papeetepatrick

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/30/arts/mus...=1&ref=arts This is by far the best article I've read on 'crossover' and what it can mean and has meant. Focussing on Renee Fleming's new Decca release in a week or so, Tommasini outlines the problems we often do hear in these attempts of classical singers and musicians to make their way into other musical worlds (or 'visiting a paralle universe', as Ms. Fleming calls it (gimme a break, frankly), with perhaps some hyperbole if you don't get all the way there--and I didn't get the impression that she did quite, and never have thought anyone quite did). What do people at BT think of crossover musicians? Are there some you think are totally successful? A couple of examples come to mind, some suggested by the article. Jean-Yves Thibaudet is one of my favourite pianists, but his Bill Evans record is just good, as I perceive it: It's not loose and easy enough, you still hear something too formal in it, and I only wanted to listen to it once. Most of Kiri Tekanawa's pop recordings don't convince me, although there will be an exception, as 'Cockeyed Optimist' on her South Pacific album is perfect. Article does remind me that, for some unknown reason, I've never listened to 'Classical Barbra', and I need to do this. It was so badly received at the time, I stayed away from it, mainly because that was the period she seemed to think she could do anything. Some of the opera singers sound okay on the R & H things, but he mentioned Birgit Nilsson in 'I Could Have Danced All Night', which I once heard. It sounds great till the last high C, which is this real Nilsson-sharpie kind of note, literally either a C # or the quarter- (or third-) tone in between C and C#, but sometimes she pierced the ears anyway. One thing I might add, even though it's well-known and obvious, is that within the realms of pop and jazz there's already so much specialization, that you would rather hear Dionne Warwick sing 'Alfie' than Barbra, but usually rather hear Barbra sing 'Sleepin' Bee' than anybody; not really want to hear Dionne's Cole Porter all that much (though it's not bad), never want to hear the old pop-country 50s singer Brenda Lee sing Cole Porter (although I like her countryish pop songs, including a countrified version of a Manos Hadjidakis song)--Sinatra and Ella are going to be better at most of the Cole Porter, as is Merman, and the list is endless. Plus there are things like Dolly Parton's attempt to 'crossover' from country to pop, which is where I first heard the term, and I think '9 to 5' may have been the only truly successful song in that venture. I wouldn't care to even listen to the Fleming CD, frankly, because I respect her more than quite love her as an opera singer even. But the article is very thought-provoking, and has interesting observations on corny Domingo crossovers, Eileen Farrell's early efforts in these areas (he liked her things more than I did), and numerous others. Joshua Bell has done a lot of crossover, and has sometimes been accompanied by a jazz pianist, Simon Mulligan in his classical concerts; I imagine that works pretty well, as did his duets with Kristin Chenoweth on 'Glitter and be Gay', I believe, in CP a few years ago. Thoughts, please.

Good points on trailers, helene and dirac. I think that, in this case, I just don't care for the concept, for one thing--some liaison between Coco and Igor would be a tiny fragment in a bio of either of them, not cause for a whole movie: Somehow I fail to be able to conceive of this one as a grand romance, although I may be wrong--not quite the heat of Ingrid and Roberto. Also, the casting of Stravinsky already made him look too much of an urban man-about-town smoothie, which is more useful for casting 'Cheri' (and might have been better than Rupert Friend) or someone in one of the bad Proust adaptations. Although I didn't object to Jeremy Irons tending to prettiness in 'Swann in Love', but Mads Mikkelson in these few scenes reminded me more of Michael York than Stravinsky. And I thought too obvious an emphasis on luxurious clothes; she would always be wearing them, he would be correct, but not necessarily 'designer-looking', in short, my worst impression was that he came across as more of an aesthete, though not dandy, than a composer. Now, if they wanted to revive Smell-o-Vision Chanel in the theater to match Le Sacre, then we might get something that at least did a full transvaluation into the carnivalesque (plus some Pulcinella and Petrouchka, althought these two looked like they'd sit around and listen to them on the old Walnut Stereo Cabinet...) that might come across as a latter-day 'All that Jazz'.

