his mother did the best job she could trying to control him. There was a child across the aisle crying, but though some things drive me crazy (noise-leak from headphones, mostly) I really don't mind crying children too much. That's what children do. I was a weeper myself, and would sob and scream on most flights still if I thought I could get away with it.
Dulles was a nightmare of torrential rain and lumbering vans, which was the only way to get from terminal to terminal, once you actually managed to figure out which terminal you were supposed to be in. I hadn't realized I would need to retrieve and re-check my luggage to go through customs, and after that you're dumped into the concourse without a departure/arrival board in sight. I barely made my flight -- they literally opened the plane door for me (only because they had just that moment shut it). I think that was the only flight I've been on in the past three years that's left anywhere near on time. Of course. I just couldn't stand the thought of being delayed further. I should have been more philosophical, I suppose. I had Paradise Lost to entertain me. I made it back late at night and took the hour-long BART ride unencumbered by my luggage, which didn't arrive until the next day.
After days of rain and record-breaking cold, the day I left Munich was gorgeously sunny and clear, with that autumnal crispness in the air. I took a taxi to the train station and saw a bus that went to the airport, so I figured that was a better bet than trying to figure out the trains. As I sat on the bus waiting for it to leave, I listened to the driver's radio, which was playing American pop -- here it would have been called an oldies station. I don't know where it fit on the spectrum over there. "California Dreaming" by the Mamas and the Papas came on. It seemed like such an incredibly obvious choice that I probably would have rejected it for a soundtrack on those grounds.
The line at the Munich Airport was almost as long as the one at SFO that I erroneously stood in (the United agent assured me I was in the right line, and then after an hour I discovered I had to go to a Lufthansa line). But this line only took about twenty minutes, since Lufthansa is fully staffed with people who know what they're doing. United, being an American corporation, is severely understaffed by overworked, undertrained people who can't keep up with the demands on them, the excuse for that being that United has "empowered" us with self-check-in machines, which no one can figure out how to work, so passengers mill around until one of the two employees can come over and help, so that they fall even farther behind in tagging the luggage, which apparently we are not "empowered" to do. But this cost-cutting pays off, because it means the CEO can add an extra million or two to his salary and perqs, which he can use to buy a second vacation house in Aspen, not that he ever uses it, because we're all just too important not to be at the office every day, until the company downsizes and dumps us. Plus they have national health insurance! I was feeling very unpatriotic when I reached the very helpful agent, who immediately told me that he loved San Francisco since "it's not boring like here." I almost said, "But you have the Alte Pinakothek!" but knew that wouldn't count for much. It's all perspective. He very nicely put me into a vacant seat in the emergency exit row. Unfortunately there was a squirmy child kicking the seat behind me, but his mother did the best job she could trying to control him. There was a child across the aisle crying, but though some things drive me crazy (noise-leak from headphones, mostly) I really don't mind crying children too much. That's what children do. I was a weeper myself, and would sob and scream on most flights still if I thought I could get away with it.
Dulles was a nightmare of torrential rain and lumbering vans, which was the only way to get from terminal to terminal, once you actually managed to figure out which terminal you were supposed to be in. I hadn't realized I would need to retrieve and re-check my luggage to go through customs, and after that you're dumped into the concourse without a departure/arrival board in sight. I barely made my flight -- they literally opened the plane door for me (only because they had just that moment shut it). I think that was the only flight I've been on in the past three years that's left anywhere near on time. Of course. I just couldn't stand the thought of being delayed further. I should have been more philosophical, I suppose. I had Paradise Lost to entertain me. I made it back late at night and took the hour-long BART ride unencumbered by my luggage, which didn't arrive until the next day.
26 August 2006
Bayreuth 19
I walked around most of this afternoon. I went through the nearby mall. As with many things here it looks similar to such things in America, and then little differences start to make it look very different. For instance, though there is no smoking in the mall all the food vendors allow smoking, so the smell permeates there too. And in the middle of everything is a butchershop, filled with glistening pink porkstuffs.
All the clocks on churches and public buildings not only run, they keep correct time. And the church bells ring out the time punctually.
I saw the Japanese woman who wears subdued kimonos to each performance. She and her Japanese tour group were entering the neue schloss. She was in western clothing, though she still had her cane and carried a parasol. I wonder where some of the other regulars are today, like the woman who looks like a permanently startled partridge because she draws in her eyebrows so darkly and steeply that they look as if a boldfaced V has landed on the bridge of her nose. Does she do that every day, or only when she dresses up? I imagine a lot of people went on road trips or just relaxed. There is a sense of winding down. Gotterdammerung is tomorrow, and after that there is only one more performance on Monday, which I am not going to, another Tristan, so that the last notes to fill the hall at this year's festival will be the liebestod. By then I will be in Munich, where I hope I can find an internet cafe to continue updates. Many thanks to the Arvena Congress Hotel for its courteous service, its delicious bacon, and its lobby computer!
