Leuchtende Liebe, lachender Tod!

At 11:09 p.m. on Thursday night, the curtain fell on the Metropolitan Opera's new production of Richard Wagner's Siegfried, the third opera of his Der Ring Des Nibelungen cycle.  Deborah Voigt and Jay Hunter Morris joyously sang the lyrics "Leuchtende Liebe, lachlender Tod!", pledging each other "Enlightening love and laughing death!"

To me, it sounded perfect: two actors, one the finest dramatic soprano of her generation, with seemingly perfect chemistry, breathlessly declaring their love after he's roused her from her magically-induced sleep.  (You didn't think Disney came up with that, did you?)  The Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, under the baton of Fabio Luisi, was lush, energetic, and pitch perfect.  They seem to have taken to Maestro James Levine's absence rather well.

Yet, I could be completely wrong.  I'm not an expert in these matters.  I don't know that Morris, singing one of the most utterly difficult heldentenor parts in the entire catalogue of opera, hit all the right notes, had the perfect color in his voice at a certain point, or looked convincing as Siegfried.  The same goes for Ms. Voigt.  She might be all wrong (though I doubt it) and I wouldn't know the difference from this end of my computer speakers.

I sometimes wonder what it takes to be a music critic.

It's certainly not for lack of sources to research that I don't, as such, know better about these things.  I have two full audio Ring Cycles, one conducted by Georg Solti with the Wiener Philharmoniker, the other with Herbert von Karajan and the Berliner Philharmoniker.  Tack onto that Das Rheingold and Die Walkure, recorded in concert by The Cleveland Orchestra in the 1990s.  I also own three Ring DVD sets:  Patrice Chereau's 1976 centenary Bayreuth Festspielhaus production with Pierre Boulez conducting, the mid-1980s Otto Schenk production of the Metropolitan Opera ring with James Levine at the helm, and the Harry Kupfer 1991 Bayreuth version with Daniel Barenboim conducting.

Obsessive, perhaps, but it's certainly enough to keep me listening a while.

I don't know what it would be like to have those skills of professional music criticism.  Anthony Tommasini's review of Siegfried will be in the New York Times on Saturday or Sunday.  He'll inevitably like certain parts.  I'll nod my head in agreement.  Overall, though, he might hate it and I'll try to understand why.

Perhaps it goes hand in hand with my being a terribly un-critical English student/teacher.  I like my poetry straightforwardly read, not given the microscope and scalpel treatment.  If it sounds good, dammit, it's good enough for me.  But that's not what it means to be a critic.  While I manage to see fault rather too often in the real world, when comfortably enveloped in a concert hall, theatre, or opera house, I tend to be more forgiving, even willing to overlook sonic errors or dramatic incongruities that may arise.

In a lot of ways, that's what brings joy to me in the world of music.  In my collection, I have eight recordings of the Mahler 6th Symphony, my favorite of his works.  I have favorite moments in a few and likely couldn't tell you much about a couple of the others.  In short, I know what I like and can point out why.  And while I know a lot about a few pieces, having that rather encyclopedic knowledge of opera, choral, and orchestral music needed to be a critic is almost tough to fathom.

I'd hate to have to sit there, in the case of Siegfried for five hours - including a couple intermissions - and listen for the flaws.  That doesn't seem like much fun to me and really almost negates the entertaining value of dramatic opera.  New Ring Cycles come around once a generation.  They're both incredibly expensive to produce and to attend.  Truly, there is no more Herculean undertaking in four-plus centuries of Western opera than these four operas that line up at around eighteen total hours of performance time across four nights.

As I sat here in front of my computer listening to the online live broadcast, I enjoyed what I heard.  And for me, at least for tonight, that was plenty good enough.

Mondrian Beyond

I have a thing for Piet Mondrian.

You know who I'm talking about:  the artist who turned blocks of royal blue, scarlet, and buttercup set in a black grid against a white field into high modern art.

