Category: opera Page 16 of 28

She’s Come Undone

On May 27, 2015

Photo by Dahlia Katz

There’s something strange, if marvellous, about seeing a character you think you know in a new light. Sure, your expectations are upset (who goes to the theater without a shred of them, really?) and the image you may’ve held in your mind’s eye might become woozy, if not outright shattered — but isn’t that a good thing? What’s presented before you in a live setting isn’t meant to conform to your specific worldview; it’s meant to challenge it, and offer new, sometimes surprising ways of looking at people and situations. This new presentation enlightens even as it may enrage, making both the micro and macro details of every day living both more understandable and inscrutable, asking us to open hearts and minds in an attempt to bridge our individual selves with a larger ‘self’ that connects all humans.

All of this comes to mind with M’dea Undone,a world premiere from Toronto-based Tapestry New Opera (with Scottish Opera), and currently on now through Friday. Essentially a re-telling of the Greek myth of Medea, the story (with libretto by Marjorie Chan and music by John Harris) has been stripped of its mystical elements and placed firmly in the present, with the titular Medea (Lauren Segal) now a kind of war bride (if not an officially-married one) to Jason (Peter Barrett), a decorated military figure and close advisor to the President (James McLean). Medea is a survivor of war atrocities, and is presented as having a Middle Eastern background, giving her and the work a contemporary feel that is greatly enhanced by the company’s choice of location, an old warehouse, open to the elements, at Toronto’s Evergreen Brickworks. As the sounds of traffic and birds co-mingle, the voices of the ensemble rise up, offering a sound that is both against and absolutely a part of nature. This isn’t theater as cold, rarified, high-art-museum stuff, but rather, a kind of a home, one that is welcoming, inclusive, and, it’s worth noting, interactive. (The audience and performers freely mingled in the yawning stage space following the evening’s final bows, something I wish would happen more at live cultural events. This kind of friendly, unpretentious, intimate interaction needs so much to be a larger part of the performing arts.)

Photo by Monika MacMillan

English director Tim Albery expertly makes use a set that spans the warehouse space and is composed of various staircases, bridges, and simple set pieces, allowing for a world that is at once exposed and vulnerable as it is cloistered and confined. These elements gain in importance as M’dea Undone unfolds through its tight 70-minute running time. The work is a gripping ride of tragedy, torment, and it must be said, terrifically great singing and acting. Jacqueline Woodley, as the President’s daughter Dahlia (Glauce in the Greek myth) expertly twists her pretty soprano tone into a sneering, squealing expression of haughty entitlement, while McLean, as her father, veers between rumbling bonhomie and self-congratulations before moving to aching anguish. Peter Barrett, as Jason, offers a truly heartbreaking performance, his elastic tenor providing just the right amounts of tenderness, anger, outrage, and desperation, never indulging in one too long or veering into melodrama. Segal offers a towering portrayal of a woman wounded by love and war; her rich, luscious mezzo-soprano tone perfectly captures both the sensual allure of the character, with a wonderfully incisive reading of Harris’ jagged score that underlines and continually re-emphasizes the character’s inherent humanity.

It’s this quality that makes one re-think the character of Medea herself. I’ve always liked and been drawn to the mystical elements of the character — a kind of Greek-mythological Stevie-Nicks-type, casting spells and spouting incantations — but it’s the woman beneath the sparkling veils (literal or figurative) that makes M’dea Undone so special. There have been many great Medeas to have graced the stage (Diana Rigg, Helen McCrory, Seana McKenna) and all of them offer a special take on the damaged woman of Euripides’ great tragedy. Tapestry’s work continues this tradition, but forces audiences to see past the sorceress elements; while they are certainly central to her character, M’dea Undone asks us to consider what power the character might have if she was stripped down entirely, robbed of her spirituality, robbed of her country, robbed of her culture, and ultimately, the man she loves. What would she do? As the New York Times’ Vincent Canby noted in 1994, “(t)o play her mostly as victim is to humble one of world literature’s most titanic creations.” No kidding.

Photo by Dahlia Katz

It’s good Tapestry doesn’t fall into this trap — Medea here is certainly ill-treated but she’s hardly a victim. And though the way she chooses to exercise her power is horrific, there is something horribly, disconcertingly human about it. We recognize her in a chilling way, and we know the way things will inevitably end. But, knowing the ending in no way diminishes the overall power of her choice, or of the work itself. Instead, what we are left with is an unsettling portrait of damaged people in damaging circumstances, grappling with issues of love and betrayal. As with many Tapestry productions, M’dea Undone gracefully push the boundaries of the live opera experience into new, fresh territory. It may not always be a comfortable ride, but it’s one well worth taking.

A Meaty Feast

By Catherine Kustanczy

On February 1, 2015

In classical, music, opera, writing

Until lastnight, I’d only been rendered speechless precisely once at an opera’s end — the Metropolitan Opera’s 2013 production of Parsifal. But a second moment has been added to the list, thanks to the Canadian Opera Company’s production of Die Walkure, which opened last night at the Four Seasons Centre For The Performing Arts in Toronto.

As the audience madly applauded and shouts of “Bravo!” rang through the hall, I kept my hands on my cheeks, silent, unwilling to move or talk, scared that if I did, some kind of spell would be broken that might render forth a waterfall of tears. It’s impossible to verbalize the divine, and that’s precisely what this production is.

