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Last night was a performance of Don Quixote by Boston Ballet at the Opera House. They had a sale a while ago for half priced tickets and since it was a good deal, we decided to go. I haven’t been to a ballet since going to Dracula many years ago. I guess it’s just not my favorite form are art. I can appreciate the dancing but don’t see that it does much for the story. Although, at times, it was effective, most of it seemed to be isolated vignettes of dancing, not a coordinated piece. But that may be what they all are like, I don’t know.

I also noticed that, while the music was good, I’m really spoiled by Symphony Hall. Nothing can match those acoustics.

Overall, I enjoyed it and am glad I went, but I don’t think this is something I’d subscribe to. I’m far more interested in the ballet music than the ballet dancing, I guess.

Last night was the last of the year’s open rehearsals and, as outlined in a letter today, the last open rehearsal ever. Boo.

The program:

Beethoven: Symphony No. 1 in C, Opus 21

1. Adagio molto – Allegro con brio
2. Andante contabile con moto
3. Menuetto: Allegro molto e vivace
4. Adagio – Allegro molto vivace

Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy: Overture and Incidental Music to Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream

1. Overture
2. Scherzo
3. March of the Fairies
4. Song with Chorus (“You spotted snakes” Act II scene ii)
5. Intermezzo
6. Nocturne
7. Wedding March
8. Fanfare and Funeral March
9. A Dance of Clowns
10. Reprise of the Wedding March
11. Finale with Chorus (Act V)

This was an okay program but a bit hard to get excited about. The Beethoven was good if a bit lackluster. I didn’t really care for the Mendelssohn. I appreciated what they were doing but I’m not much a fan of spoken word to orchestral works although Claire Bloom did a good job. (Holy crap! She’s 81?!?!) When you do excerpts like this, it all seems a bit thrown together, and the text gets all disjointed. It’s not a cohesive piece in the way that, say, Peter and the Wolf is.

The chorus was sort of overkill too. Lots of people on stage and the maybe sang for … five minutes. Tops. Great experience for the kids, though.

It was good. Not great.

Went for a bike ride last … Saturday? I think. The plan was to about 50 miles or so. It was a nice day. From Lexington Center, I went to Concord via the airport then to Carlisle, stopping at Ferns for a brownie. MMmmm!

Heading back, I just got back onto the MInuteman outside of Lexington Center and heard (and felt) a ping! Great.  A broken spoke. I got off the bike and looked for it, but couldn’t find it. No broken spoke, but the rim was so out of true, it wouldn’t go around; I couldn’t open the brakes enough for it to pass. I had to take out the brake cable from the housing to allow the brake to open enough for the wheel to go around.

I got to Lexington Center and there was a mobile bike repair at the depot, so I stopped to ask for an Allen key to open the brakes (I didn’t have my tools! D’oh!). He asked if I wanted him to tighten up the spoke just to get home, so I said sure. We put it up on the stand, but couldn’t find any broken spoke, but there was a loose one. So we figured it had just unseated or something. So he started tightening and we say this:

It’s a broken hub. Damn.

(The red arrow points to the broken bit. The blue line is where there should be a spoke.)

So, pedaling home at 10 mph with no rear brake. Luckily, I have a spare rear wheel from a previous set I crashed with and damaged the front wheel. I saved the back and have been using it on my trainer. Time to put it back on, I guess.

Last night was the last concert in my Tuesday night series at the BSO.

It was fantastic! Best in quite some time.

The program:

BACH : Concerto in D Minor for Violin, Strings and Continuo, BWV 1052

• Allegro
• Adagio
• Allegro

LUTOSLAWSKI : “Musique Funebre” for String Orchestra [1] [2]

• I. Prologue
• II. Metamorphoses
• III Spogee
• IV. Epilogue

BEETHOVEN : Symphony No. 4 in B-Flat, Opus 60

• Adagio-Allegro vivace
• Adagio
• Allegro vivace
• Allegro ma nontroppo

The guess conductor and soloist was Leonidas Kavakos who did a spectacular job. He looked like a hipster with long, flowing black hair, funky glasses, and a black Nehru-style jacket.