It's the straightforward geometry, the primary colors and their surprising vividness.  The simplicity belies complexity - like looking at a city from far above.  Noise, traffic, smells - they're all left far below.  Mondrian came decades before, but his aesthetic embodies that cool 1960s Mad Men / New York / Seagram Building / Alexander Calder futurism / Pool Room of the Four Seasons vibe that is only a cigarette and a vodka rocks away from perfection.

To me, it's as if someone took the native exuberance of Marc Chagall; the riotous, anarchic energy of Jackson Pollock; and the brash abstraction of Mark Rothko (all of whom I love) and - like a wet paper towel to a whiteboard - erased the excess, leaving only the basics:  a grid of lines with occasional blocks of color on a field of stark emptiness.  Without Mondrian, I wager there would be no Rothko, no Pollock.  Without a form to break free of, what need is there for the violent slashes of paint, the blurred edges of color blocks?

Every time I see someone in the outside world taking inspiration from Mondrian, it brings me some little bit of joy.

Take designer Yves Saint Laurent.  In 1965, he created a series of dresses that replaced stretched canvas with jersey dress fabric.  Look at this for a moment...

The cut of the dress is by no means revealing - even for 1965.  A tight crew neck.  Sleeveless.  Cocktail length.  Not tightly fitted.  The entire piece works.  It's structured without looking too formal.  To me, it says day into night.  Big round sunglasses.  A black patent clutch.  Simple black kitten heels.  Like the little black dress with less black, it feels classic.

I'm truly jealous.

It's so 60s, but if you walked into Bloomingdales today it would still be immediately wearable - sure, identifiable as a vintage look, but since when have they been problematic?

However, the creativity doesn't end only in couture.

This slice of cake comes from a blog that I happened upon once.  It's just simple loaves of cake that are trimmed to size, attached with chocolate ganache, and then glazed into a thick rectangle of tasty and pretty.  

I've wanted to make this ever since I found it.  Imagine a basic butter cake for the white areas.  The yellow block redolent of lemon.  Red with its slight hint of cherry extract.  Blue, perhaps, tasting of peppermint extract.  A riot of flavors, sure, but it would be a new surprise with every bite.

I missed the Swatch craze of the mid-1980s by virtue of having been born in 1982.  That doesn't stop me from utterly coveting one of these guys.

Sure, it's cheap plastic, but it would immediately pop off the outfit you accessorized to the hilt with this watch.  Granted, you might have to do some slouchy cardigan in that pre-Seattle grunge kinda way with Doc Marten combat boots (which I happen to own already) and slightly too-bleached jeans to make it work.  This while playing Madonna's "Crazy For You" a little too loud through your chic Walkman cassette player that you found at Goodwill for a dollar.  That ought to do it pretty well.

It's hard work to be Mondrian cool.  After all, the two drink lunch doesn't fly anymore.  It's hard to put cigarettes anywhere into this politically correct age.  You'll just need basic black to play off and play up the primary colors, the right amount of moxie, the liberated self-assurance of a hipster without any of the "over-it" irony, and the knowledge that your man Mondrian makes you cooler than all the other kids on the block.

And if all that fails, just add the shoes - by Nike, inspired by Mondrian, circa 2008.  Timeless.

  
Art:  All the cool kids are doing it.

Art in Focus: Follies

Folks, we're back after a lovely weekend spent photographing in Downtown Pittsburgh and at the former West Virginia Penitentiary in Moundsville, West Virginia!

- - - - -

I'm not usually much of an artist.  Granted, I don't pursue being one, but I'm usually more one to observe and appreciate art than make my own.  Once in a while, though, I manage to have a whole lot of fun attempting it.

Anyone who knows me knows I have a passion for the theatre, both plays and musicals.  Perhaps my favorite work of musical theatre is Stephen Sondheim's 1971 Follies.  Currently enjoying a wildly successful revival on Broadway at the Marquis Theatre, Follies is essentially the story of middle to latter-aged women reuniting in the theatre where they once sang and danced as cast members of the Weismann Follies.  The show is written as a one-off occasion as the former Weismann Theatre is to be torn down the next day.