Already one of the bookstores downtown has removed all its Wagner items from the window, though there are still plenty to be had inside. The tea shop on the Maximilianstrasse is still offering teas called Siegfried's Dragonblood or Tristan, but I assume they do that year round. I imagine most outsiders who come to Bayreuth are drawn here by Wagner even if the festival is not in progress, just as during Boston winters I used to point out Fenway Park to wandering Red Sox fans who would stop and ask.
The apples are ripening red in the gardens I passed, and the overripe purple summer plums are falling on the pavement.
All the clocks on churches and public buildings not only run, they keep correct time. And the church bells ring out the time punctually.
I saw the Japanese woman who wears subdued kimonos to each performance. She and her Japanese tour group were entering the neue schloss. She was in western clothing, though she still had her cane and carried a parasol. I wonder where some of the other regulars are today, like the woman who looks like a permanently startled partridge because she draws in her eyebrows so darkly and steeply that they look as if a boldfaced V has landed on the bridge of her nose. Does she do that every day, or only when she dresses up? I imagine a lot of people went on road trips or just relaxed. There is a sense of winding down. Gotterdammerung is tomorrow, and after that there is only one more performance on Monday, which I am not going to, another Tristan, so that the last notes to fill the hall at this year's festival will be the liebestod. By then I will be in Munich, where I hope I can find an internet cafe to continue updates. Many thanks to the Arvena Congress Hotel for its courteous service, its delicious bacon, and its lobby computer!
Already one of the bookstores downtown has removed all its Wagner items from the window, though there are still plenty to be had inside. The tea shop on the Maximilianstrasse is still offering teas called Siegfried's Dragonblood or Tristan, but I assume they do that year round. I imagine most outsiders who come to Bayreuth are drawn here by Wagner even if the festival is not in progress, just as during Boston winters I used to point out Fenway Park to wandering Red Sox fans who would stop and ask.
The apples are ripening red in the gardens I passed, and the overripe purple summer plums are falling on the pavement.
Bayreuth 18
The protocol for curtain calls seems to be that if you want to boo the production, you do so as soon as the dark (green or charcoal gray? it's hard to tell) velvet curtain falls, but then switch to cheering once the singers step out, to indicate that they did their valiant best despite the production (of course, sometimes the singers will get booed, as with our unfortunate first Siegmund; then they boo the singer when he or she steps out). The applause is long and vociferous. People stamp their feet, which creates an amazing pounding drumming on the wooden floorboards. The only production to receive a huge round of boos was Parsifal. Otherwise there is just the occasional boo, as I mentioned earlier with the Rheingold. Even after the houselights have gone up and half the auditorium has left there are still those who applaud and stamp their feet until the cast and conductor come out again. The loudest cheers have been for the Ring conductor, Christian Thieleman, who comes out in his black pants and black tunic each night looking exhausted and slightly red-faced from his labors.
It rained pretty heavily and steadily this morning, so I read and slept. I shouldn't complain about a morning like that; some of my favorite winter weekends are when it rains and I lie in bed listening to the drops splashing through the large lemon tree outside my bedroom window. I slept longer and more deeply than I thought I would, until the buzzing of a hornet woke me up (I usually leave the window open when I'm there, since there is no air conditioning or heating) and I saw that the rain had stopped long enough for the pavement to dry off. So now I'll go walk around.
It rained pretty heavily and steadily this morning, so I read and slept. I shouldn't complain about a morning like that; some of my favorite winter weekends are when it rains and I lie in bed listening to the drops splashing through the large lemon tree outside my bedroom window. I slept longer and more deeply than I thought I would, until the buzzing of a hornet woke me up (I usually leave the window open when I'm there, since there is no air conditioning or heating) and I saw that the rain had stopped long enough for the pavement to dry off. So now I'll go walk around.
Bayreuth 17
Today is an off day before Gotterdammerung.
Just as I know that before any trip I'll spend weeks wondering why I thought it was a good idea, why I'm bothering, why I thought I could afford it, and then when I arrive I love it, so I know that during any trip there are the days when everything sags except the pressure not to waste a day in a new place. Yesterday was one of those days. Siegfried often does seem to take place on those days. I realize it's blasphemy to say this, but for me in the theater the final duet just lasts too long. The other scens of the Ring fly by for me, but during that one I think, OK. Got it. Recordings are different since you have a different physical relation to recordings. I don't know quite what it is, since the music is beautiful. It may just be the inevitable dip in one's relationship to a very long work. I've only seen live Siegfrieds in the context of an entire Ring, so I don't know if I would have the same reaction if it were a single evening instead of part of a week.
