L'Amour de Loin

Ken Howard, Metropolitan Opera

"L'Amour de Loin", at the Metropolitan Opera, is supposed to be the 12th century tale of Jaufré, Prince of Blaye's heroic pursuit of unattainable love but the setting and the music led to more direct associations with the existential and metaphysical roots of it all. The whole thing was enacted on a vast ocean swell, flowing from the back of the huge Metropolitan Opera stage and down over the orchestra pit, with the principals on little undulating boats. From time to time the chorus poked up their heads, haloed in ripples, through the waves but their ceaseless chants came mostly from underwater. The score was one endlessly enchanting tune, like a gemelan orchestra, and tonight's audience was transfixed, maybe even mesmerized. The people sitting next to me are leaving for Rome tomorrow. They asked me if the Italians celebrate Christmas.

Brandon Jacobs - Jenkins at Juilliard

Richard Termine for The New YorkTimes

Appropriate

Juilliard Drama is doing Branden Jacobs - Jenkin's play, "Appropriate," possibly because he is the playwriting professor there. Its descent from every drama ever written about post mortem family gatherings is quite evident and the ending doesn't really work but the production was perfect. During the first interval the woman in front of me ordered coffee from the local Starbucks and insisted that it was delivered to her seat.

John Kander at Lincoln Center

Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times

Last night I joined a group of 50 Mary Martin and Paul Lynde lookalikes to sit at the feet (literally) of
John Kander and chat to him about his dealings with Fred Ebb, Hal Prince, Liza Minelli, Joel Grey and everyone else you've ever heard of. The facilitator, a giggling fan, lost the plot, leaving the incisive audience to skewer Mr. Kander, correcting his facts, reminding him of details and telling him where he had gone wrong. He seemed to enjoy this enormously. He said that Liza Minelli, at the height of her stardom, saved "Chicago" in its first run when Gwen Verdon went off sick. She learned the part in a week, played it for two months, and amazed the audiences who could not believe their ears when the stage manager announced the sub each night, because it was never advertised.

Mark Morris at B.A.M.

Andrea Mohin/The New York Times

The Hard Nut at Brooklyn Academy of Music

Mark Morris'version of the Nutcracker, The Hard Nut, opened at Brooklyn Academy of Music today so I raced there to see it. It's very calming in the middle of the silly season to see a suburban holiday party go so awry, with the sinister neighbour unleashing his handsome, youthful, alter ego on the innocent little girl before they cavort through a psychic wonderland of obsession and betrayal. Mark Morris himself appeared as the suburban Dad managing the drinks trolley while his garish guests raced each other off and drank to oblivion. The entire production was entirely gender non-confirming, with women lifting, men en pointe and androgenous snow fairies; the suburban maid was a superbly-muscled drag queen. It was amazing to see little children in the audience, but it will probably do them a lot of good in the long run.

Hal Prince and Stephen Sondheim's Last Collaboration

www.rollingstone.com

The Best Worse Thing That Could Ever Have Happened

 

A film by Lonnie Price

 

Film Society of Lincoln Center

It's almost unbelievable, but the original cast of "Merrily We Roll Along", AND Stephen Sondheim AND Hal Prince appear in this documentary about the experience of originating the show in 1981 only to have it be a total flop and close after 16 performances. For some of the cast, it was the end of their acting careers and they never returned to the stage, and Hal Prince and Stephen Sondheim never worked together again. But as was said at the time, just because the public didn't get it then, doesn't mean they wouldn't get it later, and they did. It's been a cult hit for decades. There's a touching moment when the cast members talk about recording the album the morning after the show closed, saying that they sang in defiance, and had never sung so well.

Frans Helmerson at Juilliard

www.piatigorskyfestival.usc.edu/artists/

I went to Frans Helmerson's cello masterclass at Juilliard tonight and sat for three hours, transfixed by him, as he tutored James Jeonghwan Kim, Xinchi Wang and Mariko Wyrick, all brilliant graduate students, in Schumann, Rachmaninoff and Poulenc. The famous Carlos Avila accompanied. All in a day's work for them, and for Juilliard, and they let us in to gape, in fact they welcomed us. It was amazing. So, now I feel very unaccomplished and wish I had practised more.