Wagner’s music requires the kind of patience and attention that comes with maturity, and, in my case, living through harsh, painful, and difficult things. My love of German opera seems to have blossomed once I got past a certain age, lived through some horrors, and began to realize that not all things that are hummable are necessarily good things, and not all things non-hummable are bad. Sometimes you just want cake, and that’s fine, but sometimes you want steak — and the Canadian Opera Company serves up a rare and bloody kobe with their Walkure. I relished every single bite.

It’s not like I’ve not seen other Wagner works, by the way; past Canadian Opera Company productions of Die fliegende Holländer (The Flying Dutchman) and Tristan ind Isolde were beautiful, remarkable, haunting — but I could talk at the end of them, clearly and easily express what I liked pretty much at the curtain’s close. I wasn’t terrified of running my eye makeup. But there’s something about Wagner’s Ring Cycle (and post-Ring) operas that is a thing apart — challenging, difficult even, but wholly beautiful, and… holy-gorgeous. I think that’s part of the point.

Part of what has helped me slip into my Wagner-love has been smart productions; opera cliches are, to me, great killers of enthusiasm. There may be those who shout and scream about “traditional” productions, but what does that even mean anymore? Wagner’s works are very much about ideas and emotions, and where and how (and why) the two meets — and those are things that stand outside of any specific Norse-like, Viking references. Please keep your boring cliches. Give me something to sink my fangs into. Give me steak.

Atom Egoyan’s meaty production is deeply respectful to the Walkure score while offering the right mix of challenge and beauty to the audience. You marvel, for instance, at the beauty of the eight Valkyries calling “Hojotoho!” but you’ll pause as you see them passing white body bags, one to the other, a curious collection of nameless, faceless heroes set to adorn the halls of Valhalla. There are many moments like this in the production, where the spectacular nature of the music is tempered by the tension (and frequent tragedy) of real drama. You’re being handed a steak knife; Egoyan expects you to do your own carving — and carve you’ll want to. Die Walkure contains a myriad of delicious visual morsels just waiting to be devoured.

Die Walkure is the originator of what is possibly the most famous and widely-known figure in opera; just in case you’re wondering where the metal-bra-and-horned-hat-lady comes from… that’s Brunnhilde. Her theme is the famous “Ride of the Valkyries” (reset for popular culture by Francis Ford Coppola in Apocalypse Now), a tune I kept mentally re-playing long after I’d left the Four Seasons Centre. The horned-lady visualization is, thankfully, not in Egoyan’s production, but has been replaced by a tight, low-cut black corset, wide flowing skirt, and long, flowing tresses. Brunnhilde (a magnificent Christine Goerke, making her role debut) is sexy, powerful, opinionated, a point very much underlined in this production, particularly in the moments between her and her father, Wotan (a deeply felt Johan Reuter), here wearing an eyepatch and layers of black. Here we see the powerful figure as less of a cliched Norse god than a Mad-Max-style pirate who’s emasculated by his wife, Fricka (a Queen Victoria-styled Janina Baechle), wracked by the guilt of abdicated parental responsibility, and haunted by questions around individual freedom.

With a set made up of tumbled-down lighting rigs, a split tree trunk, a paneled white background, white sheets, and mounds of earth, designer Michael Levine’s post-apocalyptic designs offered a psychologically penetrating look at the world of gods and humans, a place where motivates, relationships, and desires are messy, tangled, and complicated. The shadows on the upstage walls reflected the knotted, interwoven feelings, thoughts, and inner lives of the characters, reminiscent of a beautiful Sol LeWitt style visual. There is no order amidst the chaos, Egoyan seems to imply here, the only order is what we choose to impose: we are the gods, right here, right now. We choose the wrong partners, we defy authority figures who love us, we make stupid, bad decisions, we live to regret them, and we… go on.

We also experience passion, lust, obsession, and above it all, if we choose to let it in, a deep, abiding love — one rendered clearly and movingly in the opera’s final scene, with Brunnhilde lying encircled by torches of fire as her sister Valkyries turn and look back at her, sadly, and her own father who has doomed her, Wotan barely being able to acknowledge the very thing he has caused, literally and figuratively. The Ring Cycle is, once you look past the Norse mythological reference points, very much a story about family, and the dynamics and difficulties that live within any family unit. Wotan tries to please everyone, and ends up pleasing no one — least of all himself. He does, however, decide to protect his daughter, and it’s this careful shielding that underlines the authentic love that Die Walkure revolves around. The physical expression of that love is at once devastating and marvelous.

Canadian Opera Company Music Director Johannes Debus balances the piece’s fiery, intense drama of the score with slow moments that ooze poetry and deep feeling, leading the orchestra in a very precise reading of the score that propels the action forward while illuminating its tender intimacy. Egoyan’s smart direction (especially his keen blocking) gorgeously complement this score, showing the filmmaker’s deep understanding of both Wagner’s score and the value of relationships within the work. Further emphasizing this connectivity are the numerous stellar performances that seamlessly combine acting and singing into one compelling, frequently heartbreaking package.

This is what Wagner asks of you: to consider your choices, ideas, and perceptions, and see if they’re authentic to who and what you really are. One could argue all great art does this, but nowhere have I found that challenge more perfectly integrated of late, with an overall feeling of love and beauty, than in the current production of Die Walkure in Toronto. I loved the steak, COC, but I’m dying for more. I may come back for seconds.

