Tres Tristan

My season of three Tristans:

Bayreuth, 21 August 2006

San Francisco Opera, 27 October 2006

Los Angeles Philharmonic, 24 April 2007

povera Butterfly

After several recent conversations about SF Opera and then after reading the blogosphere reviews of the Met's opening production, I guess I need to revise what I said earlier about nobody really minding Madama Butterfly's many appearances on opera stages everywhere: it looks as if quite a few people feel about Cio-Cio San the way I feel about Mimi. I should have learned from my experience recommending one of my all-time favorite films, The Story of Adele H.: not everyone shares my taste for obsessive tales of unrequited love.

Is it also possible that not everyone is crazy about German expressionism?

pre-order excitement

A week from today (that would be September 26) two CDs are being released of particular interest. I haven't been this hyped up about pre-orders since Edgar Allan Poe & the Juke-Box in March.

1) Naxos is releasing John Harbison's Chamber Music, with Lorraine Hunt Lieberson. I haven't been able to find out much more information about this, from Amazon or the Naxos website (I'm not even sure if "Chamber Music" is the title of the piece or a generic title for the album), but I really don't need anything other than the singer.

2) Audra McDonald has a new album -- Build a Bridge. The product description quoted on Amazon says, "she combines material from precious [I assume they mean precocious but what a funny error] young songwriters like Rufus Wai[n]wright, Nellie McKay and even John Mayer with the work of frequent collaborator and Broadway innovator Adam Guettel, Elvis Costello/Burt Bacharach, Laura Nyro, and Randy Newman." Again, it's the singer (no offense to the song) that is really selling this one to me.

It is, it is, a glorious thing. . . .

Ahoy, mates -- for any lubbers who know not this be Talk Like a Pirate Day, here be the link:

http://www.talklikeapirate.com/piratehome.html

The name generators are particularly good -- one of them didn't even ask me any questions, it just rechristened me Diego the Bitter, which is so great I may switch to that year-round.

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.

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.

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. . . .

ACV

for Anna Clementina on her 85th birthday:
wish I could be there with you today
long may your travels continue

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.

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.