West Side Story--Brooklyn story?

A-Rab (as a psychologist): In my opinion, this child don't need to have his head shrunk at all. Juvenile delinquency is purely a social disease.
Action: Hey, I got a social disease!
--Gee, Officer Krupke

(many thanks to West Side Story's Broadway site for the pictures!)

I went to see West Side Story last night with The Birthday Girl (welcome to the big 2-3, lady!!). It was PHENOMENAL. I haven't watched the movie in awhile, and I'd forgotten how amazing the choreography is--that Jerome Robbins knew his stuff! I happen to despise Romeo and Juliet (which West Side Story is based on) and I'm also not that fond of the movie, but the play was so much better. I think part of the reason was that Maria and Tony weren't as dippy on stage--part of the reason I don't like the movie much is because I don't care about their love story. Natalie Wood was not able to play a Puerto Rican very realistically, and Marni Nixon, lord love her, sounds even less like one.

But this Maria (Josephina Scaglione) and Tony (Matthew Hydzik) were vibrant and real--you could sort of sense that he was so devoted to her and she was in love but more strong than he was. When he died it was awful, awful. Her line at the end--about "You all killed him! And my brother, and Riff. Not with bullets, or guns, but with hate. Well now I can kill, too, because now I have hate!" was good and so sad and not overly melodramatic. And the dancing, as I mentioned, was totally cool. I like Sondheim and Bernstein A LOT, and their lyrics and music don't disappoint with this one. Some cool dissonance and timing, which the cast did really well. I would imagine it's a hard musical to sing, but they pulled it off.

Another totally cool thing is that Arthur Laurents, who wrote the original book for West Side Story, directed this new Broadway revival and rewrote some of the Sharks songs ("I Feel Pretty") and dialogue into the Spanish that the Sharks, as recent Puerto Rican immigrants, would have been speaking. Here is a pretty good article about the change. And here is another one which discusses Laurents's motivation for the rewrites. AND, here is an article with some clips. The Spanish works. Very well. It adds to the tension, as one of the actors points out in one of the articles--with the language barrier, it's another alienation between the groups, which highlights the alienation between recent immigrants, established street toughs, and the cops who don't respect them and don't know how to handle them.

Before moving to Brooklyn, most of my knowledge of gang-culture came from listening to West Side Story, much as most of my knowledge of nannies comes from Mary Poppins, and most of my knowledge of fake-cockney accents comes from My Fair Lady. Here is an anecdote to illustrate this point: I was helping my cousin set up her classroom last September, and I was doodling on some of the folder labels to decorate--mostly spirals, stars, waves, etc. After glancing over at me, my cousin said, "get rid of the 5-point stars, or my Crip kids are going to think I'm siding with my Blood kids, and that could cause me some problems." I was helping her rip paper out of notebooks last week, and this time I barely even noticed all the notebooks with 5-pointed stars etched on them and how a lot of those kids only wrote their notes in red (Blood colors) to make a point. It's interesting what a difference a year makes, eh?

That being said, gang-culture is not about dancing and it's not any better now than it was in the 1950's, although the players have changed. I have trouble figuring out gang-culture and warfare because it is so different from anything I've personally experienced, but it's not alien to me anymore. I live in between two gang territories, and while it is very unlikely that I'll be caught in the crossfires (literally and figuratively), I'm aware of it. Marking your territory with graffiti? Objectifying women, in ways that I can't even fathom? Racist assumptions from the police? Stupid, macho, and it makes me lived. And yet--as Riff points out, "when you're a Jet, you're a Jet all the way." You always have someone to back you up, to be there for you. At the end of the day, that is something that I think we all want. At the end of the day, I can sort of see the appeal of that.

Heat

I don't know if it's my Nordic blood (or what), but any time it gets to be 80 degrees or higher in NYC, I cease to be a valuable member of society (am I ever a valuable member of society? I suppose that is a valid question). I just want to watch TV and drink sweet tea, with a fan blowing directly on my face. Probably people in hotter climates would scoff at this pansiness (with good reason!) but I will say that it is not just me. People migrate out to their stoops and stairs to catch whatever tiny hints of breeze may be found. On the subway platforms, they seem to be wilting, their make-up melting, their suitcoats damp with sweat.

I can see why the upper crust, for the past 200+ years, has gotten away from the city in the summer months. It starts to smell--backed up sewers, food in garbage cans, unwashed clothes and people en masse. On the plus side, Melis got us egg and cheese sandwiches on hard rolls this morning--if there is one food I could live on, it would be egg and cheese sandwiches.

Anyway, the point of this post is to show you this painting:
Heat (1919), by Florine Stettheimer, from the Brooklyn Museum--thanks to them for the image!

I like this work a lot, but something about it also makes me sad. There is a sense of the sinister that seems to be lurking in it, especially with the trees in the back. It reminds me of Edward Gorey meets The Great Gatsby. Stettheimer was depicting her mother's birthday (hence, the cake on the table) and has painted herself, her mother, and her three sisters. She is the one on the lower right.

It reminds me of the wiltiness that I feel whenever I've eaten a big meal (ie Thanksgiving) and just want to pull up a pillow and lie on the floor. I like the composition and how the figures kind of echo and mimic each other, leading the eye to the matriarch on the top--but I mainly like it because it makes me feel sleepy and serene and a little bit creeped out. Plus, the colors are cool.

Heat is what Brooklyn feels like today.

Not an overly profound statement, but I stand by it.

The Art Notebook Saga

Since I am sporadically employed (SIGH) I had some time last week to museum-hop, which, of course, I do enjoy very much. I left the Met and was pumped because there was a man outside wearing a pink suit and playing "Oh, Canada" on the sax (the best national anthem IN THE WORLD, if you ask my relatives). Anyway, I was a few blocks away before I realized that my little art notebook wasn't in my purse, and that I must have left it somewhere.

Now, this wouldn't have been the end of the world, and there is nothing that profound in it (as you'll soon see), but I had been using this notebook for about a year, so I was pretty attached. I hustled back to the museum to look for it. Not helping matters was the fact that I'd already returned my little metal thing that you wear when you gain admission to the Met, so I had to wait in line again to get back in. I was also wearing a Holter Monitor at the time, so I looked absurd. "Like a bomber in an old cartoon," one of my friends said when I saw her later that day. "Like you have TNT strapped around your waist and you carelessly left the wires hanging out. Stay away from Times Square."

Happily--I did not get arrested, AND I found the notebook on a back bench in the Greek and Roman galleries, which was the last place I'd remembered sitting down. Since it was back in my possession, I decided to take a gander through it to see if there was anything interesting I could share with you. It is turning out to be not so much "interesting," as "notably ridiculous." Here goes.

1. Far and away the work that I took the most notes on was Caravaggio's The Denial of Saint Peter (c. 1610). I counted 6 separate mentions. Here is a sample of what I mean when I say "notes":
--PETER'S HANDS & UNDER EYE SHADOWS
--background little red flicks shadows on sleeve highlights highlights HIGHLIGHTS
--they glow from across room, through doorways, vibrant, LIFE
--today it is noses and hands ("noses" underlined 3 times)
--soldier shadowed angular distinct mustache?
--FOREHEADS
--glows from across room [again--apparently this was a theme]
Maybe I should work on coherent sentences. Or sentences, period.