Encountering the ghosts of their younger selves, the lovers lost, the roads not taken, the women and their husbands/companions gather to converse, drink, and, in the case of a few, recreate their signature numbers of decades before.

It's a story of loss, of love, the folly of youth, and the deceptions of age.

And along the way it's inspired some incredible artists to create signature artwork for the show posters.  This iconic design to the left, the original by David Byrd, is, frankly, one of the most perfect and inimitable pieces of theatrical art ever executed.

It's definitely representative of the time period it was designed in - 1970 - with raucous fields of red orange topped by a flowing mane of cerulean, violet, and periwinkle blue.

But it's the face - the jaw that evokes the late Dame Joan Sutherland, the sad eyes of Gloria Swanson, and the distant, pleading look of Mary Pickford - all tarnished by the gaping crack beginning in the crowning "E" of FOLLIES.

I have, to my knowledge, the poster artwork from every major production - and even a few minor ones - ever to play the stage.  The original sketch in a limited edition by Byrd.  The 1971 Broadway.  1987 London.  1990 Long Beach CLO.  1998 Paper Mill Playhouse.  2001 Broadway Revival.  2002 London Royal Festival Hall.  2002 Los Angeles Reprise Series.  2007 NYC Encores Concert.  2011 Kennedy Center/Broadway Revival.

I am incredibly proud of my collection, but often it sits in storage, securely pressed flat and kept dark to preserve the images.

A few years back, I looked to those beautiful images for inspiration when I needed to create a little piece for myself.  What that leads me to is this:

Like I said, not much of an artist, but I try.  I created this collage faceplate back in the spring of 2008 at the height of the Guitar Hero video game craze for my guitar game controller.

I printed off images of the various posters, arranged them around a faceplate that I'd cut out of thick paper to fit over the guitar and the necessary holes for buttons and the Wii remote.  From there, I trimmed them to allow for maximum presentation of each piece while maintaining a diverse, representative field of the art.

The lower left end begins with the 2007 Encores image, which happens to also be by David Byrd.  His first concept sketch for the original artwork back in 1970, it finally came to life almost forty years later.

To its right is the third sketch Byrd made for the original.  Printed in a signed limited edition sold by the Triton Galley of New York City, I own No. 3 out of 50.  Needless to say, it's an acquisition I'm pretty amazed by and proud of.

To the lower right, in pale blue, is a sliver of the 2002 London RFH production.  How I came to own this piece is truly a fluke.  I'd seen the piece posted online by the RFH's website.  Yet there was no merchandise to buy.  So I just emailed a contact I found on the Hall's website to see how I might go about getting my hands on a poster.  Might as well go the source, right?  Well, for the cost of shipping only, I received an enormous tube in the mail one day while at college.  Inside was a rolled up piece about four feet wide by six feet tall - an Underground-sized advertising poster.  It's truly a treasured piece in my collection.

Counterclockwise from that image is the 1990 Long Beach CLO poster, a newer image by Byrd, not among the original 1970 set.  Truly, the girl's face is haunting, set beneath the plumed headdress crowning the famed shattered lettering.

One more spot to the right - at the very end of the guitar - is the font for the 1998 Paper Mill Playhouse of New Jersey production.  The artwork that accompanied the piece was a photograph of a young woman who, to my best knowledge, was a real Ziegfield girl.  However, the poster featured text of the cast billing over the image, rendering it unusable for my purposes.  

Above that, in the upper right corner, is the image from the 2001 Broadway Revival.  That summer, in July, my mother and I saw the show from the very cramped mezzanine of the Belasco Theatre, itself crumbling from years without renovation and alterations that left it, in places, in ruins.  The production, while critically faulted, was magical and tragic.  Stars - real ones - Blythe Danner, Gregory Harrison, Polly Bergen - met their ghosts onstage each night.  It truly got me hooked on this legendary piece of Broadway Theatre history.

Finally, at the middle-top of the guitar, is the original.

