yugen

f.o.w.

2011-09-01T04:40:00.002-05:00

its amazing to me how some of the world can still be so disconnected...i can't imagine what it must be like in places more remote than sardinia where i am now (which isn't remote at all actually in the big picture). still...finding internet has been a problem and hence the lack of posts.

i'm in the final throws of finishing a production of rigoletto here. its my first verdi, and i have to admit i've fallen hard for mr joe green. its so strange to me how i can start a production with a certain level of apathy, the head fills with other thoughts of other places and other things, but without fail i am sucked into the work at hand (moral of the lesson....focus always on the work and the rest will be what it is). it is good to have the ol'crew back together here, members of the aot company, and we are doing a good work indeed. we've turned rigoletto a bit on its head...the man that loses his identity and become a clown (rather than the typical opposite reading of the text) through his quest for revenge (how thing that line is between revenge and justice...but yet how wide). and...there is something tremendously special with our little cara nome, but i can't reveal it just yet. i'll post a video when its available.

i'm back to amsterdam on monday and eager to begin work at the opera studio nederland. we have an exciting season planned...don giovanni, figaro, boheme, and more. it is going to be busy and gratifying. i have also started work to do, in ernest, on griselda which will be in baltimore in february. it is a very tricky piece, both historically and dramaturgically, and even musically.

focus onthe work, focus onthe work, focus onthe work....

my how time flies

2011-08-13T11:55:00.001-05:00

the problem with a blog is that those times when one has the most to say tend to be the times one has the least amount of free time in which to write.

such with the case with my embarrassing lack of blogging over the last several month. first came "aureliano in palmira" in the festival della valle d'itria in martina franca. it was an overwhelming experience, in both good and bad ways. in the end i think we made it work, but it was the toughest child to deliver, with lots of factors working against it. in the end the piece was extremely powerful, and exploration of the cascading repercussions of the decisions leaders make, particularly those leading to the current crises in syria. the final images were of that very struggle, on a day when hundreds were killed in protests there. that work connected so deeply with why i do opera, and contrasted so sharply with the way the production was made (in a way so deeply unartistic for my tastes, so focused on ego and pride and trivialities) that it caused a real crises for me. i left feeling numb and unsure about a satisfying future in this profession.

that followed by a production of don giovanni with students in milan in six days. and yet, i was more proud of that then anything i've ever done. the students were so willing to give, to work, to try, to open themselves to something truly unconventional. it was a wonderful experience and i was moved my their utter commitment and energy. on the heels of that was dialogues of the carmelites, in what i hope is just the beginning of a long relationship with the piece. it was too much for italian audiences, but we knew it would be. i didn't get the first act quite write (neither did poulenc if i must be honest), but the second half was magical, deeply sad, moving. i was very proud of it and of the bravery of the young singers. now i'm in sardinia where we've just opened "riders to the sea", another very heavy work, but one in which i've found such beauty. it is truly captivating when this woman can finally say that she no longer fears, neither life nor death, and that she has found absolute peace. the production is off next week to the netherlands and i begin work on rigoletto.

in the meantime i'm learning the ropes of the my new position at the studio, where the members for this season will arrive next week. lots to do there, and my thoughts are now turning towards next season's projects, "where the wild things are/l'enfant et les sortileges" and "griselda". peter sellars' production just got an interesting review in the times. i'm sorry i couldn't see it.

i fly back to amsterdam finally tomorrow and look forward to an exciting week...during which i will hopefully write more!

la serenissima

2011-06-12T04:20:00.000-05:00

in venice (and after having my computer stolen) i have very little access to the internet world. that's fine, or would be fine, but i have a huge rossini project to start in a week and a half and i'm feeling a bit isolated. its so lovely though to be back in venice. we lived here eight years ago, and now to come back feeling like a really more settled european, and person in general, feels great. to know these streets by heart is heartening, and there is so much to see and breath in. i love it here, i don't think i'd want to return to live, but for a long long visit it would be nice.

in the meantime things are moving ahead with plans for next year's crop at the studio. i'll be instituting monthly performances, feeling strongly that singers learns best by doing. i have some great projects and important collaborations planned. at the same time we are all waiting with baited breath for the new "kunst" plan to come down from the hague. it is going to be scary, but art has a way of always surprising. the kabinet has said they want to stress quality over everything, and for us its important that they new they cannot be supportive of quality in opera if they cut the pool from which young singers spring.

more later about rossini, but now to each some tiramisu and to enjoy a bike ride!

artistic director opera studio nederlands

2011-06-06T03:40:00.001-05:00

this past week i was appointed the new artistic director of the netherlands opera studio, this country's premier training institution for young emerging opera singers. it is a huge leap for me that still allows me to work freelance as a director, but to also have a real impact on the future of the art form and those that make it. i start officially in september, but will start the planning for full and exciting season now. it is very exciting and very big news!!!! yipee...

and some big big news...