And as I said I'll talk about the productions later, but about last night just let me say: Worst. Dragon. Ever. Sorry, maybe it's childish, but at some point after the Schopenhauer and the World Sorrow and the wisdom of the mothers you just want to see the guy fight the dragon. I've had problems warming up to Idomeneo because they keep teasing us with talk of a sea monster and then it only appears offstage. What can I say? I like a good monster.
Most of the talk around the Festspielhaus concerns either the productions or the disaster of the Act 1 Siegmund during Walküre. The poor guy was Eric in Höllander and was fine, but apparently there had been some press criticism of his Siegmunds in the first two cycles (I've been avoiding all write-ups until after I've seen the productions). And it seems the singer is engaged to the Wagner daughter who is the heir apparent, which makes his position trickier. I heard from someone who talked with one of the singers that it was just a last minute stroke of good luck that Robert Dean Smith could take over and they were worried that the original singer (sorry, I don't have his name at hand), whom they like personally, might have his whole career affected by the press discussion and the booing. As I said, a singer's life is a difficult one. It's like being an athlete in one of those sports people only pay attention to during the Olympics, and then after four years of training the day arrives and you have a head cold or an allergy attack and that's enough to put you off your game.
The weather continues cloudy cool and rainy; I'm deeply appreciative of the coolness but by now I'm sick of the rain. I should just give in to it, in the spirit in which Wotan wills the inevitable, but isn't that just another way of saying he's going to pretend to see and accept the point of whatever is going to happen anyway?
Instead of taking another day trip I'm just going to wander around, continue reading Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzifal, and relax in the way most people do on their vacations.
I'll also be rereading the Gotterdammerung libretto, of course. . . .
Just as I know that before any trip I'll spend weeks wondering why I thought it was a good idea, why I'm bothering, why I thought I could afford it, and then when I arrive I love it, so I know that during any trip there are the days when everything sags except the pressure not to waste a day in a new place. Yesterday was one of those days. Siegfried often does seem to take place on those days. I realize it's blasphemy to say this, but for me in the theater the final duet just lasts too long. The other scens of the Ring fly by for me, but during that one I think, OK. Got it. Recordings are different since you have a different physical relation to recordings. I don't know quite what it is, since the music is beautiful. It may just be the inevitable dip in one's relationship to a very long work. I've only seen live Siegfrieds in the context of an entire Ring, so I don't know if I would have the same reaction if it were a single evening instead of part of a week.
And as I said I'll talk about the productions later, but about last night just let me say: Worst. Dragon. Ever. Sorry, maybe it's childish, but at some point after the Schopenhauer and the World Sorrow and the wisdom of the mothers you just want to see the guy fight the dragon. I've had problems warming up to Idomeneo because they keep teasing us with talk of a sea monster and then it only appears offstage. What can I say? I like a good monster.
Most of the talk around the Festspielhaus concerns either the productions or the disaster of the Act 1 Siegmund during Walküre. The poor guy was Eric in Höllander and was fine, but apparently there had been some press criticism of his Siegmunds in the first two cycles (I've been avoiding all write-ups until after I've seen the productions). And it seems the singer is engaged to the Wagner daughter who is the heir apparent, which makes his position trickier. I heard from someone who talked with one of the singers that it was just a last minute stroke of good luck that Robert Dean Smith could take over and they were worried that the original singer (sorry, I don't have his name at hand), whom they like personally, might have his whole career affected by the press discussion and the booing. As I said, a singer's life is a difficult one. It's like being an athlete in one of those sports people only pay attention to during the Olympics, and then after four years of training the day arrives and you have a head cold or an allergy attack and that's enough to put you off your game.
The weather continues cloudy cool and rainy; I'm deeply appreciative of the coolness but by now I'm sick of the rain. I should just give in to it, in the spirit in which Wotan wills the inevitable, but isn't that just another way of saying he's going to pretend to see and accept the point of whatever is going to happen anyway?
Instead of taking another day trip I'm just going to wander around, continue reading Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzifal, and relax in the way most people do on their vacations.
I'll also be rereading the Gotterdammerung libretto, of course. . . .
25 August 2006
Bayreuth 16
The other day I was asked if I were South African, which is a new one on me. The gentleman who asked thought he had seen me in his group or at a lecture. It turns out he now lives in Princeton and has two children who live in California, so he actually knew where San Leandro is, which is more than I can say for many Bay Area residents. The woman singing Fricka is, according to him, the first South African to sing at Bayreuth so there was great national pride among the South African Wagnerians.