I wanted to see this concert because he was both conducting and playing as soloist at the same time and I’d never seen that, although I read that it used to be common in Mozart’s time. What I didn’t realize was that the piece was for string orchestra which really made it sort of a very large ensemble rather than a full orchestra. This isn’t one of my favorite pieces, it sounds too much like practicing scales at rehearsal for me. Still, excellent.

The second piece started as a dirge, but turned out to be fascinating. I want it played at my funeral! I’m not sure the audience cared all that much for the piece, but what was remarkable was that Kavakos was able to control the BSO audience, one of the most tubercular anywhere, keeping them pin-drop quiet. Amazing.

The final piece was Beethoven’s 4th, which he conducted totally without music with the second movement conducted without baton (he had the first cellist hold it for him as he had no stand). His conducting style was unusual and very expressive. Very fun to watch. I’m unsure what his reception was from the orchestra, it was kind of hard to tell.  The audience didn’t really care for the first two pieces but warmed to the third.

This will be simulcast by WCRB on 99.5 FM and on the Internet  on Saturday. Listen if you can.

I liked it so much, I’m going back on Friday.

Also … here’s a 12-year-old video of Leonidas Kavakos playing one of my favorite pieces, Sibelius Violin Concerto. And here is as he looks today, conducting Brahms No. 1.

Went to the Baby Bruins game last Sunday with a couple of friends finishing off the rest of my flex tickets for the year.

Providence won 2-1 in a shoot out over the Portland Pirates. It was a good game even though the seats weren’t the best. We took a couple of friends and had sliders and beer at Harry’s before the game.

Providence have been working the hard sell on next year’s flex tickets, but it really depends on what the T is going to do with fares and schedules. If they cancel weekend service, that’s it for getting to Providence, there just won’t be any way to get there on the weekends. Businesses like the Bruins and the rest of Providence need to step up and tell the T this will kill their businesses.

Last night was a BSO rehearsal night.

I’ve been really lax in putting in shows I’ve been to, but I’ll get them filled in at some point. I’ve got about five concerts, six books and a play or two to write about.

But last night was quite good. Guest conductor Juraj Valčuha from Slovakia really put the orchestra through its paces. I’ve never seen anyone work on little parts of the program so much. Usually, it’s more of a dress rehearsal, but he went right up to the 10:00 limit. He’s sooo young! He looks like someone who should really be out playing kickball. But he’s also very, very good.

The program:

Zoltán Kodály

• Dances of Galánta [1] [2]

Antonin Dvořák

• Violin Concerto in A minor, Opus 53

•  Allegro ma non troppo
• Adagio ma non troppo
• Allegro giocoso, ma non troppo

Felix Mendelssohn-Barthody

• Symphony No. 3 in A minor, Opus 56, Scottish

• Introduction and Allegro agitato
• Scherzo assai vivace
• Adagio cantabile
• Allegro guerriero and Finale maestoso

All three pieces were spectacular. The second and third pieces must be particularly difficult to play as I saw the string bows move in ways I’ve never seen before.

The guest soloist for the concerto was Frank Peter Zimmerman who we saw last year. Always good and seemed to really like this piece. It was unusual, I think, because the soloist never had a solo. There were only one or to very small phrases where the violin was playing unaccompanied, otherwise someone in the orchestra was always playing an underlying theme.

These weren’t three of my favorite composers, but I’ll have to rethink that after last night.

Four new Kiva loans. I’ve been remiss and let my dividends pile up without reinvesting. So, four more loans, numbers 35 thru 38.

Harutyn in Armenia who will use $1800 to buy water valves, pitchforks and other products to resell.

Alpaquitas -26 Group in Bolivia will use $3000 to buy supplies to knit wool sweaters.

Los Girasoles De Cuaji Group in Mexico will use $2500 to buy supplies for a general store, among other things.

Andres Roberto Palomino Alvarez in Peru will use $750 to buy a freezer to store ice cream for sale.

Andres Roberto Palomino Alvarez was assigned to the Older Borrowers group and the rest were assigned to the GLBT group.

One of my loans is delinquent, but not by much and I expect it to be updated shortly.

You can get a free loan for a short time! Give it a try!

