Real Life Opera

Interesting article in yesterday’s Washington Post about documentary operas, or “docu-operas,” currently hitting the stage both here and abroad. They include a new production of John Adams’ Nixon in China (right) at the Metropolitan,The Gonzales Cantata, in Baltimore (based on the senate testimony of GWB attorney general Alberto Gonzales), and intriguingly (or laughingly, depending on your point of view), a debut based on the life of Anna Nicole Smith: yes, Anna Nicole: The Opera, at London’s Royal Opera House.

The last was conceived and actually has cred thanks to a score by the prolific and respected composer Mark-Anthony Turnage, and one can imagine the jaw-dropping among opera devotees that will ensue if even some of the advance is to be believed. (In search of younger audiences and all that.)

Anyway, it occurs to me that one of the most iconic of opera personalities would be a natural for the “doc-op” category, and that’s Maria Callas, making for a symbiosis of life and art in the truest of senses. There was a Tony-award winning play, Master Class, back in 1996 about the legendary soprano (being revived on Broadway this May, with Tyne Daly as Callas…yikes!), yet it just seems like her story is rich in possibilities to be explored within this newly popular subset of the opera genre. (I can see Aristotle Onassis as a Scarpia-like character, can’t you?) Just a matter of time, I guess…

[Postscript: Anna Nicole debuted (2/17) at Covent Garden. Reviews were mixed, but Anthony Tommasini in the New York Times called it "a weirdly inspired work... engrossing, outrageous, entertaining and, ultimately, deeply moving."]

[Postscript #2: Apologies for any skepticism conveyed in advance of Tyne Daly appearing as Maria Callas in the revival of Master Class. Her opening night performance (7/7) has garnered kudos all 'round, with Ben Brantley in the Times noting it as "one of the most haunting portraits I’ve seen of life after stardom." ]

Let It Snow

West End Avenue, looking north from 85th Street, New York City 1/27/11
(Photo: Jeff Hirsch)

List Motif

Classical music critic Anthony Tommasini issued his final list of the 10 greatest composers in history in the Sunday edition of the New York Times, and for the record, his choices (“strike-outs” are mine) were:

1) Johann Sebastian Bach
2) Ludwig van Beethoven
3) Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
4)  Franz Schubert
5)  Claude Debussy
6)  Igor Stravinsky
7) Johannes Brahms
8)  Giuseppe Verdi
9)  Richard Wagner
10) Bela Bartok

His top three leave little to argue with (especially Bach at No. 1), but let me add to the din of disappointment at the exclusion of Gustav Mahler (pictured below), a serious no-brainer selection. (Yet he cites Debussy, too highly I think. How about a run-’em together debussyravel?) Stravinsky is unquestionable, so here are the (very subjective) subs for Schubert, Debussy, Brahms, Verdi, Wagner — one Richard for another — and Bartok:

Gustav Mahler
Dmitri Shostakovich
Sergei Prokofiev
Frederic Chopin
Richard Strauss
Arnold Schoenberg

Also enjoyed reading of Tommasini’s affinity for Benjamin Britten, his surprise at the curious lack of support for the English composer among reader suggestions for the list, and that stronger championing by critics such as himself may be required.

List Motif (Pt. 2)

Best lists are always followed by worst lists, so on the heels of the 10 greatest composers in history, here are my choices for the 10 worst classical composers (in no particular order, as they’re more or less equal in awfulness, Rachmaninov — perhaps — a tad above the rest).

Alexander Borodin (pictured)
Sergei Rachmaninov
Alexander Glazunov
Jacques Offenbach
Carl Maria von Weber
Mikhail Glinka
Léo Delibes
Gioachino Antonio Rossini
Bedřich Smetana
Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov

Anima Rising

Last week’s brouhaha about shifting zodiac signs brought to mind the subject of the nature and origin of personalities, specifically the thoughts of the great analyst Carl Jung, he of synchronicity, the collective unconscious, and the idea of introversion and extroversion defining us as human beings.