Usually I'm mistaken for Spanish or Italian, though once in Italy I was asked if I were German. Go figure. I think I usually look and act very American, but I couldn't tell you why.
The weather continues cool and showery, but I'm still glad I cut all my hair off. I went out walking, mostly to go to the Geldautomat (ATM), though I probably have enough money. But it's hard to get into them on weekends because my card can withdraw money but not unlock the vestibule, and I leave here Monday to go to Munich. I've had to keep reminding myself that coins can be substantial amounts here: it's as if the smallest paper bill was for $5, and dollars and two dollars only came in coins.
Usually I'm mistaken for Spanish or Italian, though once in Italy I was asked if I were German. Go figure. I think I usually look and act very American, but I couldn't tell you why.
The weather continues cool and showery, but I'm still glad I cut all my hair off. I went out walking, mostly to go to the Geldautomat (ATM), though I probably have enough money. But it's hard to get into them on weekends because my card can withdraw money but not unlock the vestibule, and I leave here Monday to go to Munich. I've had to keep reminding myself that coins can be substantial amounts here: it's as if the smallest paper bill was for $5, and dollars and two dollars only came in coins.
Bayreuth 15
Near the train station there is a store that posts in its windows photographs of the Festival crowd. They are taken from the balcony where the fanfares are played and are similar to the shots of marathoners crossing the finish line, except the people are dressed in evening finery instead of sweaty shorts and singlets and pretty much just strolling around instead of thrusting their arms upward in victory. There's a different set for each night and each photo is numbered so that you can order a copy if you spot yourself. Anytime you walk by the shop you see people gathered in front, poring over the pictures. (It would be helpful in this case to wear very bright, distinctive colors, which is easier for the women than the men, though I did see one fellow the other night whose purple velvet suit, bright green shirt, antic expression, and silver hair standing straight up screamed, "I am a German artist of an annoyingly playful disposition!" -- again, I'm sure there's a single word in German that can express this.) I glance at the photographs, but if I appear in any of them I haven't had the patience to spot myself. There's a certain Where's Waldo? quality to the search that I just find exasperating. I can't help him with that. Waldo needs to find himself.
24 August 2006
Nuremburg 4
As I wander around cities I can almost always be drawn towards spires or fountains. Though the old part of Nuremburg is fairly compact there were three Gothic churches for me to explore. Perhaps I should say Gothic-style, since it turns out that they were mostly destroyed by bombing during the war and what we see now are careful reconstructions from the mid-twentieth century, which explains why sometimes the blocky, earnest sculptural forms of the 1950s jut out from the elaborately lacey filigree of the German Gothic.
There are several attractive fountains as well, including one modern-looking one that, if I understood it correctly, and I may not have, was in celebration of beer.
The oddest fountain is right outside of St. Lorenz. On the top stands blindfolded Justice, her sword uplifted and scales swaying in the breeze. The layer below features cherubs, with water shooting in thin streams from their trumpets (though only one or two cherubs were working right and a few were obviously missing their musical instruments). The third and bottom layer features female saints (and possibly one Virtue; she looked like Caritas). I identified Agnes and Perpetua (could Felicity be far behind?) and possibly Veronica and Margaret. There were a couple more that completely eluded me. All were bare-breasted and the water shot in thin streams from their nipples, or more precisely from little jets right below their sculpted nipples, giving them a double-nippled look. St. Perpetua's nipples were blocked, but all the rest were flowing freely. I've never seen saints depicted this way. I'm sure there's some sort of allegory of grace and abundance intended.
The fountain was quite the backdrop for photos, so I kept moving out of the way. This might be a coincidence but almost all those being photographed there were women. One wife did take a picture of her husband and then refused his request that she pose with a slightly disgusted grimace that made me think they had been married quite a while.
There are several attractive fountains as well, including one modern-looking one that, if I understood it correctly, and I may not have, was in celebration of beer.
The oddest fountain is right outside of St. Lorenz. On the top stands blindfolded Justice, her sword uplifted and scales swaying in the breeze. The layer below features cherubs, with water shooting in thin streams from their trumpets (though only one or two cherubs were working right and a few were obviously missing their musical instruments). The third and bottom layer features female saints (and possibly one Virtue; she looked like Caritas). I identified Agnes and Perpetua (could Felicity be far behind?) and possibly Veronica and Margaret. There were a couple more that completely eluded me. All were bare-breasted and the water shot in thin streams from their nipples, or more precisely from little jets right below their sculpted nipples, giving them a double-nippled look. St. Perpetua's nipples were blocked, but all the rest were flowing freely. I've never seen saints depicted this way. I'm sure there's some sort of allegory of grace and abundance intended.