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2...olution/?page=1 This is what i just read, but not the books I've been reading. I wouldn't, obviously, put an article here that I'd been reading had it not so much pertinence to book reading. This is a stunning piece, and catches you up on iPads, eBooks and iBooks, Americans' reading habits, different kinds of bookreaders like Kindle, Nook and iPad, and most here are probably not ready to take that plunge (i'm not). Interesting things like a statistic about Americans reading no more than a book a year, I forget exactly whether that was perfectly accurate, but Steve Jobs had gotten Americans' reading habits all wrong, they're much more avid, and now, as of early 2010, there are all these eBook readers with various apps, and they're working to make them more attractive and salable. Some are even helping net-surfers getting some of their concentration back, and I believe I saw something about how there might even be a paradoxical result in print sales. Unless you're really into this (I'm not, but like to know about it), there are a few big nerdy chunks comparing the different readers, but these are relatively few. Some of the eBooks and iBooks are free, some are for pay, this includes Amazon's reader. There's discussion of magazines making their way into subscriptions, although in some form this is already around. The article is more about the huge surge in eBook reading. I would have said as recently as a few years ago that I wouldn't ever go for it, and I did start reading a lot of novels again recently (all traditional book format, no screen) and doing more longhand writing (I never keep a journal on the computer, and not because of privacy issues, I just don't like it), but I did stop picking up the Village Voice, even though it's free, but I think that may be just because the paper has really declined in quality, so I really don't read it online either. The Times and other big newspapers I haven't bought print copies of for years, though, and I don't mind it at all, in fact, like the absence of papers to throw out, and certainly like that it's free. Books are still different to me, though. Hope some others will have time to read this, as the book-reading habits of many are being radically revolutioonized--including readers of 'Pride and Prejudice' and Shakespears Sonnets.

Superlative dancers as always, but the piece doesn't intrigue me at all, neither the movement nor the music. Has an immediately pretentious atmosphere, I found, but then I couldn't even stand the Herman Hesse book. They choose some unusual figures, real and mythical, at POB, I thought 'Caligula' a more original idea (whether or not successful) than Siddhartha. Maybe Graham could have done it, but I doubt she would have cared to.

I appreciate what you're saying, YOT, and noticed it a lot during the 00's. I think some of that--it's really a kind of 'sterilization', wouldn't you say?--is finally itself beginning to bore people, instead of being this inevitable kind of freeze-dried quality I've seen, and which always gave me the impression that it would never let up, as if at some irreversible cul-de-sac. Although it has done so, as proved by flesh-and-blood shows like 'In the Heights' and even the revival of 'Gypsy', for all its faults, was still not as if made for a brave new digital age. Your phrase 'more like people leaving a business that have gone out of business after only a few years than people leaving homes and friends...' is perfect: It made me remember that, even though I never have seen a stage presentation myself, when I was a 20-year-old student in Paris, I skipped class one afternoon, and went to see the movie of this. I just got dreadfully overemotional about it, and yet have never seen it again. So I do know what that show is capable of, even if it's got its hokey side (most musicals do.) I hope musical theater is going to continue to evolve into more human expression as it used to have, albeit some of the old forms have been exhausted, instead of that weird sterilized sensation that is not unlike watching many TV sitcoms: They just evaporate a few minutes after you've left the theater.

This makes me want to hear the piece ASAP. I know some Bartok works well, others none at all, but also am not enough on my Bartok history to have thought he might have done something that sounds (at least to some ears) like a homage to Rheingold. Hadn't really thought about Ravel, either, Stravinsky yes. And this, at 55 minutes, is bound to have some of the irregular meter (probably a great deal of it) that we were discussing in Cristian's thread. I may check out the score and take a look: This might be a real example of dancers working with a lot of different meters, but with them rather precisely, not floating along in more-or-less the same cloud. That's interesting, I had thought Boulez did tend to emphasize rhythmic drive, not wanting to linger and luxuriate too long, but I'm judging on how I heard his old recording of 'La Mer', which does seem to revel in the Debussy sound-world, and how it seemed to have diminished in size (and rapturous sound) in perfs. in the 90s. Edited: Placed a hold on a Boulez recording with Chicago Symphony from 1992, as well as the score for his piano reduction of the piece. Never heard either. There are a number of recordings of the piece, Naame Jarvi w/London Philharmonia, others.

