Reviews of Performances and their Audiences
February 17-19 2008: Orpheus & Euridice
March 14-16 2008: Enoch Arden and Frankenstein!!
May 9 2008: Frederica von Stade Recital
June 4-8 2008: The Diary of Anne Frank
Long Beach Opera opens its 2008 season next weekend with Ricky Ian Gordon's Orpheus & Euridice with Todd Palmer and Elizabeth Futral in the title roles.
On Super Tuesday I heard a segment on the BBC NewsPod dealing with some controversy over a Spanish musical about Anne Frank. Apparently it took 10 years for the producer, Rafael Alvero, to get the musical off the ground, and the Anne Frank-Fonds still has not granted Alvero rights. Board member Christoph Knoch spoke about how the life of Anne Frank is an inappropriate subject of a musical. The Anne Frank Stichtung, which runs the Anne Frank Museum in Amsterdam, approves of the musical.
Timothy Muller, a BBC journalist and composer of the musical Blair on Broadway was interviewed as well for this story, and he theorized that people would not have a problem with an opera about Anne Frank. It seemed quite likely that such an opera already existed, so I did a little research and noticed that not only has Grigory Fried written an opera entitled The Diary of Anne Frank, it is being performed by the Long Beach Opera on June 4, 5, and 8, 2008 in two parking garages in Los Angeles County.
I would be tempted to go if it were only San Francisco Opera were not putting on Das Rheingold just around that time. Note that none of the dates actually conflict, the Wagner opera will have performances on June 3 and 6.
The musical El Diario de Ana Frank: Un Canto a la Vida opens at the end of February at the Teatro Calderon in Madrid, and is set to run through the end of March.
BBC Article |El Diario de Ana Frank | The Diary of Anne Frank
Théâtre du Châtelet is putting on Roussel's opera ballet Padmâvatî from March 14-24, 2008. Directed by Sanjay Leela Bhansali, who directed the films Saawariya, Devdas, and Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam, the dancing will be choreographed by Tanusree Shankar.
The Telegraph Article | Production | SLB's Official Site | Shankar's Biography
Pierre-Auguste Renoir's La Loge (1874) sold for more than twice the estimated price of 2.5-3.5 million pounds in London yesterday. The Guardian reports that the picture will be shown at the Courtauld Gallery after all.
Current Adler Fellow Heidi Melton just sang the role of Amelia in Un Ballo en Maschera at the Opéra National de Bordeaux on Monday.
Liberty County Times Article | Heidi's Biography | Production | Adler Fellows
* Notes *
Rohit Shetty's comedic thriller Sunday opened a couple of weekends ago, and failed to become the first blockbuster of 2008. Ajay Devgan was entertaining as the corrupt ice-cream eating policeman ACP Rajveer Randhava, and Ayesha Takia was perfectly adorable as his goofy and forgetful dubbing artist love interest Sehar Thapar. Arshad Warsi (Ballu) and Irfan Khan (Kumar) were often hilarious comic relief and their fight scenes were particularly funny. The movie had quite a few jokes about other movies in it, and generally was all over the place, perhaps because of the mixed genre.
The muddled plot was not helped by the rather dull music, nor by the dancing. The word "Sunday" is incessantly repeated in the lyrics, and helpfully translated in the subtitles again and again. Esha Deol looked very pretty in her item number, but her appearance just added to the marked lack of focus overall.
* Tattling *
Along with making fun of other Hindi films, Sunday also includes a silly East Asian martial arts caricature, one of the minor characters is a small, ineffectual karate "expert" who emits high-pitched noises that are said to sound like Chinese.
The showing I went to in Fremont was poorly attended, there were barely a dozen people in the theatre.
* Notes *
This year the Schwabacher Debut Recital Series commenced with yesterday's performance of Die schöne Müllerin. Tenor Philippe Castagner sang Schubert's song cycle with a lovely tenderness and expression. He had fine control over his vibrato and good diction. He did move a great deal during the course of the 20 songs, drumming out the beat against his legs or pointing, but somehow this came off as charming instead of obnoxious. Ken Noda accompanied Castagner beautifully, though at times it seemed that Noda was holding the reigns, setting the rather quick pace.
* Tattling *
The performance at Temple Emanu-El was well attended, despite it being held on Superbowl Sunday. I was offered someone's extra ticket, which I accepted gratefully. The audience was well-behaved, though there was one watch alarm at 6pm.
There seemed to be some continuous high pitched noises coming from above, perhaps from the lighting. They occasionally became louder, and at one point a young girl in the first row looked up at the sound as well.
Latvian National Opera has been accused of distributing child pornography in its advertising for Janis Lusens' The Puppet's Opera.
Doubtless you have heard that the current Dallas Opera production of Salomé was laughed at last Friday. By coincidence, just after reading The Dallas Morning News article on Salomé, I heard Radiolab's latest show entirely devoted to laughter. Particularly interesting were the segments on Dr. Jaak Panksepp's research on tickling rats and Dr. Robert Provine's work on chimp laughter. Among the theories on why humans laugh presented were to signal safety or play.
I wonder exactly what the audience was laughing at in Salomé, if it was simply the absurdity of the staging or something else. Mlada Khudoley (pictured) certainly does not look inappropriate as the dancing seductress.
Listening to Radiolab reminded me that they aired an hour-long special about opera earlier this year. Entitled "The Ring and I: The Passion, The Myth, The Mania," the program discusses the Ring Cycle at the Met in 2004. The show starts with the statement "Opera people are all nuts," which seems quite apt indeed. Jad Abumrad interviews Alex Ross, Speight Jenkins, Tony Kushner, Jane Eaglen and others in this amusing piece about Wagner's epic work.
Dallas Opera's Salomé | The Dallas Morning News Review | Pegasus News Review | Laughter Episode on Radiolab | The Ring and I on Radiolab
Vienna's 52nd Opera Ball featured a footballet and a performance by José Carreras. It was the first time Desiree "Desi" Treichl-Stürgkh organized the ball, which was attended by several football stars in honor of the European Championships to be held in Austria and Switzerland this summer. Other guests included Teri Hatcher, Dita von Teese, Bianca Jagger, and Anna Netrebko. According to Ö3, Dita, the guest of Richard Lugner, was well-behaved, looking more like Snow White than a stripper. She did not leave her box to waltz and departed just after midnight. Amusingly enough, Lugnar's ex wife was also in attendance.
AFP Article | Photo Galleries and Video |Wiener Opernball 2008 Site
The Opera Tattler 
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