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Travels In Italy: Dolce e brutto

On November 7, 2017

In classical, festival, music, opera, personal, writing

Two weeks ago I was touring the lands of opera composer Giuseppe Verdi in Emilia Romagna, northern Italy: the place he was born and raised, the splendid home of his benefactor, the lush gardens he would walk through. Those were the good parts.

Any sentimentality or indeed, romanticism, which so many feel in traveling to Italy, has been largely scrubbed out; never, in all of my travels, I felt more aware of my status — my vulnerability — as a woman. While there are finger-waggers who will tut-tut with inevitable “you should haves” and well-meaning “if only you hads” (instincts I find frustratingly passive-aggressive if not outright patronizing) I stand by the validity of my reactions, deeply aware of the various costs of singledom as a woman, the frequently taken-for-granted privilege of coupledom, and the need to accept the wildly different realities of each, particularly within the wider context of travel experiences. I got to see a part of Italy very few people get to see, a unique experience to be sure, but one that comes with a bitter recognition in realizing that my only return to the country will be as either part of a tour, or for quick excursions to very specific places, namely Teatro Comunale di Bologna, the Teatro Municipale in Reggio Emilia, and of course, Teatro alla Scala in Milan.

A rose on the property of Villa Verdi. (Photo: mine. Please do not reproduce without permission.)

In retrospect, I wonder what Verdi, a man who felt such a clear kinship with the so-called “common man,” would have made of my experiences in his country as a woman in the 21st century. Would he have been appalled, I wonder, by the cat-calls, the leering, the begging? Being a solo woman traveler opened the door to an ugly jarful of assumptions, which led to harrowing experiences: theft, harassment, manipulation, and (as was the depressingly repeated case in so many restaurants), being totally ignored. What would Verdi have made of it all? What would he have made of my wrists being grabbed by a older woman wanting money? Or waiters running to serve amorous couples but consistently ignoring my inquiries about a missing lunch and requests for another glass of Lambrusco? Or of personal items being stolen from an abode? What of the forced kissing and repeated fondling after accepting help with luggage? What am I to make of these experiences? Are they operatic? Is it “Italy being Italy” ? Should I not be bothered? Was it my fault? Did I somehow “ask for it?” Did I deserve it because I was alone?

In any terrible situation (or series of them), there are always minuscule shards of light, and it’s these shards I have to pick through now, with the benefit of hindsight. I will always remember the free shot of espresso provided by a friendly woman in a bustling shop in Parma; the plate of sandwiches set before me in a cafe by another woman who gave me a knowing nod when she saw I was alone; the warm, expressive tone of my tour guide at Villa Verdi (the composer’s primary residence for many decades), as I struggled in my limited Italian to understand her every detail. All of us were above a certain age, all of us perhaps had some shared understanding we couldn’t articulate. I remember these moments, cherish them, and I’ve taken a friend’s advice to try and focus on good things, like these moments, and the ones provided via music and history.

Roberto de Candia as Falstaff (Photo: Roberto Ricci)

Jacopo Spirei’s Falstaff was my favorite production, and I don’t write that purely because I interviewed him about it before I left. Smart, funny, timely, and with a marvellously human lead performance by Roberto de Candia, the production (presented at the Teatro Regio di Parma as part of this year’s edition of Festival Verdi) was a true standout, and I wasn’t alone in that reaction, as chats with members of a refreshingly friendly British tour group revealed. Spirei placed the action in a familiar present, and filled the scene with very familiar people. De Candia played Falstaff as a kind of slobbish everyman, notably lacking the cutesy quality so common to characterizations. Instead, he was a kind of bar pig whom no one wanted to spend much time around — women especially; Falstaff wasn’t cuddly and harmless, he was slovenly and horrible. Only through his spectacular humiliation did he becomes semi-tolerable. The production made it abundantly clear that a character like Falstaff must be brought low in order to be raised once more, not as the phoenix, but as more of a messy pigeon who pecks around rotting porticos, and has to be kept in line with brooms and hoses every now and again.

I thought of Sir John Falstaff when I went to Villa Verdi some days later, because, as with Spirei’s magnificent production, I was being allowed to glimpse a vivid humanity which lives beneath an image. The house is located just outside the town of Busseto, roughly 40-odd kilometres north of Parma. Verdi supervised its construction, and, together with lady love (and soprano) Giuseppina Streponi, moved in in 1851. The house contains a number of mementos, as one might expect, all carefully and lovingly displayed.

Observing the bed in which Verdi died in 1901 (which had been shipped from the Grand Hotel in Milan) and various personal effects (including letters, knick-knacks, and the top hat and scarf he wears in Boldini’s famous portrait), a portrait of a good man dedicated to music and the people he loved emerges. It sounds hokey, but somehow, it wasn’t — but it was odd to walk around the living quarters of someone whose music was the soundtrack of large swaths of my life, to say nothing of my mother’s; it was ordinary and yet not, simple and yet grand, intimate and epic, all at once. Two pianos on which Verdi composed his works (early and later) were there, a clear case covering their keys. I stared at those pianos, longing to touch them. (No photos are allowed inside the house, alas.) I couldn’t rip my eyes off the second instrument on which he had composed Aida; this epic of the opera world, this contentious, difficult piece, with clashing ideologies and a gorgeously intimate subtext about loving the wrong person in the wrong time, “Celeste Aida” and the so-called “Triumphal March” — all that was done on the simple, upright piano sitting before me.

Gelling those reactions with the personal effects (to say nothing of the little section on Wagner) was surreal but also beautiful. I wish I could have had a few moments to stand in that room and take it all in, quietly, thoughtfully; it was one of the rare times during my travels in Italy that I actually wanted to be alone.

The exterior of Villa Verdi. (Photo: mine. Please do not reproduce without permission.)

A more fulsome piece about my visit to Villa Verdi and the town of Busseto is set to appear in a future edition of Opera Canada magazine, but at this website, expect a piece (soon) about a very unique version of Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute) presented in Reggio Emilia, which featured members of the Berlin Philharmonic and Italian entertainer Elio. Mozart’s opera has been on my mind a lot lately, because it is, as Komische Oper head honcho Barry Kosky rightly has noted, a work infused with a deep loneliness, and that quality is one which haunted me throughout Italy. Perhaps it was the absence of my mother, the social isolation that comes with being an independent woman of certain means, an overall disappointment… whatever the case: I am happy to have seen and experienced the things I did in Italy — and it will take a lot to get me to return.

Playing Favorites

By Catherine Kustanczy

On December 18, 2016

In opera

(Michael Cooper / COC)

2016 has been a terrible year. Between the loss of great cultural figures, a dramatically changing political landscape around the globe, and wars that feel tragically endless, it’s been a tough year for many to navigate, accept, or even survive.

However, I keep being struck by the strange reality that it’s been, on a strictly personal level, a really great year — especially when compared to my 2015, a year that was filled with loss, trauma, and horrible disappointments. 2016 was a year of discovery, delight, wonder. Sometimes it was hard to gel the beauty on a micro level with the hideousness on a macro one, but, to quote William Congreve, “music hath charms to soothe a savage breast, to soften rocks, or bend a knotted oak.” I saw a lot of great stuff this year; rocks were softened, oaks were bent, breasts were soothed — when not heaving in awe, a la Dangerous Liasons, that is.

Culturally, this was a good year in so many ways, but it was equally notable for being the first full music season I’ve experienced without my mother. I feel like she was with me throughout many, if not all of my travels, near and far, through good times and sad times and everything in between. I saw her make faces at some things, throw back her head and laugh at others, and clasp her hands in delight at yet more.

In the spirit of those hand-clasping moments, I present to you some of my favorite live music things from 2016. I confess I wasn’t actually planning to write about any of this; considering I write about and review music for a living, I want some of my own music-going to stay private and personal, free from analysis or too much thought, to live purely in a world of experience. I’ve found, however, that trying to turn off my critic’s brain is impossible. My mother would frequently admonish me, after a night of the opera and discussion, for “thinking too much.” I’m certainly guilty of this in more than the arena of music, but, I’ve learned over the last year to absorb more and analyze less, while still firmly embracing my thinky side; context matters, and insight is never a bad thing. I plan to continue cultivating my music love into 2017 and beyond, as you might guess.

