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Ed Waffle

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Everything posted by Ed Waffle

  1. C. S. Lewis, although he is very much a Christian author. His biography is excellent: Surprised by Joy There is the seven volume The Chronicles of Narnia, a children's tale for adults. There was a new Australian edition brought out last year, so it may well be in libraries. Details of that edition are here: http://www.harpercollins.com.au/title_sear...&SearchBy=Title Also The Screwtape Letters, in which an apprentice devil keeps failing to tempt people into Hell. Its attitudes are closer to the nineteenth century than the twenty-first, so it may not be appropriate.
  2. Based on reading throught the "Your first ballet" thread, it seems clear that all the outreach and other worthy seeming (and fundable) programs run by serious performing arts companies with a few notable exeptions don't really bring many people into the theater. Or at least not the people who are still buying tickets 10, 20 or 50 years later. While the people who post on this board are probably not the typical balletgoer (if there is such a thing), one aspect of the experiences in the thread stood out: no one was at the theater for the first time because he or she had been reached out to by an outreach scheme. We went to the opera because our parents went; or because our parents thought we should go; or because a friend went; or we read about it or saw something on TV or saw The Red Shoes. Or, in some cases, because we wanted to impress a young lady--and I can't imagine why there haven't been more men who have done this. I began thinking about this while talking about the opera "Dead Man Walking" with a friend who had recently retired--she is 66, and she was extremely impressed by it. And while at the opera I made a point of seeking out two elderly ladies whose next to whom we used to sit for the matinee performances. These ladies, both in their 80s, both of whom have been attending the opera, ballet and Detroit Symphony for over fifty years, also enjoyed "Dead Man Walking", especially the tight direction, the wonderful shifting stage sets and the big first act finale. Neither mentioned the nudity in the prologue, although there is no reason to think they were offended by it. Both are the widows for automobile executives and live in one of the Grosse Pointes, a set of exclusive and wealthy suburbs. This was a performance that was very sparsely attended--fewer people in the audience than I can recall for a Sunday matinee the the opera in Detroit. But the ones who turned out were the same people who went to the opera many years ago, fell in love with it and have been going ever since. Those who weren't there were the younger, hipper people, those who one would (incorrectly it seems) be a target audience for a contempory opera based on comtempory issues. It seems that people find what they want, even if they don't know that they want it. Ballet, opera, Shakespeare--it is all there in all large cities and probably most college towns. Performing arts companies would do better by making things easier for their aged patrons to attend than by trying to convince those who really don't want to go that it isn't as bad as they might think--another way of putting this is, of course, is "dumbing down".
  3. I will join Calliope's objection, although not because of Marshall Mathers. My reference is Leos Janacek. He studied the patterns of everyday speech of peasants, workers, shopkeepers and bureaucrats and wrote them out in standard musical notation. He went on to compose Jenufa, a true masterpiece of the lyric theater, using what he called "speech melody" in which his music and the words and sentences of the lyrics mirrored each other. There have been stacks of scholarly papers written concerning which was most important, the stresses of the words or the rhythm of the music, but even Janacek was ambiguous regarding this "chicken and egg" question in his letters. He wanted to produce sung stylizations of everyday speech--in doing so he created high art. Not sure if this addresses Mary J's point--but there are other cases in opera in which the sections of the text were chosen primarily for the way they sounded.
  4. Like a few people on this thread I am not counting several "Nutcrackers". They seemed more a part of the Christmas season than a ballet performance as such. And the first actual ballet performance I attended was "Swan Lake" (what else) in Chicago--either in 1970 or 1971. But that is another story. I wonder if Victoria Leigh made those trips to Chicago with the ABT then? What I count as the first ballet I attended, though, wasn't even a ballet. It was the Igor Moiseyev Dance Company at the Auditorium Theater in Chicago. I had splurged on orchestra level tickets in the middle of the house. It was a great show. Moiseyev's dancers are trained for ballet (although I had no idea of that at the time, of course) and perform flamboyant folk-based dances that were amazing to a first time observer. Lots of flying through the air, impossibly high kicks, heel clicking, extremely athletic and acrobatic movement, wonderfully colorful constumes. They know how to sell a show. I remember it so well because it was the first real date that I went on with the woman who is still my wife . I was wanted to impress her so I chose dinner and the Moiseyev. I had no idea that she really liked that kind of dance and had studied it a bit in college. So it worked. If you want to impress the woman of your dreams (of someone who may be) take her to the ballet.
