The Red Shoes

Ashley Shaw as Victoria Page and Glenn Graham (back to camera) as Grischa Ljubov in Matthew Bourne’s “The Red Shoes.” Photograph by Andrea Mohin/The New York Times

"The Red Shoes" at City Center

 

 "The Red Shoes" finally steamed into the City Center after exhausting itself everywhere else first. Until last night, it had been decades since I'd seen a life - sized steam train on stage but even when it eviscerated the star before our very eyes there wasn't much of a reaction, beyond admiration of the vivid choreography and the technical perfection of the production. It replicated the film in everything but emotion, or even dramatic tension, which were largely absent. Still, it must be difficult to get everything right, especially when the original film is something people commonly have dreams about, like having tea with the Queen. At interval at the GIF booth, it was fun to watch the fairly plump audience members arranging themselves in third position for the souvenir photo. Everyone's a ballerina at the ballet.

Read Brian Seibert's review in The New York Times 

The Exterminating Angel

"The Exterminating Angel" at The Metropolitan Opera

 

I thought no one was going to show up last night to Thomas Ades' "The Exterminating Angel". At 7:55 last night the Metropolitan Opera House was was almost empty except for me and the enormous orchestra which was waiting to be conducted by Ades himself (the lyricist Tom Cairns directed). Several sheep and a bear roamed the spooky stage and I was beginning to think the audience had been unable to leave their own dinner parties. But they all arrived at once at 8:00 and the disconcerting tale of annihilation and chaos subsiding into totalitarianism began. The Brunel film has already established that there is no answer to the question as to why the characters cannot leave the dignified room wherein they become dispossessed zombies, but for an entirely atonal, deliberately baffling, hours-long and very demanding performance, it was not only instantly gratifying but also crowd - pleasing. After the sheep had been slaughtered in the drawing room, along with several of the guests, and the bear was drawing nigh, the audience had been spell-bound for almost three hours. It was enough to make anyone think the general public deserved better than the current chaotic slide into totalitarianism. The man next to me had snuck in without a ticket and said his cataracts necessitated the use of 24 inch binoculars which baffled the ushers.

Read Anthony Tommasini's review in the New York Times 

William Wei at Juilliard

www.casalmaggiorefestival.com/william-wei/

Sonatenabend at the Juilliard School

 

The Juilliard students are being forced to give public recitals, so I showed up at Paul Hall last night to be entranced by two hours of Beethoven sonatas for violin and piano. A break from Beethoven was provided by a rarely-heard Sarabande et Cortege for bassoon and piano by Henri Dutilleux, and at the end the brilliant William Wei (who has already won the Queen Elisabeth violin prize and is a concert performer in Asia and Europe but remains a modest Juilliard student in New York) astounded everyone with the Ravel Sonata for Violin and Piano, all three movements of which comprise nothing but hemi - demi - semi  quavers in chromatics. It makes The Flight of the Bumble Bee sound like a dirge. He played from memory but had an Ipad on the stand with a foot controlled mouse which made me realize that from now on we will never see sheet music again.

See what's on at the Juilliard School 

Renee Fleming Recital

Photo by Chris Lee in New York Classical Review

Renee Fleming at Carnegie Hall

 

Renee Fleming has been very busy off stage lately so I went to her Carnegie Hall recital last night thinking I might never see her again. Was I wrong. She swept in wearing a Happy Birthday Mr President dress and knocked off some Brahams' lieder and several volumes of Yates' poetry set by Andre Previn, to whom she blew kisses, then she changed into a Marie Antoinette silk pannier with a huge train and sang new songs by Caroline Shaw ("Are you excited? I am!"), four songs by Egon Kornauth ("I'd never heard of him, have you?") and most of Strauss' Ariadne auf Naxos ("I've only done it once, so I sing it in recitals"). The encores included "Since There Was You" which she dedicated to Barbara Cook ("She told me 'never do more than you can; you are always enough' "). I floated home, euphoric, thinking, "well, speak for yourself Renee."

Read George Grellar's review in New York Classical Review 

Hair!

The cast of "Hair" at the Public Theater in 1967. (Photo by George E. Joseph)
 www.americantheatre.org

"Hair!" cast reunion

 

Last night the 50th anniversary of the opening of "Hair!" was observed with a cast reunion at Lincoln Center, where I was given a song sheet and told to sing "Good Morning Starshine" with the Tribe from a current production touring Europe. They said they are rescuing the USA's reputation everywhere they go. The assistant to the composer, Galt MacDermot, said he asked for his job when he was 16, and still has it. A member of the 1967 cast told me she is now a tour guide when she is not too depressed by politics to go outside. The celebrated Miss Arkansas, who abdicated her Crown to run away with the Tribe, said each performance was a transformation and pleaded for theater to return to its job of changing the world. Then we all sang "Let The Sun Shine In" and went home feeling as we did after we first saw "Hair!" : transformed.

Tenement Museum

The New York Tenement Museum

www.missedinhistory.com

I've been time traveling, firstly by having lunch at Russ and Daughters Cafe in Orchard Street, a surprisingly modest and authentic Kosher diner which serves "breakfast martinis" as well as caviar blinis, smoked fish and bagels, followed by the Tenement Museum, further down the street. I had almost given up on the museum because it is always so hard to get tickets and anyway I never liked museum "interpreters" telling me what to make of a place. But it wasn't just good, it was marvelous, and moving, and made all the moreso by the fact that I went there with a friend I had not seen since June, 1975, when we were at school together in Los Angeles.