Without further ado, here are my favorites from the year that was.

(Michael Cooper / COC)

1. Siegfried, Canadian Opera Company; January

Richard Wagner’s epic work, written between 1856 and 1871, is the third part in the composer’s sprawling four-work Ring Cycle. Remounted by the COC (from a 2006 production) as a kind of surrealist nightmare, director Francois Girard dramatized elements inherent within the complex score to eye-catching effect. With tenor Stefan Vinke as a hero free of macho qualities but still very much in the throes of petulant youth, his was a performance that moved between lost, amiable, and enlightened, with the vocal agility to match. Michael Levine’s vivid stage design featured, in its first act, a tangle of branches rising above the hero’s head, a kind of physicalized thought bubble; later, a fiery hole with undulating hands housed the angry dwarf Alberich (a stentorian Christopher Purves), while Fafner, the giant-turned dragon, was staged with a pyramid of men and some very great choreography (by Donna Feore) and clever, intuitive lighting (by David Finn).

These elements, together with a unique “tree” threaded with bodies in its stark branches, and white-clad figures bathed and swaying in red light, produced an incredible vision of hellfire, damnation, temptation, and salvation. Wagner’s musicality was seamlessly integrated with the Ring’s inherent theatricality, and, together with some inspired singing (Vinke’s duet with Christine Goerke’s spitfire Brunnhilde was truly magical), worked to produce a hauntingly beautiful vision of Wagner’s mythological world.

(Ken Howard / Metropolitan Opera)

2. Manon Lescaut, Metropolitan Opera; February

This production is included purely for the singing; I found Richard Eyre’s production silly and filled with what the New York Times rightly termed “troubling questions.” But Roberto Alagna, as des Grieux, and Kristin Opolais, in the title role, made music magic, the French tenor showing particular skill as he quickly substituted for an ill Jonas Kaufmann. Despite being ill with a cold himself on the day I attended, his was a thrilling, vivid performance, beautifully complemented by a luscious rendering of the score, thanks to Maestro Fabio Luisi. The women around me may’ve been sighing over Jonas’s absence, but to my ears, Alagna’s sonorous tenor was perfectly suited to Puccini’s rich-as-fudge score, and it was a treat to experience such an exquisite pairing, so beautifully executed.

Opolais, who’d already sung Manon opposite Kaufmann at the Royal Opera in 2014, brought an anguished drama to the role, and she and Alagna shared an electrifying chemistry, one that carried through (indeed, paraded over) Eyre’s bizarre staging. As New York Classical Review’s Eric C. Simpson noted, “When left alone, the principal actors were in fact able to carve stunningly real portrayals.” This was one of those special performances with such incredible lead performances, and conducted with such a charismatic mix of passion and majesty, I actually forgot the dire production — at least for a while. Impressive.

(Michael Cooper / COC)

3. Maometto II, Canadian Opera Company; April

Italian bass baritone Luca Pisaroni channelled silent film star Rudolph Valentino in a remount of a 2012 production from Santa Fe Opera. Director David Alden made effective used of the carefully wielded elements of dance and design (including a strong, expressionist-influenced color palette by designer Jon Morrell) to bring Rossini’s 1820 opera to vivid, stunning life. The title character’s dramatic entrance (which happens no less than fifty minutes into the opera) was impressively cinematic, and certainly a strong announcement of things to come in terms of Alden’s passionate approach to the material, to say nothing of the performers.

This was some of the finest singing I’ve ever heard at the Four Seasons Centre, bar none. Pisaroni’s full, rich bass baritone, his careful, loving attention to detail and controlled, luscious vibrato was matched by soprano Leah Crocetto’s Anna, who nimbly showcased a vivid coloratura as well as sweet timbre with a firm undertone that’s perfectly suited to the various shades of the character. Mezzo soprano Elizabeth DeShong, in the trouser role of Calbo was, in a word, shattering; the sustained applause at the end of her aria convincing Anna’s father of her innocence deserved every hearty “bravo” it received. David Laera’s sensuous choreography, especially the sinewy, swirling bellydancer who featured in the production’s second half, made for a gorgeous opera experience.

(Darryl Block)

4. A Little Too Cozy, Toronto; May

Against the Grain Theatre lived up to their name, going entirely… well, against the classical music grain in presenting Mozart’s Cosi fan tutte as a reality TV dating show, in an actual TV studio. The company, known for their unorthodox presentations of classical works, transformed the opera and its rather silly libretto into something relevant, smart, funny, and even moving. Was it Mozart? Was it opera? Yes and yes — and it was brilliant. Phone use and hashtags (#TeamDora, for instance) were actively encouraged throughout the performance. Seamless integration, between new and old, classical and contemporary, is AtG’s speciality, and they’re leading the way in reinterpreting opera for the 21st century in Canada.

It wasn’t only the premise that reeked of forward-thinking, risk-taking innovation; the actual performances were fun, knowing, and awfully familiar. Cairan Ryan’s smarmy game-show-host Donald L. Fonzo (Don Alfonso), did a charming buffo baritone, and was complemented by a very engaging, social-media-knowingness from the ensemble, comprised of tenor Aaron Shepppard (Fernando), baritone Clarence Frazer (Elmo), soprano Shantell Przbylo (Felicity), mezzo soprano Rihab Chaieb (Dora), and soprano Caitlin Wood (Despina). Smart, engaging, fun — A Little Too Cozy epitomized all the things indie opera is nudging grand opera toward, slowly if surely.

(my photo)

5. Filarmonica della Scala, Salzburg Festival; August

Riccardo Chailly led a masterful performance from the Filarmonica that only moved past the workmanlike and into the poetic in the event’s second half. Cherubini’s Overture in G Major and Symphony in D Major were, to my ears, strangely lacking in momentum and buoyancy; it was good, but not great, and certainly not what I expect from Chailly, whose work I’ve enjoyed (and seen) for many years. But, with Verdi’s divertissement of “Les Quatre Saisons” (the Four Seasons) ballet music from Les Vepres siciliennes (the pre-1861 version, later Italianized), the orchestra came alive, delivering a poetic performance that caught the small, quiet corners of the piece, and shone a gentle light that gradually became a shining beacon. The choice of placing the overture to Rossini’s Guillaume Tell at the program’s end was inspired too, with the famous piece providing a bouncy, boisterous close, if not conclusion, to the evening; the encore was an utterly thrilling performance of the overture to I Vespri Siciliani. I confess to sitting on the edge of my seat throughout its entirety.

Chailly is a fascinating figure to watch, his statesmanlike demeanor barely concealing a blazing fire, one he beams into orchestra members who spit it back in short controlled bursts or long, lean lines. I’d love to hear the Filarmonica play an evening of overtures; not only do they tell stories with their singing instruments, they conjure deep emotional states that move past the verbal and into the realm of the transcendent, rather like another orchestra…

(my photo)

7. Berlin Philharmonic, Toronto; November

… yes, this one. The famed Berlin Phil embarked on a tour through North America this past autumn, showcasing the work of Mahler, Schoenberg, Webern, Boulez, Berg, and Brahms. Sir Simon Rattle was particularly interested in drawing sonic connections between them all, and he did a marvellous job of that, and much more, on the night I attended, with a program featuring Boulez’ Éclat and Mahler’s Symphony No.7. With just fifteen players, Boulez’ sparse if powerful work showcased the various reverberations of the instruments being used (especially piano) and the complex, nuanced harmonies therein. Intricate attention was paid to color and shape, with Rattle coaxing a quietly intoxicating drama that revealed its composer to be the logical inheritor of Mahler’s sonic explorations.

Like the Boulez, Mahler’s 7th makes use of the guitar and mandolin, though with very different effect. This was bold, passionate playing from musicians clearly happy to be there and clearly in love with the work and their conductor, who managed to seamlessly connect the six movements of Mahler’s notoriously lengthy work into one perfect, poetic thought. Seriously, you had to be there. Vunderbar.

