apocalypse – Likely Impossibilities

The NY Phil’s cabaret for the end of the world

December 19, 2011 3 Comments

Last night’s New York Philharmonic Contact new music concert conducted by Alan Gilbert at Symphony Space featured free beer and an alarming number of people under 35. I fit right in for once!

Composer HK Gruber introduced his greatest hit, Frankenstein!! (1979) saying he didn’t intend to write a party piece. Honestly it seems like that is sort of what he did, albeit a party for Weimar revivalists eager to witness Pierrot Lunaire as rewritten by Edward Gorey. It’s a setting of twisted children’s poems set for a wild array of orchestral and toy instruments including kazoos, hoses (spun over the head), and exploding paper bags. Above all this was Gruber’s own voice, a Sprechstimme “channsonier” reminiscent (at this advanced point in his career) of Ernst Busch, intoning in accented English about John Wayne or rats or whatever. It’s great surreal fun and has some lovely moments and some genuinely intense ones too, a cabaret for the end of the world. As the Zwölftöner assured me, it’s a piece you have to hear once. (Apparently Frankenstein!! will be on at the Konzerthaus in Vienna soon, too–auf Deutsch, natürlich. I imagine it is better that way, but it really does have to be in the language of its audience.)

In fact each piece was preceded by the composer saying something about it. This struck me as a good idea because it puts a face to the music and the composers, while a little awkward, seemed friendly. But this introduction is a powerful thing in directing your listening of the subsequent piece, particularly when you are only an occasional new music listener like me.

This was particularly notable in the first half. Brazilian composer Alexandre Lunsqui introduced his piece “Fibers, Yarn and Wire” (premiere) as inspired by two photographs and talked about ideas of handcraft and weaving. The subsequent piece somehow didn’t sound like what I expected (I didn’t expect the heavy use of pan flute-like whistles, for one thing), bu I was still hearing it in terms of these images. It’s an engaging quasi-minimalist journey with steady rhythmic pulse and vaguely jazzy tone and structure. The quiet (unraveling?) ending is surprisingly nice.

Magnus Lindberg introduced his Gran Duo (2000) in far more technical terms, describing metronome markings and contrasting material and transformation between the wind and brass sections. (It’s not a duo at all but written for the winds and brass sections of a large orchestra, and owes a debt to Stravinsky’s Symphonies of Wind Instruments.) I ended up listening to it wondering if this was the part he was talking about where fast music was played slowly and whether we’d gotten yet to the spot where the metronome markings stop increasing and start decreasing. The writing is well crafted and virtuosic but I ended up finding it very “PhD music” and not too interesting, or perhaps just too dense to appreciate on a single hearing. The Philharmonic brass sounded great, though.

New York Philharmonic, Contact! series at Symphony Space, 12/17/2011.

Review

Le Grand Macabre: Apocalypse whenever

May 28, 2010 6 Comments

Ligeti, Le Grand Macabre (1996 revised version). New York Philharmonic, 5/27/10. Conducted by Alan Gilbert; directed and designed by Doug Fitch with Eric Owens (Nekrotzar) Mark Schowalter (Piet the Pot), Barbara Hannigan (Gepopo), and many others.

Absurdism doesn’t take well to half-assing. If it isn’t totally over-the-top, it’s just dumb. Which is to say that I’m not sure if presenting Ligeti’s Le Grand Macabre semi-staged is a very good idea.

Nekrotzar with, uh, you know. There’s the screen, anyways.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad this piece could finally get its badly overdue New York premiere. But the logistical limitations of this production, designed and directed by Doug Fitch, frequently reminded me of the piece’s weaknesses rather than the reasons why it’s one of the most popular operas composed in the last 50 years.

This is a considerable musical achievement for the Philharmonic: the orchestra sounded fantastic, the singing was on a high level. But I’m not so sure about the staging, or really the opera itself.

Avery Fisher Hall has been pushed to its technical limits, with a stage extending far out into the hall, placing the action in front of the orchestra. There are elaborate costumes but there is no set; atmosphere is added not only by the credited “Atmosphericist” (AKA flashy set-mover [such that there is] and Bono lookalike) but by video on a large oval screen above the stage. The video is a live projection of the actions of a team of puppeteers who are camped out in full view stage left, pointing a camera at a wide variety of miniature landscapes, comic book-style speech bubbles, and so on.

The plot, taking place in the grotesque Bruegelland (which according to the video resembles Tantooine, Luke Skywalker’s home planet) is a ridiculous episodic story of Nekrotzar, who may or may not be Death. Apparently it’s time for the Apocalypse, which means he has to go around letting people know about this or something. These people include the court astronomer, Astradamors, tortured by his whip-wielding wife Mescalina, and Prince Go-Go and his two ministers and Gepopo, the head of his Secret Service. Nekrotzar is accompanied by a drunken sidekick, Piet, and occasionally interrupted by a euphoric couple singing duets about how much they love each other. Finally, midnight comes, and apparently it was all a mistake because everyone is pretty sure they’re still alive. Or are they? Whatever.