  5. http://borgman.enquirer.com/weekly/daily_h...903borgman.html
  6. Dead Man Walking at the Michigan Opera Theatre. Well, I have heard the CD, read the libretto and now have seen the opera. It is a good show and worth a trip to the opera house if it plays near you. Dead Man Walking is not a great opera although it does have some great parts. First the music. Jake Heggie, the composer, is known for doing music that singers like—he began his composing career writing songs while on the PR staff at the San Francisco Opera and was championed by Frederica von Stade, a member of the opera royalty. He also writes very well to the text. The words of the libretto were easy to understand. While the MOT used surtitles they generally were not necessary. Music that singers are eager to sing is not necessarily great music, though. Heggie’s tone palette and harmonic language is reminiscent of some of the lesser works of Gershwin or Korngold. While his care to match music and words reminds one of Janacek, the actual music lacks almost everything that makes the Czech master a great composer. Which is almost to be expected. This is Heggie’s first opera and he is still learning how to write for the lyric stage. A lot of hype has accompanied this work, but it is too slender to carry so many expectations. Almost no one gets all of it right the first time—few have gotten all of it right by the fourth or fifth opera. One hopes that Haggie will be able to continue to work on perfecting his art and refining his musical language. The production at the Detroit Opera House seen Sunday, June 8 was well done by most of the principals. (One has to avoid using a term like “well executed” for this opera). Theodora Hanslowe portrayed Sister Helen Prajean. She is a lyric mezzo with flawless technique, a real nobility of utterance and a gleaming upper register. She has been a particular favorite in Washington D.C., appearing with the Washington Opera and in several other venues around the area. Ms. Hanslowe is an affecting actress and really dove into the role. Her character must make the audience believe that she believes in the unconditional love of God (and specifically Jesus Christ) and that this belief guides most of what she does. Terrance McNally, the librettist, has created a role that singers love—sympathetic, evolving and with two big arias per act. The character of Joseph De Rocher is a much harder sell. There is no question that he is guilty of rape and murder—monstrous crimes committed almost casually. And he is not really an energetic villain—McNally and Heggie have tried to make him such, but since he is on death row he can’t act. But at the same time you are not happy when he is executed—it isn’t like watching Baron Scarpia choke on his own blood in Tosca or seeing Pizzaro being led away in Fidelio. The character doesn’t really resonate, although John Packard who originated the role, does everything he can with it. The real story is expressed by one of the parents of the two murdered teenagers, who says to Sister Prajean at one point “We are all victims of Joseph De Rocher.” While it seems trite, it expresses the emotional center of this work. The design is wonderfully done. Most the activity takes place on a raked platform on the stage with cutout steps facing the audience. The playing space is divided by chain link fences, bars and barbed wire units that are lowered from the flies as necessary for scene changes. A few pieces—tables, chairs—are carried out and put in place by extras dressed as prison guards. It is an ingenious design and one that serves this work very well. The opera begins with full nudity—not the bodystockinged prurience of the Bacchanal in Samson and Delilah or the “now you see it now you don’t” Dance of the Seven Veils in Salome. The young couple who are murdered have parked and were swimming nude in a lake. They are on a blanket, with the actor and actress engaged in quite tasteful simulated sex—kind of simulated simulated sex—when the De Rochers appear. There is no question that both of them are guilty of murder—each of them kills one person—but one of the ethical questions the opera raises concerns the difference in punishment. According to Joseph De Rocher, his brother got a life sentence because he was assigned a better lawyer. Joseph is on death row because he was assigned a less skilled one. There is more to this work than I can summarize here—I may well see it again during its run here in Detroit. Unfortunately, it looks like seats will not be hard to get. The audience at today’s performance was one of the smallest I can recall for a Sunday matinee at the Detroit Opera House.