If you mean dancers and dance music, maybe, but 5/4 and 5/8 is pretty frequent throughout the 20th century, even if it's not the most usual even so. All of the cutting-edge composers from the 20s and 30s on used a lot of 5/4 and 7/8, etc,. before they even dispensed with meter completely when the needed to serialize rhythm as well as dynamics and pitch.. Responding here mainly to your citing of 'Take Five', which I didn't know had been made into a dance, although it would seem logical for it to have been used a lot. Everybody from Elliott Carter back to Virgil Thomson and Copland and Stravinsky, and Hall Overton and Vivian Fine and Jacob Druckman and David Diamond, and there's lots of those time signatures in Leonard Bernstein. These irregular meters are different from 'no meter' for dancers than 'no meter at all', which is itself an interesting further matter along the same lines. I'm sure Balanchine's 'Pythoprakta' to the Xennakis piece must be danced without much attention to 'keeping with the meter', and there are dozens of dances like that, where the dance rhythm and meter has to be independent, even in Steve Reich; this would be different from irregular, but definite, meters, esp. if they are sustained for long passages, which the dancers could not 'dance against and with', but would be in some kind of synchorinization with the music. I thought there might even be some irregular-meter passages in 'Fancy Free', but don't know the score that well. And surely there must be in lots of Robbins and Graham--whether the never-seen 'Age of Anxiety' or in Wm. Schuman's 'Night Journey.' Also probably in DelloJoio, although I don't know about 'Diversion of Angels', I think it's pretty regular throughout, but not sure. Interesting about 5/4 'waltzes' though. Never heard of that.

http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/04/...=theaterspecial Some non-musicals were eligible for Best Score this year, well who'd have thought there could be a show called 'Enron' getting a Best Score award. I'm not sure I want to know. At least not 'American Idiot'. Okay, am going to go get the list of Tony nominees for this category, maybe somebody has seen some of these shows: Best MusicalAmerican Idiot Fela! Memphis Million Dollar Quartet Best Book of a Musical Dick Scanlan and Sherie Rene Scott Everyday Rapture Jim Lewis and Bill T. Jones Fela! Joe DiPietro Memphis Colin Escott and Floyd Mutrux Million Dollar Quartet Best Original Score Music and Lyrics: Andrew Lippa The Addams Family Music: Adam Cork, Lyrics: Lucy Prebble Enron Music: Branford Marsalis Fences Music: David Bryan, Lyrics: Joe DiPietro and David Bryan Memphis Here's the link to all the nominees in all categories: http://projects.nytimes.com/tonys/2010-bal...=theaterspecial and you can vote on these in the paper. How exciting! Stupendous performers on B'way this season: Barbara Cook in the Sondheim show, Rosemary Harris, Denzel Washington, Jude Law. Can't believe how little attention I've been paying this year. That Barbara Cook is impressive in her continued determination, whether in cabarets or onstage.

Extraordinary story-image. Wanted to do it all the time, no wonder it paid off. Thanks for posting, kfw. Also like that Andre Previn said that Hank was his favourite pianist 'in any idiom'. Super-cool.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/18/arts/mus...?ref=obituaries Great jazz club and cabaret player. I subbed for him once at the Sherry Netherland in 1975. Very inspiring that he became more high-profile soloist at age 60, after sideman for Ella and others for decades.

Anybody as fortunate as I was to see him in the original of 'Promises, Promises'? Nearly 40 years ago, and I can still remember him singing 'She Likes Basketball' and all the rest of the great Bacharach/David score, and he sang the title song too. I believe there have been subway posters about him since his death, he donated his eyes. I saw him in the original 'Chicago' too--great guy, great B'way performer, and TV performer too, I'm sure.

Interesting about the reruns, bart. I didn't think I'd write anything here, because I've never seen 'Law and Order' (never saw 'Seinfeld' or 'American Idol' either, but I did sometimes watch NYPD Blue when Andrea Thompson was in it--stopped when they wrote her out). But I did have a major 'TV rerun experience' in the 80s: I watched afternoon reruns of 'Policewoman' every time I got a chance, this was also when there were still afternoon network movies, which is when I also saw the Lana Turner/Cliff Robertson masterpiece 'Love Has Many Faces'. I told an old B'way chorus friend about this sensation of an afternoon of watching ancient TV or movies with the curtains closed, and he said "Oh yeah. That's some of the best dissipation I've ever heard of..." I could never resist Angie Dickinson as Pepper, esp. that episode with Patty Duke as the hooker and Patricia Barry as her histrionic madame, Mrs. Fontaine; and also when Burt's song for his wife 'The Look of Love' would come on, no, can't resist such 'pure LA' stuff.

