A Distasteful Choice of Song

Wednesday night, the opening symphony performance in CAMA's season was the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Leon Botstein. The program included Sternberg's Twelve Tribes of Israel, Bernstein's Serenade, and Copland's Symphony No. 3. The soloist for the Bernstein piece was Robert McDuffie. Whatever merit the performance of these pieces might have had was overshadowed by the choice of an additional opening piece.

The orchestra began the concert by standing and playing the American national anthem. What person in his or her right mind could possibly think that now is a good time for the public performance of a nationalist, military march? Apparently, I'm in the minority because the audience went all gooey. By the way, they also played it badly, sort of like the prom queen singing it at the start of a football game. They followed this piece with a performance of the Israeli national anthem, which at least, was played with some emotion.

I left at the interval.

Anderszewski at CAMA: A Little Bit of Tureck and a Whole Lotta Hair

Keyboard phenom, Piotr Anderszewski, opened the season for the Community Music Arts Association in Santa Barbara, Thursday evening, October 16. The program was a thrill for me as it included two Bach partitas (1 and 2), Mozart's sonata in C minor (no. 14), and Beethoven's sonata in A-flat (no. 31). The program thus gave us a history lesson, and one really saw how the sonata form developed over time.

Anderszewski was one of the most unusual pianists that I have ever heard. When he begins a piece, a lopes out on stage like he is trying to catch a bus and then starts to play before his behind makes it onto the bench. His playing has the same interesting dynamic range. He played the Bach slow movements with a delicacy reminiscent of Rosalyn Tureck. The bright, soft notes of these movements gave them tenderness without a maudlin sweetness. The same was true of the slow movements in the Mozart and Beethoven. At the same time, Anderszewski played the faster, forte movements with vigor but always coloring the bass line with dark tones and overlaying it with a bright melody line that seemed to lurch forward rather than sweetly float over the top as one might have expected. I enjoyed the concert, but I also felt it had a strange schizophrenic quality.

Anderszewski's exits from the stage were as unique as his entrances. He rocketed off the bench and bolted at the end of a piece and came back as quickly for a couple of short, staccato bows. He is now wearing his hair long and combed over his forehead and down his eyes. He was overdressed for the perennially hot Lobero Theater, but he never perspired. At times, I felt that I was eavesdropping and that he might be more content to play without an audience, or perhaps, he didn't notice us at all.

Melodrama Is Women's Work

Yesterday, I saw Madame Butterfly at the LA Opera with Liping Zhang singing the title role ably despite being indisposed. She was a little difficult to hear when she sang upstage, but when she let it rip in the big numbers, her voice soared. Since she obviously had power and clarity of tone, I hesitate to attribute the softness of her singing simply to being farther away and ill. Instead, it may have been due to the little girl voice with which many sing the 15-year old, Cio-Cio San.

Cio-Cio San's story left me questioning my usual assumptions about tragedy. We generally think that tragedies are those narratives in which a superior human (not a super human) is subjected to divine or human law. In this process, the free life is limited, and the hero must leave behind some delusion or false consciousness (see Northrop Frye). Traditionalists do not regard Cio-Cio San's story as a tragedy. Critics and musicians alike will dismissively refer to it as a "melodrama." But why should this be the case? Cio-Cio San is subjected to human law, the custom that made it possible for male imperialists to exploit the women of non-Western lands. She does, in the end, throw off her false faith in Pinkerton's love. One might argue that she does not throw off her false view of herself as the faithful woman in love. One could say that because she does not, there is no significant revelation of the kind required by a tragic resolution.

If this is not the case, however, we must look further. Does Puccini treat her as a tragic figure? No, he does not. The music while often beautiful is sweet and lyrical. Puccini does not allow us to see the ugly emotions of false consciousness. So, at least, he probably didn't think he was writing a tragedy. The story, however, is or could have been just as tragic as Otello. Instead, it is put by Puccini and modern audiences in the same category as Dallas, One Life to Live, and celebrity gossip magazine copy. I think it is because we are loathe to universalize a woman's life and see it as a revelatory tragedy that may speak to every man. How many tragedies do we know that bring a female character low or use a typical woman's experience as the material of transcendence?

Opera Starts Again in LA with Il Trittico

Sunday was my first time to see the three operas of Il Trittico on stage. To my surprise, the real hit of the afternoon was Suor Angelica. Who could have guessed that I would cry over a Puccini opera and, moreover, one in which a fallen woman (you have to accept all that goes with that to feel sympathy for her) offs herself only to be redeemed by the Virgin Mary, who descends from the rafters like a wooden idol and gestures like Dickens's Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come? Sondra Radvanovsky made the whole thing work with the simplicity and clarity of her singing. The Gianni Schicchi, directed by Woody Allen, was hilarious. The best part was the fake movie credits highlighting the work of people with names like Proscuitto, Melane, and Fellatio. Allen did the set and costumes in shades of grey to make the opera have the look of a black and white film, and the entire effect was perfect for the familial melodrama.