The fountain was quite the backdrop for photos, so I kept moving out of the way. This might be a coincidence but almost all those being photographed there were women. One wife did take a picture of her husband and then refused his request that she pose with a slightly disgusted grimace that made me think they had been married quite a while.
Nuremburg 3
On the way to the old city from the bahnhof I passed by a sex-toy and video shop. I mention this only to record my intense disappointment that it is not named Meister Swinger's.
These oddities crop up in these old-looking cities. Right down the slope from Dürer's house is the Cafe Tarantino, with posters in English from his movies in the window. And a store was selling dreamcatchers, which might be the lingering effects of Karl May's popularity.
And right after I saw a teenager wearing a baseball cap -- not just a baseball cap, but a Red Sox cap! -- I saw a store selling baseball caps (with American teams) and NBA jerseys. Then I realized that it was a hiphop store, and the caps and jerseys were for rap fans and not sports fans. So it's probably just as well that at the last minute I left my Red Sox cap at home. Who knows what false passport to age-inappropriate cool I would have been traveling under if I had worn it around Bayreuth.
This computer is starting to act up so I hope it doesn't die on me. . . . and someone is waiting again so I need to go.
These oddities crop up in these old-looking cities. Right down the slope from Dürer's house is the Cafe Tarantino, with posters in English from his movies in the window. And a store was selling dreamcatchers, which might be the lingering effects of Karl May's popularity.
And right after I saw a teenager wearing a baseball cap -- not just a baseball cap, but a Red Sox cap! -- I saw a store selling baseball caps (with American teams) and NBA jerseys. Then I realized that it was a hiphop store, and the caps and jerseys were for rap fans and not sports fans. So it's probably just as well that at the last minute I left my Red Sox cap at home. Who knows what false passport to age-inappropriate cool I would have been traveling under if I had worn it around Bayreuth.
This computer is starting to act up so I hope it doesn't die on me. . . . and someone is waiting again so I need to go.
Nuremburg 2
I'd like to confirm that our Tristan/Act 2 Siegmund was Robert Dean Smith. I should apologize if any typos or misspellings are slipping past me; I had a chance to go back and catch a few but I have to write these quickly and when I can since this is a public terminal and I think it would be rude to keep people waiting too long.
I couldn't go to Nuremburg without going to Dürer's house, but I'm glad I didn't have very high expectations. It's interesting but at this point any real evidence of his being there is gone so what you get is a walk through an old-style Nuremburg house (of which there are fewer than I had assumed there would be; I thought the whole old town would look like a Meistersinger stage set). There's an audio tour which they didn't offer me and I didn't ask about; it's narrated by someone pretending to be his wife, as are the docent-led tours by an actress in costume, and I didn't think any illumination I could get from that set-up would be worth the time.
So I'll talk about the food! I continue to have good luck with ice cream; my passionfruit cone had the same intense flavor as my cherry cone the other day. Towards the end of my time I decided I would try the Nuremburg sausages that all the guidebooks tell me I must try while there; I guess my earlier complaint about German sausage meant I just hadn't met the right sausage yet. These are small; three fit into a hard roll the size of my palm and they were so good I went back and got another one. The owner of the stand replied to my attempts at complimenting him in German by saying "You're welcome" in English, which I thought was gracious. The sun had come out again by then and though I'd been wondering whether the sidetrip to Nuremburg had really been worth the bother I decided then that it was. Nothing like sausage and sunshine to set you up.
Christmas is a big thing there and is present year round. In the open-air market I bought a bag of handmade lebkuchen, their Christmas cookies. They're nice; I'd say they're nothing to write home about but that's pretty much what I'm doing. . . . They have that soft moist texture and clovey taste that all Christmas cookies end up having, regardless of recipe. I assume most of these recipes in America are of German origin.
I couldn't go to Nuremburg without going to Dürer's house, but I'm glad I didn't have very high expectations. It's interesting but at this point any real evidence of his being there is gone so what you get is a walk through an old-style Nuremburg house (of which there are fewer than I had assumed there would be; I thought the whole old town would look like a Meistersinger stage set). There's an audio tour which they didn't offer me and I didn't ask about; it's narrated by someone pretending to be his wife, as are the docent-led tours by an actress in costume, and I didn't think any illumination I could get from that set-up would be worth the time.