(my photo)

6. Stefano Bollani, at Koerner Hall / with the TSO and Gianandrea Noseda; November

The Italian jazz pianist moved easily and confidently between the worlds of classical and jazz during his visit to the city last month, interspersing appearances playing Ravel’s famed Piano Concerto in G with an evening of jazz (original compositions and more) at Koerner Hall. Musicality positively oozes from this man; his improvised introduction to the Ravel with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra (clearly unnerving to much of the Toronto audience) was full of characteristic playfulness and verve, while his loose interpretation of the Ravel brought all the whimsy and joy and pure musical curiosity that can sometimes go missing (or not be fully committed to) with more formal classical music performers. His connection with Noseda was also unmistakable, and it was fun to watch the two silently communicating, an invisible if entirely recognizable current of energy running between them. In addition to the playful Ravel, Bollani also performed a beautiful, improvised solo version of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” as an encore.

Experiencing Bollani do jazz one night and classical the next, I sensed a beautiful kind of sonic continuum and again, an unmistakable joy in simply making beautiful sounds. Amen and bravo, Stefano! Torna presto!

(my photo)

8. Macbeth, Los Angeles Opera; October

Many people have suggested at some point or another that Placido Domingo might want to consider retiring. Yet when all the elements are in place (as with Nabucco, currently on at the Met), there’s just something undeniably powerful about the tenor-turned-baritone; when he turns it on… the hairs on the back of your neck stand up. I went to Macbeth not expecting to be moved; I went for more sentimental reasons, to see a living legend who I had not seen live since 1993, at the Met in Verdi’s Stiffelio. The times I’d heard him as a baritone (so-called “baritenor”) I’d not been terribly impressed… and yet I found myself won over. Despite the layers of makeup and wigging, Domingo used his age and experience to fuel his characterization, and though the voice is grainy, it is still powerful, resonant, and undeniably exciting. His Scottish king wasn’t a sullen brat at all, but a capable, smart army man who resented been passed over one too many times. His scenes, particularly with a wonderfully fiery Ekaterina Semenchuk as Lady Macbeth, were filled with rage, regret, and finally even, remorse. This was very special, and very worth the trip to LA Opera. I’ll be back.

(Dahlia Katz)

9. Naomi’s Road, Toronto; November

Tapestry Opera presented a timely vision of Joyce Kogawa’s novel about her experiences growing up in an internment camp during the Second World War. Originally conceived and directed by Ann Hodges, with sets and costumes designed by Christine Reimer and built by Vancouver Opera, Tapestry Artistic Director Michael Mori’s Toronto presentation presented a simple, powerful show (without intermission) in a local neighborhood location loaded with historical meaning; St. David’s Anglican Church is the home of the last Japanese-Canadian Anglican parish in Toronto. The fact there was (and is) talk of internment camps in the news lately made this work all the more poignant, of course, but also brought with it an urgency that added to its quiet theatricality.

The production poetically integrated design, theme, and musicality that spoke softly if powerfully. With just one pianist and four exquisitely talented singers, including mezzo soprano Erica Iris, who made an incredible transformation from imperious older woman to girlish bully, a switch which was both vocally and theatrically thrilling. Entire worlds were created and explored with grace, economical elegance, and deep sensitivity. This was easily the most humble production I saw this year; it was also one of the most memorable and important.

(Ken Howard / Metropolitan Opera)

10. L’Italiana in Algeri, Metropolitan Opera; October

Straight up, this was the most fun thing I saw this year; it had laugh-out-loud moments and a boisterous, bright Met Orchestra led by Maestro James Levine. Rossini’s comic opera revolves a kind of comic, sitcom-like face-off that masquerades about being between East and West, but is really about men and women. Jean-Pierre Ponnelle’s 1973 production is full of the kind of cliches that make you both laugh at their preposterousness and wince at their overuse. As New York Times classical writer Corinna da Fonseca-Wollheim noted, “this battle of the sexes, framed by Rossini and his librettist as an abduction drama, may be the silliest and most stereotype-laden production in the Met’s repertory. But it’s still very funny — irresistibly so, as I found out.”

I’m on the fence about whether or not some of those tacky old costumes need to go; there’s a line between funny and tasteless, and I’m not sure that those those very deliberately fake-looking, hairy-Muslim-dude ones are entirely worth keeping. Sure, we can laugh because they’re preposterous and tasteless, but… they’re still preposterous and tasteless. They do, however, fit with the overall feel of the work itself, which is exaggerated, ridiculous, and extremely smart about presenting its true conflict as crazy comedy gold. Mezzo soprano Marianna Pizzolatti (a last-minute replacement for the ailing Elizabeth DeShong) was sprightly, funny, feisty, and highly watchable as the “Italiani” of the title, Isabella, and was beautifully complimented by a buoyant Met Orchestra under the baton of Maestro James Levine. To quote George Grella’s New York Classical Review piece, they handled Rossini’s bouncy score with a “crisp phrasing and a glinting sound.” For all my reservations over some costume designs, I still came away from this one smiling.

11. Faust, Salzburg Festival; August

Gounod’s famous 1859 opera got a modern treatment at the festival, with the immensity of the Grosses Festspielhaus being used in some marvellously creative ways by director/designer Reinhard von der Thannen. A meditation on nothingness – even the opening scene featured a neon “Rien” sign — this was an existentially-themed vision with cleverly integrated elements of commedia dell’arte and surrealism. It also featured entirely zesty onstage chemistry between tenor Piotr Bezcala (Faust) and bass baritone Ildar Abdrazakov (Mephistopheles), both in very fine voice; Beczala’s silvery-toned tenor and Abdrazakov’s cherry-chocolate bass not only made beautiful music together, but nicely channelled the drama within both Gounod’s score and von der Thannen’s vision, bringing the high-minded ideas behind the production to a recognizably human level. Still, the production itself was truly special. As philosophy professor Mirjam Schaub wisely notes in the excellent program essay,

Standing in opposition to the RIEN, of course, is a very substantial SOMETHING: the stage space. It is entirely white, impersonal, functional, open for light of all colours and at the time itself a non-colour.. […] That the stage space of Grosses Festspielhaus is somewhat CinemaScope-like in format is a factor very congenial to von der Thannen’s commanding and spatially expansive vein of fantasy.

No kidding. I’d love to see it at the Met; I suspect it would effectively carry to anywhere in the house. The bright design scheme, creative use of white space, glittering costumes, Giorgio Madia’s sinuous, kinetic choreography, combined with stellar singing and some very neat makeup effects made for a truly eye-opening and riveting Faust. Salzburg, traditional? Nein…

12. Don Giovanni, Salzburg Festival; August

… which segues nicely to my final selection. Don Giovanni is one of my favorite operas, but I’d never seen a production that vaguely satisfied me. Despite the exquisite score and fascinating characters, I always tended to walk out of any and every production feeling angry, frustrated, and utterly repulsed by the title character.

Then I saw Sven-Eric Bechtolf’s production at the Salzburg Festival; it was wickedly smart, truly moving, and funny. Imagine, a Don Giovanni that takes the comedy seriously — not as a pastiche or a collection of tacky, crude jokes, but rather, trusts the talents of its performers so deeply that it allows them to find their own comical moments, for themselves and with cast mates. This production was, quite simply, one of the most magical things I’ve ever experienced in an opera house.

Luca Pisaroni’s Leporello, for instance, was equal parts Jerry Lewis and Roberto Benigni, eminently comical and yet somehow relateably human. His was both an hilarious and touching portrait of a perennial wingman who fully realizes that, while he’d love to take the pilot’s seat, he is, at heart, not cut out for it. His interpretation of “Madamina, il catalogo è questo “ (the so-called “catalogue aria”) was the very best I have ever heard, filled with smart pauses, crisp diction, and a lively vibrato. Alain Coulombe brought cool authority and a quiet confidence to his portrayal of the Commendatore, a man clearly 180 degrees away from Giovanni, in both real and theoretical senses; he was order to the Don’s chaos, a minor key to his major; a firm, brief handshake instead of a warm, lengthy hug.