This is Carcosa.

By Catherine Kustanczy

On March 10, 2014

In opera

In writing about Almost Human recently, I’ve found an avidly involved community of supporters online who happily, passionately exchange strong ideas and opinions; I think back, again, to TV-watching habits of the 80s and 90s (and even 2000s), and I wonder at how and why this shared community might influence the way TV culture is experienced. Of course I think it changes the viewing experience, but I am also a strong believer in putting the computer away, however briefly, and focusing.

It was hard to put everything away lastnight for the season finale of True Detective; a large part of me wanted to observe reactions of others in real time, even as I shared my own. But I found myself so entranced by the show’s attention to detail (a hallmark of its greatness, surely) and wanting to roll around in the swampy soup of ideas it presented, I put the tech aside and just watched, listened, felt. Having chosen to severely limit sharing my reactions online (and not read anyone else’s), I found myself with mixed feelings, questioning its strange if compelling mix of predictable suspense tropes, character development, and meta-dramatical elements. The extended scene of Rust (Matthew McConaughey) and Marty (Woody Harrelson) finding their way through the wilds of the Childress property made for terrifying, compelling television; each character became more and more entangled within the maze, mirroring the viewers’ “entanglement” with the immediate situation, and more widely, within the entire series. The deeper they got, the deeper we got; I became entranced, enchanted, utterly entangled, and didn’t want a way out.

Less a physical place and more a mental dwelling, we – us TD fans – fell into Carcosa, this wild, surreal enclosure that knows our deepest fears and vulnerabilities, a place that speaks in riddles but voices truth – not the beautiful poetic kind, mind you, but the ugly sort that, like the Fontenot video, we don’t want to watch but can’t turn away from.

This is what the best storytelling does: it drops you into an atmosphere of intense fear and suspense, slowly, skillfully guiding you through the deepest recesses of your life and imagination, to a place of wordless wonder and messy obsession. It’s a swampy dialectic energy – of light and dark, of isolation and community, of black stars and Yellow Kings, of innocence and experience, of water and land, of strangers and family, of the flat and the shapely – that powered the drama of True Detective and ultimately shaped its characters. Such energy also gave rise to the program’s fandom, for it was an energy we felt, and wanted to talk about, and share, and mull over. In compulsion to theory, we found community in exchange; in suspense for resolution, we found salvation in the process.

Nothing feels resolved in the True Detective world. To paraphrase Rust, there’s more of them out there. There’s more darkness, more evil, more loss; this isn’t over. Everything is a spiral. The stories continue. The finale’s crazy-bogeyman-of-the-Bayou cliches (the hoarder house; the incest; the slovenly appearance) were clever storytelling tropes meant to further the meta-dramatical aspect of the program: are you not entertained? Do you want more? Once upon a time… if you go into the woods today, you’re in for a big surprise…

We want the spirals; we need them, to cycle through them, to feel their sharp edges and dizzying curves. We need that, just as much as we need (and ultimately want) to go in the woods. We want the darkness. We want Carcosa. That’s unsettling – but so is imagination, and the compunction to create. I’m reminded here of something Nick Cave said in his “Secret Life Of The Love Song” lecture series years ago (emphasis mine):

Those songs that speak of love without having within in their lines an ache or a sigh are not love songs at all, but rather hate songs disguised as love songs, and are not to be trusted. These songs deny us our humanness and our God-given right to be sad and the air-waves are littered with them. The love song must resonate with the susurration of sorrow, the tintinnabulation of grief. The writer who refuses to explore the darker regions of the heart will never be able to write convincingly about the wonder, the magic and the joy of love for just as goodness cannot be trusted unless it has breathed the same air as evil – the enduring metaphor of Christ crucified between two criminals comes to mind here – so within the fabric of the love song, within its melody, its lyric, one must sense an acknowledgement of its capacity for suffering.

“Take off your mask,” Childress hissed at Rust as blood dripped from the detective’s gaping wound.

This demand exists in tandem with the program’s final scene of Rust and Marty together, escaping the hospital and contemplating the stars. Rust is rendered vulnerable at last, confessing that during his time in the woods, “I could feel my definitions fading... all I had to do was let go, man… I could still feel her love there… nothing but that love.”

Take off your mask: this is what the best art demands of us. Let go of your safety. Let go of your identity. Embrace your need for the story. Embrace your darkness, and gather around the light. We need to share tales. What offers comfort, if not permanent escape, is friendship – the light and warmth of connection with another equally scared, equally vulnerable human being. So long as we can see the stars, we will keep telling stories – to ourselves, for ourselves, with our friends near and far.

Life in the Poppies

By Catherine Kustanczy

On March 5, 2014

In music, opera, writing

Prince Igor is haunting.

Days after seeing the Met Opera’s luscious production, I’m still mulling its beautiful marriage of images, design, music, and performance. Though there’s nothing wrong with pure delight and pure entertainment — they make so much of the world go round — seeing the Borodin work did much more than provide an escape from every day mundanities. Thoughts of Ukraine filled my mind, along with more personal reflections on events this past fall; I found myself questioning my relationship with power, both personal and professional, and the role of ego in compromise and defeat. Prince Igor isn’t just beautiful to look at; it’s simultaneously intimate and epic, with resonance in both the inner and outer aspects of existence.