  7. Not sure if this has been posted--I didn't see it in links--so here it is. More intriging than the Met removing his name from the Grand Tier and the Opera House, the article also details that Placedo Domingo fronted 2 million dollars to cover pledges that Vilar had made to the Washington Opera and the the L. A. Opera, but hasn't heard from Vilar since then. http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/07/arts/mus...c/07MET.html?th
  8. Terriegirl, you may be conflating two movies--American in Paris and Singing in the Rain--an easy thing to do. The scene you describe is, I think, the "Gotta Dance" number from Singing in the Rain, in which Kelly, as a young hoofer shows up in New York City. After a number of encounters with highly stylized denizens of the Big Apple (all of whom dance to communicate instead of talk) he runs into The Girl, who is most definitely Cyd Charrise. You describe her hair perfectly--I think the dress is green though. I have seen this movie a LOT--it is one of the best dance themed musicals ever. Cyd Charrise is listed in the IMDB credits here: http://us.imdb.com/Title?0045152
  9. If you don't get to the last paragraph of this article--the judge in question is 50 years old and is one of the youngest judges on the bench in England. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml.../ixnewstop.html
  10. It looks like you have a wonderful summer of reading and discovery ahead of you. A few notes: I hadn't thought of Hesse for years. His books, especially "Steppenwolf" and "Siddharta" were, like some of Camus and Sarte, part of the very air we breathed a long time ago. It seemed that everyone you knew had a paperback of one of those authors in his or her back pocket. I read all the books by Hesse you mention and was thrilled with them, especially "The Glass Bead Game" (also know in English as "Magistrar Ludi", I think). When I looked at some of them again I couldn't imagine why I had been so caught up in them. Reading them in German would be a huge advantage I would think. Nietzsche, as they say, is peachy. Although it took me a long time to realize that. I was finally able to "get" Nietzsche by reading his essays on Richard Wagner--some of the best work anyone has ever done on Wagner. It is hard for me to think of any thinker who would be more interesting or enlightening than Kant--although that is purely a personal perference. I still have the marked up copies of "Pure Reason", "Practical Reason" (my favorite) "Prolegama" and still read them. Nietzsche can be an arresting stylist (in translation, at least) and a thinker of note. That real thrill of recognition that one has when reading a work that makes the most profound sense--like either of the Critiques, for example, is missing with him.
  11. How could I have forgotten those? I consumed political thrillers in my early teens. I think the one Alexandra refers to is "Convention". The book that really made his name was "Seven Days in May", about how an odd group of people stop a military coup. Among the people in loyalist cadre were a colonel in the Marine Corps, the only character who developed as the story progressed. Since the leader of the coup was the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the colonel had to overcome his training, which emphasized loyalty to his superior officers. There was also, as I recall, a crusty senator from somewhere in the Midwest, a hard drinking friend of the President, the cynical and world weary Secretary of the Treasury and a mysterious lady of negotiable virtue. There was also "Night at Camp David", in which, I think, a group much like the ones who saved the Presidency in "Seven Days in May" decided that the President had gone mad and needed to replace him before he blew up the world or something. There was also Eugene Burdick, whose big novel was "Fail Safe", told from the point of view of an unassuming translator who is present during negotiations between the President (a not really disguised JFK) and the Russian premier when a U. S. bomber fails to turn around at the appropriate point and is on course to nuke a Russian city. For some reason both Burdick and Knebel had coauthors for many of thier books--maybe to for the technical details. Both "Fail Safe" and Seven Days in May" were done as movies: http://us.imdb.com/Title?0058083 http://us.imdb.com/Title?0058576
  12. My experience in a Roman Catholic grammar school were different from those of Alexandra and vagansmom. Reading was encouraged for all the grades. There were even reading contests--each class had a list of books that were outside the assigned work. The name of each student who wanted to participate was put on a bar chart--the bars looked like the spines of little books--and it was colored in as books were finished and reported on. There was a Junior Great Books program that was run by volunteers. I read "Antigone" in the sixth grade and was quite taken with it. Everyone was expected to read--there were a lot of kids in that school (and in many on the south side of Chicago) whose parents were immigrants from Poland or Mexico. Many of the parents worked in the nearby steel mills and many did not read English well. But it was expected that their children would and they did. As a side note, parents and teachers were in a united front. If you were sent home with a note from your teacher regarding badly done assignments or inattention in class it was a BIG DEAL. And if the principal asked one's parents to a special conference, it was the end of the world. One's parent's were very unhappy--Dad had to take the day off work (or get up at an odd time, if he was working nights) and put on a suit. Mom was mortified. It really got your attention.