The BSO has had some terrible luck with guests canceling for health reasons. Tuesday’s concert was supposed to have Riccardo Chailly conduct, but he withdrew. He withdrew quite a while ago and so they were able to find a guest to replace him for part of the concert, but the interesting bit is that the entire program before intermission was conductorless.

The program:

• Copland: Fanfare for the Common Man
• Tomasi: “Good Friday Procession” from “Fanfares Liturgiques”
• Richard Strauss: Serenade in e-flat for thirteen wind instruments, opus 7
• Tchaikovsky: Serenade in C for strings, opus 48
• Stravinsky: “Le Sacre du Printemps” Pictures from a pagan Russia (Rite of Spring)

There were four pieces, highlighting three sections of the orchestra. The brass section did the Copland and Tomasi; woodwinds did Straus; and strings did Tchaikovsky. The strings did their piece standing up, which really added an interesting dynamic to the piece. The whole thing was fantastic. Each piece was introduced by a member of the section, two of whom (brass and reeds) I’ve heard speak before. Something really different and just expertly done.

I’ve never heard the Rite of Spring live and was one of the two main reasons for getting the Tuesday series (the other reason being Yo-Yo Ma). Rite of Spring is one of those pieces that changed everything. Even though, initially, it wasn’t well received, it was tremendously influential all the music that followed. Everything in it was new. It’s also one of my most favorite pieces ever.

After intermission, one of the largest orchestras I’ve ever seen at Symphony Hall was under the direction of Giancarlo Guerrero of Costa Rica. His style was captivating, and the orchestra really responded.

Then, five or six minutes into the piece. the fire alarm went off, the hall was evacuated, and the concert was canceled. At first I think everyone thought it might be a cell phone until the strobes came on, then the automated announcement.The conductor turned around with a priceless WTF look in his face. The orchestra master was trying to find where the noise was coming from until he saw the flashes, then the whole orchestra (and audience) waited to see if it was real or not. The announcement, I’m sure you now, says something like “if there is an alarm after this message, evacuate the floor”. It alarmed. We evacuated. It was a false alarm, but apparently the must, by law (they say) evacuate the building.

Still, I suppose it’s better than burning to death.

Maybe.

This year is the year of re-investment. I spent 2011 contributing new money, now it’s time to keep that money in the system and reloan it as it becomes available.

This time, five new loans this time. This will bring me up to 34 loans. The previous loans are all being repaid on time or ahead of time. Yay!

The loans this time are:

Donato of La Paz, Bolivia.

A loan of $1,100 helps Donato to buy fabric for making women’s skirts. His wife works making women’s skirts. she will use it to acquire at wholesale the fabric that is her raw material.


 

Pum of Takhmao, Cambodia.

A loan of $1,000 helps Pum to build a fence surrounding her house. The loan will be used to build a fence surrounding her house to protect it from any losses and make it a safe place to live.


 

María Leticia Delgado Anchundia of Montecristi, Ecuador

A loan of $1,100 helps buy plastic products and containers for resale to farmers in the countryside.


 

Yasser from Dahieh, Lebanon

A loan of $1,500 helps Yasser to increase his business merchandise with new products with special offers for his grocery store.


 

Danny Alredo from Ventanas, Ecuador

A loan of $1,000 helps Danny Alfredo to purchase agricultural inputs, fertilizers, seeds, urea to sow corn.


 

All loans were attributed to the GLBT team.

CLICK HERE to join me giving Kiva loans!

Last night was the play God of Carnage at the Huntington Theatre. It was excellent!

Two couples, Annette and Alan Raleigh and Michael and Veronica Novak, meet in the Novak’s severely upscale Brooklyn home to discuss an earlier playground incident where the Raleigh’s 11-year-old son Benjamin hit the Novak’s 11-year-old son Henry in the face with a stick, breaking two front teeth. It begins with two ostensibly adult couples discussing the incident but quickly devolves when, with each passing point, each couple becomes more and more infantile.

It’s very funny with shifting alliances throughout the play: Novaks v. Raleighs, Men v. Women, and mixed. Even though these couples are in the same socio-economic class, they are worlds apart, even from each other and these differences are laid bare. The air of civility quickly thins and all of their 11-year-olds show through.