So I'll talk about the food! I continue to have good luck with ice cream; my passionfruit cone had the same intense flavor as my cherry cone the other day. Towards the end of my time I decided I would try the Nuremburg sausages that all the guidebooks tell me I must try while there; I guess my earlier complaint about German sausage meant I just hadn't met the right sausage yet. These are small; three fit into a hard roll the size of my palm and they were so good I went back and got another one. The owner of the stand replied to my attempts at complimenting him in German by saying "You're welcome" in English, which I thought was gracious. The sun had come out again by then and though I'd been wondering whether the sidetrip to Nuremburg had really been worth the bother I decided then that it was. Nothing like sausage and sunshine to set you up.
Christmas is a big thing there and is present year round. In the open-air market I bought a bag of handmade lebkuchen, their Christmas cookies. They're nice; I'd say they're nothing to write home about but that's pretty much what I'm doing. . . . They have that soft moist texture and clovey taste that all Christmas cookies end up having, regardless of recipe. I assume most of these recipes in America are of German origin.
Nuremburg
I took advantage of the day off to go to Nuremburg. Though it was enjoyable I might have been better off hanging around and resting; I'm starting to feel unpleasantly congested, probably due to second-hand smoke, and I can feel the bags under my eyes growing larger by the hour, though this does give me a look both dissolute and otherworldly so suitable to Wagner's music.
I had already seen the landscape on the way here, when I had to change trains at Nuremburg for the second time. There are some fields of corn, a few wooded patches, and lots of little towns that at first glance look similar to little towns in America until you notice how very steeply pitched the roofs are or see the black red and gold stripes of the German flag fluttering over the backyard patio or barbecue. The rest of the landscape is the sort that looks incomplete without cows, though only once did I think I glimpsed some through some trees.
The problem for me with day trips is that though I enjoy being in different places I don't usually enjoy getting there, so it's a question of whether the pleasures of the place will outweigh the vexations of the journey. If you've been before it helps, but faced with a large train station I always have to remember that things like that have to work on a system so all I have to do is figure out enough of the system to get where I want to go. It helps a lot here that -- do I even need to say it? -- the trains run on time. If the departure time is 12:51, the train leaves at 12:51. This is an adjustment though a pleasant one to someone used to BART.
Today contradicted a number of my experiences so far:
First, I had my first encounter with someone who was unpleasant about my lack of German: a thin dark-haired young man behind a counter who glared at me and shouted in German and then ignored me. I could figure out about a third of what he was saying and it turned out I was in the wrong line anyway.
Second, I did use French as a fall-back language: a kindly hunchbacked old woman working the shop at St. Sebald's tried to explain to me that the CD I was buying was out of stock and I tried to explain that another one would be OK since I just wanted one because the music was performed on that church's organ. We built that language bridge from French stone with the mortar of an occasional German word.
Third, I was caught in a downpour just as I stepped out of Durer's house. Fortunately I managed to slip back into a church, my version of Hunding's hut, soon enough to avoid getting my only shoes and non-opera pants soaked.
I had already seen the landscape on the way here, when I had to change trains at Nuremburg for the second time. There are some fields of corn, a few wooded patches, and lots of little towns that at first glance look similar to little towns in America until you notice how very steeply pitched the roofs are or see the black red and gold stripes of the German flag fluttering over the backyard patio or barbecue. The rest of the landscape is the sort that looks incomplete without cows, though only once did I think I glimpsed some through some trees.
The problem for me with day trips is that though I enjoy being in different places I don't usually enjoy getting there, so it's a question of whether the pleasures of the place will outweigh the vexations of the journey. If you've been before it helps, but faced with a large train station I always have to remember that things like that have to work on a system so all I have to do is figure out enough of the system to get where I want to go. It helps a lot here that -- do I even need to say it? -- the trains run on time. If the departure time is 12:51, the train leaves at 12:51. This is an adjustment though a pleasant one to someone used to BART.
Today contradicted a number of my experiences so far:
First, I had my first encounter with someone who was unpleasant about my lack of German: a thin dark-haired young man behind a counter who glared at me and shouted in German and then ignored me. I could figure out about a third of what he was saying and it turned out I was in the wrong line anyway.
Second, I did use French as a fall-back language: a kindly hunchbacked old woman working the shop at St. Sebald's tried to explain to me that the CD I was buying was out of stock and I tried to explain that another one would be OK since I just wanted one because the music was performed on that church's organ. We built that language bridge from French stone with the mortar of an occasional German word.
Third, I was caught in a downpour just as I stepped out of Durer's house. Fortunately I managed to slip back into a church, my version of Hunding's hut, soon enough to avoid getting my only shoes and non-opera pants soaked.