See what's on at the New York Tenement Museum

Jane Campion Retrospective

An Angel at my Table

I hadn't seen "An Angel at My Table" since it came out (on TV) in 1990, when the deliberate rustication seemed highly contemporary and the film was full of jokes and parodies. Yesterday the grainy print and autumn palette struck some kind of silent awe into the audience so I was the solitary weirdo cackling in the dark. Jane Campion herself has been attending this Lincoln Center retrospective, giving Q and A sessions and a long "Evening with..." presentation where she accepted appropriate ovations from her public. Earlier this year I passed her in the Tropicana Caffein Sydney and gave her an involuntary glance of recognition. She returned such a hostile glare that anyone would have thought she disliked being famous. Someone told me Catherine Deneuve is the same, hates being recognized, but hates being ignored even more.

Watch the trailer:

Julia Solomonoff at Film Forum

Nobody's Watching

The NYC release of the brilliant Argentinian film, "Nobody's Watching", started this week. The characters are so richly portrayed that you feel you know all about them even when some appear for only a few minutes. I never get to talk to movie directors but at Film Forum they actually hang around after the film, inviting conversation... Julia Solomonoff said a lot about the differences between the way the film was scripted and the way it ended up. When asked about the depth of characterization, she said she cut most of the scenes that provided "back story" (after they had been shot) because context, setting, sequence and the actors' performances delivered all the nuances without requiring the actual footage. Even so, she said, she had to add a bit at the end, after the film was "locked", which she had to pay for herself, so that hurt.

Watch the trailer:

 

The Museum at FIT

Fashion Institute of Technology

FIT's current exhibition, The Force of Nature, analyses the impact of the natural world on fashion. Amongst the leopard Capri Pants and the Olympic swimsuit which simulates a shark's skin was this cocktail dress from Sak's 1953 collection, which was inspired by the 1950s' fascination with stars, constellations and space exploration. The idea was that science would bring peace and hope to a world held in fear by the threat of nuclear war. Afterwards, I walked over to Union Square to see the aftermath of Mrs. Clinton's book signing. The Hillary haters were still there, leaning over the barricades and hissing slogans at anyone walking by. 

See what's on at the Fashion Museum of Technology

The Viceroy's House

Kerry Monteen/Pathe

Who knew the public is so fascinated by the Partition, details of which are muttered by Edwina, as
she hands around the paratha, her head permanently tilted to one side as if she had picked up a twitch (not unlikely). Well, they're not. They are there to see Lord Grantham who has been chosen to sever colonial ties with India before taking his flying boat back to Barchester Towers... or wherever. Lord Mountbatten just doesn't have the same pull. But nor does he have the same avoirdupois as Grantham. As the real Lady Pamela said at the screening, "my father looked like a film star so why couldn't they find a film star who looked like him?" The reviews tend to ignore this but it really is the elephant in the room.

Watch the trailer:  

 

Jakarta

Jaran Kepang in the Kampung

I was just walking through the kampung behind my apartment, looking for somewhere shady to read my book, and came across a small gemalan orchestra accompanying the famous Jaran Kepang, the traditional Javanese dance portraying soldiers riding horses made from highly decorated bamboo. Just just my luck: they were doing the less common version where each dancer enters into a trance and then walks through fire, eats glass and endures a good flogging (the man doing the flogging went into a trance himself and was possessed by a demon much to the delight of onlooking children). Just a regular Sunday afternoon in the kampung. I didn't have a camera but this picture from http://vinoimagination.blogspot.co.id looks just like it...

Jakarta

Gerbaha kulit telur at Ayaka Suites, Kuningan City, Jakarta

Gerabah Kulit Telur

Indonesian gerabah kulit telur, eggshell mosaic used on ceramics. The egg shells are applied to the clay, then covered in a farinaceous paste and fired. After firing the paste is sanded off to reveal the glazed mosaic. There are plenty of examples of poor quality in the tourist shops but I just noticed these fine amphorae next to the elevator here....

Tasmania

Westvale, near Ridgley, Tasmania

Restoring a Hoarder's House

My father used the woodcut for his stationery and now that the house is almost finished, and I can actually stay in it while I am in Tasmania, I am using it too. Whoever made it also did a gigantic, five panel painting of the entire valley with the house in the centre of it all.

Tasmania

Restoring a Hoarder's House

Seven weeks (so far) on the edge of the Tarkine Wilderness, without internet, TV, radio, telephone or newspaper unless I drive for thirty minutes to reach them, means I have no idea what Trump is up to. I can recommend it.

10 of the Last Great Wildernesses in the World, www.cnn.com

Tasmania

Restoring a Hoarder's House

The hoarder's house now resembles a non-ruin and the land has just sucked up a few thousand gallons of thistle poison. So begins the next phase, of observing failed repairs: baths that never empty, stoves that have no on-switch, doors that can never close and new fire places that fill the rooms with smoke. But no ghost, yet.