It’s very visual and slapstick at points, even farcical. At each step along the way, the couples look like they might pull back from the brink of total tit-for-tat, yet they take breath and take one more step lower on the low road. It takes a slice normal and follows it into the theatre of the absurd.

This is really worth seeing. It’s just starting, so you have time.

A better summary than I could come up with.

Apparently, it’s also going to be a film by Roman Polanski.

After a long hiatus, last night was the resumption of BSO concerts with a Wednesday open rehearsal. The program was:

Joseph Haydn: Symphony No. 88 in G

• Adagio – Allegro
• Largo
• Menuetto: Allegretto
• Finale: Allegro con spirito

Mark-Anthony Turnage: From the Wreckage, Concerto for trumpet and orchestra

• Part 1
• Part 2
• Part 3

Richard Strauss: Also Sprach Zarathustra

• [I] [II] [III] [IV]

This was a terrific concert for many reasons, the first of which is probably that it’s the first one in nearly two months. This is the first time I’ve gotten to see Lehninger conduct. He’s the young one from Brazil, picked by Levine, who stepped in at the last minute to take over for him after Levine’s disastrous (and final) rehearsal last season. He’s got great command of the orchestra, is fun to watch and has great hair.

The Haydn piece was fun and safe. One of his “Paris” symphonies, it’s quite dynamic and pleasant to listen to.

The blue hairs are really going to hate the Turnage piece. It’s loud and heavily jazz inspired. I quite liked it, and I think it would grow on me more over time. Even though it’s a single piece, it’s divided roughly into thirds with the soloist playing flugelhorn then trumpet then piccolo trumpet. I liked the second part particularly. One of the most compelling features of the piece is that four percussionists are situated throughout the orchestra (rather than just in the battery) which produced a really awesome stereo effect during the piece. Excellent.

Everyone is familiar with the opening of Also Sprach Zarathustra, but I’m not sure I’ve ever really listened to the thing the whole way through. There’s a lot there, going from pleasant to haunting with lots of interplay between the different orchestra sections.

It’s also the first time I’ve heard the organ at Symphony Hall, something I’ve been hoping for for quite some time. Magnificent.

I see from my portfolio page, that I joined Kiva one year ago Monday. So that’s 29 loans in one year. To be quite honest, I’m not sure what my goal was. Twenty four I think, two per month. I’m a bit ahead of that, apparently. I think that’s probably all the new money, at least for a while, and will be making loans from re-investments although I’ll probably add a bit if it’s just a small amount to round it up to a $25 multiple.

As it’s Thanksgiving and having become involved in the Occupy movement, all of this round of loans go to groups because together, we can create a new and better world.  All loans were assigned to a new “The 99%” group. There are only 5 other members and It doesn’t look very active (and they could use a good icon designer), but it seems to me that the idea of #Occupy and The 99% are hand-in-glove with those of Kiva. I won’t say it’s all about ending poverty, but certainly a good portion of it is, and it’s a problem that is not being addressed by the large multinational banks and corporations. So it’s up to the 99% to take matters into our own hands.

New loans

There are four new loans, bringing my total to 29 loans so far.These are my first loans to Chile and Indonesia, my second to Paraguay and third to Cambodia. My ratio is now roughly 70% men and 30% women and still heavily weighted in agriculture and food. The new loans are:

Jepopyhy Group

CHACO, Paraguay
Food | Grocery Store

18 women from Chaco have joined together with the goal of making a better income by working together. They are very hard-working and enterprising women who fight every day to give their families the best. They are currently in their first cycle in the female entrepreneurs’ programme with Fundación.

One of these woman is Mrs. Eva. She sells basic staples such as: pasta, rice, and vegetables. With this store, she makes an income to support her family. She wants to have a large business one day. She is requesting this loan to purchase pasta, rice, vegetables, and other products so that she can stock up and cover her customers’ demand.

Naga Tegal Wangi Group

Melaya, Bali, Indonesia
Agriculture | Pigs

The Naga Tegal Wangi group are to receive their first loan from Kiva partner MUK. The name of the group is inspired by the dragon fruit, which are plentiful in this village (Naga means Dragon, Tegal means Garden and Wangi means Smell Good). The members hope that the group will be strong like a dragon and successful, so “smell good” and inspire other people.

