books – Likely Impossibilities

O don fatale: a holiday gift guide

November 30, 2012 1 Comment

Presents!

Searching for an opera-related gift for someone? Here are some ideas. The Times suggests that you get them a Ring Cycle, a Ring Cycle, or a Ring Cycle, the so I’m not going to suggest that (er, is the “super-deluxe” Solti set really worth $318? Does it sound different from the $120 version that includes all the other mature Wagner operas too–which is probably a far better gift, though it may lack libretti?*).

I don’t get any $ from you clicking on these links and I know they are US-centric, but it’s the easiest way of doing it.

Stefan Herheim’s La bohème (DVD) (not pictured above): The Norwegian doyen of phantasmagorical Regietheater has been criminally neglected on video, but luckily that has begun to change. This is a deeply sad, very beautiful look at death and memory. Highly recommended, particularly for Christmas. You can now get his Eugene Onegin as well (which I wrote about here). (Bohème, Onegin)

Opera Glasses: Those dainty little ones work if you have fancy seats and want to see your favorite singer sweat, but if you’re stuck in the Family Circle these suckers mean business and still don’t take up too much space in your bag. (B&H Photo)

L’incoronazione di Poppea (DVD): Monteverdi’s Nero gets away with murder, adultery, and more in an impassioned, lush, R-rated opera that gives Lulu a run for her money in depravity. This recent performance of David Alden’s vintage production, conducted by Harry Bicket with Sarah Connolly and Miah Persson, is probably the best video around. Hey, does anyone recognize this particular staging? (It’s in Alden’s Ballo “Eri tu.”) (Amazon)

Carolyn Abbate and Roger Parker, A History of Opera (book): I am excited to see this book by two of the most important and provocative opera scholars around, which should be very interesting. I haven’t read it yet but am still recommending on general principle. (Amazon)

Tosca (DVD): Antonio Pappano’s fabulous conducting, plus the ideal cast of–bear with me–Angela Gheorghiu, Jonas Kaufmann, and Bryn Terfel make this a Tosca not to miss. I know Angela and Tosca may not seem like a natural fit, but on this video at least she’s wonderfully musical and the voice sounds terrific, and her acting also convinces. Both the men are super. Only the Regie is a little bit lacking. (Amazon)

Karen Engelmann, The Stockholm Octavo (book): This entertaining historical novel is based around the historical assassination of Gustavus III of Sweden–i.e. the events of Un ballo in maschera. Only this version involves way more fans and, fortunately, no Oscar. (Amazon)

Prima Donna, Karina Gauvin (CD): Canadian soprano Karina Gauvin is unfortunately something of a best-kept secret among Baroque fans, but her silvery tone, impeccable phrasing, and vivid expression should work for everyone. This CD is one of those historic diva tribute albums, the diva in question being Anna Maria Strada and mixes some familiar music (Alcina) with less familiar. (Amazon)

Patrick Carnegy, Wagner and the Art of the Theatre (book): This isn’t a new book, but I have to recommend it anyway because it’s absolutely terrific–overall, the single best opera book dealing with opera staging. You’ll learn a tremendous amount about stage technology, changing notions of operatic aesthetics, and landmark productions. It’s pricey but it’s a very substantial, well-illustrated volume. (Amazon)

La bohème (DVD): This is the Salzburg production with Anna Netrebko at her very best (the Act 2 consumerist frenzy is pictured at the top of this post). I enjoyed this one quite a lot, and would like to see it again with Piotr Beczala actually singing. I’m also hoping there’s a Special Feature from the crazy performance I attended. That’s what DVD extras are for. (Amazon)

Also can someone get me a few of these and throw in a round-trip flight? Happy holidays and don’t forget to listen to some bombastic operatic Christmas music. I’ll be back from Beatrice di Tenda next week.

*Note to my mom: don’t get this for me. I have the Solti Ring already.

Review

Charles Jessold, Considered as a Novel

August 30, 2011 1 Comment

Wesley Stace’s novel Charles Jessold, Considered as a Murderer (Picador, 2011, US Amazon page here) is a clever mystery set in the world of early twentieth-century British music. The narrator, conservative gentlemanly music critic Leslie Shepherd, befriends young composer Charles Jessold and accompanies or watches him through folk song collection, World War I, and further career development, culminating in the composition of an opera based on the English folk ballad Little Musgrave, which sounds like a combination of Tristan and Wozzeck. Jessold goes from promise to alcoholic ruin, and as the title suggests, his story ends badly, in a situation paralleling the deadly love triangle of Renaissance mad genius Carlo Gesauldo. We go through the story twice. Naturally, the first version leaves out some key details.

I really wanted to like this book. The historical background of English music between around 1910 and 1925 is fascinating and well researched, even if you don’t care for the oft-denigrated “cowpat music” of Holst and Vaughan Williams.* The description of the music itself is unusually convincing. But I enjoyed the first 100 pages of exposition the most. The mystery is unveiled ingeniously over the course of the rest of the book (though I did figure it out around two-thirds of the way through), but there is progressively less plot relative to the amount of conceptual ruminating. The actual events are only vaguely sketched in places. This wouldn’t have been such an issue had I not quickly tired of Shepherd’s omnipresent, self-consciously wry, would-be Wodehousian narrative voice, which infects the tone of the whole book (“A countertenor?… I thought it would be beautiful and unique. Or eunuch.” [emphasis original]). None of the characters are very sympathetic, and the only ones with three dimensions are Shepherd and Jessold; Shepherd’s wife Miriam assumes great importance in the second half of the novel, but never is more than an enigma.