Physicality was, in fact, a very big part of this production, and Layla Claire threw herself into this aspect with bravado, giving the very best interpretation of Donna Elvira I’ve ever seen — wounded, but not at all simpering, and every bit as passionate and complex as Carmelo Remigio’s sexy Donna Anna and Valentina Nafornita’s feisty Zerlina, not to mention any number of maids in Bechtolf’s hotel-lobby-set production. All were agents of their own fate, each seeking a liberty (mental, emotional, particularly sexual) for themselves through the figure of this man they all want to possess, or be possessed by. It was hugely refreshing (and liberating) to finally see a Giovanni in which the women have agency, and to see not only them, but the main character freed from the their tidy, boring, cliche-ridden boxes of yore.

That theatrical approach, of course, made the title character fascinating and endearing in place of being smarmy and nauseating. It was so good to see a production — and a central performance — so firmly committed to breaking cliches while milking and gleefully mocking them at the same time. Ildebrando D’Arcangelo was, by turns, funny, sexy, hateful, annoyed, prideful, world-weary — in other words, warmly, defiantly human, which is impressive on its own, but doubly so for someone who’s performed the role numerous other times in numerous other productions, but here was very much playing an idea (“Viva la liberta!“), as Bechtolf’s smart program essay indicated. A key part of this characterization was, of course, vocal prowess: D’Arcangelo’s is a wonderfully agile voice with watchful subtlety in its upper tones, an unforced richness in low ones, a beautifully mellifluous vibrato with a mahogany-hewed timbre, and a nuanced approach to some well-known material (his “Vieni alla finestra” was easily the most perfect I’ve ever heard), and… well, to return to Congreve, oak bends, rocks soften. You figure out the rest.

That’s the year that was. Just to make the circle complete, Sven-Eric Bechtolf is set to direct Stefan Vinke in Siegfried at the Vienna State Opera in May. Am I going? You’ll have to wait and see. That Oscar Wilde quote about temptation, so relevant to Bechtolf’s Don Giovanni, could very become relevant to my life in 2017. We shall see; I am keeping an open mind, and looking forward to more adventures.

A Musical Haunting

By Catherine Kustanczy

On December 15, 2015

In opera

Chris Mann as The Phantom and Katie Travis as Christine Daaé. Photo: Matthew Murphy

Many of my regular readers will know I’m an opera fan. Through my formal reviews, features, and profiles, as well as my blog posts and tweets, I’ve not exactly made my opera passion a secret. I feel deeply blessed to have been able to so frequently combine my two loves — writing and opera — into a professional pursuit. I’ve always had mixed feelings toward musicals, however. Classic works like Guys and Dolls, Showboat, and Oklahoma! are forever favorites, while the more recent(ish) ones, like Les Miserables, Jersey Boys, and Miss Saigon, leave me with a vaguely discomforted feeling. Productions values in all of them are consistently exceptional, it’s true, but emotionally, much of their content leaves me utterly cold.

Andrew Lloyd Webber’s 1986 work The Phantom of the Opera, was, until recently, very much in the latter category, with the damning addendum that it was also unnecessarily mean-spirited to actual, real opera, something I still believe to be partially true. But the new production of Phantom (currently running at Toronto’s Princess of Wales Theatre as part of a North American tour) was a delightful surprise from my first viewings in the 1980s and 1990s. Based on the 1909-1910 serial novel (Le Fantôme de l’Opéra) by Gaston LeRoux, the musical follows strange and scary happenings at the Paris Opera House in the late 19th century; a ghost (the phantom of the title) haunts the theatre, living beneath the house and controlling what productions and performers will and won’t be on its stage. Ingenue dancer/singer Christine Daaé catches the phantom’s attention, and his fancy. Initially she is fascinated by him, and the connection he seems to have with her late musician-father, but she instead falls for childhood love Raoul, Vicomte de Chagny. When the Phantom’s real background, and then underground lair, are both revealed, tragedy ensues.

The dread-filled atmosphere and rich, velvet-vintage production stylings of The Phantom of the Opera conjure up Jean Cocteau’s beautiful 1946 film Beauty and the Beast and Tim Burton’s stream of goth-y outsider movies (notably Edward Scissorhands). There’s something about that aesthetic I enjoy immensely –the dark opulence of each feels comforting, cozy, a good place to hide. Lloyd Webber’s score is one I taught a seemingly endless stream of piano students two decades ago; now, I can honestly say thumbs up to the whole package. Though it has some creative production differences from the original (including a very cool revolving tower with plank-like, pop-out steps), the new production of The Phantom of the Opera has a fascinating and very involving atmosphere that is less owing to the mechanics (which are impressive, to be sure), and more to do with casting and chemistry. Gone is the pseudo-Grand-Guignol dread that hung over the original, and firmly in place is a sense of relationship between characters, and, notably, a greater, richer sense of the titular phantom. Chris Mann, a finalist on The Voice, infuses his portrayal with a sense of damaged, lovelorn isolation; the commanding, nasty character of old has been (wisely) replaced by a deeply lonely, desperate, rather pathetic figure. Any sense of terror is inextricably linked to (and catalyzed by) a sense of deep despair.

Chris Mann as The Phantom and Katie Travis as Chris tine Daaé. Photo: Matthew Murphy

When, in the final act, we see him surveying the underground world he’s known for so long, we don’t see a monster, but a damaged little boy begging for love; this is an important revelation, and it goes a long way to validating the kiss Christine plants square on the mouth before she departs. Truthfully, it was a kiss I used to flinch at — it seemed forced, corny, gross, especially considering how the Phantom had been less an “angel” to her than a domineering demon, shouting commands to “sing for me!” (here, that scene is presented as a formal voice lesson, with Mann gesturing across his chest and making wide motions with his arms, imploring her to “breathe”) — but that kiss is now one of acceptance and understanding, and it goes a long ways to unpacking the character’s psychology. In other words, it’s touching. Mann’s portrayal is less boorish, more boyish, and reveals the man, not the monster. The Phantom’s dangerous pranks — the slamming sandbags, the falling chandelier (which is, in this production, perched literally above the orchestra section of the audience), even the murdered stagehand who’d made fun of him — feel more like childish antics, more emo, less abomination. That may not be what traditional musical-theatre audiences want, but it’s what works for 21st century musical theatre. A more identifiable (and indeed, familiar) Phantom is one that hopes to attract a younger audience, one with higher expectations in terms of characterization, and specific cultural touchstones when it comes to portrayals of romantic, tormented outsiders.

In watching this new Phantom, one couldn’t help but be reminded of the moody anti-heroes from the Twilight series. The resemblances are, in many respects, striking, and it’s smart of producer Cameron Mackintosh to mainline this vibe for a whole new audience. His efforts are greatly enhanced with a young, dynamic cast, and Mann, along with Katie Travis (as Christine) and Storm Lineberger (as Raoul) turn in performances that give this Phantom a youthful vigor, one filled with intense emotions and operatic reactions that, while not matching the dread of the original source material, mines the story for its hormone-laden, tainted-love storyline, not to mention Andrew Lloyd Webber’s eminently hummable score. The sense of the work being mean-spirited to opera is still one I can’t quite shake (does the formal “opera” presented here have to be so utterly disjointed, snobbish, and generally discordant?) but soprano Jacquelynne Fontaine’s stellar performance, as the opera singer Carlotta, helps to elegantly quiet that notion. As with Mann, Fontaine’s portrayal is far richer than a cartoonish, one-dimensional, diva cliche. In performing the pseudo-opera “It Muto” (clearly a satire of Mozart’s works, particularly The Marriage of Figaro), Fontaine expertly balances annoyance, pathos, humor, ambition, and terror in equal measure, softening the harsh lines between “opera” and actual opera presented in the work, and succeeding, through her remarkable voice and stage presence, in bridging the two worlds with grace and a wink-nudge smile.

Jacquelynne Fontaine as Carlotta Giudicelli. Photo: Matthew Murphy

Still, one comes out of this new production of Phantom less smiling and more haunted at the impression it leaves; the portrait of a damaged, damaging loner with delusions of grandeur and the weak link in a wretched romantic triangle feels uncomfortably near. Never before have I emerged from a Lloyd Webber work hearing a melody in my head long after the curtain comes down, but the famous Phantom tune (a kind of unofficial theme) “Music of the Night” sat, ear-worm like, for several days, its Baroque-influenced lined and haunting orchestration seeping into consciousness along with Mann’s entreating expression. A Phantom for all times? I’m not so sure. A Phantom for the 21st century? Definitely. See it and decide for yourself.

