Chelsea Symphony Orchestra

Spring Concert

St Paul's Lutheran Church, West 22nd Street, New York, March 28 2010

I went to an unbelievable concert by the Chelsea Symphony which was excellent because of the performance by these mostly young people who moonlight as students and cosmetics sellers at Saks while writing operas and concertii and singing/performing/conducting them on Sunday afternoons at St Luke's church in Chelsea.

The woman sitting behind me was old and wizened and I said to her as I sat in the pew in front of her, “can you see?”

“No,” she said. “I’m blind.”   She and her friend were talking about the preparation for Passover.

“I’m getting my schmaltz at Tony’s, you know, on 2nd Avenue, but I don’t know why I am having a brisket because Rachel won’t eat it.”

“She won’t? Why am I not surprised? She is losing herself, losing herself.”

“I know. And for why? Just last week I met her in the market for cawfee and there she was like she was the Queen of Sheba with her hair all pouf and a dress up to here.”

“I know, I know. And her attitude... I went up to her at Mannie’s, you know, Mannie’s? Last week? And I went up to her and I said ‘hello Rachel’ I said and she said ‘do I know you?’ ”

“Can you believe that one? I cook a brisket.  She won’t eat a brisket. It’s all going in the trash."

Metropolitan Opera, Attila

By  Giuseppi Verdi

Lincoln Center New York, March 27 2010

Libretto by Temisctocle Solera, based on the play Attla King of the Huns by Zacharias Werner.
Marco Armilato (Conductor), Pierre Audi (Production), Miuccia Prada (Costumes), Herzog & de Meuron (Sets).

Iar Abdrazkov, Russell Thomas, Violeta Urmana, Fraco Vassallo, Ramon Vargas, Samuel Ramey.

Some people think that the Metropolitan Opera is an exclusive enclave wherein the last of the oligarchs pay $400 a seat to tickle each other with ostrich feathers and dance to the music of time. This is of course entirely true but only if you sit in the orchestra seats, front centre, or in what is quaintly named the parterre.

It must be admitted that I too paid such prices when I knew no better but since I discovered the $20 seats in the family circle and the $40 seats in the side boxes I have eschewed the ostrich feathers and choose instead to gaze upon them from on high like Garance in Les Enfants du Paradis. Any sense of privilege one experienced in the posh seats is more than replaced by a sense of frugal delight in saving so much money and the fact is the view is better from a long way up.  The view of the wings, that is, or the orchestra, or (from the side boxes) the face of the conductor himself if you are lucky enough to get the director’s box which actually faces the auditorium and not the stage.

www.opera-online.com

On this occasion I had a Family Circle ticket which cost $40 instead of $20 because it was the last performance of the Metropolitan’s first ever production of Attila. It was also the first ever appearance at the Met of Riccardo Mutti who had been engaged to conduct it. However he had left this final performance in the hands of Marco Amiliato (pictured) and although it was disappointing not to see Mutti whose greatness was recently proven when he terminally offended the administration of La Scala as so many musical giants have done before him, Marco Amiliato’s appearances added an additional and unexpected excitement to the evening. He is one of those jobbing opera maestros who do not remain in one place for longer than is necessary to give a unique and much admired season without ever creating a sense of stardom around himself. It could even be said that he is relatively unknown, except that he isn’t. He is widely, yet quietly, admired.

Musically, Attila was superb and Ildar Abdrazakov, Violeta Urmana and Ramón Vargas were in good form even though Urmana (a Lithuanian) announced she had a cold. I heard this production broadcast on the radio twice before I attended it and on each broadcast occasion the audience was asked for its indulgence for Urmana’s cold so I suppose this is her little ritual. If so, it works, as she sang perfectly. Samuel Ramey's appearance as the ghost of the general was a delightful surprise as I did not know he was in it.

The production was another matter entirely. The design was by Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron, the Swiss architects who designed the Beijing Olympic stadium and lots of other famous buildings, and the costumes were by Miuccia Prada whose program note says she is indifferent to public opinion. The production was directed by Pierre Audi, founder of the Almeida performing arts centre in London, commissioner of many operas by contemporary composers, and artistic director of the Netherlands Opera since 1988. His reputation for exemplary contemporary interpretations of theatre and opera is so established that I can only assume he wanted to give free rein to the experts in architecture and couture and see what emerged, hoping for the best.