“Whatever” is kind of my attitude towards this piece, honestly. Ligeti’s music is jaggedly brilliant, exciting, and occasionally exceptionally beautiful (particularly the music for the lovers, gorgeously sung by Jennifer Black and Renée Tatum in grass skirts and sequins, they could benefit from a staging that actually reflects the slinkiness of their music). The orchestration is absurdly excessive and wonderful, including giant drum beats, many trombones, confusingly repetitive motifs, and anything else fun you can do with apocalyptic sounds.

Astradamors and Mescalina

But, despite all the action, things seem to drag, particularly in the first half. The piece’s politics remain firmly stuck in the 1970s, and Macabre‘s absurdist, anti-bourgeois operatic stance was presumably more timely then. Now it feels a bit old hat. The characters are caricatures, but the production did not do justice to their ridiculousness. The Mescalina stuff was blessedly underplayed (call me a humorless feminist but I find the character offensive), but the result was it was just annoying and slow. Humanizing anyone is not on Ligeti’s agenda, and the (lack of) set combined with the lack of definition of the characters only called attention to the lack of dramatic development without putting enough dramatic color or contrast in its place.

Come on, naming a character Gepopo is just asking for Gaga-ness.

The second half was much better. Things don’t really get any more action-oriented, but the action becomes even less sequential. The production seemed inspired to greater heights of lunacy, which was exactly what it needed. Prince Go-Go is stuck in a giant foam globe. Why? Is it his kingdom? No idea, but that’s kind of the wrong question to ask. It was funny, and Anthony Roth Costanzo (last seen in Partenope) sang with impressive power and great comic timing. The Black and White Ministers (Peter Tantsits and Joshua Bloom) pulled off a lot of joint comedy, and as Gepopo we witnessed Lady Gaga’s long-anticipated operatic debut. Meaning, Barbara Hannigan was truly amazing in the part, singing the Lulu-like music with a performance that was 25% Olympia and 75% the “Paparazzi” video, robotics and hair included. Unlike the first half, it was delightful enough to never ask why and just go with it.

Unfortunately when we returned to Astradamors and Piet and co., things slowed down again, though Nekrotzar’s entrance through the hall with the accompaniment of a twisted klezmer band was one of the most memorable musical moments of the evening. Eric Owens was an imposing Nekrotzar somewhat lacking in dark humor, Michael Schowalter an energetic Piet who sang the demanding music very well, though his pleasant lyric voice lacks a certain ugly cutting Mime quality this part seems to require, with all its drunken yelling.

There is so much going on here that it was sometimes hard to appreciate the fabulous playing of the New York Philharmonic and conducting of Alan Gilbert (one of, at some points, THREE conductors–joined by one in front of the singers and sometimes another for the chorus in the second tier boxes). But it sounded fantastic, much more delicate than the Salonen recording though not lacking in volume in the loud passages, and very well balanced through the most complicated sections.

Piet the Pot

The videos were fun, but sitting extreme house right orchestra the puppeteers were right in front of me, and it was hard (especially for a stage techie like me) to not watch their carefully-choreographed swapping of miniature sets rather than what was happening center stage or even on the actual screen. It gave everything a nice handmade quality, but perhaps they could be in the back on a raised platform or somewhere where it would be less distracting? However, I’m guessing there were already enough logistical challenges in this performance to worry about something like this.

The score has some fantastic moments: the preludes and interludes for car horns and door bells (are we thinking of anvils by any chance?), Gepopo’s stratospheric coloratura, Nekrotzar’s various apocalyptic proclamations, moments of eighteenth-century pastiche, the final passacaglia. But it’s an opera that, completely intentionally, is lacking in a soul. When you tire of its assertions that it is the most amusingly cheeky thing to ever happen, it is insufferably smug. And when it is presented in an elaborate but nonetheless limited production like this one, it is hard to stay with it the whole time.

Edited to add: Anne Midgette makes a great point in her review:

The problem with this kind of Contemporary Cultural Event is that it still tends to be depicted in black and white: either you’re a Philistine who doesn’t like atonality and takes umbrage at graffiti of male genitalia on the Avery Fisher stage, or you are an insider who embraces the whole thing as a consummate masterpiece.

I admit to feeling strangely guilty for not flipping out for this one, because it’s the kind of thing that forward-thinking people like me are supposed to adore. But, I’m sorry, I would be lying if I said I was overwhelmed. I enjoyed it. I’m glad the Phil put it on. I’m sorry if I am a renegade member of the New Music Cult (I’m experienced enough with new music to know what’s going on here, but it’s hardly my specialty). This is what I thought about it, take it or leave it.

Next: T-minus less than two weeks on the LA Ring.

Photos: Chris Lee

Review

Attila the underdone

February 25, 2010 No Comments

Verdi, Attila. Metropolitan Opera, 2/23/2010. Conducted by Riccardo Muti and no one really cares about anything else. No, wait, it was a new production by Pierre Audi with Violeta Urmana (Odabella), Ramon Vargas (Foresto), Giovanni Meoni (Ezio) and Ildar Abdrazakov (Attila) with sets and costumes by Herzog, de Meuron, and fat-phobic Miuccia Prada.