Ni Made, 30, is head of the group. She has three children, all of whom are still in school. Her husband works as a chilli farmer on his own land. To support the household, Ni Made helps her husband in the garden and runs a pig business from her home. She already has two sows and they are both pregnant. This loan will be used to buy feed for the sows and the piglets that will be born soon. Ni Made has a plan to be a piglet seller. She hopes that with the support of MUK, the business will continue to grow and that she will be able to help her husband support their children’s education for a better future.

Srey’s Group

Battambang province, Thmor Koul district, Cambodia
Agriculture | Farming

Srey is a 41-year-old farmer in a rural area of Thmor Koul district, where the typical business is rice farming. She has two children and her oldest daughter works at the rice field while her youngest son is still in school. She has been farming on her farmland for almost 20 years to make a living. She now earns $5 per day to feed her family, and she has less than $1.50 for her savings.

Srey leads a group of two female members. She and her group member have been with VisionFund for two loan cycles and completely repaid the last loan with VisionFund. After her first loan, she can afford enough food for her family and send her son to school. She is now requesting another loan. She will use this loan to buy fertilizer for her farmland and use some to renovate her house.

With this loan, she hopes to increase her crop yield and sell for a good price so as to set aside some savings for future needs and keep her son in school.

Sueños Cordilleranos Group

Machalí, Chile
Food | Food Production/Sales

The “Sueños cordilleranos” Communal Bank is comprised of 20 entrepreneurs who work in different areas. This includes (amongst other things) the preparation of fast food and cakes, and the sale of clothes. All of the entrepreneurs live in the town of Machalí.

María Fernanda is a member of the Communal Bank. In the photograph she is the lady on the first, from left to right. She has short hair and is wearing a check shirt. She prepares snack foods including roast chicken, pies, homemade bread, tamales (a Native American dish) and “pasteles de choclo” a typical corn dish. All the food is prepared from home as she has a clay oven (wood burner).

She has worked in this area for 15 years. She lives in a rural area in the countryside, which has enabled her to plant vegetables – beans and corn amongst other things – on her own land, and she harvests her crops to use them to prepare her dishes.

She buys ingredients such as flour and meat from a wholesaler located in Rancagua city.

With the loan she will buy a bread maker.

Her ambition is to continue working and to set up suitable, more spacious premises to attend to her customers.

María Fernanda lives with her husband and 19 year old son who is studying a degree in Mining Engineering. Her dream is that her son will become a professional.

She is very happy and grateful for the support offered by “Fondo Esperanza” as it has enabled her to invest in her business. She also enjoys the meetings held at the Communal Bank as the training has taught her to better distribute her income. She says she has also made friends with some members of the group in which there is confidence and respect.

Machalí is a town in the central part of Chile, located in the Libertador Bernardo O´Higgins region. The “El Teniente”, the largest subterranean copper mine in the world, can be found here. Campamento Sewell is located at the entrance to the mine, declared a “Zona Típica” (Typical Zone as decreed by the National Monuments Council of Chile), Cultural Heritage Tourism and World Heritage site due to its unique architecture and construction unique to its location and structure.

Outstanding loans

All outstanding loans are current or paid back. Hurray! It’s getting a bit too long to list in a post, but you can see the outstanding portfolio here.

Join me in trying to make the world just a little bit better.

I’m behind again.

Last week (or was it two weeks ago?) I went to see Moby Dick, a one-man play at the Jackie Liebergott Black Box at the Paramount Center, the last of my ArtsEmerson subscription. It was performed by Conor Lovett from Gare St. Lazare Players Ireland.

It’s an interesting piece. I’m as familiar with the book but have never read it. That is, I know the plot, most of the subtext, much of the meandering treatises of whale hunting and biology, and the ruminations on religion.

Connor appears on stage, dressed in black, accompanied occasionally by a violinist and tells the tale as Ishmael, the lone survivor of the doomed Pequod beginning with his enlistment on the ship in Nantucket to his rescue by the Rachel.