What did emerge were sets and costumes which were possibly interesting on an architectural and conceptual basis and were definitely innovative but they sustained little or no relationship to the music and lyrics. I’ve previously mentioned the booing that accompanied the curtain calls of 2009’s new production of Tosca [click here for review] , when the audience demonstrated its resentment for the new production which has displaced its much loved Zefirelli bon bon.  The booing at Attila was just as audible, yet it was not an expression of determined conservatism as it was at Tosca but a response to sets, costumes and stage directions which failed to engage the music or the audience, and possibly alienated both. I was not the only person who kept his eyes closed so as to enjoy the musical performance without having to solve the arcane puzzles posed by the visual absurdities paraded throughout the otherwise enjoyably long evening.

Ken Howard, Metropolitan Opera

The only exception to the directorial failure of this musically brilliant production was Scene 1 (pictured) in which the curtain rose on a vast cross section of ruined Rome, with the victorious Hun planted on the top of layer upon layer of half-recognizable detritus, while the enslaved Romans sang their quiet and sullen chorus on the bottom. It was thrilling, and showed what theatrically inexperienced architects and fashion designers could do to enormous effect if they understood the design from the audience’s perspective instead of remaining locked inside the limited if not inhumane boundaries of professional and slightly egocentric adventurism.

As far as the audience was concerned, I went on the last night, when there was a charity gala requiring evening dress so, for the first time, I mingled with women wearing trains. This taught me that trains have an immediate effect on the the crowd in the foyer because people were trying (at least) not to step on these expensive fabrics, though I have to say the women wearing them made no effort at all to be considerate about the imposition on others of their sartorial extravagance.

I’ve always had reservations about the ushers at the Metropolitan Opera. Like the security guards at the Metropolitan Museum, they show signs of being underpaid and ill-treated as they are often quite abusive, but I had never seen anything like the behaviour that occurred at this performance of Attila. Before it began, an usher in the front of the Family Circle screamed for five minutes at a person sitting thirty rows back, who was taking photos. It would have been perfectly easy for the usher to walk over and speak to the culprit directly, but she preferred to stay where she was and scream at everyone.

As if this was not enough, twenty minutes later, at the first scene change, when we were all sitting quietly in the dark, a latecomer arrived to claim his seat and found someone sitting in it.

“Get out RIGHT NOW,” the usher bellowed. “Go on, MOVE! MOVE! OK? You are not moving? I am CALLING THE POLICE!!”

The elderly woman who had “stolen” the seat was about 80 and could barely stand, so two ushers grabbed her by the shoulders and literally dragged her out, sliding her polyester fabrics and shopping bags across the knees of the German tourists seated beside her.  People were simply appalled.

Looped

By Matthew Lombardo

Rob Ruggiero (Director); Valerie Harper, Brian Hutchison, Michael Mulheren.
Adrian W. Jones (Sets),William Ivey Long (Costumes), Ken Billington (Lighting), Michael Hooker and Peter Fitzgerald (Sound), Charles LaPointe (Wigs), Arthur Siccardi and Patrick Sullivan (Production Supervisors).
Lyceum Theater, 149 West 45th Street, Manhattan, Saturday March 27th 2010.

I attended “Looped,” a play about Tallulah Bankhead, starring Valerie Harper, with my usual determination to find a seat from which I could exit swiftly in the event of a disaster.

Judging by the vicious reviews the play had received in which it and its leading actress were described as if they were secondary attractions in an embalming museum, I would need a Plan B which in my case frequently takes the form of a moderately priced Manhattan at the Algonquin Hotel.

Imagine my surprise to find not only the house packed to the rafters with a rapt audience which howled with laughter for two and a half hours and gave a thunderous ovation at the end, but a small cast of the strongest Broadway actors I have seen in several years, and a leading lady (Valerie Harper a.k.a. Rhoda) whose expert stage craft was exceeded only by her presence in the form of Miss Tallulah Bankhead.

Contrary to the reviews, the character of Miss Bankhead was entirely three dimensional and totally lacked the element of caricature. This was due to Valerie Harper’s superb technical acting skills and her authentic commitment to the role. She found everything about the character that was vulnerable as well as tough, tedious as well as amusing, and sober as well as intoxicated. Naturally, there were plenty of Bankhead’s infamous one liners, but they were tossed off as the eccentric character’s perfectly logical responses to the circumstances in which the play takes place. In fact, from the beginning, the character of Bankhead was communicated to the audience as a woman requiring an explanation, as well as a background by which her public persona could be off-set, balanced and ultimately understood.