A large part of the opera’s power (as directed and re-imagined by its talented director/designer Dmitri Tcherniakov) is derived through its depiction of war. Though the opera is based on a medieval Russian folk tale involving Igor going off to fight (and he believes, conquer) the Polovtsians, and subsequently suffering a horrific defeat, Tcherniakov was very selective (make that laser-pointed-strategic) in his use of on and offstage bloodletting. He used a combination of contemporary black-and-white video (using many fast edits and long pans), as well as grand set pieces, costuming, and striking makeup to depict the horrors of war — the loss of life, and the loss of self too. In this Prince Igor, they are very much the same thing.

What I found myself mulling over into the wee hours this past Saturday evening was Igor’s sense of himself, his relationship with other people, and the ways his identity are forced to shift after enduring cataclysmic hardship. Lead bass baritone Ildar Abdrazakov is a thoroughly moving singer, and a very fine actor too; his expressive face, soft brown eyes, and bear-like physique reveal a man moving between identities, letting go of old ideas and comforts, shifting into far less safe, comfortable, places within himself. These changes aren’t fun or nice or the stuff of easy cliches; this is an Igor who is fallible, failing, heartbreakingly vulnerable, a man struggling with the chimera of ego that kept showing itself in various forms and fashions. He has to relinquish it entirely in order to rebuild, both literally and figuratively.

This transformation is hinted at through the wonder that is the Polovtsian dances, whose staging, in Tcherniakov’s assured hands, is nothing short of miraculous. Igor whirls around an immense, lush poppy field as human figures dance and undulate around him; it’s dreamy and poetic and earthy yet unearthly. The Met chorus are positioned in boxes close to the stage, allowing dancers to move about freely to the writhing, hypnotic, East-meets-West choreography of Itzik Galili and associate choreographer Elisabeth Gibiat. Igor’s face is one of delight and joy, as if he’s found refuge from the horrors of war and grandiose ambition. Yet we know it’s all an illusion; he’s hallucinating everything. It’s this knowledge that fuels the extraordinary power of the scene. How can something so beautiful be so far removed from reality? And why is reality so much harder and more hideous? Why can’t we stay in the poppy fields forever? Why can’t we whirl, Dervish-like, to the beautiful sounds and visions, forever and ever? It was fascinating to observe Igor’s wife, Yaroslavna (Oksana Dyka) being included in this scene, as if she represents a kind of authenticity and grounding he so desperately lacks. There’s a knowingness to her inclusion here, as if Tcherniakov wants to remind us of the power balances within intimate relationships, and to note how those balances translate in the wider world. To see a man of Abdrazakov’s physicality rendered so vulnerable before the wife whose advice he had earlier eschewed, is deeply moving and wildly important; even amidst the hallucination — or especially because of it — we see a more honest version of Igor that needs to show itself in the real world.

And it does, eventually show. You sense a deep transformation as Igor wanders, shell-shocked, through what was once his elegant, pristine palace in the final act, when it is a literal shell of its former self. He turns his back on the worshipful masses who herald his return, realizing worship isn’t what’s needed. He woke up, and in so doing, so did we. It’s precisely what his hubris hath wrought, this destruction. The very centrality of Igor’s mission — charging off to some distant victory you are so sure will be yours — has been destroyed; as such, so has Igor’s sense of identity. You can’t find yourself in something so far outside yourself, the production whispers, amidst its gloriously crashing choruses and pounding percussion; you can’t be inauthentic when the chips are down. It won’t work. Hell breaks loose. People die. A part of you dies. And somehow, in some horrifying way, that’s precisely how it should be.

If you get the chance to see Prince Igor either in-person at the Met or through its Live In HD series, go. You’ll mull relationships to power, ego, sacrifice and compromise. You’ll hear beautiful music. You’ll see some gorgeous/disturbing things. You won’t look at the news/your rulers/your lovers/your life the same way again. You will be haunted.

Home

By Catherine Kustanczy

On January 24, 2014

In opera, personal

Photo / my Flickr

Of all the challenges I faced this past autumn and winter, perhaps the biggest was trying to keep my cultural writing alive. That I let something go that meant (means) so much to me is troubling, and I’m hoping to amend that in a number of ways as 2014 unfolds.

Embracing opera in a new, far more powerful way than I have in the past, is the first step in this correction. While studying in New York, I found myself missing the Canadian Opera Company’s zesty experimental approach to an old medium, and its fulsome orchestral embrace of many beloved scores. Sure, the Met is great — but it’s not the same. It’s hard for me to have an honest emotional experience when I feel like I’m part of a capital “e” event; attending an opera at Lincoln Center sometimes always feels that way, to say nothing of the itinerant activities around performances. There’s something so big, so epic, so fraught with legend and the baggage of history, that actually sitting in the Met house proper opens up a world of doubt about whether production (and performance) choices are to move the audience, or merely impress us with illusions of artistic authenticity. (There was, refreshingly, a ton of artistry, authenticity, and heart in the Met production of Strauss’ Die frau ohne schatten last month, but that’s for another blog post. I’m still ruminating on it — something that’s never happened in my almost thirty years of Met-going experience. Surely it must mean… something? Hmmm.)