Casta Diva

By Catherine Kustanczy

On August 16, 2015

In classical, music, opera, personal, remembrance, writing

Tomorrow will mark three weeks since my mother passed away.

It feels odd to write that sentence, and odd to sit and look at it. Those are words I never thought I’d write at this stage of my life, in a blog no less, for everyone to see. There’s something so awfully personal about losing her, and I’ve encountered so many emotions and memories the last while — things I want to keep private, things I want to keep in a sacred space, things said and done and understood that need to exist only in the intimate space that existed between her and me. That may change in time, but for now, there are some doors that are remaining firmly shut.

Still, it’s hard for me to quantify the effect my mother has had (and continues to have) on my life. So much of what I love — music, theatre, opera, art — stems from her exposing me, at a very early age, to culture. It’s become the stuff of folklore to those who knew us well to hear I was in piano lessons at four, an opera gown at five, attending symphonies at six. Much as she complained about and worried over the inconsistencies of my chosen livelihood, she also knew I wasn’t really qualified to do anything else, that writing about (and for) the arts was, and remains, as natural to as breathing, as urgent as scratching a bite, as inevitable as sighing.

And I’ve been sighing a lot lately — over the times we shared, of course, but also over all the things she isn’t here to experience. Bellini’s great bel canto work Norma was on CBC’s Saturday Afternoon At The Opera program today, and I shed a few tears, and heaved a few sighs, thinking back both to my swooning exclamations to her after seeing Sandra Radvanovsky sing the role live in New York in 2013, and feeling horribly sad at the fact she wasn’t here to listen to the broadcast and rejoice in it as I was. Her absence feels like a horrible robbery to me, still — a robbery not solely to me, but to everyone whose life she touched (and there were many), and to the many worlds she moved between: cultural, financial, social, familial. Much as we are robbed by her absence, we were graced by her presence, and no one benefited more from that grace than I did. If I had a sense of gratitude before her passing, that sense has deepened, widened, broadened, become almost all-encompassing, to the point that a piece of music, an aria, even the most brief and beautifully-played phrase, will still me, awe me, set me to tears and sighs and silence. Productivity lately, as you might guess, has been something of a miracle — and yet I carry on being busy, because I know it’s precisely what she would want.

Still, there are many moments throughout the day that call for pause. The tickets for this season’s Canadian Opera Company productions sit in their envelope on the refrigerator in the kitchen, where I do most of my work; I stare at them and wonder what will happen the next few months. I couldn’t (wouldn’t) have ever dreamed I’d be without her a few months ago. Now, I find myself looking up from my work and over at the fridge — and I’m hungry, but not for what’s on the other side of the door. It’s going to be painful to enter the doors of the Four Seasons Centre without her, even with all the kind expressions of support I’ve received from fellow opera-going friends. How do you negotiate a world you’ve only ever known with someone else? “Make it your own” is a tidy little saying, but it feels far too trite, and somehow, too limiting.

So much of my cultural life is bound up in sharing what I love with others, in bringing them into the arts world to experience and exchange ideas, insights, inspirations. That’s a big reason I’m an arts journalist: I like to share what I love and think is relevant, important, moving, enraging, beautiful. I think my mother saw and appreciated that toward the end of her life. As I said in my eulogy at her funeral service, I am who and what I am because of her; my world has been shaped accordingly.

Now I face a world shaped by her absence. I will, of course, see and hear her everywhere — on the radio, between the notes, within the sighs, in the opera house — but it isn’t the same. Seeing the spaces where she should sit, hearing the arias she’d swoon over, hugging the people she adored, eating the (rare) dishes she enjoyed — these things underline and highlight an absence that is still, for all intensive purposes, a shock. Art doesn’t help to answer any of the questions I’m left with, or resolve the sea of emotions I’m navigating, but it does remind me of the legacy that lives within me, and within those who’ve checked out a production, a show, a book, a movie, a restaurant, because of our loud, shared cultural passion. This was her gift; it remains her lifetime contribution, one that defies even death, one that I hope will counteract the yawning absence, and become a part of a divine presence that never leaves.

L’Amour, La Mort

By Catherine Kustanczy

On June 6, 2015

In classical, music, opera, writing

Contradiction equals balance.

That was the phrase I kept returning to at the end of Death & Desire, the latest production from Toronto’s Against The Grain Theatre. The group, known for their innovative approach to opera and stagings, were lauded last winter when they staged an unconventional version of Mozart’s Don Giovanni, called #UncleJohn, first at the Banff Centre, then in Toronto, at the Great Hall. Turning the opera’s libretto upside-down, the audience became part and parcel of the action, implicated in the main character’s nefarious deeds but nevertheless seduced by his charm.

With Death & Desire, they had no libretto to work from, but rather, two vastly different song cycles, Schubert’s Die schöne Müllerin, and Messaien’s Harawi, each of which alternate throughout the work. The former, sung from the point of view of a lovelorn man, and the second, from a woman, sharply contrast in both style and content. Yet Director Joel Ivany and Music Director Topher Mokrzewski find the threads of connection that lay bare the bold, bald, frequently painful beauty within. Set within the intimate space of the Neubacher Shor Contemporary gallery, in the west end of Toronto, a world where clashes and conflict equal grace and harmony is laid out, asking us to consider contrast as a means for deeper exploration of both theatrical possibilities as well as emotional ones. It’s as if Ivany and Mokrzewski want to jar us on-purpose, swinging from Schubert’s sing-song melodies to Messaien’s jagged tunes, in order to keep hammering home the balance that is, inevitably, happening before our very eyes and ears.

Photo by Darryl Block

As realized by baritone Stephen Hegedus and Krisztina Szabo, Death & Desire takes on range of hues that far exceeds those outlined by the intentions of its original composers. Schubert’s melodies are given a range of deeply felt experiences that move beyond mere Werther-like sulkiness by the work’s end, while Messaien’s work becomes less a surreal collection of abstractions than a dogged look at the underbelly of that experience, a shadow-self to the Schubert that is needed in order to provide the sour flavor that turns to a smooth, tasty libation by the piece’s end. When Szabo rips away bunches of calla lilies, we’re horrified by the destruction, even as we note the bizarrely beautiful pattern the white petals create on the shiny black floor. When she sings, at one point in the text, in Quencha, we note the rhythmic nature of the words that slap up against the melodious smoothness of the Schubert he’s just sung. Hegedus and Szabo are less “man” and “woman,” respectively, than they are representative of different worldviews, contrasting ideas being played out (or rather, sung out) live within an intimate cozy, sometimes suffocating, sometimes deep, dark space. Death & Desire is less about romance than it is about trying to communicate past the ego notions we’re expected to identify with; thus does the “desire” bit keep falling away to reveal death, and, simultaneously, a deep kind of love that transcends the physical. “L’Amour, la mort” indeed.

Photo by Darryl Block

Frustrating at times to listen to, Harawi works in this setting precisely because of the intimacy afforded it —via the venue, the careful direction, the loving performance by Szabo, and the stellar chemistry between she and Hegedus, who, himself, brings a heartbreakingly beautiful energy. He might be an idea, but he’s one you want to embrace, one you can’t help but recognize and feel for, and his strong, gorgeous baritone is perfectly modulated to encompass a range of emotions. Szabo’s steely soprano beautifully captures the chaos of the work, as well as its stillness — no small feat. Each performer has such a different feel and sound for the work, but one never overpowers or over-compensates; rather, it’s a lovely give-and-take energy that is highly supported by Mokrzewski’s fantastic piano playing, and utterly complemented by Jason Hand’s keen use of lighting. At one point, Hegedus is bathed in a sickly tomato-red light, at other, tender moments, he and Szabo walk around the perimeter of the performance area with a rich indigo-backdrop and gentle, warm lighting; less a case of obvious indication, the lighting, like Michael Gianfrancesco’s elegantly spartan set, serves to highlight the varying viewpoints, ideas, and experiences at play between the characters, to sharpen, and then soften differences — ones that eventually melt away by the end of the work. At no point does Ivany dictate to his audience how we should feel (there’s a nice feeling he trusts us enough to avoid the spoonfeeding), a quality in short supply within the opera/theatre worlds, to be sure. I’ll be curious to see how he much of that he carries over to his directorial debut of Bizet’s Carmen for the Canadian Opera Company next season.

