Side by Side
October 6, 2010
Michael Pollan in today’s NYTimes said something that helps explain why musicianly friendships are often so strong: “Sometimes getting to know people is easier done side by side than it is face to face.”
And, from Barcelona …
October 6, 2010
The principal daily, La Vaguardia devoted a lot of space to the New York production of Puss and Boots.
(Translations of some key passages are below the images.)
“My father would have loved it,” maintains Yvette.
Xavier Montsalvatge, one of the most relevant composers of contemporary music, has managed to make his mark on Broadway eight years after his death.
In the audience the satisfaction that made the sixty minutes go by like a single breath was evident.
All the puppeteers are dressed in black, the image of the darkness into which Spain was plunged at the time when this work was created.
Goren chose this opera — “the music seemed easy, but connoisseurs can see the inticacies” — and offered it to Kaufman. “I fell in love with it,” said the director.
Yvette, more than satisfied with the results, nevertheless maintains that her father never intended the work for children. It was for adults. But she recognizes that the world has changed a lot since then, and “opera and the way it works are changing.”
***
From the interview with the director:
Kaufman: Montsalvatge is telling us something very clear. The only thing we can do against apparent destiny is to use our imagination and intuition and go on.
La Vanguardia: Is it a show for kids?
Kaufman: The truth is that I never thought of this work as an opera for children. It is very beautiful and everybody can see it, adults and children.
Puss and Boots
October 5, 2010
If you want to see a well-made opera performed with a complete dramatic conception fully realized, incorporating theatrical devices that are thoroughly original, appropriate, and entertaining, get yourself to the elegant New Victory Theater this week for the Gotham Chamber Opera‘s production of Xavier Montsalvatge’s El gato con botas. Like Humperdinck’s Hansel und Gretel, it was conceived for adults but delights children; unlike H&G, it’s only one hour long. I am generally anti-puppet, at least in opera, but these figures — and, more especially, the sensitive use of them — more than won me over. And the music itself is above praise.
Taking it to the People
October 4, 2010
This has made the rounds before, but seeing it again now, I can only congratulate the Opera Company of Philadelphia for bringing this off so well. Quite infectious, don’t you think?
Are You an “Information Hoarder”?
October 2, 2010
.
It is now officially a pathological condition
“An Approach to the Language Almost Musical”
October 2, 2010
The way he put it himself was: “The nation had the lion’s heart. I had the luck to give the roar.” If you have wondered how Winston Churchill composed those fateful speeches that also wrote world history, check out this revealing BBC Radio analysis from the 40th anniversary of his death in 2005.
A Hitherto Underused Military Application of Opera
September 30, 2010
The celebrated Old Spice series displays an enlightened awareness of the power of music.
And You Thought There Were No More CATS on Broadway
September 29, 2010
Given my great interest in the life and works of Xavier Montsalvatge (already manifested here and here), I have been looking forward to a new production of his first opera El gato con botas (Puss in Boots) from 1947. The innovative production, which I have had encouraging glimpses of, opens on Friday. I strongly recommend it.
RogerEvansOnline.com 