2. Speaking of coherent, try this on for size:
"post--C of T--sober RCC, Ven. "Birth of the Virgin" on wall, [illegible] based Durer. quote from Cesare Vecellio--proper dress for widows = NUNS. Lotto, Portrait of Married Couple, squirrel on table (does not look like squirrel.)"
This does make some sense to me, but who the HECK is Cesare Vecellio, and perhaps I should have written down what he said? This was all one long non-sentence too--stream of consciousness art history ramblings? Yeah, that is how I do.

3. Joachim Patnir, Penitence of Saint Jerome (c. 1518.) "huge head, presumably for his massive brain. Ha! alien shaped. [I proceed to draw alien shaped Jerome head]. lovely blue robe--color stunning. cerulean meets teal? Camels cute. Jer looks too healthy, other than being old. Supposed to be penitent who beats self with rocks."

4. Here is another gem: "Triumph of the Phallus, 1540. Self-explanatory." Yes, it probably is. (But Anna, who created it, and why? Erm.)

5. And what did I have to say about George de la Tour's Penitent Magdalen? "chiaroscuro, big time. IS this the painting in Ariel's secret stash when she sings Part of your World?" The answer to that is actually no--THAT painting, I found out just now, is George de la Tour's Magdalen of the Night Light (1640-45), which is in the Louvre. I suppose I should be proud that I got the correct artist of a painting that is shown for .3 seconds in The Little Mermaid. Or maybe I should just be concerned.

6. Flipping a few pages, I wind up at the Brooklyn Museum, where I saw Jane Dickson's Cops and Headlights V (1991), and said, "compositional zig-zag, blues & blacks w/ pops of yellow headlights. FAB." It is fab, although the image they have posted doesn't really do the colors justice, but you'll have to make do.

7. Most of my notes from The Frick seem to be pretty substantial and even include drawings, but here is a good one:
"I WANT HIS BOOKS"
This follows a page on Giovanni Bellini's St Francis in the Wilderness (1480), but I can't imagine I was talking about St Francis's books. Perhaps I meant Henry Clay Frick? There are bookshelves around the house, and I was probably jealous. Who can say, really.

8. I'm not normally big on Edouard Manet, but his Bullfight (1864), also from the Frick, got a few mentions. The composition is totally cool--it was a painting which was (I believe) cut in half, and the Frick has the top half.

9. I had a lot to say about the Francis Bacon show that the Met had last summer, including:
--Head III--I like the ear, but mouth unnerving
--FB obsessed with "Battleship Potemkin"--what is that?
--Men in Blue, '50's, DREAD, Cold War, apocalyptic, drapes, shrouded, foreboding, isolation
--blood (?) looks like bubblegum

10. Skipping ahead about 20 pages: "Anthony van Dyck--Self Portrait. what I imagine Oscar Wilde looked like." [no idea which museum this is in]

11. From PS 1, a series about Helen Keller, called Punk Helen Keller (2003) by Johnathan Horowitz: "from HK: make a junk heap of your masters religion, his civilization, his kings and his customs. 1915. right on."

12. MoMA, Claude Monet's Water Lilies room, (1914-1916). "Overheard: Jack, have a look, because it's very famous... more [squiggley line] for water; more [vertical lines] for sky. celdaon, turquoise, curvy. Various times of day, different types of weather."

13. MoMA, Salvador Dali, Retrospective Bust of a Woman (1933): "bread & corn. Picasso's dog allegedly ate the original loaf. True? I hope so."

14. Skip a few more pages, and I seem to end with a few to-do lists, a knitting pattern I copied from a library book, and a recipe for chicken wing dip. A bit more on Watteau, Limbourg gospels, and...finished.

Looking it over, I seem to be disturbingly Eurocentric, although I definitely go to museums more often than I take notes, so this isn't a very fair sample. I can't imagine these notes will ever help me, ever, but it did make me remember some works I had forgotten about, and more importantly, made me remember how these works made me feel. The amount of exclamation points that accompany Caravaggio sightings, the hearts I drew next to Edward Hopper's name--those tell more of a story.

Creditors: A Tragi-Comedy

(thanks to my friend Annalise for snapping this picture in the subway)

"A superbly taut, tense and terrible little play"--a 1959 review

"Don't be afraid later, when you see me at work dissecting a human soul and laying out the bits and pieces here on the table. It sounds nasty if you're a beginner, but once you've seen it done you won't regret the experience." --Gustav, one of the three characters in Creditors

"It seemed to me to be less of a play and more an almost demonic experiment on a set of three human lab rats." --David Greif, current playwright and translator

"The characters don't argue; they use words like clubs." --Germaine Greer, reviewer

If this doesn't sound like your idea of an enjoyable Tuesday night, well, I'm with you. But it turns out I was wrong.

I had not heard of August Strindberg or his play Creditors (1888) before a few weeks ago. It passed my radar when I was looking at upcoming shows at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (which is called BAM.) Creditors, importantly, was directed by Alan Rickman and coming off of a very well-received run in London. Being a very big fan of Alan Rickman, and more specifically his voice, I was even more thrilled that he would be giving an artist talk before one of the performances. Hastily, two of my friends and I booked tickets and decided to go to the play as well.

Now, as I said, I didn't know what I was getting myself into, so I checked a Strindberg book out of the library, hunkered down, and realized that I would be dreading this 90 minute, no intermission battle of human emotions. There are three characters (Adolf, Gustav, and Tekla) who form a pretty twisted romantic triangle. I don't do well with plays which only take place in one room. I had more fun preparing for the Alan Rickman part, where I watched four of his movies in one weekend.

So: the day arrived, we met our out-of-town friend and had a lovely time with her. We went to the talk, wolfed some food in the lobby (between us we'd smuggled in about 1 1/2 pounds of sweet potatoes in our purses--it was pretty classy) and climbed the 70 stairs to our seats in the nosebleed section. The seats, I should add, were bar stools with backs that you had to hop into, so I was even more not excited about sitting there and being depressed.

The play was great. Genuinely heart-wrenching and gut-wrenching, but also--funny? Yep, I laughed, and more than once. The words which seemed so dull on the page came out of someplace in the actors that felt very real. Rickman must be a very, very good director (listening to him talk, you get the sense that he is.) What was intriguing about the performance is that I hated all of the characters at one point or another, and then two lines later pitied them immensely. Humans can be awful sometimes. But we recognize that awfulness, too.

Here is one thing I don't quite understand. When I read the play, I chalked Strindberg up as a misogynist, and sort of dismissed him as such (Greer points this out, too). But, as I watched the play, I realized that 1. his male characters are just as vile and cutting as his female ones, and 2. Tekla was the one with the power, the drive, and the self-confidence to do what she wanted. Since she is more powerful than the men, is that a negative portrayal of women or not?