Despite the few things the COC’s produced that haven’t work for me (both Martha Clarke’s meta-theatrical vision of Mozart’s The Magic Flute from the early 1990s and a stilted, emotionally hollow production of Elektra in 2007, come to mind), some of the best theater I’ve ever experienced — particularly in the few years — has been from a seat in the Four Seasons Centre. From Christopher Alden’s deeply unsettling vision of Rigoletto in 2011 (a favorite production, having sat through many versions of it), to his wickedly smart, sexy 2012 production of Die Fledermaus, to the jaw-dropping beauty of Peter Sellars’ Tristan und Isolde, and the disturbing magic of Atom Egoyan’s Salome, I go to the COC to be inspired and challenged, disturbed and knocked off balance. Opera is more than pretty songs; it engages heart and brain at once, that understands how thinking, feeling, and being challenged need not be mutually exclusive from being entertained. Opera has become less of a diversion than an immersion, a whole-hearted embrace of something both larger than myself, and yet entirely of myself.

Photo / my Flickr

I grew up listening to opera; it was as much a part of my household as the music of ABBA, The Carpenters, the Bee Gees, and Queen. Luciano Pavarotti, Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Dean Martin, and Freddie Mercury were the voices of my childhood. “Saturday Afternoon At The Opera” was (and remains) a tradition. Naturally, I went through the predictable teenaged phase of kicking out, rolling eyes, plugging ears, and closing heart: “turn that shit off!” I found my mother’s opera obsession embarrassing and annoying. I wanted my rock and electronic music on the stereo (loud). The many operas I’d go to as a child and fall asleep halfway through out of youth and it being a school night, I fell asleep to out of sheer disgust and outright boredom. I’d heard it all, and I was no longer interested.

But when I moved to Dublin in my early 20s, I found myself missing the opera world terribly — missing the magic of the melody, surely, but missing the drama as well. I have always loved theater; I sought it out as a kid, even running into Atom Egoyan many years ago during a production of King Lear at the Bathurst Street Theatre. I’ve immersed myself in theater at various points throughout my life: as a writer, an actor, a behind-the-scenes person, a front-of-house person, a PR person, and now, a journalist. No matter where I’ve lived, I’ve always run to the theater, for community, familiarity, comfort, yes… but for being challenged, too.

Photo / my Flickr

And over the years, I’ve discovered the opera I enjoy most is that which provides a challenge, but always respects the music. I’ve fallen back in love, in a newer, stronger, more adult way, with the music I rejected as a youth. There’s a strange, intoxicating power when theater and music join forces; it is the best kind of sensory overload. Even when the 2010 Tim Albery-directed Aida didn’t work for me, its score — and interpretation — did. A night at the opera reminds me that theater and music is precisely the kind of holy union I want shaping and informing my 2014.

Coming away from a night at the opera, I am inspired to think more deeply not only about the art itself, but about music, science, technology, history, philosophy… even love… and the intimate connections therein. I want to get back to not only writing, but painting, cooking, drawing… to creativity, to authenticity, with head, with heart, taking small footsteps, but always moving forward.

Writing Inside (And Outside)

By Catherine Kustanczy

On September 28, 2013

In music, opera, writing

Grad school has left little time or energy to write (/think / dream) for myself, in my own space and in my own way. Inspiration’s been backed up, dried up, squished, smushed, almost forgotten. It hasn’t been a good feeling.

But a recent exercise in something called “intracranial” journalism (another term for stream-of-consciousness writing) got things flowing (or, semi-flowing) again. It was like putting on a favorite nightie found at the back of the closet -an experience not altogether foreign, what with the huge move back this past August.

After some nice encouragement to continue exploring this genre, I wanted to share my first formal attempt with readers. I’m starting to re-think my place lately – in journalism, in arts, in social media, even in NYC -and seem to keep circling back to finding a spot where I can integrate all my passions. Maybe this is a first step? You decide.

______________

The green jewels of salad leaves, the ruby red of berries, oil gleaming and dancing with the salty-sweet balsamic river, extra sweater and out the door, whooshing down elevator and clomping across lino lobby, footsteps echoing off ancient tile. Small hands wrapped around hot tea in purple tin, quick broad steps down a drum-filled street, to more steps, NYPD peering down stairs, badges glinting against the orange-red setting sun. One more down, another set of stairs, another… and another. Grime, grub, a million days and a million sweating bodies, a million sad bored faces, tracing and trudging over cold concrete and still, hot air. Over right, over left. Take the M, don’t take the M. Wait. And wait. Wait.

Headlights. Hope. A quick trip. Lower back yowl. Empty seat. Relief. Glum silence and squeaking brakes. Elbowing past ladies in heels and men in too-tight suits, the shiny shrieking harpies of neon beckoning, a shrine of Kodak and Samsung, of Annie and Once, of Big Macs and sunglasses. The land of the free, the home of the brave.

Follow the voices. Follow the music. Follow what your soul is telling you to do, where you’re being pulled… by God? By light? By love? By nostalgia sentiment qua qua qua divinity in denim smirking at you from a vintage steering wheel in a stupid youth misspent and half-forgotten? Let’s say it was magic, always the magic, the silent, loud, calm, chaotic wordless wonder of this… this grand Russian madness, this functioning chaos, this opera, of cars and buses and tourists and fans and lights, winking, beckoning… and red chairs set up in rows, red carpets set up in rows, you’re royalty, come sit down, come listen.