The critics were right when they said as they did with one scornful voice that the play would appeal to that generation of movie fans who spend their lives watching “Lifeboat” and proving the truth of Miss Bankhead’s notorious statement that she only ever met people who “want to f**k me or be me.” There they were at the ornate Lyceum Theatre: rows of now elderly men who, thirty years ago, were the exotic strangers in the shadows, former objects of desire who now resembled Karl Lagerfeld, to various degrees. But behind them and above them and beside them was the inevitable Bridge and Tunnel crowd from New Jersey and Westchester and White Plains, along with another enormous crowd of young theatre goers who would have had no congenital knowledge of Bankhead. She made her last film shortly before her death almost 45 years ago, decades before these people were born, yet they were leading the cheers and laughter.

One such person sat beside me and like almost everyone else was incapable of silent concentration. “Oh no!” he yelled. “Oh Jesus,” he hissed and “oh my goodness gracious” was his occasional and somewhat eccentric median remark. In between he simply roared with laughter. I myself relapsed into a permanent snigger, being far too lazy to laugh out loud as doing so for so long would have been exhausting. At the end, after many curtain calls, this heterogeneous crowd fell into the street chattering with the sort of bonhomie induced by sharing an exceptionally rewarding performance.

So much for the critics. Yet, inevitably, it was announced yesterday that “Looped” would close on Sunday, April 11 after barely 55 performances. Full houses of roaring, appreciative, theatre goers who depart in a tiddly state of euphoria are not enough to provide the advance bookings that keep a show afloat on Broadway, and advance bookings respond to good reviews.

The reviews of this play were not only mean and nasty; they were wrong. The play was not an anachronistic re-hash of a camp stereotype more suited to drag cabaret. Valerie Harper was not a fading TV star trying to turn a Pasadena Playhouse success into a Broadway spectacular and the script was not a one dimensional litany of oft-quoted one liners. If anything, thanks to Valerie Harper’s performance, the play was not really about Tallulah Bankhead, but about how the innocence and vulnerability of each individual can be manipulated or nurtured by others. It touched the audience, who loved it. Where are the New York critics coming from when they not only condemn it but following the announcement of its early closing take the trouble to print further condemnatory notices about it, daring people to attend its last week?

These elitists who determine what stays and what goes on Broadway are not only malevolent; they are duplicitous. It is not uncommon for them to bestow Tony Awards on plays they have previously ordered out of existence, and it would not be in the least bit surprising if that happens to “Looped,” which has all the characteristics of a Tony nominee. Stay tuned. You heard it here first.

Watch Valerie Harper as Tallulah Bankhead in "Looped" :

All About ME

Dame Edna Everage and Michael Feinstein
Henry Miller’s Theatre, 124 West 43rd Street, New York, Wednesday, March 24 2010

I was glad to be sitting with the paupers at Henry Miller’s Theatre last week because Dame Edna has if anything intensified her obsessive interest in the clothing, interiors and personal lives of those unfortunate enough to sit in the front row or anywhere near it. My sister did this once, in a red dress, and was informed that she had been mistaken for a Royal Mail letterbox. This was nothing compared to Dame Edna’s malevolent (if kindly - meant) fascination with two ladies from New Jersey and Westchester, respectively, who un-self-consciously supplied the Dame with ammunition which was instantly turned back upon them, to devastating effect.

With regard to what’s new in Edna’s life, she has adopted an African baby. If that isn’t enough, it’s named “K-K-K” (“K” for short). Edna has been reunited with her late husband Norm, who died over 20 years ago, because he is in the “Bodies” exhibition which has enthralled Manhattan for several months now. Her admiration for Beyonce broke its banks and overflowed in a performance of “Single Lady” replete with muscle toned dancers, deafening music and an ebonic booty dancing chorus led by the Dame herself. Thirty minutes later she performed Sondheim’s “Ladies Who Lunch,” accompanied by two vast martinis and a lot of concern for Sondheim after whom Henry Miller’s Theatre is about to be renamed (it is not clear why). Edna worried that Sondheim was suffering from over - exposure, so she was temporarily taking his place.