  13. Here is a link containing an interview with Nin's recent biographer. It addresses a lot of things, including how factual the diaries are. I think that their authenticity couldn't be in doubt--they stand or fall as literary works as such. Her biographer describers Nin as a "major minor writer" which makes sense. http://www.salon.com/weekly/bair960729.html
  14. I think Franzen came to his senses when he heard that his publisher was deciding how to dispose of Franzen's body after the hit. Getting wierd with someone with the power of Oprah Winfrey is insane. And especially since (as I have been informed by a number of people over the past day) Winfrey does a great job of promoting a book and has done wonders for authors. I would think the Ms. Winfrey has to employ a few editorial assistants spend full days reading books that come to her from publishers in order to create a list for her to chose from. Since being picked by Winfrey as a book worth reading means the book will be a financial success anyone who would denigrate such a selection is an extremely odd duck.
  15. Some "other" books by authors mentioned on this thread: Lucky by Ann Seybold. If you thought "The Lovely Bones was a bit of a downer....this memoir opens with a police officer telling Seybold that she is lucky that the man who beat and raped her didn't also kill her. An account of Seybold's ordeal while a freshman in college. I read it in one long night. Cause Celeb by Helen Fielding. A pretty, smart, and very articulate young womnan goes to Africa as part of a British team helping refugees. It is the story of a personal odyssey, a scathing look at NGO politics in the Third World and a startlingly good description of an entire population being threatened by famine and disease. While it doesn't hang together until the end, it is well worth reading for Fielding fans. The Magician's Assistant by Ann Patchett. Unrequited love, sudden death, an alienated family and a dark, unknown past combine in this novel. It unfolds like a comples magic trick--the reader knows that it can't really be happening like this, but continues to be drawn farther in to the world of Sabine, the (former) magician's assistent.
  16. When we were read this story at Queen of Peace Parish School a long time ago she was still "Blessed" Maria Goretti--Blessed (two syllables) was a stop on the way to sainthood. Sister Anita of the Sisters of Charity, who taught a combined fourth and fifth grade and ruled it with an iron hand, spoke about Maria Goretti "defending her purity". About which, of course, we had no clue.
  17. I was lucky enough to have a grandmother who sent me books that I didn't know were classics. Robert Lewis Stevenson--"Kidnapped", "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde", "Treasure Island", "The Black Arrow." Mark Twain--"Tom Sawyer" and "Huckleberry Finn" "Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin" Many of the Hornblower series by C. S. Forrester. When I was in grammar school, it seemed we played baseball, basketball, football or hockey, depending on the season, every day of the year--except for me, when a book from my grandmother would arrive. And getting a library card at the local branch of the Chicago Public Library was like getting a passport to the world.
  18. My original thought was that I hate television, written specifically in response to a post that referenced a review that referenced the Simpsons, which I now know is not a cartoon family but a animated sitcom. But it was purely a personal reaction. GWTW wrote: As Western white male who will be dead soon enough, I am not unhappy with that definition of well educated or cultured. It is narrow and excludes most of the world’s population, but it will have to work for me. Calliope wrote: I don’t know if I have read any of Oprah’s books, although I have seen some of them stickered as such in bookstores. I didn’t know what people were talking about when the referred to “Soup Nazi” and still don’t. I am no worse off for it, although I am disgusted with the use of the term “Nazi” in an offhand way. Regarding must see TV: For me, it remains wars and rumors of war. Plus a few very special events, like Ladies Figure Skating at the Olympic Winter Games, just about any track and field competition at the Summer Games and the Women’s World Cup in soccer. Each of them every four years. Dale wrote: This is a false dichotomy. I don’t go to many movies and I certainly don’t feel exalted when I do. I generally leave before movies are over—sometimes long before. And I certainly don’t consider people who watch TV, especially those who can write about it so articulately on this forum, to be “witless”. It just isn’t for me, nor will it be. GWTW wrote: Very likely, at least as far as I am concerned. There are lots of age divides. When I was an undergraduate at a not particularly distinguished Midwestern university, one needed to have taken separate courses in Chaucer, Shakespeare and Milton, in addition to the regular surveys and genre classes, in order to get a bachelor’s degree. I am not sure if one even needs to have read those authors to get into graduate school in English now—or perhaps to get an advanced degree.