Tatiana’s writing a letter, she’s berating herself, she thinks she can convince him, she can change his mind… she can’t change his mind of course, we all know what’s coming, but the music… the sound, Tchaikovsky’s wall of gorgeous vibrant sound washes over the assembled, the bypassers in suits frown and pause, looking up, around, then straight ahead, cocking head at that square with the singing bodies and the big dresses, the men with muttonchops and the fake falling snow. That grand, gorgeous sound.

There’s a scramble for seats, mittened hands holding steaming cups of hot chocolate, it’s so cold now, but it’s so hot… the sound is coming like a gush of joy, of grief, of relief, of youth and hope and a full, fat embrace of life and all its painful gut-pulling glory… even Elmo stops, Cooke Monster stops, Spider Man stops, Batman stops, everything and everyone absolutely stops… and … and… and… surges, gushing… moving, feeling, flowing, dancing, breathing, fucking, eating, drinking, waving, walking… walking away… but you’re not.

You know why you’re here, not even the cold could keep you away. Nothing will. Nothing could. Nothing else matters.

Carlotta Danger?

By Catherine Kustanczy

On July 31, 2013

In opera

(via)

Maybe it’s the Weiner news, or the Bender effect, or the recent full moon…. whatever the case, I’ve been thinking a lot about sex lately, and the ways in which men and women view it, approach it, ask for it, and enjoy it.

Following Anthony Weiner’s surreal press conference (muppet-head included) last week, during which he announced continuing his bid for NYC mayor following further revelations about his lewd online activity, I came upon a fascinating essay published after the fallout from the David Petreaus scandal early this year. Half-ribald, half-deadpan, writer John Richardson has written a burner of an op-ed in which he takes on marriage, martyrdom, sex, worship, and male-female relating, all within intriguing historic-social contexts (with generous dollops of mythology and gender politics on the side). Even if some bits make you want to throw your head back and laugh (or forwards, to throw up), the piece inspires further thought about the ways society perceives cheaters -particularly how we, collectively, mete out punishment and judgment.

It was surprising to note, during last week’s presser, the extent to which my twitter stream filled up with vitriol and sarcasm toward the disgraced politician. Those reactions intensified when his wife, Huma Abedin, spoke after him; the advice-giving, the know-it-all-ness, the psychologizing, the pity, supposed takeaway, the sheer mean-spiritedness that followed in subsequent days offered a stunning if unflattering portrait of a society – us – desperate to label a woman in difficult circumstances. Another depressing aspect was, and remains, the lingering image of a couple feeling pressured to maintain the everything-is-fine! status quo of marriage normaldom. It’s as if they were on a stage, acting parts in a play they seriously didn’t believe in but desperately wanted audience approval for. Looking back on the day, I was reminded of a compelling New York Times article about the royal baby, labeling his presentation a piece of great “salesmanship.”

Being a couple in the public eye can’t be easy. You’re not allowed to be normal and have problems and challenges like everyone else. You’re held up as a role model, facing an enormous amount of pressure to consistently portray an image of The Happy Perfect Family in the public realm. (I googled “the perfect couple” and came up with roughly 293,000,000 results.) That role-playing is depressing, dishonest, and mostly, stupid, because every relationship has bumps, every marriage has rough patches. There is no such thing as perfection, but there’s this sick need for public figures (whether they be politicians, actors, singers, or broadcasters) to provide a sort of smooth, perfect fantasy image for the rest of us to (supposedly) aspire to. Such an aspiration is pedaled by various advertisers (and fellow celebrities) who stand to gain from the promotion and promulgation of that fantasy: men, you are like this in a relationship, women, you are like this in a relationship. Conduct yourselves accordingly (no matter how difficult things may get). Smile. Hug and kiss. Publicly talk about how much you love your husband/wife/kids. Repeat. It’s what is expected, ad infinitum, and, ad nauseum.

Flavoring the fevered pitch of mockery to the Weiner sexting news was Slate’s “automatic” name generator, posted shortly after the presser. A parody of Weiner’s alleged Formspring handle “Carlos Danger“(which makes me smile; it points so clearly to need to be perceived as stereotypically masculine and heroic, doesn’t it?), the site allows you to put your own name in, and *poof* out comes your very own wild-and-sexy-crazy name. Mine? “Edourdo Risk” -a male name. In fact, they’re all male names. A commenter on the page responded to another commenter’s complaint about the lack of gender parity thusly:

Until female politicians start humiliating themselves and their families by getting into sex scandals on a regular basis, I’m afraid you’ll have to just do without the female name generator.

Awww, just do without, ladies!

But that’s hardly the point, the supposed lack of indiscretion by women in politics (though it is a possible future blog post). The point is that Anthony Weiner is a politician with a funny/unfortunate name who decided to use another name that reaked of machismo (and is possibly connected to Chuck Norris, a living, breathing example of machismo if ever there was one); is it not possible to consider women being afforded the same luxury, of hiding (even in fun) behind a name that both milks and mocks their gender roles and the expectations around them? Males and females having salacious online connections re-name and re-adjust images accordingly, just as the porn industry re-names its performers to conform to gender stereotypes; men conform to a mold of hyper-masculinity (or, in James Deen’s case, riffing on the dreamy, doe-eyed, good guy image), women are, by and large, jammed into (pardon the pun) the mold of soft, compliant, passive-if-eager (but not too aggressive) fembots, keen to be “taught,” to please, to pleasure. The whole point is to create and sustain a fantasy.