While Shepherd’s inability to see Jessold’s life except in the model of his or others’ works is ultimately deceptive, the constant harping on these parallels (oh, Jessold is Peter Grimes as well? and Ulysses?) gives the book a smoke and mirrors quality. It is all Easter eggs (“the critic Ross” is definitely Alex, and did we just run into Adrian Leverkühn, shorn of his umlaut? of course we did) and short on gravitas and emotional weight. In the end, its cleverness makes it more smug than involving.

Next in Books, I’ll consider Matthew Gallaway’s new novel The Metropolis Case, which I’ve only just started but like a lot so far. Next in Performances, well, hopefully I’ll get to something soon. I survived the hurricane, but getting around is still a hassle.

*I don’t know much about this subject but I did catch a few mistakes, such as his unlikely familiarity with Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria in the 1910s. More numerous are the anachronisms in language and idiom–“cowpat music” wasn’t coined until the 1950’s, for example–but these may have been intentional.

Review

Die Operbloggerin kocht

November 20, 2010 No Comments

I’m no domestic goddess, but once I saw the new cookbook Die Oper kocht (Opera Cooks), I wasn’t about to let other bloggers have all the fun. It’s a collection of recipes from various opera singers paired with campy photos. The recipes tend towards hometown specials. Some are rather complicated, though Danielle De Niese gets the low-effort award for her extraordinarily ordinary guacamole recipe. I might be a crap cook and my current kitchen is both ill-equipped and the size of a cupboard, but I love food. Let’s take a break from being on topic all the time and give this a shot. Read on for a taste test of Anna Netrebko’s borscht recipe.

The text is in German (according to all-knowing Intermezzo, an English version is coming soon), but you also get a handwritten version of the recipe from its contributor in his or her native language. Which is good, because their versions are mostly more complete than the printed ones, and there are… discrepancies. But I’m just going to have to take the German on faith when it comes to Lado Ataneli’s Chatschapuri and Tschachochbili (Georgian looks cool, though).

If you want to order the book, Morawa, Thalia, and the Wiener Staatsoper shop all have it in stock, and some of them have to ship internationally.

A few reasons why this book is inordinately amusing:

The pasta section is supplied entirely by tenors. I laughed, but since it’s a German book I’m not sure if it’s actually meant to be a joke.
The authors pose a few questions to each singer, including “If you could invite anyone to dinner, who would you pick?” The answers range from predictable (my mother) to pretentious (Albert Schweitzer) to AWESOME, namely Bo Skovhus’s choice of Alma Mahler. You know THAT would be a dinner to remember.
Anna Netrebko claims her personal motto is “The diet begins tomorrow!”
Renée Fleming was probably trying to look glamorous by bringing in Daniel Boulud and the dessert he created for her, but since everyone else at least pretended to come up with something on their own, she ends up just looking affected.
René Pape is the only one who gets bleeped out in his interview for swearing. “Ach, du Sch…,” he says.

Also, good food! Here are some of my results so far….

Chickpea soup [Zuppa di ceci] (Luca Pisaroni)

Tasty, healthy, easy. But it needed some extra spices. It also requires a blender, which I don’t have, so I got a vegetable stew (zucchini, leeks, tomatoes) instead of a soup. Note: The ingredient proportions in the printed German text are entirely different from the handwritten text, but it doesn’t matter that much. The German has one leek stalk, eight cloves of garlic (Italian food!), and four onions; the Italian two leeks, six cloves of garlic, and two onions. I couldn’t read most of the rest (my Italian isn’t quite that bad, but his handwriting is).

It’s fall, so I next attempted…
Homemade pasta with pumpkin [Hausgemacht Bandnudeln mit Kürbis] (Jonas Kaufmann)

I mixed the sauce in after taking this picture, but this way it looks like the photo in the book. Pumpkin sauce sounded kind of weird, but it turned out to be tasty (as most things with lots of mascarpone are). The recipe wants you to make your own pasta, but I’m lazy and bought fresh tagliatelle at the Naschmarkt instead (place near Dr. Falafel–recommended). This recipe made it from the handwritten German to printed German intact, possibly because it didn’t have to suffer translation. The handwritten version is more detailed, though.

Grandma’s eggplant balls [Purpetti i Mulingiani ‘ra Nonna Lilla] (Giuseppe Filianoti)

Admittedly I cut a corner here (subbed mozzarella for scamorza to save a trip to Käseland), but I hope these taste better when Filianoti’s granny makes them than when I do. They look right, sort of (except for using poorly crushed Semmelwürfel for the bread crumbs, maybe that wasn’t ideal), but something might have gone wrong here. Or maybe somewhat greasy eggplant dumplings filled with ham and cheese are just not my thing. Note: the very clear handwritten Italian recipe tells you to put in 25 grams of each hard cheese. Somehow in the German this ends up being 250 grams. Big difference!

Borscht (Anna Netrebko)

This is borscht for the impatient, only taking around two hours. The meat was a little tough but overall it was very good. I realize I should have cut everything up into smaller pieces but whatever. Russian families must be large and/or very hungry, I left out the beans because there was no room left in my pot, and I was only making half the recipe. Also, borscht in German is the consonant party “Borschtsch.” I don’t do Russian so I can’t testify as to the accuracy of the German text here.

I’m dying to try Janina Baechle’s asparagus risotto when Spargelzeit comes, and when I am once again in possession of a real oven there will be Beczala Apple Cake.

ALSO to be more on topic: The Philharmoniker/Thielemann review is coming soon as in tomorrow, I’m working out some ISSUES I have with this orchestra, OK? You probably think I mean the sexism but no! It is So Much More.