It's a simple collage that's been preserved by a thick shellacking of Mod-Podge, but it's representative of both my love for this one musical and the fun I had an using that to put my own stamp on a pop culture phenomenon.

Blog-Tography

I didn't make note in the entry from earlier today (and need to learn how to watermark my own photos), but the two shots of the Canova Terpsichore were indeed taken by me.

I'm going to try any feature more of my own work here both as a showcase and, I hope, encouragement for me to learn more about the fantastic cameras I own.  By no means am I a professional at what I do, but I've learned a lot about taking good pictures over the last few years.

In the summer of 2009, shortly before Pentax moved onto their (then) new flagship DSLR camera, the K-7, I was able to pick up the K20D at a pretty fantastic price.  Truly, it's been one of the best Christmas presents I've ever received, early as it was.  It's an impressive machine that I, to this day, probably don't know use half of.  Needless to say, I hope to change that.

While I don't own the impressive, but frighteningly expensive lens ($1,500, anyone?) that's attached to this downloaded photo, I do have the 18-55 mm Pentax lens that came with the kit, a 55-300 mm Pentax lens, and have recently acquired a Tamron af28-80 mm aspherical lens on eBay for the stupidly low price of $30 plus shipping.

The bulky bit on the bottom, the detachable battery grip, allows for storage of a tiny, chewing gum stick-sized shutter remote control, an extra memory card, and a second high-capacity battery.  In addition to that, it has a shooting button mounted for taking vertical pictures with ease.

Last Christmas, I received the Pentax AF360 FGZ flash that aids in taking better night shots.  Alas, my working knowledge of it is even more limited than that of the camera.

When it comes to everyday photography, the majority of the shots that you might see on here will have been taken on a Canon PowerShot Elph 300 that entered my collection back in May.  I've had three Canon compacts and, after an unfortunate interlude with a sub-par quality Nikon compact, intend to stay with Canons for my everyday work where it's just not possible to take the big camera.

Taking great pictures is more than just a hobby for me.  During college, I was the on-call photographer for anything silly that was going on in the hallway, times when friends gathered, at sports events, and just hanging out.

Photos, for me, are memories.  They crystallize those moments you might otherwise forget.  Whether a Friday night on the town or the big moments in life, it's always worthwhile to tote your camera along.  You never know when an insignificant night might turn into a memorable one.

ArtSpot: Antonio Canova's "Terpsichore"

This lovely visage belongs to a sculpture in the Cleveland Museum of Art.  Her name is Terpsichore.

The piece, sculpted by Antonio Canova in 1816, began as a commission by Napoleon Bonaparte's brother, Lucien, as a portrait of his wife, Alexandrine.

Long story short, Lucien left France and didn't pay up, so Canova had to do something with what he had already created.  Rather than the wife of the French Emperor's brother, the young lady would become an idealized beauty with classical features and be rechristened "Terpsichore Lyran," the Muse of Lyric Poetry.  

Acquired by the CMA in 1968, the statue now stands in the rotunda of the Neoclassical 1916 Building on the main level.  (She is pictured below in her former location, Gallery 201, with other works of Western European Art.)  

Canova and I have a rather long history.  At fifteen, I saw his Cupid and Psyche at the Louvre.  Michaelangelo might have understood human musculature better than most artists, but Canova had an intimate feeling for and innate sense of the radiance of human skin.  While the former spoke of releasing his forms from their blocks of marble, one gets the feeling with Canova that the people he sculpted awoke from a long slumber, their once lithe forms changed to graceful, silken stone.

As you walk around the young lady's body, you notice many things.  The carven straps of her sandals.  The curls of her upswept hair.  The gossamer folds of her garment.

Yet, among all of these varied textures, the luminosity of her face, arms, hands, and feet is striking.  You catch yourself staring a little too closely, checking to see if she pulses with some subsurface veins.  The ease of her pose belies the graceful posture built into the work.  It's hard not to be overwhelmed in the presence of such idealized beauty.