The story of this show, for good and ill, begins and ends with Riccardo Muti. The good is that the music had tremendous style and shape, the orchestra sounded fantastic, and the singing was variable but committed. The bad is that Muti wields his power over directors in ways not necessarily conducive to dramatically exciting productions. The most important thing seems to be that the singers have an uninterrupted view of Signor Muti at all times. I got the feeling that the director and designers were very aware of this and were trying to make the restrictions part of their concept, but it backfired a bit. They might have been aiming for the formalism of Greek tragedy, but the blocking was so sparse it just ended up static and stiff. Not a successful collaboration, but the production has redeeming qualities, and I enjoyed it.

Purely as looks, I liked a lot of the design. It’s certainly more visually striking and original than many other endeavors this season (e.g. Carmen, Hoffmann, Tosca). The prologue begins on an enormous pile of rubble, most of the other scenes are staged against an enormous curtain of greenery.* But both provide little space for movement. The costumes are vaguely steampunk post-apocalyptic something, including a scary Marge Simpson/Bride of Frankenstein ‘do for Odabella, but even from my seat around a third of the way back in orchestra (thanks, lady who rescued me from standing room!) only some of the details read–namely the car-wash fringe on Ezio shoulders and the occasional LED lights. Most of it was too dark. Also, all the hems were too long, everyone was holding up their skirts and capes all evening.

The blocking was, to put it gently, minimal, clustered in the stage’s limited spaces, all of which coincidentally were near Muti. There were some efforts to be static with ATTITUDE, most successfully by Urmana, but generally everyone just stared out ~~at the audience~~ at Muti. A sympathetic interpreter would say that the concept is that the characters are caught in a destroyed (rubble) and wild (forest) world where human connections are impossible, Attila’s army is nothing more than a faceless mass (in fancy t-shirts). A less sympathetic one would say that this distant approach is a poor fit for a work that has a lot of passionate relationships, both of love and hate. I’m somewhere in between these two.

OK, now for the music. The orchestra sounded fantabulous from the first bars. The strings had an amazing gauzy quality, I was never once conscious of there being oom-pahs, though I know there were, I have never heard a less bombastic and bangy account of early Verdi. Or most middle Verdi. It was loud, there was a lot of dramatic contrast, but nothing was underlined solely for flashy effect, it felt right.

The singers similarly showed subtlety and sensitivity–in early Verdi terms that is–though their instruments weren’t ideal. I liked Violeta Urmana’s Odabella quite a lot despite some obvious problems. She owned the role and production more than anyone else in the cast, and tore into the music and its considerable quantity of notes. But her high notes were shrill, her middle voice better but not always opulent, and her chest notes loud enough but not exciting.

Ildar Abdrazakov should have been the star of the show. The problem is that he wasn’t. He wasn’t bad, his sound is warm and biggish, he looked scary, but he lacks charisma and star power. It seemed like Attila’s part is somewhat dull, which I’m sure in the hands of a star bass it isn’t. The production didn’t help by depriving him of the opportunity to show his power over the troops–the chorus being caught in the set’s underworld. Unmemorable.

Ramón Vargas is a tenor of great musicality and cruised through lots of the music with a nice legato. But he lacks the heroic heft needed for this part, he was audible but the voice is just too lyric for an opera this fierce. I think there is strain, his tone is developing an unfortunate flutter similar to Alagna’s in recent years. Finally, Giovanni Meoni subbed for Carlos Alvarez as Ezio and did a fine job with a large, round, pleasant sound, though he lacked something in dramatic attitude I can hardly fault a cover for that (and everyone except Urmana needed an attitude injection, really).

As for the booing, I talked to a bunch of people in intermission and afterwards, and their major complaints all seemed to be about the abstract sets. OPEN YOUR MINDS, people. As long as we’re all whining that the Big Wall o’ Green Stuff is not a legitimate visualization of a wild forest, we’re never going to get to get to Level 2 of Abstract Regie, at which point we consider that the forest could perhaps not even have trees and still be OK (GASP). It’s not that there weren’t problems here, but don’t be ridiculous.

To catch up with the news, Prada’s skinny replacements for the fired supersized supers were superfluous, though skinny. Also, Robby Duiveman is credited as “Associate Costume Designer” and gets a picture and bio in the program, which makes me wonder as to the extent of Prada’s involvement with the production.

There are some memorable scenic effects, most of all some rotating gobos that made the wall o’ green stuff come alive, which made me remember that I missed Lost last night. Do we know if Sayid is a zombie yet? No, don’t tell me. Also, can Daniel Faraday show up wearing Attila’s kickass spiky helmet? Because that would be awesome.

Next: Have you seen my Nose?

*The wall serves to remind us to visit the David Rubenstein Atrium down the block, which has a very similar albeit smaller green wall designed by the same dudes–also, have a sandwich there, they’re delicious if a bit pricey. Unless you’re in danger of being fired by Miuccia Prada, that is.