If all this was not enough the show was competing with Michael Feinstein’s big band cabaret, also named “All About ME” which happened to be on the same stage of the same theatre at the same time. Edna’s response to this invasion of her space was to have her minders lock him in a closet from which he escaped (not without innuendo on Edna’s part) to accompany Edna who, as a soubrette, launched her new torch song, “The Dingo Ate My Baby,” astride his white grand piano.

Although I did not actually pinch myself I understood what it was like to want to do so. The concept of the dual yet unblended performance created some of the most bizarre, even surreal, theatrical spectacles I have seen since I first saw Barry Humphries metamorphose into Edna Everage before our very eyes at the Princess Theatre in Launceston in 1970. The schizophrenic duality of Everage and Feinstein was accentuated by Feinstein’s unadulterated sincerity and perfectionist, even earnest, professionalism. His dimension of the show comprised some staggering performances in which an enormous orchestra accompanied his unique cabaret piano virtuosity. One song in particular, “What Did I Have Then That I Don’t Have Now?” from “On A Clear Day You Can See Forever” was sung (as it was in the film) as a simple, perplexed question of self betrayal, while the enormous ramifications of which were struck home by a crashing, almost Wagnerian, orchestral accompaniment.  This number typified the standard and tone for Feinstein’s programme which competed in every sense with the Dame’s continual and very welcome narcissistic interruptions.

After an hour of bitter dispute, collaboration was achieved in the last twenty minutes, which comprised an upbeat medley from the American Song Book. “Collaboration” amounted to dire competition for vocal domination as well as stage space, and ultimately, Edna’s signature paean to gladioli which forms the finale to all of her shows, was commandeered by Michael Feinstein. Some genuine sharing must have taken place in rehearsal as Feinstein was able to get the gladdies almost as far as Edna who for decades has for decades been able to land them in the pauper’s rows at the back of the balcony, as well as the ashtrays on the sides, with a mere flick of the wrist.

Inevitably, the show was dismissed by the New York critics, as a nonsensical mis - match. As usual, they did not get the joke, or did not want to get it, or found it inappropriate for Broadway (they really set themselves up as judge and jury).  Unlike other shows upon which they cast the same verdict of doom (such as “Avenue Q” which is still running after 6 years), "All About ME" did not survive. It closes today, April 4, two weeks after opening.

Edna Everage has failed before in New York and on television this morning she was sanguine, even amused, by this sad outcome. For twenty years in the 70s and 80s she was completely ignored by the American public who did not comprehend her short-lived Broadway performances at all. Although she is now a famous, even adored, gigastar in the USA as well as the UK and Australia, this is not enough to keep her quirky show open in the economic wasteland of Broadway where a critic’s pomposity determines what we all get to see unless we are smart enough to go to previews.

Throughout the entire winter Broadway shows have been half empty and half priced tickets are so easy to buy directly from the theatres that there is no need to book on line and pay the ludicrous “convenience” fees or to spend two hours in the cheap tickets line in Times Square (not that this stops the thousands of tourists who seem to like standing there all afternoon in the freezing cold). Last week the only tickets which were hard to find were for “Wicked,” which is solidly booked for months and “Promises, Promises,” which is the latest nostalgia revival starring Kristin Chenoweth and Sean Hayes. It would probably be unforgettable should it be possible to see the stage through the shoulder pads and big hair of the bridge and tunnel crowd, all of whom flocked to Edna when things were good just as they have abandoned her now that times are tough.

Watch Dame Edna and Michael Feinstein discuss "All About ME."

The Ghost Writer

Roman Polanski (Producer, Director, Screenplay), 2010:

Ewan McGregor, Kim Cattrall, Amelia Bly, Olivia Williams, Ruth Lang, Pierce Brosnan, Adam Lang.
Robert Harris (Screenplay), Robert Benmussa, Alain Sarde, Timothy Burrill, Henning Molfenter (Producers), Daniel Champagnon (Production Supervisor), Michael Schaefer (Studio Executive).