Photo by Darryl Block

In the meantime, Death & Desire is a work for our times — and all times — asking us to consider how much we can stand our views being challenged, and how much peace we can make with that reality. Can we move gracefully to a place of love and acceptance? Maybe. It’ll take a bit of work, though — and more than a few broken petals along the way. That’s a good thing. There’s beauty in destruction, and balance in contradiction, too. Finding it is painful, but so very rewarding.

Yesterme. Yesteryou. Yesterday.

By Catherine Kustanczy

On July 17, 2013

In art, music, personal, writing

It was somewhere between coffee and cleaning up from a dinner party on Saturday night that I learned the verdict in the Trayvon Martin/George Zimmerman trial. I stood gawping and silent, coffee and kahlua still dancing on the palate, staring at the multiple Twitter streams telling me: Not Guilty.

There followed a restless, late night, one spent exchanging ideas across social media networks, listening to old soul songs, reading various articles, thinking about America and its founding ideals, about youth, about justice, about relationships near and far, about differing perceptions across different lives, in different places and in different circumstances. About the notion of “different-ness” itself.

The incident sent me back in a time machine somehow, to recall a childhood friend I hadn’t thought about in many, many years. Tanya and her family moved to my old neighborhood in suburban Toronto when I was in seventh grade. It was a strange time, of shifting hormones, changing tastes, swirling, sometimes intensely passionate feelings; my once-strong friendships were disintegrating, changing faster than my hairstyles.

My twelve-year-old self was experimenting with new tastes in music, in clothing, in food, in books, in ways of seeing and experiencing the world; Tanya seemed to show up at the exactly right time, helping me navigate through the terrible trauma of first periods, the weirdness of my single mother dating, the importance of forging notes for gym class (we were possibly the only non-sporty types in the whole school and hated the athletic mean girls), and the joys of hitting up the local record shop to scope out the latest dance records. I was introduced to Janet Jackson’s music through Tanya, and we’d spend hours dancing in my basement to “Nasty” and “What Have You Done For Me Lately?” as well as hits by both Michael Jackson and Duran Duran. It was refreshing to find a (female) friend who never put the two in competing camps, as so many around me already had. (Either you liked MJ or you liked DD; there was no in-between, which, to me, seemed absurd.) I introduced Tanya to the wonders of the Eurythmics. We’d go to the cinema Friday nights and laugh loud and hard, at whatever absurdity we’d paid our $7 for; sometimes people would try to shush us and throw dirty looks. Our response was to throw popcorn and quickly duck down, giggling.

We didn’t know about history, or what we did know, we barely cared about or paid much attention to. We were young girls being… well, young girls, whispering, giggling, sharing, crying, being loud and obnoxious one minute, weepy and dramatic the next. When I visited Tanya’s house, I just saw people getting along with life, their jobs, their kids, their responsibilities. Tanya’s parents seemed tired, and her father was older than I expected, but they were friendly and very welcoming, delighted their rambunctious daughter had found an ally in a quiet, bookish, then-shy piano-playing local girl, and perhaps pleased at my mother’s church-going habits. Her mother’s smile as my eyes bugged out trying jerk chicken for the first time, her younger brother excitedly dancing with us in the basement and acting out the scenes from the “Thriller” music video … it was the mid-80s, and suburban Canada felt about as far away from the racial boiling-pot of America as you could possibly get.

Very often Tanya and I would relate the way many young women do, talking about the strange weirdness of our changing bodies and the absolute, utter mystery of male bodies. Tanya used to do a hilariously vulgar sort of pelvic thrust walk, making a funny wakka-wakka-sound in her throat – I can’t remember why, or the circumstances for such a creation -but I do remember howling with laughter. Tanya was, to me, a very cool girl, with her perfectly filed, long fingernails, Chuck Taylor sneakers, light-heartedness with the whole mysterious s-e-x thing, and, of course, a very chic-casual purple cheerleader-style jacket. For all that, I never thought she was any different than me; it never occurred that she was a black girl from California with a very different set of life experiences to my own -hailing from a large family with many siblings, her parents having recently moved to Canada and settled in what was then a very Wonder Bread neighborhood. She was sometimes laughed at in the schoolyard, with more than a few sporty, slim girls rolled their eyes at her in gym class (when we went), what with her hole-speckled socks, baggy shirts, and dimpled knees. Again, I never noticed those things, and she was just my cool, funny friend. I remember how I felt when we were together, whether in-person or on the phone.

It was with more than a bit of surprise that I thought of Tanya when Rachel Jeantel was interviewed recently. Her awkwardness, her self-consciousness, her mannerliness, her sparkling, shy youth… Tanya’s face came flashing into my mind, particularly the moments when my friend used to interact with my mother or my mum’s church-going friends. There was, in retrospect, a weird over-compensating going on that I, in my fuzzy-cotton-shielded-from-everything upbringing, hadn’t noticed as a youngster. As Laura Beck wrote on Jezebel, “I don’t know how you watch this and see anything but an unfiltered, genuine teenager. One who suffered the tragic loss of a friend she spent hours and hours on the phone with each day.” Maybe that’s what set me off to write this blog post, madly typing out rough thoughts in the middle of another restless night recently. There is a truly real, touching core of deeply-felt friendship so extant in Jeantel’s reminiscences, it’s almost painful to watch. You feel like you’re intruding on the lives of two teenagers who are super-tight with each other -literally to the point of death.

I’m not sure why, or how, but Tanya and I stopped talking -a petulant tween fight, as I recall -and soon after she moved away. I ran into her a little while after that at the local mall, when she was visiting; Tanya had moved back to California, her parents had separated, she was living with her mother and siblings. She was, somehow, such a grown-up at sixteen. I often wonder where she is now. Tanya would be about the same age as me, and looking at the date of Trayvon Martin’s birth – 1995 -I wonder if she chose to have children. What would she tell them? What might be be telling them now? Can she – can we -possibly return to that beautiful place in childhood, of laughter and love and shared secrets and innocence? Perhaps Christy Moore says it best:

I want to meet you where you are
I don’t need you to surrender
There is no feeling so alone
As when the one you’re hurting is your own.

(Bottom photo: detail of Kenny Scharf mural, 2011; both top & bottom photos from my Flickr photostream)

Show & Title

By Catherine Kustanczy

On May 25, 2011

In opera

It’s hard to know where or when I first heard the name “Mark Kostabi”, but I am sure it was on television.

I recall seeing the California-born artist on both Oprah and Eye To Eye With Connie Chung in the 1980s, when the art world was buzzing over his bald, smooth figures and his Warhol-esque Kostabi World. I remember admiring both his personal style as well as his attitude; equal parts intelligence, sneer, smirk, and sulk, he was so much more of a badass than any of the music-world idols my friends liked at the time.

So it’s probably fitting that I got the chance to meet Mark Kostabi in-person at a taping of his own television show recently.

The Kostabi Show is a funny, profane, profound, and a fantastically timely comment about the nature of art and democracy. Also, it takes the piss out of the whole idea of ‘high art’ and what that means for the average individual. Intriguing? Yes. Boring? Never. Infuriating? Occasionally.

Indeed, that could sum up Mark Kostabi’s life. Having studied painting and drawing at California State University, he moved to New York in 1982 and quickly became a leading figure in the burgeoning East Village art scene. In 1987 his works were exhibited internationally and in 1988 he founded Kostabi World, where he employed numerous paintings assistants and ideas people who would contribute to (and sometimes entirely paint) Kostabi works. He’s done designs for Swatch and Bloomingdale’s bags (one of which he gave away during last week’s taping), and his work is part of the permanent collections of some big-name places: MOMA, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Guggenheim, the National Gallery (in Washington), and many more. He’s done a bronze portrait of Pope John Paul II and had several books written about him. Oh, and he designed the album covers for (among others) two little bands you may have heard of: Guns n Roses (yes, he did Use Your Illusion) and the final release from The Ramones, 1995’s Adios Amigos. Not too shabby.