It takes some time to get into the way the piece works, but at points throughout the performance, you really do find yourself lost in the story. Some of it is a bit awkward, but for the most part it works. The theatre was deathly quiet for the most part except when some idiot, even in 2011, left his pager on. Apparently “turn off your mobile devices” doesn’t apply to everyone.

The theatre itself is small, seating only 125, so it’s very intimate. Lovett connected eye-to-eye with many of the audience and seemed to be completely thrown off track whenever something untoward happened, like, late seating, someone running to the bathroom (it was one two-hour act with no intermission), a pager beeping, and so on. He skipped a beat before recovering, completely souring moment. At one point, someone either got clumsy or nodded off and dropped their program with a loud smack, and that distracted Lovett enough that I think he lost his place entirely. He repeated the opening of a line to himself about three times, then walked across the stage, exchanging places with the fiddle player who may have passed him the line, at which point he resumed. Very odd.

On the whole, I quite liked it but I’m not sure I’d want to see it again.

I’ve been putting most of my Occupy Wall Street / Occupy Boston thoughts on Facebook and probably will continue to do that, but for the two or three people who follow this blog, Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone magazine has a fantastic article that’s well worth reading.

In it he says:

Occupy Wall Street was always about something much bigger than a movement against big banks and modern finance. It’s about providing a forum for people to show how tired they are not just of Wall Street, but everything. This is a visceral, impassioned, deep-seated rejection of the entire direction of our society, a refusal to take even one more step forward into the shallow commercial abyss of phoniness, short-term calculation, withered idealism and intellectual bankruptcy that American mass society has become.

…

That, to me, is what Occupy Wall Street is addressing. People don’t know exactly what they want, but as one friend of mine put it, they know one thing: FUCK THIS SHIT! We want something different: a different life, with different values, or at least a chance at different values.

…

But now, I get it. People want to go someplace for at least five minutes where no one is trying to bleed you or sell you something. It may not be a real model for anything, but it’s at least a place where people are free to dream of some other way for human beings to get along, beyond auctioned “democracy,” tyrannical commerce and the bottom line.

Wicked : The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West  by Gregory Maguire

[website] [MBLN] [amazon] [B&N]

After seeing the play, I wanted to read the book. To read the book, I had to read what it was based on. All that in place, I was able to start the book. I enjoyed it a lot and it’s causing me to re-think my visceral dislike of fan fiction. But this both is and isn’t fan fiction. It’s true the the characters were all created by L. Frank Baum, but as Wizard of Oz is a children’s book, there is very little character development and while there’s an established milieu, the book’s universe is quite limited and, consequently, wide open for other (or, indeed, a first) interpretations. The main device in Wicked is to create the back story of all the characters in Wizard of Oz: the witch, Glinda, the Lion, everyone, really, except Dorothy who is still treated somewhat superficially.

This is certainly an adult book, so don’t be reading it to the kids; there are lots of sexy times. Being a play, they naturally had to leave out a lot of the book, but they did capture most of the main threads. Elphaba (Maguire created a name for the witch who was never named in the original – the name comes from L Frank Baum’s initials – L F B “Elphaba”), is born to a preacher and frisky housewife but is later revealed to not be the husband’s child. She’s raised, along with her sister, in very poor parts of Oz ministering to the underclass. This, among other things, creates a sense of moral outrage in Elphaba that continues throughout her life.

It’s a fascinating examination of the nature of evil. Is the “wicked witch” really evil, or has she run afoul of the established power structure which unleashes its power (and media) against her, including using an innocent (Dorothy) to accomplish its goal. Elphaba’s sister, the Wicked Witch of the East, is a religious zealot and despotic ruler of Munchkinland whose death is not mourned by anyone but Elphaba, but even she realizes her rule was tyrannical. Elphaba ends up ruling the West by accident, and mostly by actions directed by the Wizard.

Elphaba is certainly one who eventually becomes jaded and bitter at, not so much how life has treated her, but at the injustice in the not-quite-so-wonderful world. One of the points notably missing in the play is the whole animals vs. Animals sub-plot and the creation of cowardly lion which was one of the first things that set Elphaba on her path to social and civil activism.