And it’s precisely fantasy that is being created and cultivated when people (married, unmarried, dating, cheating, curious) hide behind an online alias. Does Slate really think that fantasy doesn’t apply equally to women as it does to men? It doesn’t matter -it’s just a bit of fun, right? But that’s precisely why it matters. Doing something for fun doubles – triples -the importance of leveling the playing field when it comes to sex, roles, and ideas; both guards and expectations are down. People are smiling, even laughing. That’s where change happens. That’s where attitudes shift.

Would it have taken so much longer to create a code that is inclusive? I want to believe we aren’t so narrow in our definitions of cheaters, cheatees, horndogs and lust-muffins that we’d limit who is allowed to make themselves appear flamingly ridiculous in public -even or especially for fantasy. Women aren’t that holy and pristine, are we? That’s a tiresome (and burdensome) female cliche that fits a certain New Age image: nurturing mothers, peacemakers, wisdom machines, goddesses. To buy into any of them is to buy into the image of the Perfect Couple too. I’d say women deserve every chance men do -good chance, bad chance, loud chance, quiet chance -to make themselves look like total horndogs, bullies, idiots, cheaters, asses, and pigs just as their male counterparts have done. Women deserve that opportunity. I, for one, would take it.

So please Slate, don’t call me Edourdo; call me Carlotta… or this.

“Don’t dream it; be it.”

Holy Spirit

By Catherine Kustanczy

On August 22, 2012

In opera

One of the strangest things I overheard about the Pussy Riot verdict occurred recently when I was out with friends. An older woman at a nearby table was talking into her cellphone, eyes obscured by heavy tortoise shell glasses.

“I’ll tell you what,” she said not-so-softly, tilting straw hat ever so slightly toward the blazing sun, “you can’t just go around saying any goddam thing you like anytime , any place you like. They should’ve known better, those girls.”

They should have known better. The words echoed and bounced around in my head as the gin and tonic glinted in the the afternoon sunshine. Should the members of Pussy Riot -Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, 22, Ekaterina Samutsevich, 30, and Maria Alekhina, 24 -stayed quiet? Writer Lynn Crosie recently observed that the girls’ actions were “hideous” to have happened in a church. Watching the video for their new single, it’s not difficult to see how they offended traditional, church-going sensibilities. The elderly nuns look perplexed and more than a bit pissed off by these pesky masked aerobi-dancing young women. But the protest did not involve any swear words or cussing, nor did it use a holy name in any obscene way; it lasted less than a minute and invoked a religious figure, in a sincere request for delivery from a perceived (if very real, to every day Russians) evil. The hypocrisy of the trial and obscene harshness of the sentence are all out of proportion to the actual crime, but Pussy Riot have become an international cause celebre in the process.

The whole affair points to a fetid underbelly of the ruling Russian politburo worthy of deeper investigation and exploration. The name “Anna Politkovskaya” floats somehow, ghostly, above all of this. But what’s been heartening lately has been the outpouring of sincere support from various outspoken celebrities, including the holy (and wholly inspiring, to my mind) triumvirate of artsy female greatness; Madonna, Bjork, and Patti Smith have let it be publicly known they stand with the three members of Pussy Riot. Madonna donned a mask and wrote the band’s name in marker on her own body during a concert in Oslo; Bjork did a manic live dance with a bevy of female chorister-musicians, shrieking in her signature banshee-like howl above the din. It was a beautiful, if perfect echo of Pussy Riot’s own protest in one of Russia’s holiest sites.

“Jesus Christ would fucking forgive them!” roared Smith at recent concert in Stockholm. One senses she’s right. Surely Jesus would smile at the ballsy, youthful vigor of it all. It’s surreal, the protest -tacky, surreal, unsettling, gormless, and… young. That brave, outrageous, ballsy stuff we do when we’re young translates into the stuff we awkwardly admire from the comfortable distance of gap-toothed time and fat adulthood. We may not do it again… but damn, we want to.

The childlike sincerity of Pussy Riot’s protest dances with a childish desire to shock, which isn’t so childish if you know the admittedly scary politics of Putin’s Russia. It’s as if the rioters, in using the slang for female genitalia so boldly, and doing their funky young-wooman-goddess-thing in a Christian environ, are asking people to stop and think where true power lies in 2012 Russia, and where it should lie; they’re daring people to stop, to think, to choose, and to reconsider. As Crosbie wisely notes, “the word “pussy” has been on everyone’s lips for weeks. It’s hard to imagine a more simple and more complex way of disseminating the blunt, beautiful nature of the girls’ mission.” Those colorful masked figures are 2012’s gangly, Gaia-like, guitar-slinging Teletubbies, Mother Russia’s monstrous, balaclava’d court jesters, pointing up the ridiculous nudity of Sovereign, State, and Society. All we can do, us boring grown-up women, is stand and smile as they call upon the Saint for delivery, mouths open, eyes wide, inspired by the bravery of youth and the beautiful danger of pussy power in holy houses made flesh and blood.

Jesus would forgive them – even if they knew better, but most especially if they didn’t.

Live! Live!

By Catherine Kustanczy

On August 21, 2012

In opera

The idea of imitation being the most sincere form of flattery is one I’ve been mentally turning back and forth the last while. If someone stands up on a stage and imitates someone else – well – does that make them a great artist too, or merely a gifted technician?