I’ve always gravitated to the Jung principles; easier to relate to in a present tense, and somehow more tied to the intrinsic “self” than Freud’s emphasis on infant/childhood experiences. (Jung addresses the divergences directly in the indispensable Modern Man in Search of a Soul, in the chapter, “Freud and Jung – Contrasts.”) In Jungian jargon, I’m considered an “INTJ” (Introversion/ INtuition/Thinking/Judgment) personality (per the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI, based on Jung typology), probably as valid a classification as any. (Take a similar test here.)

More involving is Jung’s complex hypothesis of the “anima,” or life force.  The core aspect of the introversion/extroversion (“in/out”) theory is that the introvert’s essential spirit feeds on solitude; the extrovert’s on interaction with others. The introvert recharges in aloneness; conversely, the battery for the extrovert is drained without continual social stimuli. Jung writes that, “One cannot be introverted or extroverted without being so in every respect.” (Ambiverts beware…no middle of the road allowed.) And the search for self continues…

Pop Culture Musing for a Friday 1/14/11

Schizzy Stars: Of interest to those who believe in this kind of thing, a Minnesota astronomy professor has declared that the zodiac calendar be revised to reflect the original Babylonian construct, thereby tearing the rug out from under all of us who have prided ourselves on our affinity with our birth signs. Can you say whiplash? Hey you Geminis, guess what? You’re really a Taurus. Aquarius, say hello to Capricorn. Scorpio would occupy only a week of the calendar, and there’s even an addition with the weird name, Ophiuchus.

Astrologers are united in opposition; just think of the numerous compatibility tomes alone that would have to be amended if you’re to have any chance of finding the perfect mate. Of course, it’s all a minor celestial kerfuffle, as the subject has been debated for thousands of years. But who can resist wanting to know their new designation? (My switch would be Virgo to Leo, constituting nothing less than a personality transplant.) For what it’s worth, the list is here.

And for a Monday 1/17/11: Larry, Where Art Thou?: Piers Morgan Tonight, replacement for Larry King Live, debuted tonight on CNN, and not only was it not even live, it was probably the most obsequious display of interviewing seen in a long while. Bowing down to Queen Oprah (and mind you, I happen to like Oprah), at the end of the pre-taped piece Morgan even went so far as to ask her “How did I do?” Excuses could be made for the doddering King; none here.

Cool Pic

By exposing the film for a tenth of a second while rotating her camera, AP photog Kerstin Joensson created this dizzying image of spectators at a ski-jumping event in Austria.

Still Crazy After All These Years

Before seeing Wishful Drinking, Carrie Fisher’s one-woman show transported to cable from a successful run on Broadway, it’s helpful to watch an accompanying interview also featured on HBO. It’s a long visit with Fisher’s mother Debbie Reynolds, kewpie-doll of the ‘50s, still chugging and plugging, crisp hairspray and all, at age 78. It’s also an unintended  psy-look at the emotionally ambivalent relationship between mother and daughter, marked by underlying competition, bafflement at Fisher’s struggle with mental illness, and, occasionally, genuine feeling.

An excellent context for the Drinking special itself, where a not-too-pleasingly plump Fisher (Star Wars‘ Princess Leia in a long-ago and far-away incarnation) takes the audience on a sharp, caustic journey through her life-as-child-of-stars experience.

Her great line: “Celebrity is just obscurity biding its time”

Filmed before her father, singer Eddie Fisher, died last September, some of the best material —besides her take on romantic life, including a marriage to Paul Simon — focuses on Fisher pere, or “Puff Daddy” as she calls him, a moniker thanks to his love of the weed. She details the Hollywood inbreeding she’s a product of in “Hollywood 101,” comparing Eddie/Debbie and Liz to Brad/Jennifer and Angelina. And living with bipolar disorder and addiction (“You’ve heard of religion being the opiate of the masses? I took masses of opiates religiously.”) In the end credits, she sings “Happy Days (Are Here Again)” in a husky voice that brought her mother to tears in the background interview (full circle).

The great Fisher line is “celebrity is just obscurity biding its time;” she knows better than most the reality of that thought, and perhaps as a result, her sarcasm, self-deprecation, and biting wit harbor more truth than the usual.