And what about the Creditor to my heart? (ha, nice one.) Celebrity must be such an odd thing. People kept giving Rickman presents after they asked him questions, which we thought was both hilarious and off-putting. What were they, copies of screenplays they wanted him to look at? Anyway, here are my impressions of the Man, the Myth, the Legend:


(thanks to BAM online for the image!)
1. He has a way of smiling which is completely disarming. He said that his old acting coaches told him to stop sounding like he "was talking out the back of a drainpipe" but his voice is mesmerizing. He thinks a lot before he speaks, so every word takes on a certain purpose. He lingers on the words he likes, like "vicious" or "relentless" or the phrase "subtle cruelty," which he said with great relish.
2. He seems normal. Yes, I certainly wasn't talking to him face to face, but he was modest and kept chuckling (which sounded like a bear laughing) and was self-deprecating and very English.
3. He is smart. Having just watched Bottle Shock, a movie which no one has heard of but which I enjoyed (if you liked Sideways you would like it, I think), I was pretty sure he was fluent in French. Not only that, but as he talked he spit out quotes and examples from a bunch of different directors, theatrical and otherwise. He could recite theory and pop culture with the same ease.
4. He genuinely loves acting, and I think he really likes the theatre. At one point, he said that there is a "human need to be told a story," which can only be fulfilled by seeing someone in person and feeling the energy there. Having watched Creditors, I would agree. There were a few points where people around me actually jumped or gasped. Rickman also said that he hoped that truly listening would equal truly learning. Well Alan, you got certainly got me to listen.

Don't know much about Alan Rickman's career? Watch this and this and this. Immediately. For more of his voice, listen here. And for an irreverent (and very good!) impression of him by John Sessions, check this out. For even MORE irreverence, check out Strindberg and Helium.

At one point, Tekla tells Gustav, "there is no guilt, Gustav. There's just...people--men and women, fallen human beings--trying to do what they can to live. No one is to blame, Gustav. Not even you." It shouldn't be reassuring, this thought. But somehow it is.

Ellis Island

My parents were here last week (yay!), and we went to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. Being a history nerd-o, I really enjoyed both (even with all the tourists). Many European-descended types in America have some sort of Ellis Island story, mostly about relatives who came through the glass doors of that imposing fortress, and some who were never allowed to leave. Some died there, some were born there, some were deported--one of the worst stories I heard was of an elderly woman who had to go back to her homeland because she had a growth on her finger, and they didn't want her to infect Americans (it probably didn't help that she was old, female, and poor). Her entire family had emigrated* here and she had to go home alone, and none of them ever heard from her again. Most first and second class passengers passed through without a problem, and then those in steerage waited..and waited. If they didn't pass the physical test, then they waited for other tests, for days.(thanks to the Ellis Island site and the National Parks Service for providing these images. Minus people, the room looks much the same.)

Most of my maternal relatives emigrated in the 1880's, which was before Ellis Island was the entrance point to the United States. (At that time it was Castle Gardens/Castle Clinton, which is in Battery Park, and where my then-7 year old great-grandmother remembered picking the flowers.) However, my maternal grandfather's mother came through Ellis Island in 1893. Her name was Anna; hence, my name is Anna.

(not my relatives, but they are someone's relatives, and I am borrowing them for awhile.)

When Anna entered the United States she was 19 years old. She was alone. Young, unaccompanied women were considered a serious threat when entering the US in this time period, as they could have turned to prostitution or other unsavory means of supporting themselves in the big city. So I'm guessing someone must have met her there, or she was able to get around that rule, because in short order she got to a small town outside of Mt Jewett, PA and had married, given birth to a son, been widowed, and remarried by 1896. What was most odd about Anna's journey is that there were only 340 passengers on her ship from Liverpool, which could have held 2000. Who were they? Were they mostly young? Why leave Europe then?

I don't know anything about Anna's family or parents or much of her life in PA. She had 8 children all told, and after her husband died in a gas explosion (very young) she had to raise the children by herself, which included sending 3 of them (my grandfather included) to an orphanage in Meadville to make sure they had enough to eat. I hope her time at Ellis Island was quick, painless, and not too frightening. Although how could it not have been? Doctors with sedate suits, handlebar mustaches, practiced hands, and button hooks (BUTTON HOOKS) which they stuck under your eyelids to make sure you weren't infectious? People quizzing you about money and what you have in your bags and who is meeting you there and what your plans are? Feeling sick and hungry and homesick? How COULD it be non-awful?

Although, maybe I am just weak. I am moving to Indiana in four months and the thought of finding an apartment and meeting new people makes me feel ill. I am not hardy, and could very well have thrown up on the ferry to Ellis Island, never mind a 2 week journey on the Atlantic Ocean. Like every other tourist who visited the Island in search of their past, I am spoiled by the excesses of this country, excesses which my Anna, my matriarch and my ancestor, never experienced. Was her life in this country better than Sweden? I hope it was. And hey, I'm here because of it, so I'm glad she was here too. I picture her sweeping into Ellis Island, acing her mental test, marching to the ferry with aplomb, and setting off for New York City and promise and adventure. I walked in her footsteps last week. I sensed her terror and excitement, and I wished I knew her.

*Emigrated is when you leave a country to go to another. Immigrated is when you enter another country or new location. I honestly had no idea which of these to use until I looked them up about 5 minutes ago. Kind of like how until my senior year in high school I thought a Molotov cocktail was a drink.

The wisdom of Bob Dylan

These images (of a bong store and a fancy apartment building) are 116 MacDougal St and 160 Bleecker St, respectively. And I can guess your reaction: who cares? Well, you should! 116 MacDougal is not only where Bob Dylan and Alan Ginsberg used to hang out, but also where Dylan lived for awhile. It used to be known as the Gaslight Cafe, and there were readings there by Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac. 160 Bleecker is where Dylan wrote "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall."

I knew that Bob lived in Greenwich Village, but after googling it, I found a few definite addresses, and MacDougal Street has quite the history! For starters, Bob Dylan once got in a fistfight there was Andy Warhol. And here's a shortlist of the people who lived and wandered around there: Eleanor Roosevelt, James Baldwin, Ernest Hemingway, ee cummings, Miles Davis, Dylan Thomas, Gore Vidal, Paul Robeson, Eartha Kitt, Joan Rivers, and Richard Pryor. Now it's peopled by hipsters from NYU, which I feel like Bob would have something to say about.

Having been on an unofficial, meandering Bob Dylan walking tour (first with my cousin, then with my sister, about 7 months apart) I can say that if you have any interest in the musical culture of the 1960's, Greenwich Village is the place to be. To walk the same street that features on the album cover of the Freewheelin' Bob Dylan? Pretty awesome.