In the vast collection of the CMA, Terpsichore is my favorite classical sculpture.  The museum was an afternoon refuge during my undergraduate years in Cleveland.  Free to wander the quiet subterranean galleries of priceless Asian art and well-worn halls of European masterpieces, the CMA was as much a part of my humanities education as any English, philosophy, or history class.

I've shown many dear friends, my boyfriend, a few family members, and sometimes the occasional complete stranger around the renovated rooms at the museum.  In my twenty-nine years, I've seen masterworks that even I have to shake my head at sometimes.  Yet every time I enter the Cleveland Museum of Art, I return to Terpsichore and get that same smile, one that knows I'm - yet again - in the presence of perfection and that the sublime, sometimes, can take form.

- Bill

- - - - -

You can visit the CMA in person at 11150 East Boulevard Cleveland, OH 44106 or online at http://www.clevelandart.org/

Admission is free, except for special exhibitions.  The museum is closed Mondays and is open everyday until 5 p.m. with 9 p.m. closing times on Wednesdays and Fridays.

The Prologue

I should begin at the natural beginning.

My name is William. Most call me Bill. Some, Will.

I'm 29 years old - pushing bravely towards a third decade.

I have brown eyes, short brown hair that is yearning to go grey, and a beard.

I am what the world would call a bear. Six-feet-three-inches tall. Broad shoulders. And fur.

I am a man living in a world between urban and rural, where abandoned hulks of steel mills rot into the ground. This place, Western Pennsylvania, was the American dream before people knew they had an American dream. It was here that oil was first drilled, that steel was perfected, and immigrant communities were established, making a new world for people like my family.

Like so many other dreams, this one's remnants linger, giving hope to the deluded and the nightmares to those who know better.

I teach college English. I no longer find deep satisfaction in teaching after five years of students whose failures are self-wrought and whose blame is never self-focused.

What I want to do when I grow up remains, largely, a mystery to me. The options are myriad. The paths to them, obscured.

I cook. I paint. I read, though less than I should. I play the clarinet and am classically trained. I surround myself with music. I believe in Gustav Mahler blended with Julia Child. Aestheticism, Sensuality, Epicureanism, Romanticism, Natural Supernaturalism, and the somewhat tattered fabric of a Catholic upbringing and Jesuit education make up the belief system of this amply-fleshed frame.

I find beauty in the simple, in the gaudy, in the classically proportioned, and inside the broken edges of the rubble and decay of history.

I like long walks on the beach, puppies, and hope for world peace. If chosen as Miss America, I promise to not have pictures snapped of me stumbling out of a limousine with makeup running down my face. I attempt to be myself in spite of the wearying pursuit of cultural sameness.

I sit in the concert hall and listen as the orchestra plays my mind into the sublime.

I catch you staring and just stare right back.

I believe that a poem doesn't have to be dissected, eviscerated, and plumbed for meaning. Sometimes, my dear Wordsworth, a daffodil is simply a daffodil.

I dance to Motown music while washing the dishes. My text messages and Facebook posts are correct in grammar, spelling, and punctuation. I drive by you with the windows down and the music turned up, not caring if you see this burly-looking guy singing along with Lady Gaga, Ethel Merman, or Dave Matthews.

I love to cook, own far too many cookbooks than could be considered sane, and intend to write about food here.

Perhaps this is a good summary:  I'm a strange mix of a lady of taste and manners appended to the Brawny Paper Towel lumberjack.

This is no rabbit hole you've tripped head over feet into. This is a life. My life.

Abandon your preconceptions of masculinity and femininity, of what it should mean to be a modern man. Inevitably, this blog will occasionally veer into the realm of "me, me, all about me."  However, I promise that there will be more.  What, exactly?  You'll just have to keep checking back to see.  

But I hope, with the grace of your indulgence, that we'll be able - together, mind you - to journey through a professional and personal life that is completely original, 100% pesticide free, unvarnished, and forever accelerating down the curves and twists of an existential spiral that somehow functions, sometimes to my utter bewilderment.

Thanks for coming along.

Sincerely,

Bill