Thanks, Richard, and belatedly, bart, too. Yes, 'Follies' is pretty great, but I rather liked Yvonne DeCarlo anyway, all those old B-list ladies out there, plus a real OLD showgirl (Ethel Shutta), and Dorothy Collins proving, to great surprise, that she was definitely A-list. I have never seen another production myself. Simon G.--if you happen to read any of this, I'd like to hear something about the scores for that genre of London musical you were talking about that is something of a recent phenomenon. You said they were these massive entertainments that had starting appearing in London in the last 10 (?) years or so that were pretty hokey, as I recall. Are they ever imported, or just purely for a London demographic? Also, Mashinka and leonid, if you ever attend musical theater in London. Are the Lloyd Webber spectacles still a big draw and revived frequently? I'm definitely not a fan, but obviously millions are. Was just wondering if this London-generic form ever had a good song, or if they all sounded pretty much prefab. I tend to think most B'way scores have a particular sound, with too many climaxes and fake excitement all over the place, all those things that have that 'too much Broadway electricity going on' sound.

I like to revive our old thread here when I have caught up with some new things, and the Tonys are coming up, I believe I saw, but I don't think I have heard any of the new scores, and haven't been to a show for a couple of years. Anyway, just checked out of NYPL the CD's of In the Heights and Billy Elliott, the Tony winners for Best Musical of 2008 and 2009. 'In the Heights' also won Best Score, but 'Billy Elliott' lost that one to 'Next to Normal', which I'll also get to listen to in a few weeks. I've listened all the way through to 'Billy Eiliott', with music by Elton John, and I suppose it sounds condescending to say it's 'serviceable', as Miss Jean Brodie said of 'chyrysanthemums, such suh-viceable flowahs...', but that's the best I can do. Is he ever going to be a Great Master? I thought I was going to say yes, he already was with 'Pinball Wizard', but The Who wrote that, and Elton just sang it (I never mentioned the Who's score of 'TOMMY' here, and that I love, and the movie is super, I even own it). There's even this rather insipid song called 'Merry Christmas, Maggie Thatcher', which seems a little reached-for to me. There's also a song called 'The Letter' which may be famous itself, or which may sound just like some other song that's famous, I think that's the one that's supposed to be the 'important song', though, because they reprise it. The lyrics are by Lee Hall, who wrote the original screenplay. I remember some BTers seeing 'Billy Elliott' and raving over the dancing, because that's the story, as it had been in the original film, which I've also never seen (any thoughts on the film?). Would like to hear more about this show and if you enjoyed the score. I really didn't think it was at all bad, just sort of second-hand and not very inspired. What I've heard of 'In the Heights' is a different thing, though, even though I haven't heard both discs yet. Yes, this is the kind of 'new, fresh blood' that B'way is always going to need in some form from time to time. I liked all of the few tracks I've listened to thus far, and I'm crazy about Caribbean music, meringue, salsa, reggae, Cuban, all of it. It's great to hear this sound on B'way, and I'd like to see the show. Miranda's music is FINE. I spend so much time at Washington Heights in the summer I guess I didn't think about going to a show about it. Sidwich (and anybody else), have you seen any of these shows in the last few years, or heard any first-hand reports of them? I also completely missed that there was a B'way version of 9 to 5, with Dolly Parton and others putting together a big garish thing. Well, I saw it lasted 4 months though. Will say more about the Miranda score (they were doing a little bit of the dancing in the 2008 Macy's Parade on the street that I saw, but you can't tell much from that) when I have listened to the whole album.

I definitely think that if these parents were not yet fully aware that they have slipped into national disfavour, that they are by now. Oh lord yes, and they will mend their ways, if not, I suspect they will turn themselves in voluntarily to the asylum or jail, whichever is closer. Basically agree with dirac on most of this.