  19. Edith Wharton--I fell in love with her novels as an undergraduate--read most of them, wrote a few papers. Fun stuff. Current reading: "The Dead of Jericho" by Colin Dexter. Dexter has written a number of detective novels centered around Oxford---more the town than the university. The protagonist is a very dour Detective Inspector named Morse who loves Mozart and Wagner. This is the fourth or fifth of them I have read. "Coming of Age as a Poet" by Helen Vendler. She is a prof at Harvard but writes very accessibly--she publishes both in scholarly journals and also in the New York Review of Books. She write better about poetry than anyone I can think of. I have just finished her book on Seamus Heaney and am using it as a partial guide back into the poetry of Heaney. I am reading "Opened Ground", which is selected poetry of his with an emphasis on works since 1987. "Life on the Mississippi" by Mark Twain, a book I read and savor every five years or so--it seems time to read it again. I recently finished "On the Origins of War and the Preservation of Peace" by Donald Kagan. He has a new book out, "The Peloponnesian War", which is a revision and distillation of his four volume work on the same war. I keep walking past it in bookstores, knowing I will buy it at some point.
  20. I realize that knowing how the Comic Book Guy in The Simpsons thinks about things in 2003 is pretty much the same as wondering if Little Nell was going to survive in The Old Curiosity Shop in 1841. There is probably a grumpy person who complains about everything in The Simpsons, and he is probably a lot like me. :D
  21. In today's New York Times it was announced that the New York Philharmonic was leaving Avery Fisher Hall and returning to Carnegie Hall. (Link below.) The New York City Opera has long been unhappy in the New York State Theatre and has wanted to move. Plans as small as a return to City Center and as grandiose as building its own opera house have been discussed. Very few have every had anything good to say about the acoustics at Avery Fisher Hall. From my limited experience as a viewer of opera at the New York State Theater (6 operas, many years ago) the complaints about it as a venue for the lyric theater are well made. This will be interesting as it plays out. http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/02/arts/mus...sic/02PHIL.html
  22. I hate television. Not because there is never anything good on it--we never know what is on because we don't watch TV. The only reason we even own one is for those time when it seems one has to watch--like a war, assassination or other calamity. But it is impossible to get away from television. It is too much a part of the culture to avoid. I hate its ubiquity and the way its stupid catch phrases have become a subsitute for a common language, at least in the United States. The most recent example is from a review of Cannes excerpted by Alexandra. Part of that review said: I have never seen the Simpsons, although, of course, I know that they are a cartoon family. But the assumption is that everyone watches TV, everyone watches the Simpsons and everyone who reads the New York Times knows the Comic Book Guy. I don't know who he is and and don't care to find out.
  23. For those wondering how the San Franciso Ballet Orchestra will fare under the new conductor Andrew Mongrelia, pick up his recording of Prokofiev's "Romeo and Juliet" with the NSO of Ukraine on Naxos 8.553184-5. Excellent value, since Naxos is a budget label.
  24. Perhaps group therapy for the various Barbie manifestations? Tough job for the facilitator.
  25. As a person who is only now becoming comfortable with the chromaticism of Richard Strauss, I am happy with ballet staying away from the vanguard of cultural change. Leave the vanguard to the opera directors who are smart enough to stage works without reference to the composers and librettists. If there is a vanguard, then there can also be a heroic rear guard. I would nominate classical ballet in this part of the struggle against encroaching philistinism. Although as Mr. Johnson can attest, rear guard actions, valiant though they may be, very often do not have happy results. I would favor ballet as a museum of the centuries old European culture that engendered it.
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