Moreover, Bob Dylan lyrics are good at describing everything, for a variety of situations. After consulting with my cousin, here are some examples:

Places we would like to be, other than NYC:
I like to spend some time in Mozambique
The sunny sky is aqua blue
And all the couples dancing cheek to cheek.
It’s very nice to stay a week or two.
--Mozambique, 1975

Lost love/lost friendship
I ain’t sayin’ you treated me unkind
You could have done better, but I don’t mind
You just kinda wasted my precious time
But don’t think twice, it’s all right
--Don't Think Twice, it's All Right, 1963

Freedom
Yes, to dance beneath the diamond sky with one hand waving free
--Mr. Tambourine Man, 1964

Post-grad life, sometimes
You’ve gone to the finest school all right, Miss Lonely
But you know you only used to get juiced in it
And nobody has ever taught you how to live on the street
And now you find out you’re gonna have to get used to it
--Like A Rolling Stone, 1965

Post-grad life, sometimes
I’m out here a thousand miles from my home
Walkin’ a road other men have gone down
I’m a-seein’ your world of people and things
Your paupers and peasants and princes and kings
--Song to Woody, 1961

Post-grad life, sometimes
The line it is drawn
The curse it is cast
The slow one now
Will later be fast
As the present now
Will later be past
The order is rapidly fadin’
And the first one now will later be last
For the times they are a-changin’
--The Times They are A-Changin', 1963

Unsavory bosses
I ain’t gonna work for Maggie’s ma no more
No, I ain’t gonna work for Maggie’s ma no more
Well, she talks to all the servants
About man and God and law
Everybody says
She’s the brains behind pa
She’s sixty-eight, but she says she’s twenty-four
I ain’t gonna work for Maggie’s ma no more
--Maggie's Farm, 1965

Sound Life Advice
Keep a clean nose
Watch the plain clothes
You don’t need a weatherman
To know which way the wind blows
--Subterranean Homesick Blues, 1965

Corporatism
Now all the criminals in their coats and their ties
Are free to drink martinis and watch the sun rise
--Hurricane, 1975

When considering upcoming birthdays (!!)
May your heart always be joyful,
May your song always be sung,
May you stay forever young,
Forever young, forever young
--Forever Young, 1973

Art
Inside the museums, Infinity goes up on trial
Voices echo, this is what salvation must be like after a while
But Mona Lisa musta had the highway blues
You can tell by the way she smiles
--Visions of Johanna, 1966

Being in a Rut and Getting Out
My clothes are wet, tight on my skin
Not as tight as the corner that I painted myself in
I know that fortune is waitin’ to be kind
So give me your hand and say you’ll be mine
--Mississippi, 1997

P.S. I don't think me quoting song lyrics constitutes plagiarism, but if it does, and you're reading this Mr. Dylan--I'm sorry, and I'd be happy to buy you a drink to make it up to you.

Thomas Cromwell & Me

A few weeks ago I finished Wolf Hall, a door-stopper sized book (and Booker Prize Winner) by Hilary Mantel. It took me awhile to read, but it was one of the best books I've read in the past six months, or ever. It tells of Thomas Cromwell, Henry VIII's chief minister for 8 years, and one of his most trusted advisors. Cromwell grew up the son of a poor blacksmith who beat him, and he was one of the very few members of the court without an illustrious lineage. He was smart, canny, and knew how to choose the winning side--although he worked for Cardinal Thomas Wolsey for many years (and liked him), after Wolsey's fall and death he allied himself with the Protestant cause, and agitated for Anne Boleyn to become queen.

What I like about Thomas Cromwell is that while he was a go-getter he also cared about his family and even his enemies--Mantel plays up the differences between Thomas More and Cromwell, and you get a real sense of his remorse when More is executed. A scene from Cromwell's childhood where he witnesses a Loller being burned at the stake will stick with me for a very long time. Cromwell was also fluent in French, Italian, and Latin, and had many friends in Antwerp. He did some shady work in Italy after fleeing his father, and he had military training. He liked pets and children and treated them respectfully. He consorted with ambassadors, painters, astronomers, and kings. This was a person who lived. Mantel is very good at giving the reader a sense of 17th century England, and the mannerisms of the court, the clergy, and the common folk--from the bitter Duke of Norfolk to the heretic nun.

I found myself at the Frick Collection recently, and turning a corner, I saw the portrait of Thomas More by Hans Holbein, to the left of the fireplace. I was excited, as I know a bit more about him now, but my excitement grew as I looked to the other side of the fireplace and there he was: Cromwell.

(Thomas More, 1527) (Thomas Cromwell, 1532-33)
Both works by Hans Holbein, and both images from the Frick Collection Online.

Here is part of the description from Wolf Hall, discussing the portrait:
"He sees his painted hand, resting on the desk before him, holding a paper in a loose fist. It is uncanny, as if he had been pulled apart, to look at himself in sections, digit by digit. Hans made his skin smooth as the skin of a courtesan, but the motion he has captured, that folding of the fingers, is as sure as that of a slaughterman's when he picks up the killing knife...He had time to think while Hans drew him, and his thoughts took him far off, to another country. You cannot trace those thoughts behind his eyes.
He had asked to be painted in his garden. Hans said, the very notion makes me sweat. Can we keep it simple, yes?"
(Wolf Hall, Hilary Mantel, p. 430)

This gave me pause--imagine that you used a mirror occasionally, but your main sense of personal appearance came from what others said about you (in Cromwell's case, that he looked like a murderer.) And suddenly, you have been painted and you are looking at yourself, really looking, for the first time. What an odd experience that must have been. In a way, Cromwell looks, well, ordinary, especially compared to More's green curtain and royal chain, not to mention the velvet sleeves. The turquoise ring was bequeathed to him by Wolsey, and it is his only ornamentation. The furnishings are wealthy, to be sure, but more in the realm of a prosperous merchant, and not the right hand man of the king.

The Frick does not have wall labels, so you listen to the descriptions and information about the works on free audio guides. I held it to my ear, and heard much about Cromwell's reforming spirit, when suddenly came this phrase: "executed in 1540." I had no idea, as Wolf Hall finishes in 1535. I gasped, audibly enough that a guard came over and asked if I was ok. A deep sense of loss, one that I really was not expecting, came over me, for a man who worked so hard and did so much, whose wife and daughters died of the plague, whose enemies fought him and connived and finally entrapped him. Henry VIII approved his execution mainly because Cromwell orchestrated the marriage to Anne of Cleves, who Henry refused to copulate with, and which resulted in some messy alliance-making stuff. Henry claimed to his death that he was remorseful for Cromwell's killing, which I can just about believe--the impression I got from the book was that Henry VIII really did admire and respect him...but kings can be changeable.

Thomas Cromwell was anything but simple. He lives on, and for one short moment on a sunny Thursday afternoon, I saw him in his study, surrounded by his books, shuffling his papers, with his sons and apprentices shouting outside. He straightens his back, pulls tighter his fur-lined coat, jokes with Hans, and goes out to face whatever comes.

Opera or Soap Opera?

As loyal readers of this blog know, I like opera, and my cousin and I went to see Carmen this week. I also happen to like a certain soap opera, which is the kind of thing that I tend not to publicize. However, I got to thinking about Carmen and General Hospital, and saw some comparisons in the realms of character archetypes, backstabbing (ha! literally and figuratively), and jealousy. Here's how the two stack up:
(Edward Gorey, The Blue Aspic)

Beginnings
C--Georges Bizet, premiered March 1875 in Paris, was critically panned. Revived in Vienna in October, to a much better reception (Bizet had died by that point, at the age of 36. Sad). Currently the fourth most performed opera in North America.
GH--premiered in 1963 on ABC, originally a half-hour length, and then shifted to an hour. According to wikipedia, Princess Diana used to watch the show, and sent 2 bottles of champagne for the producers in honor of Luke and Laura's wedding.