I hold Beyonce accountable, she has even nearly corrupted my own unimpeachable morals in public, I think she's so gorgeous I can't keep my eyes off her (yes, ME!), but it's probably no worse than some of the reactions that are gotten from some of the public relations people covertly working for the Simon Cowell proteges...

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/15/arts/mus...?ref=obituaries miliosr, do you think she might also have played the old openings to As the World Turns and Love of Life? (and possibly some others I don't remember as well). The former used to have a 2-octave or so ascending D Major scale on the organ, although I don't know how long that lasted, or even if it ever disappeared (probably.) The opening of 'Love of Life' was this rather ridiculous Diminished 7th chord which resolved immediately into a C Major theme. Secret Storm always had the Brahms, that's all i can remember now. Fascinating story, and yet another long-lived lady of the week.

Yes, of course, but there are 'stage mamas and daddies' of all kinds, who can stop them? Mamma Rose sent two kids to stardom, and one of 'em for strippin'...I've never been sure whether Mamma Rose was an unfit mother or not . Sure, there's lots of showing off, and I'd bet there are already some little boy dancers like the girls, not in shorts so much, but maybe doing little Elvis imitations, etc., but I just don't think I have the energy to Google for that...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sPoFq4Ljy4g...feature=related Here's Little Hercules at 15, he looks fine to me. I think that more than anything else, this stuff reminds me of sports coaching of young athletes, to the detriment of the rest of their development. Those extremely disciplined regimens of gymnasts, etc., seem pretty hard to take. I'd think a parallel to the girls raunchy dance would be pre-pubescent boys doing some bumping and grinding too, not so much bodybuilding. Although this little child bodybuilder is not like anything I've seen.

One thing that renders it somewhat benign to me, as opposed to Jon-Benet Ramsey, is that it's a big GROUP of kids, and they even probably think of themselves as being 'hot little numbers acting naughty', but they at least are not being exploited as some 'perfect little princess/goddess' all by herself the way Jon-Benet was. That is one of the saddest cases I know of, and it's still not really clear; maybe the worst thing is that there's that single clip, and her murder almost doesn't seem to come across as much as does the case that followed it. The parents, I'm still not at all clear whether they were guilty or not, always seemed far less grief-stricken than they were concerned about themselves. This may sound strange, but it's as though the whole matter had very little to do with the little victim herself, I could never get a grasp of who she was, who she had been; she has always come across to me as a kind of phantom, as though she only really ever existed in that clip. These girls probably ought not to be doing this, but I was just remembering an idiot male cousin of mine, who was about as masculine as you could get most of the time (pecan fights and rock fights mostly), who used to put on his sister's skirt and imitate her in her dance concert singing 'I'm a Flirt'. Lord know, nothing would damage him till he got into drug trouble, and he did. I don't know, these girls seemed so healthy to me, and since it was a BUNCH of parents involved, that doesn't seem quite as creepy and scary as that insular nightmare of the Ramseys.

I agree, but she was even younger, wasn't she? Maybe not, I thought she was more like 5 or 6, but that's been a good while.

I expected to be as offended as the rest of you, but really hated only the costumes, which were a new level of ugliness. I just thought the kids were cute and looked as though they were really enjoying it, having fun even though it was just trash. I don't see any long-term dangers here, and it is true that pop culture is all hypersexual by now.

Plus that big horse they parade across the stage (or used to) in 'The Barber of Seville'. I remember that more than anything else about the show, I thought it was such a hoot! It's important to be able to count on at least one place to overdo. And the Met can be trusted in this respect. I mean, who else can really be counted on to deliver an 'Aida' that is gigantic enough? Fortunately, James Levine's genius has made us so we can have it both ways at the Met, with ravishing sound as well as outsize production. Of all the Establishment institutions I can think of in the U.S., the Met gives most bang for the buck.

Really just a biological sport. The 101-year-old dancing is amazing, and has a real charm and grace to it, and the one from just a few weeks ago is so well-spoken, not a stammer anywhere in it.

Those two clips are sensational. I finally feel as though I've seen what was unique about Alonso, the Odile is incredible. 'Pulled up and centred', YES. And once I worked with a ballet mistress who said 'I love Alonso because she knew always how to get center stage', which I wasn't sure she was really supposed to say explicitly. But yes, if you center yourself, that would be the secret to getting center stage--it's not a matter of pushing ahead or anybody.