Anyone who wonders why the USA continues to pursue Roman Polanski with such bitter determination might go and see “The Ghost Writer” to find the answer. The film stands resolutely on a political base which is refreshingly reactionary after what seemed like the dark ages of the disgraceful Bush administration in which many of the world’s governments behaved as if they knew no better. First and foremost among them was the now busily-reconstructed Tony Blair’s government at Whitehall to whom it must be said any resemblance in this film is purely coincidental. So, in essence, the plot is banal but enjoyable given the murderous rubbish to which we were subjected in reality.

The most essential point about this film is that it is everything “A Single Man” is not. Both films overcome mediocre scripts and staging (if not to say indifferent acting) by conveying an elementary plotline through the hypnotic effect of superb cinematography. In both films the camera and direction create tableaux of such crisp, beautifully lit perfection that all senses are suspended beyond the visual. Tom Ford’s film more or less stops with this extraordinary achievement, after which one leaves the theatre feeling satisfied but capable of wanting more. Polanski’s film goes further. His ability to infuse his brilliant shots with visual clues and hidden meaning, and to coordinate them with what intriguing nuances the threadbare script provides, adds so much more to the experience of seeing this film that one remains trapped in its mood and under its spell for some time afterwards.

This is an amazing accomplishment considering the average standards of acting. Ewan McGregor steadfastly occupies the role he has always occupied throughout his career of being entirely himself. Ditto Pierce Brosnan, who seems to be miscast until the denouement which I will not give away declares him to be entirely right for the part, but even this jarring effect casts doubt on his suitability. Kim Cattrall’s screen image sucks up Polanski’s superb treatment of the femme fatale and she is amazing, as always, until she opens her mouth.

At that point all her hard work is wasted because the worst and most puzzling lapse in this film is the old problem of Americans trying to do English accents. They can’t, and they should stop trying because they all sound like Dick Van Dyke in “Mary Poppins” (a performance which remains one of the most appalling cinematic vandalisms of all time).

Even Pierce Brosnan, a lapsed Irishman, is incapable of adopting a certain Prime Minister’s regrettable command of English, no matter how coincidental the likeness is intended to be. At the beginning of the film he sounds like Ian Carmichael in “What Would I Do Without Jeeves?” and by the end of the movie he is no other than a half ga-ga Harold Macmillan giving the “Winds of Change” speech. In the middle he simply reverts to the Malibu argot as do all the other non - English actors who must have realized, correctly, that Polanski’s direction and cinematography would outweigh all negative distractions.

Watch the trailer:

Journeys With George

Alexandra Pelosi (Producer, Screnwiter, Cinematographer), 2002

George W. Bush, Alexandra Pelosi, Wayne Slater.
Aaron Lubarsky (Editor), Coll Anderson (Sound), Aaron Lubarsky (Producer).

This is a homemade documentary filmed by an NBC journalist (daughter of Nancy Pelosi, incidentally) while she was in the press corps covering George W.’s first campaign for president.

In the close confines of the campaign plane and under the scrutiny of the press corps, Bush comes across as much more intelligent and sharp (even witty) than his public image, which of course makes him even more culpable and mean. It’s easy to see the “side” of him which would be quite frightening and literally pernicious.

His warmth and charm are palpable. One of the journalists complains that they are all failing in their duties because while Gore’s press pack keep reporting objectively on Gore’s faults and failures, Bush’s press team were rendered pathetically uncomplaining because he charmed the pants off them.

Three quarters of the way through the film, when Bush wins the Republican nomination, he changes completely, establishes distance, alters his physical stance, and becomes excruciatingly self aware. The film is a monumental reproach, and a warning, to us all.

Royal Prerogatives: The Principality of Hutt River

Fortieth Anniversary of Hutt River Province, April 21 2010

The Principality of Hutt River will celebrate its 40th anniversary on April 21.

A special coin is being minted and a commemorative stamp will be issued. The Ruling Prince Leonard (pictured) and his wife Princess Shirley along with their sons, Princes Ian, Wayne, Richard and Graeme are planning the largest celebrations the Principality has seen.

Already the capital, Nain, has seen the construction of a new ablution block as well as a new caravan and camping area which Prince Leonard describes as “just part of the works already underway.”

Prince Leonard recently announced his 89th birthday honours list. Sixteen recipients were honoured, variously, with the Principality’s Illustrious Order of Merit, Red Cross of Hutt, Serene Order of Leonard and Order of Wisdom and Learning.

Further details of the 40th anniversary celebrations are available on the Principality's website. .