I doubt that I’ll continue with the series, but this is quite definitely worth the read.

I spent nearly he whole afternoon talking one-on-one with Tom Hayden and his friend Barbara. You never know who is going to stop by the info tent at Occupy Boston.

“I give people flashbacks wherever I go,” he said.

Extraordinary!

Wow. This was last Wednesday. For some reason, I hit “Save Draft” rather than “Publish.” So it’s a week late.

Wednesday was the first of the Wednesday Open Rehearsal dates and my third concert for the year. The program was Robert Schumann and Richard Strauss and featured Latvian violinist Gidon Kremer. Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos was conducting. The program was:

Schumann

• Violin Concerto in D minor [1] [2] [3]

Strauss

• Ein Heldenleben (A Heroic Life), Tone Poem, Opus 40 [1] [2] [3]

Raphael Frühbeck de Burgos  was excellent, as always. I always love seeing what people on stage wear in real life. Normally, of course, performers are in tuxes or something black and white. de Burgos looked like he was headed for Majorca. He actually looked like he’d be a lot of fun to hang around with sipping a sangria in the cabana,

The soloist was very good, but ultimately the Concerto was forgettable. I mean, it’s a good piece but more for its technical and academic aesthetic, not for any emotional impact. It’s not something you’d remember for a long time, especially in light of what came next.

The Strauss piece was astonishing. It was one of those pieces I hear maybe once a year that leaves you slack jawed when you hear it. (The last one to do this was Bartok’s Miraculous Mandarin.) You can tell it’s really something when the orchestra stops playing and it takes a second for the audience to catch its breath before applauding.

The piece is probably the best I’ve ever heard that shows off the absolute perfect acoustics of Symphony Hall, widely acknowledges to be one of the six best concert halls in the world.

[gutenberg] [munsey's]

Having recently seen Wicked and having been intrigued by the plot, I decided to read the book the play was based on. Then I realized I’ve never actually read the original book that Wicked was based on. So I did.

It’s clearly a children’s book, as the introduction written by L. Frank Baum in 1900 makes clear:

“… Modern education includes morality; therefore the modern child seeks only entertainment in its woder talkes and gladly dispenses with all disagreeable incident.

“Having this thought in mind, the story of ‘The Wonderful Wizard of Oz’ was written solely to pleasure children of today. It aspires to being a modernized fairy tale, in which the wonderment and joy are retained and the heart-aches and nightmares are left out.”

Given today’s sensibilities, when everything must have a meaning, it’s hard to accept that a book for children is just a book, existing for nothing but pure entertainment. Even Dr. Seuss has lessons. But let’s just take it as read. It’s a children’s book in which good is good and bad is bad, there are no ulterior motives, and very little grey.

There’s a lot of good story here, even if the character development you’d expect in an adult book is missing. After watching the movie many, many (many) times, it’s striking just how different the book is from the movie. What’s really surprising is just how little the witch is in the book. She shows up in Chapter 12 and is killed less than 20 pages later. (Sorry for the spoiler.)

But the basic premise of the story is the same: Dorothy is deposited by tornado (or “cyclone” in the book), her house lands on top of the Wicked Witch of the East whose shoes Glinda gives to Dorothy to protect her, sending her on a journey to Oz to learn how to get home. Along the way she meets the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodsman, and the Cowardly Lion. It’s interesting that the Scarecrow, who is in search of a brain, is the smartest of the bunch; the Tin Woodsman, desiring a heart, is the most caring and sacrificing; the Lion desirous of courage, the bravest.

Also interesting is the portrayal of the Gale’s farm. It’s not the fairly lavish (by farm standards) spread of the movie, but the far more accurate, basic homestead reminiscent of a Willa Cather novel. The house is one room, no barn is mentioned, and the “fruit cellar” of the movie is actually a tornado shelter, a basic hand-dug hole in the ground with a dirt top: a grave, in essence. Crawl in, pull the cover over and hope for the best.

Fabrications of the film are Miss Gultch, who doesn’t appear in the book at all, as well as the ending. The Wicked Witch of the West does not show up in Munchkinland or in Oz. While the Wizard is originally from somewhere in the Midwest, he does not appear as Prof. Marvel at all. The trip to Oz is an actual trip, not the result of fevered dreams. And, as there must be, several things left out of the movie that were in the book: the Witch’s dogs and bees, the Queen of teh Field Mice, and so on.