Bayreuth 14
Every night outside the Festspielhaus a middle-aged Chinese woman with wire-rim glasses has been handing out leaflets and otherwise protesting something. I wasn't sure what until I declined a leaflet by saying "sorry" and she exclaimed "English!" and handed me the English version of her pamphlet. It turns out she's from Falun Gong, protesting organ harvesting by the Chinese government. I have no idea why she chose the Bayreuth Festspielhaus as her protest site, unless she figures a lot of the audience is looking for replacement organs, which is possible. Otherwise I haven't seen any other protests.
The Japanese lady was back last night in another beautiful but subdued kimono, this one very pale skyblue with faint pink petals and leaves on it. That obi is a stroke of genius. But the seats aren't bothering me as much, possibly because the Ring operas tend to fly by for me. Really.
I did try the ice cream vendor during Tristan, since that seemed less inappropriate than during Parsifal. I had kirsche, which was excellent and had a very deep cherry flavor. Yesterday beforehand I had malaga. Sometimes I'll order things just to find out what they are. It turned out to be rum raisin, and very good.
I'm turning into Homer Simpson at breakfast. I eat piles of bacon and then go back for more. The bacon is very bacony. Hmmmmm . . . . bacony. . . .
The Japanese lady was back last night in another beautiful but subdued kimono, this one very pale skyblue with faint pink petals and leaves on it. That obi is a stroke of genius. But the seats aren't bothering me as much, possibly because the Ring operas tend to fly by for me. Really.
I did try the ice cream vendor during Tristan, since that seemed less inappropriate than during Parsifal. I had kirsche, which was excellent and had a very deep cherry flavor. Yesterday beforehand I had malaga. Sometimes I'll order things just to find out what they are. It turned out to be rum raisin, and very good.
I'm turning into Homer Simpson at breakfast. I eat piles of bacon and then go back for more. The bacon is very bacony. Hmmmmm . . . . bacony. . . .
23 August 2006
Bayreuth 13
I was hoping to get a poster for the Ring Cycle to go with the ones I have from Seattle and San Francisco, but they don't seem to have those here. In fact the merchandising is quite restrained. There is a small stand to one side of the Festspielhaus, separate but close enough so that I assume it's official, that offers the usual postcards, some black T-shirts with quotations from Gotterdammerung in white on the chest, and some books, DVDs, and CDs. The books are scholarly rather than popular. I've ended up buying a number of CDs because there are performances not available in the US that are released here. But the plethora of shirts, mugs, stuffed animals, comic books, and so forth that I've seen elsewhere make no appearance here.
There is the official festival program book, a handsome white-covered trilingual volume with many color pictures and essays on the productions. I am holding off on reading them until after I've seen the productions. The book comes in a blue and white Festspiel tote bag made not of the usual canvas but of some odd material I can't identify. The blue strap is quite long and the only way to carry the bag conveniently is the sling it over one shoulder so that it crosses your chest. You see people all over with these, carrying programs and books and opera glasses and obviously not enough lozenges, looking like some sort of odd messenger service.
Tomorrow is our first day off, so I'm planning to take the train to Nuremburg, which for some reason I keep calling Niebelheim. I'll assume I'm just tired.
There is the official festival program book, a handsome white-covered trilingual volume with many color pictures and essays on the productions. I am holding off on reading them until after I've seen the productions. The book comes in a blue and white Festspiel tote bag made not of the usual canvas but of some odd material I can't identify. The blue strap is quite long and the only way to carry the bag conveniently is the sling it over one shoulder so that it crosses your chest. You see people all over with these, carrying programs and books and opera glasses and obviously not enough lozenges, looking like some sort of odd messenger service.
Tomorrow is our first day off, so I'm planning to take the train to Nuremburg, which for some reason I keep calling Niebelheim. I'll assume I'm just tired.
Lend Me a Tenor
Singers have rough lives. They work and study and struggle and sometimes when they get to sing Siegmund on the stage of Bayreuth itself they fall sick. There were discreet notices up saying our scheduled singer was indisposed and kindly asked our indulgence, etc., at least I assume the German had words to that effect. He just lost it in the first act and due to the discretion of the signs they had been overlooked by quite a few in the audience, who booed him vociferously. For the second act our wonderful Tristan, Robert Dean Smith (I'll have to doublecheck the name later) stepped in and saved the day. Den hehrsten Helden der Welt! He kept his poise and gave a powerful performance even though Notung broke prematurely, which has got to be one of the more awkward stage mishaps.
Even if I hadn't seen the notices I would have figured something was wrong with our man. All the voices are so clear and carry so well that there had to be something seriously wrong with him. He couldn't have been hired if his voice always sounded like that.