This question came into focus the last few months as I attended two different musical theater events, Million Dollar Quartet and Backbeat: The Birth Of The Beatles. Both works are based on real people and real music history events, and both involve the depiction of cultural touchstones. Constant comparison is an evitable part of such events, especially if one’s been exposed to the real thing -or even, bizarrely, a good imitation of the real thing.

In the former, my companion turned up her nose to the performer playing Elvis Presley, dryly noting she’d seen far better impersonators in concert, and noting the actor playing Johnny Cash wasn’t menacing enough; she’d seen (and met) the real thing years before, and the performance (/imitation) simply didn’t measure up. Similarly, attending Backbeat afforded me the opportunity of unfair comparison, having seen Paul McCartney perform at Yankee Stadium last year. It wasn’t so much the performer didn’t measure up that bothered me as it was the knowledge he never could.

At the end of Backbeat, people were cheering and applauding, out of their seats and dancing to the loud, raucous sound of “Twist and Shout” – but what were they cheering, really? The performance? Or the music itself -and their memories associated with the music? It struck me as a surreal sort of nostalgia, one magnified by years of people having a casual connection (however tenuous and imagined) with their pop idols via the internet, where a few clicks yields live performances they very well may’ve been at themselves. Who wouldn’t want to re-live happy memories, of happier times, with a younger self, bright and bushy-tailed, full of beer and brawl, piss and vinegar, howl and hope? The internet provides a quick, easy hit of nostalgia, available 24/7 – but I wonder, at what cost?

In June, I saw Patti Smith perform material from her remarkable new album “Banga.” Before an excited audience at the Barnes and Noble near Union Square, Smith and her band (including longtime guitarist Lenny Kaye) did three numbers from the album: the swirlingly romantic”April Fool”, the 50s ballad-like “This Is The Girl”, and the album’s title cut, with its fittingly literary inspiration. The audience smiled, cheered, clapped, initially hesitant but eventually exuberant. There were no calls for “Dancing Barefoot” or “Because The Night” though I’m sure a few people were panting to hear them. This wasn’t about nostalgia -it was promotion, after all -but Smith seemed far more interested in forging an authentic connection with her audience; it was refreshingly to see an artist of her calibre so genuinely happy to be there, wandering through the crowd before the show, chatting, and later, proudly presenting new material and carefully explaining various songs’ origins. I found it especially encouraging to note so many young women in the audience, hanging on Smith’s every word. The smartphones and cameras were firmly away when she spoke. The crowd, quiet but ready to laugh at Smith’s knowing, occasionally self-deprecating asides, was genuinely interested in hearing -and experiencing -new material from an old favorite, first-hand.

New memories are forged through this sort of event; the holy spirits of exploration, expansion, and inspiration ask us, as arts lovers, to go see and do something just a bit different, regularly, rather than live in the spin cycle of favorite playlists, repeated ad nauseum. It’s nice to revisit old times and places (and people) with a few clicks (or swipes), but I wouldn’t want to re-live those times, live, at any concert; a few well-chosen old nuggets are just right when placed beside newer, more unfamiliar material. There’s always a wealth of new memories being created -sometimes it’s new sounds that give them the nudge into creation. More than ever, I want to celebrate that creation.

(Photos from my Flickr stream)

Loss (& Magic)

By Catherine Kustanczy

On August 5, 2012

In opera

Roughly an hour after my review of a new musical was posted came word that Chavela Vargas had passed. There was something eerie in the timing; my review had got me thinking more than ever about Astrid Kirchherr and women like her – the strong, uncompromising female artists who refused to fit into tidy pre-determined roles around their femininity and whose art was never determined solely by their gender or the place that put that at in the world.

Vargas, the throaty Latin singer had long been a favorite of mine. The first time I saw her, in Frida, I was entranced. What a voice… what a soul… what a presence.

It feels as if this year has been a horrible one for losing strong female artists and presences. Zelda Kaplan, who passed in February, was another sparky figure I greatly admired; my clubbing days would’ve extended longer, I think, had I had gone with her. There was an Auntie Mame-esque joie de vivre about her. Alternately, Nora Ephron and Maeve Binchy felt like confidantes -the sort who’d be hilariously blunt with how ugly those jeans look on you, and why you (I) should stay from men who don’t do a lot of reading or like art galleries. Donna Summer was the woman who stopped everyone talking (and got them dancing); self-contained in her sensuousness, confident in her calm sexuality, she never had to try hard, she simply was. Real sex appeal, as I recently told a friend, can’t be faked. It only fools some of the people some of the time.

Donna Summer’s moans, simpers, sighs and statements were a declaration of her independence, alright -the exact same way Chavela Vargas’ anguished, fierce, defiant tones were. They still are, for me and female artists everywhere. Their tunes didn’t definer them as a woman; they defined them as fleshy, living human beings: let me be what I am, here and now.

There’s so much more I could say, should say, about these women, but it’s not the time or place, and I still haven’t finished meditating on their role in my life, or mourning their loss. Lou Reed’s 1992 album Magic And Loss captures much of this feeling, of losing personal friends who were also artistic heroes. Creative and personal so often bleeds over in life, and in art. That’s probably a good thing.

All I can say at this point is: Dear Ms. Kirchherr, please hang on. I haven’t met you yet, and I want to.