But overall, the book holds up well.

Last night was the first of the Saturday-D series and the second BSO concert of the year. It’s a little irritating that all these concerts are bunched the way they are with long stretches of nothing in between, but it is what it is.

Last night was an all Brahms program:

1. Piano Concerto No. 2 in B-Flat, Opus 83
   
• Allegro non troppo [1][2]
• Allegro appassionato [3]
• Andante [4][5]
• Allegro grazioso [6]
2. Symphony No. 3 in F, Opus 90
• Allegro con brio [1]
• Andante [2]
• Poco Allegretto [3]
• Allegro – Un poco sostenuto [4]

The guest pianist, Nicholas Angelich, was a last minute substitution as the scheduled artist, Yefim Bronfman, injured a finger and his doctor apparently ordered him to stay off it for a week. Angelich was excellent although, for some weird reason, the piano sounded a bit muffled to me. Maybe it was because of being surrounded by people who were over six feet, I don’t know. I have to say that, after last Tuesday, with the seat in the balcony, I think I might like that seat better. The sound is just as good (as are most seats at Symphony Hall) and I can see the orchestra way better. That those seats are 1/3 the price of the Saturday seats doesn’t hurt either, I guess.

But, as I say, Angelich was excellent, very expressive and emotive. The audience certainly made him feel welcome with an extended ovation at the end. Everyone recognizes how hard it is to step in at the last minute and to do such a superb job under those circumstances is remarkable and worthy of acclaim.

The second piece, Brahms’ Symphony #3 is a crowd favorite and the crowd was appreciative.  Kurt Masur did not look all that well, thin, drawn, a bit wobbly, and somewhat palsied. But he conducted with authority and subtlety and the orchestra responded with a fantastic rendition of the piece. He conducted without music and without baton. His hands were often shaking in a Parkinson’s type shake so I don’t know if he could have held a baton or not.  Regardless, he did a great job and got a very extended ovation as well.

This audience really doesn’t like difficult music; they are definitely a top 40 crowd. The difference between last night, when they hung around to laud Masur and last Tuesday when they couldn’t get to the coat check fast enough, even though the conductor was still introducing the orchestra soloists was marked.

A very enjoyable evening.

Thursday I went to see Curtains: The Musical Comedy Whodunit, a student production at The Boston Conservatory. As a student production, it was pretty good and better than some professional productions (I’m looking at you Lyric Stage). Like the major NEC concerts, this play must have been selected because it’s one of those that gets the most number of students on stage. There are 27 cast members in the program, not counting the orchestra and of those, 13 were listed and the rest were chorus. But, perhaps strangely, the sheer number of people rarely seemed to overwhelm the stage.

The plot, briefly, is about the production of a doomed play in which a cast member (and then several) is killed during rehearsal. Enter the detective, an aspiring actor, whose job it is to solve the crime, but spends most of his time reworking the play. The setting is Boston’s Colonial Theatre in 1959. As a story, it’s okay with that sort of “I’ve seen this a lot of times” feeling.

The voices and acting were  good with a few standouts. There were a couple members of the chorus who didn’t get the “what it means to be in the chorus” memo and were doing a sort of 42nd Street thing  (Cassie!!!), trying to stand out in the crowd. That was kind of distracting. Some of the costumes were not go great, particularly the wigs. But on the whole, very good.  A couple of the actors were outstanding. Michael Coup (’12) who played the mincing show director was great and the dancing of Emily Pynenberg (’14) who played Bambi was outstanding. Everyone else was good.

My number one complaint, though is the mics. Setting aside for the moment whether they should have been miced at all, they were wearing those sort of halo mics and either they weren’t placed right, or the needed wigs or something, but every one of them (particularly the men) looked like they had a third eye. Very off-putting. They also let the wires get away from them. You can’t really have a wire running down the back of your neck while you’re wearing a backless gown, or nothing but a pair of boxers.

Pretty good. Sold out for the rest of the run.