I was in the second row from the back before the boxes tonight, right in the center. The sound is different there. Oddly enough, I could hear many individual wind instruments (chiefly the oboe, I'm guessing) with remarkable clarity, almost as if they were playing a concerto with the ensemble.
I've grown to recognize quite a few of the crowd by now. Many are staying at the Arvena Congress with me. There's the man with a neck brace who always has an obnoxious pipe clenched between his teeth, and the short, balding old French woman who always fills her breakfast plate with sausages and belches audibly. Tonight I also saw the wart-nosed woman again, in the same brocaded top, and this time saw that she only had one leg.
There's an attendant in the men's room who stands there night after night. He's dressed informally in jeans and a short sleeve shirt even though he's official. I'm not sure what he does, besides be quietly polite and check occasionally to make sure the towel rollers are working, but there is a table for his tips. I tip on the grounds that tipping is always good karma. But what a way to spend summer: I stood in the men's room in Bayreuth and said danke shoen.
There's a line forming for the computer and some smokers have arrived so I'll continue later.
Even if I hadn't seen the notices I would have figured something was wrong with our man. All the voices are so clear and carry so well that there had to be something seriously wrong with him. He couldn't have been hired if his voice always sounded like that.
I was in the second row from the back before the boxes tonight, right in the center. The sound is different there. Oddly enough, I could hear many individual wind instruments (chiefly the oboe, I'm guessing) with remarkable clarity, almost as if they were playing a concerto with the ensemble.
I've grown to recognize quite a few of the crowd by now. Many are staying at the Arvena Congress with me. There's the man with a neck brace who always has an obnoxious pipe clenched between his teeth, and the short, balding old French woman who always fills her breakfast plate with sausages and belches audibly. Tonight I also saw the wart-nosed woman again, in the same brocaded top, and this time saw that she only had one leg.
There's an attendant in the men's room who stands there night after night. He's dressed informally in jeans and a short sleeve shirt even though he's official. I'm not sure what he does, besides be quietly polite and check occasionally to make sure the towel rollers are working, but there is a table for his tips. I tip on the grounds that tipping is always good karma. But what a way to spend summer: I stood in the men's room in Bayreuth and said danke shoen.
There's a line forming for the computer and some smokers have arrived so I'll continue later.
Bayreuth 12
I went to the Neue Schloss today, a sizeable and appealing rococo building, a distant cousin of the Versailles family, near Wahnfried. I had the schloss to myself most of the morning, which is always nice. There's not a lot inside, which is OK since there's only so many 18th century portraits and velvet-seated chairs I want to look at. The walls and the ceilings are the big show, and as I wandered through several times I would see new details, like a stucco cupid melting away like a cloud on the ceiling or a chandelier covered with enamel pink roses and carnations. There's a room decorated with Ovidian tapestries in beautiful deep colors, and a dining room lined with golden-leaved palm trees. One ceiling is covered with golden swirls interspersed with clusters of green seaweed, dark red coral, and sea shells in black, rust, and ash gray. Many of the rooms feature chinoiserie or japonoiserie (not sure I'm spelling that right or even have the right word). One celadon Japanese room featured gold and dark bronze birds and flowers, including what looked to me like a very southwestern cactus, though it was not accompanied by a rococo Kokopelli. One wonderful room had mirrors of various sizes and shapes embedded on the ceiling among a fantastical melange of lions, palm trees, dragons, and whatnot and a Chinese man offering a scroll with gilded phoenixes to a Chinese woman. He was slightly less dressed than she was. The room is small and the walls are filled with pictures. Two are of respectable countesses, one with a very low cut dress. The others are of Lucretia stabbing herself in her naked breasts, Cleopatra applying the asp to her naked breast, and that woman in Genesis who saved her father (father-in-law? Lot? Noah? -- I'd look it up but though my room does have a Gideon Bible it only contains the New Testament, something in which I'm trying not to find any significance) by baring her breasts so he could drink her milk and live. It was the Salon of Hot Babes Who Bare Their Breasts in the Presence of Death, a concept which I'm sure can be expressed in German in a single weighty word of a line or two's length that sounds both musical and profound.
The lobby music just now was Taking a Chance on Love, with the Walkure theme underneath from another room. There must be a steady series of lectures around town. There is not a whole lot else to do, but I'd still rather wander around and read up before traveling.
The lobby music just now was Taking a Chance on Love, with the Walkure theme underneath from another room. There must be a steady series of lectures around town. There is not a whole lot else to do, but I'd still rather wander around and read up before traveling.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)