Settings and Sets
C--Seville, Spain, 1830s. This new production has updated to around the 1930's, I would guess. The sets for this production are amazing. A lot of rotating stone walls and red accents, which is fairly simple but looks great. The costumes are subtle, for the most part, although Carmen's dress in the final act is glorious--long, black, lacy, with a red line down the side. The curtain also is black with a jagged, red lighting bolt down the center, which is a nice touch too (Carmen being the lightening bolt that sets everything in motion, or on fire. Whichever cliche you prefer.)
GH--Port Charles, New York, present day. It is set mostly in the hospital (duh) and then a few people's homes, which tend to all look pretty similar, at least to me. The sets have obviously changed a bit in the past 30 years. (I told you the sets were cool! Courtesy of the NYTimes)

The Femme Fatale
C--Carmen, of course! Her femme fatale-ness is the whole point. She's too hot to be controlled, and too much of a temptress to live. Like the bull that the torreador entices and then kills, Carmen has to be sacrificed for society to continue unhampered. I hate this message, but it's a good plot for drama.
GH--most of the women, with their multiple marriages, bad mothering skills, and catty ways. Elizabeth is kind of taking the cake this year, by cheating on her fiance with his brother. There are many other examples. However, most of the bad guys, are just that--guys. Claudia Zacchara is the only woman I can think of that is (well, was) truly dastardly. Other than those random nurses that occasionally poison their patients.

Violence
C--Carmen and the bull are the only two fatalities, and Carmen and another cigarette girl do get in a fist and hairpulling fight. The soldiers are creepy and are certainly capable of violence, but it's not really shown.
GH--oh, lots. Considering one of the main characters is a mob boss, there are a lot of whackings (usually not by him, usually by his hired guns.) Add in the occasional car crash or poisoning (see above) and that is the gist of the show.

Racism
C--there is definite tension between the gypsies (Carmen is one) and the lighter-skinned Spanish. It is implied that Carmen is so wanton because of her gypsy ways.
GH--are there even any minorities on this show?? I guess there is one African-American nurse. That might be it though. So...racism, in a way?

Religion
C--surprisingly little. More concerned with tangible things; I don't think Don Jose was too worried about eternal damnation when he kills Carmen. Don Jose's original, pious girlfriend, Michaela, is set up as an obvious foil to Carmen.
GH--there is a priest (the same priest) who shows up for all weddings, funerals, christenings, etc. It is at these gatherings where violence (see above) often happens, as the town is then in a collective group. Sonny Corinthos (the mobster) spends a lot of time in the hospital chapel, as he is usually in the hospital waiting for news on someone he shot/some relative that got shot in his place/some victim of a hit gone wrong.


(ah, L'amour est un oiseau rebelle/que nul ne peut apprivoiser. Sonny knows it.)

Worthy of Accolades
C--as mentioned, the setting is amazing. The Carmen and Don Jose we saw both had colds, but honestly, I couldn't really tell. It's a weird opera in that there are only a few main characters, but with a lot of crowd scenes, and I thought the crowd scenes were exceptionally good...how you get that many adults and children to work together like that is beyond me.
GH--is it realistic? At all? Well, no. But give it an A+ for gumption.

Any opera/soap opera crossovers?
C--on the dramatic front, the original singers who were supposed to be Don Jose and Carmen had to be rearranged because they were married in real life and were getting a divorce. So the Met kept Don Jose and brought in 2 other Carmen's for the first few performances. And the NEW Carmen got amazing reviews (we couldn't get tickets for her performances).
GH--Lulu Spencer and Dante Falconeri recently went to the opera on a date. I actually missed this episode, so I wasn't sure what opera they went to, but after typing "lulu dante opera" into google, I have learned that they saw Puccini's La Boheme. I am both impressed and disturbed that other people were wondering about their opera as well...

Yes, it is sort of hard to compare the two genres--one is centuries old, rife with history, grandeur, glamour, and gore, and the other is, well, sort of silly. But they are both tremendous fun.

Also, I believe the reason that I cannot remember German verbs or when Mannerism ends and Baroque begins is because my brain cells are too occupied trying to figure out which Quartermaines and Cassadines hate each other, and why.

For even MORE irreverence, check out the orange from Sesame Street singing La Habanera here. I'm pretty sure Frank Oz is the one singing.

The Dinner Party

Remember, all men would be tyrants if they could. If particular care and attention is not paid to the ladies, we are determined to foment a rebellion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any laws in which we have no voice of representation.
--Abigail Adams, in a letter to her husband John

Most of you have probably seen this painting (or read a terrible book about it):

(Leonardo, The Last Supper, c. 1498, image from Wikipedia)
I'm starting with it because Christ, both with and without his disciples, is well represented in Western art history, and this is historically what studying Western art was about (Jesus, Leonardo, perspective, and so on). One of the major problems when revising this art history is how to combine such important works of art with inclusiveness about women and their contributions (or if you even should revise history. My answer would be "OF COURSE," but not everyone thinks so). One response by contemporary artists is to address the history*, change it around, and make something new.

Enter Judy Chicago, 400 volunteers, and The Dinner Party (1979), the monumental work (both in size and scope) which has been on permanent display at the Brooklyn Museum since 2007. Chicago's work came at a time when art history was shifting to be more inclusive of women's contributions, as scholars, artists, and patrons. This change is odd for me to think about, because the art historians I know are all (for the most part) very conscious of gender and a discussion of it within art history. Like good ol' Abigail Adams, certain scholars have been waging a rebellion to bring about this change, and they are awesome (y'all know who you are). Chicago's goal in the 1970's was to create a dinner party unlike the Last Supper, as the seats would celebrate women, not men.

(all images from here on out from the Brooklyn Museum's website. Thank you!!!)
The piece is rife with symbolism--it's triangular shaped (a shape associated with women) and there are 13 place settings on each side (13 being the number of Christ + 12 disciples). Each of the 39 women is emblematic of a certain period in history, and their respective sisters' names are written on the tile floor beneath--999 names, all told. The work is comprised of painted place settings and embroidered table cloths--chinawork and weaving were historically dismissed as "women's craft," and Chicago wanted to reappropriate them, as the artforms that they are. The silverware and glasses are all identical, which symbolizes the solidarity and unity of women's experience, which is a nice sentiment, but not really true. Most of the plates have flower and vulvic themes (think Georgia O'keefe) and they get progressively more defined and 3-dimensional as time goes on and progress is made.

The usual suspects are represented: Queen Elizabeth, Amazons, Sojourner Truth, Mary Wollstonecraft. However, here are a few of my slightly less well-known favorites (and in no particular order):

Elizabeth Blackwell (1821-1910) received her medical degree from Geneva Medical College, and so has a great deal of significance for my alma mater (there is a statue of her there, which people do creepy things to. Anyway.) Here's something I learned, though: she graduated first in her class, and then the college barred women from applying. Blackwell did a lot of amazing things with the sanitation movement, and founded a Women's Medical College, as she learned from her educational trials how hard it was for women to be accepted in the medical community. And I love the butterfly motif of this setting, and the spiraling stethoscope wrapping around the "E" in her name.