This engaging mix of high and low (and Pop) art is reflected in The Kostabi Show. It started as a series of phone calls – literally. Bored by the business meetings he’d have to be part of as a young NY artist and inspired by the films of Andy Warhol, he began taping the conversations, and broadcasting them on public television.

“I thought, if I filmed these (conversations), they’d be more fun, like a kind of performance,” he explains. “I had a lot of business meetings on the phone, so I put up a camera and filmed me at a desk talking to real art dealers who were haggling with me. Every phone call I had, I recorded. People were getting hooked the same way I got hooked on that phone call, just knowing it was real.”

Inside Kostabi was a big hit with the art world crowd, and was, says the artist, “a precursor to reality TV.”

Part of the show involved titling sessions with a variety of Kostabi’s friends and associates, including art critic Robert C. Morgan, who inspired the idea for the first formal competitive-titling show. Name That Painting, as it was called, began in 2007 a legal threat from the Name That Tune people forced a change and it became Title This, but when people would refer to it, they’d say simply “the Kostabi show.” It stuck. Talk about branding.

Airing Wednesday nights at 8.30pm, the show features competitive titling rounds as well as musical interludes, provided by an in-house band that features a talented ensemble, including Kostabi himself on piano. (More on his musical journeys in an upcoming post.) It’s a fascinating mix of people and ideas, with one over-riding theme: paintings should have names. How and why those names are arrived on is a big part of what makes up the show. A panelist of three celebrities gather to be presented with a series of Kostabi works. Past panelists have included jazz musician Ornette Coleman, Sex Pistol Glen Matlock, and the inimitable Tommy Ramone. Once the panel has suggested titles, the assembled studio audience holds up panels, colored red on one side and green on the other, to vote on the titles. Whoever wins gets cash from the erstwhile host and wild applause from the voting public sitting in the bleachers.

Watching the show was funny, amusing, frustrating, emotional, mind-boggling, and more than a little absurd, as Kostabi, ever the showman, jumped between panelists to audience members in desperate attempts to nail down titles for his gorgeously sleek, voluptuously elegant works -which, like Kostabi himself, are still the subject of both passionate adoration and scathing criticism.

For all the fun (and free pizza at intermission!), I had to remind myself to look forwards, at the show, and not around me, where those debated works hang like so many colorful drops in a gorgeous, smooth waterfall of shape and form. This isn’t about contemplation, I told myself, this is about diversion. And yet it’s an important kind of diversion -isn’t it? Was I being conned?

Beautiful paintings came and went with breathtaking speed, and the questions kept coming: Who does art belong to? Who cares? How does originality matter (especially in the digital age)? How does a title shape a work, a painting, a TV show, or indeed, a person?

As Kostabi himself reminded me when we recently met, Picasso didn’t think titles were of any great import, while Marcel Duchamp thought they were of huge significance.

“I’m somewhere in the middle,” he said, flashing a brilliant smile.

In the middle, maybe. But never, ever mediocre.

I Love This.

By Catherine Kustanczy

On April 16, 2011

In opera

Musician Son Lux played (le) poisson rouge here in New York Friday night. He was opening for Yoni Wolf of Why?. I came across the announcement on the poisson’sTwitter feed yesterday afternoon, quite by accident. After listening to a selection of Lux’s work, I’m starting to wonder if it was grand design.

After a bit of investigation, I was immediately struck by how much Lux’s music took me back to my new-music-loving youth, namely the first albums of Tricky, Massive Attack, Portishead, and Orbital. Ryan Lott -the man behind Son Lux – has done remixing and production work for bands like Beirut and Anathallo, and studied piano and composition at the Indiana University School Of Music. His debut album, At War With Walls And Mazes, was one of the most acclaimed of 2008. There’s something about a well-put-together electronic piece that has the power to reach straight into the heart the way any symphony can. Son Lux gets this.

But it’s not symphonies that have been on my mind. Lately I’ve been madly looking around for contemporary music that has that unique mix of well-crafted tunes, modern approach, and heart… great big weeping, bleeding, operatic heart. The music of Son Lux has this in droves. In a wider sense, it’s good to see the extent to which the whole “electronic-music-isn’t-real-music”-argument has faded; there used to be an old-fashioned attitude that, because musicians like Son Lux don’t have the guitar or piano as their main instrument, they musn’t be “real” artists. For me, artists like Brian Eno, Kraftwerk (and a myriad of DJs including Afrika Bambaataa and Howie B.) were instrumental in shattering that stuffy, inert attitude. Electronic isn’t just dance -though that’s important and vital too – but can be, and is, so much more. It’s nice to see mainstream culture accept these artists with open arms. Even straight-laced NPR (whose All Songs Considered bestowed the Best New Artist title in 2008) is streaming the entire new Lux album online.

Son Lux – Rising by Son Lux

I didn’t make it to the show Friday night -but I’m not surprised it sold out. This is fantastically trippy, orchestral electronica with more than a hint of its ambient forbears – but it’s also rooted firmly in the here and now. I love his embrace of old beats, older harmonies, and very fresh approach to composing and arranging. His work pulls on every heart string, gently, persistently, with great skill and care, moving from the careful tenacity of a cat’s swishing to the hard grooves of stilettos on linoleum. Lott/Lux is totally comfortable throwing the sounds of violins, flutes, and clarinets right in with processed beats and synthesizers, and making it sound natural, good, and… fun.

Please Mister Lux, please… play NY again soon. Promise I’ll be there, swooning in the front row, and quite possibly in tears.

“Sometimes I Feel So Happy”

By Catherine Kustanczy

On April 4, 2011

At this time last week, I was on a bus racing towards the Canadian/American border, luggage in tow and pie-eyed with worry, anxiety, sadness, and excitement. It was a strange feeling, to zoom by all the familiar sights -first the CN Tower (bathed in red in honour of the city’s various charity efforts for Japan), then the low-slung buildings and depressing box malls of the suburbs, and finally the vast vineyards of Niagara. I wasn’t sentimental so much as impatient, though I kept telling myself it was a long journey ahead – both literally, on the damn bumpy bus, and figuratively, in the oh-my-gawd-what-am-I-doing? sense.

What lit my resolve through that long, dark ride was the thought that I was seeing Patti Smith soon. Looking back on it six nights later, it feels like a beautiful illusion. Did I really ride 11 hours, sleep barely 2, haul 3 suitcases up 4 flights of stairs, madly clean for 4 hours, rest for (maybe) 1, and then run out the door 7 (or so) subway stops to (le poisson rouge)? Yes. And hallelujah.

To Japan With Love was announced a week before my departure. It featured Cibo Matto, Antony (Hegarty), Patti Smith, and Yoko Ono and the Plastic Ono band, which included son Sean Lennon. I knew precious little about Yoko, but she’s always been a woman for whom I have a deep and abiding respect. It can’t be easy to live with the musty old you-broke-up-The-Beatles moniker for decades, much less the ‘Shrieking Weirdo Artist‘ one (tho I suspect she’d like that). I made sure to leave early and line up outside the Bleecker Street club for a prime spot, and soon began chatting with enthusiastic New Yorkers who not only knew Yoko’s work well, but who were big fans and admirers. One Japanese fan even identified a club across the street – Kenny’s Castaways – as being a spot where she’d played an important gig in 1974. Everything -and everyone -has a story, especially here in New York.

After 2+ hours of a cold, impatient wait, I wound up being stuck behind one of New York’s tallest and most obnoxious (oh, and gassiest) photographers. I managed to angle next to a group of cool women with similarly-small builds but gigantic oodles of rock-and-roll enthusiasm (one of whom’s husband kindly provided the photos), and they provided me with good intros to both Cibo Matto, who were on first, and Yoko Ono, who came on later. It was a refreshingly diverse crowd, with nary a hipster or glamazon to be found (though Sean Lennon’s bass-playing model-girlfriend definitely threw some good pouts). I kept pinching myself that I was standing there, though the coughing jags provided painful, regular reminders. A constant was my wish that my health could’ve been better to more fully enjoy the splendor of what was unfolding before me.