As I was milling about between operas, I enjoyed a little people watching, always a fun sport in Los Angeles. I realized that the audience at a Sunday matinee can be broken down into two groups. In the first, there are people who are appropriately (if less than originally) dressed. I am one of them. We supernumerary types try to look respectful without calling attention to ourselves. The other group consists of the freakishly dressed and the under-dressed. The latter includes the jeans and gym shoe crowd. Are they opera diehards or do they not know better? The former includes the Latin American gentleman behind me at the drink counter wearing a lovely pale blue linen suit but with shorts instead of trousers and saddle oxfords and Harry Potter glasses. The F.D. set also includes the women over 60 in jump-me, 4-inch heels, hot pants, and form-fitting, low cut metallic sweaters. I would love to know what their inner monologues tell them as they are dressing. Mine says something like, "That will do--God, I'm getting older; is this too frump or too young?"

Well, the LA opera season has many gems on the schedule and look forward to them all.

Two Satisfying Violin Styles at MAW's Chamber Concert

Tuesday night's chamber concert put on by Music Academy of the West presented a delightful contrast of two violin playing styles. MAW regular Kathleen Winkler joined fellow faculty members and the 19 year-old John Stoltz in Mozart's Quintet for Two Violin, Two Violas, and Cello in C Minor, and Takacs Quartet member Edward Dusinberre played Bach's Chaconne from Partita in D Minor for Solo Violin and a Brahms Sonata for Violin and Piano No. 2 in A Major with Margaret McDonald. While the pieces were from different musical eras and different combinations of instruments, the audience had the opportunity to hear two masterful violinists with different yet equally satisfying approaches to the music.

Ms. Winkler has a beautiful tone and seems to float a delicate line over a solid foundation of sound. Her playing is lyrical and has a clear direction without being square or stuffy. When one hears her play, there is a strong sense of movement in the piece. In contrast, Mr. Dusinberre plays with a relentless kind of technical mastery. He plays more within himself, but one has the distinct feeling that there is always some great energy barely held in check.

I truly enjoyed both approaches, and it is one of the delights of hearing an evening of chamber music with different players. One can achieve this at home by listening to different CDs, but there is nothing like comparing styles when one is listening live.

I wish I could find a decent image of Ms. Winkler, but the only one available doesn't look like her at all.

Taylor Wowed the Audience with Messiaen's Spiritual Ordeal

On Tuesday, July 9, pianist Christopher Taylor mesmerized the audience in Music Academy of the West's Hahn Hall. He played Olivier Messiaen's Vingt Regards sur l'Enfant-Jesus, a demanding two plus hours of solo piano. Messiaen composed the work during 1943 and 1944 in occupied Paris, and it confronts the audience with a series of spiritual states that Taylor brought alive in a true artistic experience.

While almost every view uses some of a small collection of leitmotifs, they are quite insular and discrete in the spiritual experiences they present. The views move from atonal, rhythmic order to rapturous ugliness. The tempo is entirely foreign to the stately church music familiar to me. Instead, Messiaen really captures the fervent madness of religious exaltation, and Taylor made the most of them.

The small audience in this beautiful hall was with the performer the entire evening, and the four curtain calls were genuinely demanded. The newly renovated Hahn Hall is now my favorite venue in Santa Barbara. It is well designed and comfortable, and the architectural elements have a restrained grace that is ideal for the recitals and chamber music that will be performed here. The Met's HD broadcasts will also air here next season, and I look forward to going to this wonderful space as well as avoiding the trek down to Ventura.

Music Academy of the West Makes Our Summer

I attended my first Music Academy of the West chamber performance on Tuesday, July 1. The MAW provides our summer musical fare in Santa Barbara, and the chamber performances are particularly intimate since the performers are faculty members and many students are in the audience (http://www.musicacademy.org/festival).

Tuesday's performance included William Bolcom "Graceful Ghost Rag" (Kathleen Winkler violin, Jonathan Feldman piano), Messiaen "Le Loriot" (Jerome Lowenthal) and "Theme et Variations" (Jeff Thayer violin, Margaret McDonald piano) Ravel "Trio for Violin, Cello and Piano in A Minor" (Winkler, Alan Stepansky cello, Feldman), Elliott Carter "Woodwind Quintet" (Timothy Day flute, David Weiss oboe, Richie Hawley clarinet, Dennis Michel bassoon, David Jolley horn), Bach "Trio Sonata for Flute, Violin and Continuo in G Major" (Day, Thayer, Nico Abondolo double bass, Natasha Kislenko harpsichord). Another Carter piece was scheduled, but the pianist, Jerome Lowenthal, substituted Ravel's "Toccata" much to the relief of a few in the audience.

Most memorable were Bolcom, Messiaen's "Theme et Variations," and the Bach. I am not a ragtime fan, but Bolcom gave the genre polish. This produced a light, lyrical, almost bittersweet piece. Winkler's tone was right on for this piece. The Messiaen piece sounded like strange musical lines looping back and across one another. This created a slightly exotic and pleasing atmosphere. I adore Bach, and it was a real treat to hear a chamber work that included a harpsichord.

The audience was warm and familiar with the players since they are, for the most part, regulars at MAW. During the interval, I bumped into a fellow audience member who explained that he wasn't being "forward" when he ran his hand over my thigh. He just wanted to find out if my loud trousers also had an interesting texture. To his credit, somehow he didn't come off as a creep. This may take the cake in terms of firsts for me at a classical music concert.