Natalie Barney (1876-1972) is actually someone I had not heard of prior to viewing this work, but I was initially drawn in by the colors, and the star design on the plate. Turns out Barney hosted a salon in Paris for over 60 years, and was an openly gay writer of poetry and other works.

Sophia was (is?) the personification of wisdom (Sophia means "wisdom" in Greek). She stands in for Athena, Minerva, and is a key figure in Gnosticism, which was then subsumed by Christianity. I like this place setting because the colors are muted and look like desert sands and skies. Also, this is one of the first plates, so it is pretty flat.

I am one of about three people in the entire world who cares about Marcella (c. 325-410), but I truly do. She was a colleague of Saint Jerome, and she did a lot of his dirty work (translating the bible, building monasteries, backing him up in Jerusalem, giving him a TON of money, etc etc) and she didn't get any of the credit. We owe contemporary Christianity to her work. That might be overstating it slightly, but I don't really care. The bottom of her place setting (the brown bit) is made of coarse material and looks like a hairshirt, which represents her piety and sacrifice. Marcella is the first figure in the second line of 13 plates, and this when women's contributions to Christianity (and culture, really) begins to be systematically devalued.

Do I have any criticisms? Well, yes. The work includes a lot of women, but very much focuses on white women. A few non-heterosexual women are included, but not enough. There are no place settings (to my knowledge) that celebrate African and Asian women, although there are a few African-American examples present (and some might make an appearance on the Heritage floor, but I haven't read all of those names.) It is very essentialist, and a bit segregationist, but at the same time, I think we have to give Chicago credit. This was a big undertaking, at a time when these things weren't really done. I walk around the table about once a week, and it is invigorating, and inspiring...and sad, because of how many things are still broken and need to be fixed. But it makes you feel--something--and that is important.

If you are in the city, I urge you to check it out. There is a neat system where you call a number (even after you leave the museum) and you can find out about all the different women (for more on that, see here). The museum guides that are stationed there LOVE it, too--they have read all the booklets and really want to help show you around. You have to enter in a specific way--past the heritage tapestries (which I also love), through the room with the table, and then back to an area with biographical notes about all the women. I like that there is a set path--it becomes a ritual, as you pay respect to people that were too long neglected.

For more info and a totally cool interactive guide, check the museum's website here. For the curators summary, check here. And for more on the Sackler Center itself, check here (they have rotating exhibits that are always worth a look.)

*the museum makes a point of substituting "herstory" for "history," which I like but which also feels silly to type.

A Night at the Opera, Round 2

You're willing to pay him a thousand dollars a night just for singing? Why, you can get a phonograph record of Minnie the Moocher for 75 cents. And for a buck and a quarter, you can get Minnie.
--Groucho Marx, A Night at the Opera, 1935

(Susanna and Cherobino. Thanks to NYTimes online for the image!)

Today is my Name Day, which doesn't really mean much. I'm assuming it goes back to Saint Days, although we celebrate it in a Scandinavian vein; meaning, if I were home, that I would be having a cupcake from Ecklof's Bakery (actually, I would be having half a vanilla cupcake and half a chocolate cupcake, because that is the protocol on one's Name Day.) Today is also the day that my student loans become due. In honor of that, I would like to quote David Sedaris, who so often articulates what I am thinking: "I came home this afternoon and checked the machine for a message from UPS but the only message I got was from the company that holds my student loan, Sallie Mae. Sallie Mae sounds like a naive and barefoot hillbilly girl but in fact they are a ruthless and aggressive conglomeration of bullies located in a tall brick building somewhere in Kansas. I picture it to be the tallest building in that state and I have decided they hire their employees straight out of prison. It scares me." (from the Santaland Diaries.)

So in honor of my impending debt, and just because, last night I went to see my favorite opera, The Marriage of Figaro (or Le Nozze de Figaro.) And it was wonderful. I waited in line for rush tickets again, although the basement of Lincoln Center is not heated, as it turns out. I did make an older-lady friend in line, although she was NOT as much a Mozart fan as I was. She has been coming to the opera with her husband since 1968, and so has seen her fair share of Figaro's...I still don't think I would ever be sick of him. She suggested some modern operas to me, which is good, because I definitely tend to the classical and need to branch out. We ended up getting seats next to each other (Row K!! For $20!! Rush tickets rock) and afterwards she patted me on the arm and said, "here's to many more years of your opera viewing, dear."

I actually think that Figaro works better in a smaller theater, since Mozart's music is so crazy good that some of the intricacies get lost or swallowed up in a theater as huge as the Met ("it sounds jewel-like in Prague," said my old-lady buddy. Good golly!). But, no matter. The sets were nifty, the singing was glorious, Susanna (Danielle de Niese) was pretty and her comic timing was great, Figaro (Luca Pisaroni) was charming and smart, and the Count and Countess (Ludovic Tezier and Annette Dasch) were smarmy and wounded, respectively, although I think the stand-out was Cherobino (Isabel Leonard) who played the dippy lovesick nobleman to perfection. There wasn't as much chemistry as there could have been between Figaro and Susanna, but I was too high on Mozart-joy to care. The conducting was also speedier than I'd heard before (the overture especially) but I actually kind of liked that--it made it especially energetic. The story, originally by Beaumarchais, tells of infidelity, intrigue, baby-snatching, cross-dressing, more intrigue, scheming servants, double weddings, and apologies. In short, it's a big ol' farce. Plus, it is funny...I think when people think "opera" they don't often think about how funny it can be. True, the misogyny in this one is pretty heavy, but I think Mozart and DaPonte were making fun of the men for being self-righteous, and anyway, Susanna slaps Figaro, like, 5 times, so it all evens out in the end. (Although, I'd like the Count to have more of a comeuppance.)

The opera ends with apologies from the Count to his long-suffering wife, who forgives him. And Figaro and Susanna forgive each other. And all is well. I would nominate Act IV's finale as the greatest music ever written; it is so manic but controlled, and fast and contemplative and lovely. Ahh. For a pretty good clip from the Met's '99 production, you can watch here. The sets appear to be the same now, or very similar. And the text of the finale states that, "This day of torment,
Of caprices and folly, Love can end, Only in contentment and joy." Forgiveness and love reigns, at least for a little while. Not much better than that, although it sounds less banal in Italian.

Click here for a review and some audio clips from this season (Figaro's aria where he's talking to Cherubino about getting ready for the military, and the Countess's hauntingly sad aria from Act III that always makes me kind of tear up.) For a review plus a little plot exposition, click here. For my past blogging about the Met, click here. For one of my favorite arias (Bartolo's La Vendetta), click here. (Although this guy has a super cheesy moustache.) For one of my favorite duets (Susanna and Countess strategize and letter-write), click here.