Still, the coughing took a definite backseat when Patti came on. With her long, grey-streaked hair, bright eyes, broad smile, thick socks and big army boots, she looked utterly glamorous, strong, defiant, and beautiful. Her voice was like caramel: rich, deep, solid, the sort you want to swim in through a cold, rainy evening. She and her band (which included original members Lenny Kaye and Jay Dee Daugherty, along with Tony Shanahan, as well as her daughter on piano and son on guitar) held the room’s rapt attention as they launched into slower hits, as Patti gently, elegantly reminded the audience about the purpose of the evening. She showed her annoyance with that obnoxious photographer in front of me, as her eyes flashed with anger after he kept madly snapping past the fourth song. During an angry, passionate, spit-inducing performance of “Pissing In A River” (one of my all-time favorites), Patti folded her hands, bowed her grand head, and went… somewhere else. Somewhere very deep within herself physically, occupying a private space within a public context, showing herself to be both deeply theatrical and deeply veneered, all at once. Captivating.

As the soft, meandering guitar-rich intro for “Beneath The Southern Cross” was played, I let out a huge, audible sigh, clasping my hands together and shutting my eyes: “Oh to be / not anyone / gone / this maze of being / skin…” When I opened them, Patti Smith was looking at me and smiling. I still recall that look almost a week later. We held that gaze for a while and something in me said, don’t look away. Maybe it was a test. Maybe not. Later on, I exchanged a smile with Yoko, who beamed a huge, broad grin right in my direction. When Lou Reed came onstage to play a loud, fantastically raucous version of “Leave Me Alone”, us small ladies upfront couldn’t help but rock out – and it was apparent Lou liked the input. He kept extending the song, one, two, three times, a false ending, a stare with the Plastic Ono Band’s drummer, and then… more. He looked directly at me and… yep, smiled. The spirit was infectious.

Another memorable moment came when Antony and Yoko sang “I Love You, Earth” -another song that continued past its original ending, as Antony’s beautiful, eerily ethereal voice floated above the din, the sweat, and the feedback. He towered over the elfish, clearly-awed Yoko, as the two exchanged the words of the chorus, acapella: “I love you… / I love you / I love you… / I love you / I love you… earth.” At the song’s eventual end, Antony remarked, “that’s a fucking punk rock lyric.” Hell yeah. Hallelujah. A warm fuzzy goodness enveloped the room as a result and I’ll never forget the embrace he and Ono exchanged before they left the stage.

But that look from Patti -that smile, from someone I hold as a hero -quietly whispers to me a week on. It breaths an inspiration not yet discovered, an energy not yet channeled, a path barely begun but already so, so hard. It soothes all the bitter tears of homesickness, the sleepless nights of worry, the crying out for community and the sentimentality over small acts of kindness from strangers. Seeing her majestic goddess-like energy, coupled with a casual, comfortable, confident unpretentiousness, still feels like a dream. But it was real. And hearing her – being mere feet from her – my first night in New York was the best landing-gift I could’ve possibly asked for.

All photos by Jon Rosenbaum.

Sweet Home NYC

By Catherine Kustanczy

On January 18, 2011

In personal, writing

Peeking out the tiny window as the airplane made its way into Newark International Airport, one thought struck me: ew, brown. A large brown haze hung over the New York skyline. Yet another thought: get used to it. Buck up.

As I knew would happen, I wanted to do everything the minute I left the airplane. Going at near-sprint speed through Penn Station with baggage in tow, I quickly hailed a cab and… boom, there I was, in the thick of Big Apple traffic. Traces of the big December snowstorm were still in evidence, with curbs and corners white and icy. People were everywhere. The noise, colour, lights, and textures were a lot to take in, even as I tried to place where I was and my cab driver tried to figure out the best way to get me to my destination in Soho.

After grabbing a bite at the handily-close Dean and Deluca (ridiculous, delicious, nutritious), I made the predictable visit up to Times Square, turning onto 44th Street to visit the much-loved Belasco Theater. It was there, in 1995, that a good friend and I spent many breathless hours sighing and marveling at Ralph Fiennes’ Tony-winning performance of Hamlet. Directed by the super-fab (and super-nice, as I recall) Jonathan Kent, the show remains a favorite production of a very famous play. My friend and I got up to much mischief that hot July. Not visiting the area feels like sacrilege. I go to pay homage to a time, a place, to ghosts still very much alive.

A worker at the theater gave me a small smile as I clicked a photo outside. I always think people who work at old theaters during active shows must realize they’re working in an environment where people have memories -not just the theater crew and cast, but the audience, or even non-audience. Buildings have ghosts. I heard the Belasco had a real one. Hmmm. All the old theaters up around Times Square feel haunted by past voices, spoken onstage and off, and by the shenanigans that occur in any kind of creative pressure-cooker environment. They’re not the kind of ghosts I fear so much as appreciate. I’m going to BAM tonight to see the Abbey Theatre’s production of Borkman featuring Alan Rickman. More voices and faces from long ago and/or near-and-present? Probably. Sensing that kind of thing adds so much to the experience of live performance.

It was both a past, a present, and a very determined future I sensed colliding at lastnight’s genius performance at Zinc Bar, however. Whether it was design or chance that allowed this to happen I cannot say, but I’m grateful for this so-called “New York moment” nonetheless. The last-minute set, featuring super-musician Eric Lewis, was only announced via social media on Sunday; when I read it, I may have shrieked a little bit (only the dawg knows for sure). Lewis is a huge, huge favorite of mine, and this appreciation, bolstered by a music-loving friend’s appreciation of his work, made me go deeper into Lewis’ work and his approach to his art. I’ve seen the videos, heard about the White House performance, and follow the Facebook and Twitter updates. It goes without saying, though, that nothing compares to seeing the real thing, live and up close -especially in a cozy Greenwich Village club that calmly whispers “cool” the minute you walk down the stairs and through the door.

Opening with a raucous, rolling version of Wayne Shorter’s aggressive “Pinocchio“, Lewis, accompanied by the super-talented Ian Travis on bass and Ali Jackson on drums, delivered a performance both astonishing for both its technical virtuosity and emotional resonance. With a range of facial expressions and body signals, Lewis matches his muscular, passionate musical output with expressive physicality that borders on theatrical (in a really good way). Utterly lacking in pretension, Lewis smiled shyly and gave his bandmates equal time to shine. Tellingly, he patiently endured the microphone and sound glitches as he spoke between the (lengthy if enthralling) numbers, telling the enthusiastic audience about the composition of his bouncy original “Puerto Rico“, written in the very location some years ago over “many, many emptying Heinekens one night between 2 and 7am.”

Bouncing between an endearingly lionine sexiness, demonic bug-eyed determination, and toddler-esque wide-mouthed joy, Lewis emanated a vivacious, infectious energy -one that continued (and expanded) even with his invitation to trumpet player Marcus Printup (who was seated in front of me) and saxophone player Karel Ruzsicka Jr. to join him at various points throughout the set. It became a fascinating conversation between instruments and musicians used to blending colors, textures, and timbres with ease.

Lewis’s beautiful interpretation of Michael Jackson’s “Human Nature” was given a tasty little spin, as well a grandly sprawling version of Breaking Benjamin’s “The Diary Of Jane.” Lewis beautifully captured the dual nature of Jackson’s paean to sensual humanity; by turns sexy, dreamy, and jauntily rhythmic, he drew out its soul-meets-jazz-meets rock hybrid nature, milking, mocking, and worshipping the creation even in its conception, slowly, slyly sculpting something sonically new, daring, and thrilling. With “The Diary Of Jane”, the former Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra pianist captured the tune’s original emo bite, adding in crunchy piano power chords and aggressive harmonics that were positively symphonic in their sweeping majesty. The term “breathtaking” feels too mild; at times I would notice my mouth hanging open, my hands clutched together, my eyes bugging out. I think I may have drooled at one point. Vanity took a firm backseat in the presence of such gargantuan artistry.

By the time Lewis got to his rock-jazz version of “Sweet Home Alabama” (the evening’s closer), he looked as if he’d run a 10K marathon; with sweat pouring off him and a wide, broad grin, he confidently pounded away on the keys, solo this time, conjuring the soul of Ray Charles, the sass of Jamie Cullum, the cool of Thelonius Monk and the outright rockingness of… Jimmy Page.

What a marriage. What a night. What a bunch of noisy ghosts. What a city.

And there’s more to come, I’m sure.