That Mozart. He's one of the few people I would be willing to risk pneumonia in the basement of Lincoln Center for.

The Melancholy Dane

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
--Hamlet, Act 1, Scene 5

Yesterday, my friend J visited, which was very fun. (she is an '08 WSC grad who I haven't seen in over a year). And we went to see Hamlet! I have never been an "oh-my-gosh-Shakespeare" person, but Hamlet is my favorite. The lovely (and talented, I guess) Jude Law was playing the lead. We thought it would be unlikely that we would get the cheap-seat, day of performance student tickets, but we decided to try. When we got to the Broadhurst theater, there was a tiny line, and we got the tickets with no problem (seriously, I can't recommend enough the day of performance tickets--the seats are good, and the price is SO much better!!)

We had a few hours to kill before the matinee, so we walked by Rockefeller Center where they were setting up for the Tree Lighting, window shopped along 5th Ave, and got sandwiches from a deli to eat in Central Park. I dragged her to the Frick, which had a special exhibit on Watteau drawings. After the show we got some ice cream (healthful, yes) and appetizers and drinks, saw a mass exodus of people en route to the tree lighting, and witnessed an anti-war protest in Times Square. There weren't that many people, but megaphones tend to make me skittish (my friends and I were accidentally in an anti-police brutality riot in Montreal while on spring break, long story). Nothing too crazy happened though.

As for the play--well, it was awesome. Jude Law was good, if different. His Hamlet was mad, not in a crazy sense, but in an ANGRY sense. And with good reason--his father dies and his mother marries his father's brother not 2 months later. What I didn't realize from just reading the play is that it is really funny at certain points, especially in the scenes between Hamlet and Polonius. I thought this Polonius, Ron Cook, was very good. Ophelia was beautiful but ho-hum...I wasn't overly sad when she died. (Hamlet, however, died very beautifully.) The sets were cool too, very minimalist, dark, and gulag-like, as were the costumes, and there were occasional pops of color, in a red carpet, glowing purple thrones, or gleaming white of The Players costumes. There was also fake snow during the "to be or not to be" soliloquy, which looked neat.

The audience, which was a lot of high school kids, was generally well behaved, with only a few cell phone buzzes. The guy behind me kept falling asleep, but he left after intermission. I admit to feeling a bit sleepy myself, as the play is 3 1/2 hours long, and towards the end the soliloquies pile up. What was wonderful is that it was enunciated well and I could hear everything; even if it didn't register what the words meant, exactly, they just sounded lush and elegant. And sure, Hamlet is misogynistic and kind of a pill (I wrote some paper in high school on Misogyny in Hamlet, but I don't remember what I said, except I was angry at how he treated Gertrude), but he is also pitiable and sad. It was a wonderful way to spend an afternoon.

Here we are looking cute, if damp, in the rain:

But we don't look quite as cute as this guy (even if he is anguished):


Here's a story on it all from the NY Times, and an actual review from that same august (read: pretentious?) newspaper here. And here's "What a Piece of Work is Man," from Hair, a gorgeous string of words from ol' Shakespeare himself.

The Garden

Hell, you ain't no kind of man if you ain't got land.
--Delmar, Oh Brother Where Art Thou?


Faith Ringgold, The Sunflower Quilting Bee at Arles, 1991, Private Collection*

I don't often recommend movies to people, because my tastes tend to run from the sappy (Colin Firth + anyone else), the cheesy (STAR WARS! STAR WARS!, but only 4-6), or quirky with a good soundtrack (The Royal Tenenbaums). However, we watched The Garden last night, which is a 2008 documentary directed by Scott Hamilton Kennedy. And it is very good.

It tells the saga of the South Central Farm, which was a 14-acre garden/community in the middle of Los Angeles. The land became available after the race-related riots in 1992, and the garden was around for 10 years before a bunch of forces conspired to shut it down. The man who originally owned the land was given $5 million for it, because the city seized it through eminent domain laws. In 2003 he decides he wants it back, and the city sells it back to him--through really, REALLY questionable circumstances. There are alleged backroom deals with the City Council, and another activist group that wants to turn the land into soccer fields (well, they say soccer fields but they really mean a few soccer fields and then 10 acres of warehouses.) It complicates matters that the South Central Farmers are mostly poor Latinos, and the guy who originally owned the land is a horrid xenophobe who says in his deposition that they should be "thanking" him for being gracious enough to let them use the land. He continually calls them un-American.

And there are court orders and secrecy and shady judges and the South Central Farmers raise the $16 million that the owner wants for it (they get a bit of help at the end from Joan Baez and some others.) And he won't sell it to them (to reiterate: he is a xenophobe.) I'll let you watch it and find out what happens, but I will say that I was pretty angry and frustrated, so you can guess what happens...

Community gardens are important. The South Central Farmers were able to grow food for themselves, and it gave them something to work for, for them and their families. And it really was beautiful--tall plantain trees, multi-colored corn, fat radishes, bushels of greens. There is a community garden, of a much smaller scale, near my usual subway stop. And there are co-ops in some of the fancier neighborhoods, but a lot of places in New York have those gardens too. (I mentioned one in an older post on gardens, here.) So--if you have a garden enjoy it! At least when it's warm again.

*Faith Ringgold is totally, totally rad, and it is my not-so-secret life goal to meet her. So Professor Ringgold, if you're reading this... ;)

A Night at the Opera

And now, on with the opera. Let joy be unconfined. Let there be dancing in the streets, drinking in the saloons, and necking in the parlor.
--Groucho Marx, A Night at the Opera, 1935


(thanks to wikipedia for the Lincoln Center image)
On Thursday night I went to the Metropolitan Opera and saw Richard Strauss's Der Rosenkavalier. Every other opera I've seen has been at Chautauqua, and some have been really good (The Marriage of Figaro) and some have been quite not good (Little Women...I may have said, "if Beth doesn't die soon, I'm going to get onstage and kill her myself.") But Der Rosenkavalier was unlike anything that I've seen before.

An Opera Maven that I know recently told me about 200 rush tickets that are set aside for sale on the day of the performance. They are orchestra level tickets (which run $275-$175) which are priced for $20 instead (a donor pays the rest of the ticket.) I decided to try this, because a normal $20 ticket is up in the light green section on this map, with an "obstructed view." The $20 ticket I got, after waiting in line for 3 hours in the basement/parking garage of Lincoln Center was in the grey section on the first level, over on the left hand side, about half-way back. SO WORTH IT. If you don't mind waiting in line (which has some good people watching opportunities, incidentally), I would highly recommend doing this.

The plot of Der Rosenkavalier is minimal at best. Act 1 opens with the Princess von Werdenberg, called the Marshchallin, in bed with her 17 year old lover, Count Octavian Rofrano. The Marschallin's boorish, lecher of a cousin Baron Ochs shows up (Ochs = Ox, good one Strauss!) and Octavian quickly dresses up like a maid named Mariandel, to escape detection. The Baron asks his cousin to supply a knight to deliver a silver rose to his betrothed, Sophie Faninal, who is much younger than he is. She suggests Octavian to be the Knight of the Rose, which is what Rosenkavalier means. And then Ochs flirts with all the maids, etc, and Marshchallin starts to feel old, and she expresses to Octavian her conviction that he will end up leaving her for someone younger. The thing is, she's not bitter about being older, she's just realistic about her fate. It'd be a cool role to sing, I think. The Times describes her as a Cougar, which is a phrase I try not to use, so pretend I didn't.

In Act 2, Sophie and Octavian meet in her father's home when he presents the rose, and they fall in love. He ends up wounding Ochs in a duel, and there is a lot of running up and down stairs and singing loudly and drama. The Marshchallin isn't in Act 2 at all. In Act 3, Ochs meets "Mariandel" (Octavian in drag) at an inn, which "she" traps him into seducing her, which gives Sophie's father a bad impression, and then Sophie is released from her engagement and Ochs has to run away from the innkeeper, who he owes money to. It's nice because he gets his comeuppance. Finally, the Marshchallin shows up, wearing about 100 pounds of fabric in an insanely beautiful white dress and wig, and gives her blessing to Sophie and Octavian, and they sing a trio that is well worth the price of admission. Curtain. For a better plot summary and pictures from the Met's 2005 production, see Opera News here.

(thanks to NYTimes online for the pictures of Renee Fleming)
Some people waited in line since 10 am, because this was a powerhouse cast: Renee Fleming as the Marschallin and Susan Graham as Octavian (in comedic fashion, the young male lead is sung by a woman, in a "trouser role"). The main chatter in line and in the lobby was whether Fleming was losing her touch, and if her best days are behind her (not unlike the Marshchallin, actually). Beats me. I have zero knowledge about different singers, and she seemed very, very good to me. It wasn't even so much the singing as her expressions or gestures--I was close enough that I could see pain or amusement on her face, or in her shoulder shrugs.

As good as the singing was, I was even more impressed with the sets. Act 1 takes place in the Marschallin's bedroom, which is all gilt and pink curtains and a ceiling fresco, with little spindly tables all over. Act 2 is in Faninal's estate, which actually elicited clapping from the audience--it was rows and rows of windows and elaborate staircases and chandeliers. Act 3 was set in an inn, so it was much different: smaller, dark, with a lot of candles. And the Metropolitan Opera building itself is crazy, with long red-carpeted staircases, muted lighting, and spiraling chandeliers. Very cool.

What was also cool was that the girl who was next to me in line for tickets (I say "girl" but we were about the same age; compared to everyone else there we were whippersnappers, though) also got the seat next to me in the theater, so we became Opera buddies. We hung out during the intermissions and talked about super nerdy musical stuff and never asked each others names. So I will probably never see her again, which actually seems like a very New York-y thing to do. I like it.

For two real reviews, see here and here. Both have good audio from this performance, particularly the second one.

And for a clip from the Marx Brothers A Night at the Opera, which is a totally hilarious movie, see here (they are trying to mess up the opera for a variety of reasons). The movie also has the late (and great) Kitty Carlisle Hart in it, so you know it's legitimate.

Ah, to be in Delft!

I like living here, truly I do. But sometimes, I would rather live in Delft, which was the painter Johannes Vermeer's (1632-1675) hometown.

(Thanks to good ol' wikipedia for the images! Who wouldn't want to live here??)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art is having a special exhibit on Vermeer through November 29th. I went this week, which is what started my whole "why don't I live in Delft?" phase, prompted mostly by the fact that en route to the Met there were some scary yelling people on the subway. But then, you look at a Vermeer and you forget about student loans and noisy, angry people and smog. Because this is what you see:

This is The Milkmaid, c. 1657-58 (thanks to Met online for the Vermeer images!), and it is in the United States for the first time since the NY World's Fair of 1939. Holland lent the painting for the 400th Anniversary Henry Hudson celebrations for his "discovery" of NY while working for the Dutch East India Company. It's one of those paintings that you look at and it feels like time stops, and all that matters is you and her, even though French tourists are shoving you in the back. Her headbent concentration as she works is a moment which is forever frozen; a moment which passed long before I was born and will live on long after I die. Thinking about death and life and immortality kind of causes a pain in my side, but regardless: this painting is cool.

The Milkmaid is about the size of Vermeer's Young Woman with a Water Pitcher, (c. 1662) which is in the Met's permanent collection with three other Vermeer paintings. If you want a boring anecdote about me, here it is: this painting is what made me decide to major in art history. I went to the Met for the first time my sophomore year of college, when I was still figuring out what to major in. I loved the art history classes I'd had, but I was also in a particularly wonderful radical-influenced political economy class, and I kept thinking that art history was pretty irrelevant to people who didn't have a place to sleep....what was the point of studying something that wouldn't do much good, anyway? So we went to the Met and I walked by this painting, and that was that. It's small, but it made me feel like the air was being suctioned out of my lungs. I looked and looked and wanted to be there, and talk to her, and see who she was. There is a wonderful stillness, just like The Milkmaid, and you can practically see the dust motes dancing in the Delft sunlight. The wall label at the Met described her as an "idealized beauty treated like a vision," but she seems real enough to me.

Even though I'd like to go to Delft, it might be better to just stick with how I've imagined it. Vermeer eating a hunk of bread and humming while mixing his paints, and contemplating whether he has enough ochre to capture the light. The girl, whoever she was,* cleaning the windows in her crisp white headcloth, while chickens scrabble over the cobblestones outside. And anyway, what if I went and the canals were polluted and the people were surly? That would be terrible. What is NOT terrible, however, is Vermeer. See these paintings in person if you can!

*A book that tries to answer this question is Girl with a Pearl Earring (after the painting of the same name) by Tracy Chevalier. I read it awhile ago, but from what I remember it was good. The book is unsurprisingly better than the movie, although the movie does have Colin Firth as Vermeer, and I would watch Colin Firth read his grocery list. I'm not even kidding.

1 Good Thing Overheard in Museums Lately

I wanted to counterbalance a previous post entitled 5 Annoying Things Overheard in Museums Lately, by including one non-annoying and quite good thing that I overheard a few weeks ago. It involved this painting, Keith's Union Square (c. 1903-1906) by Everett Shinn.

(thanks to Brooklyn Museum online for the image!)
I don't know anything about Everett Shinn, but I do like this painting. A lot. It's kind of over in a corner of the Brooklyn Museum's American Art wing (their American Art collection is wonderfully arranged and deserves its own post), and the painting is fairly small (20 5/16 x 24 1/4 in. says their website) and almost nondescript. However...I love the colors, especially the greens and blues in the background, and the slash of yellow light on the stage floor. When you look at it, it really seems like the figure is moving and twisting, with her dress billowing around her. Atmospheric, in poncey art history-speak.

At any rate, I was looking at the painting next to it and an older woman (probably mid-50's) came and stood next to me and was looking at Keith's Union Square. She gasped. I turned with a glare ready to give the back of her head (passive-aggression, it's how I roll) but instead of saying anything annoying she moved closer to the painting. "Oh, it looks alive" she whispered. "Beautiful." And she moved her hand a little bit like she was painting the yellow slash. I had to restrain myself from giving her a hug.