2011-05-27T04:48:00.003-05:00

which i can in any way reveal yet...sorry! but by this time next week, watch out!

a date with nikos

2011-05-27T04:48:00.001-05:00

these past three days i've been in brainstorming sessions for "aureliano in palmira" with choreographer nikos lagousakos. the concept for this production deals with the repercussions choices, choices of power over personal, love over greater good. in particular it will deal with the modern socio-political crisis in the mid-east, especially syria, and how the areas colonial and native past led and continues to lead to its present. we're doing this with the addition of a danced character, the older version of our central zenobia, looking back and judging her own most pivotal choice. the chorus then, which already has an enhanced role in this opera compared to rossini's other operas, become a greek chorus, the tool of zenobia's own self-trial. nikos will be working with both the dancer luis frank and our chorus to develope a physical language. our sessions have been intense, mapping out the entire production, and exciting.

my great love is movement in space, the body in motion. i'm not trained in any way as a dancer, but i see the physical body on stage as an instrument of expression. my style of directing has long incorporated a stylized use of gesture, rejecting naturalism at moments to opt for physical expression. i'm over the moon to now have a dancer to work with to refine this language and find new ways to connect it with narrative.

yipee a triumph

2011-05-23T10:43:00.000-05:00

dido and aeneas opened this past weekend in rotterdam. it was great fun with a wonderful group of artists. i have to say that the show looked beautiful, much because of my incredible lighting designer marc heinz. we were really able to create something that felt simple, sparse, empty, and yet was very full in sensitivity and beauty. also my incredible assistant alison wong allowed for a level of detail the production has never had before. i was very proud. and we got a wonderful review in the volkskrant today! here it is:

The Rotterdam Operadagen Festival began with an exceptionally successful Dido and Aeneas. On the Theater Square, a giant apple refers to the forbidden fruit - and with a small jump - paradise lost, the theme of the festival. Within the confines of the theater the motto is shaped of Henry Purcell's opera about heroes who conquer the world but ultimately prove to be only men, in all their vulnerability.

In the room of the royal widow, Dido sits under a single light. Anonymous men and women walk mechanically back and forth across the stage, putting chairs down and picking them up again as an infinite repetition of a liveliness which has lost all meaning in light of Dido's sorrow. A dead tree stump is the only decoration in the sober image. Subtly, it is featured alongside Dido, as a finished companion. The queen has her mantle exchanged for a robe. At a kitchen table, she sits quietly suffering.

The American designer and director Timothy Nelson brings the show close to the public. From the audience you can see the musicians of the Flemish ensemble Scherzi Musicali, the gamba, recorder and theorbo, playing. You can almost touch Rosanne van Sandwijk (Dido) and Olivier Berten (Aeneas). Nelson's merit is that he does not let the drama choke on one dimensional grief. Anno 2011 Dido swigs her antidepressants like Russians their vodka. After use, she throws the bottle over her shoulder. As Aeneas, her adored hero, enters in a dull gray suit, the contrast between Dido's text and his appearance works to be somewhat laughable.

The 17th-century Purcell, as a psychologist avant la lettre, meticulously recorded the various voices in the head of a woman who, after losing her loved one, sinks into her grief, which also has a dark side. Musical director Nicolas Achten has enough shades with a chorus of four voices and a small ensemble to provide warm weathered colors.

Rosanne van Sandwijk sets Dido's suffering subtly, with small gestures and nuances in a voice that seeks out her role nicely. Her dark side is a bit under emphasized, but the end is crushingly beautiful. Dido lets her robe slip from her shoulders and vulnerably sings her lamentation barefoot in a white shirt. Slowly she steps off the stage and walks into the hall. Down the aisle she disappears and dissolves into nothingness.

in the sky

2011-05-16T06:45:00.000-05:00

i had hoped to write often about my experience here at coaa, but it just hasn't happened. the days have been extremely long (about 9am to 11pm) and full of diverse activities...coaching, lecturing, masterclasses, directing, and teaching directing. i have to say this last part has been incredibly rewarding. i don't know of a single other program for young directors like this, where not only are they given large scenes to direct, but where they get to come together several times a week, in a socratic kind of atmosphere, and learn how to direct better. i'm very proud of this aspect of the program, and look forward to growing it in the future. the scenes themselves have been rewarding also, some in particular: pelleas (a warm up to my own much longer version later this month at the Opera Aan Zee festival) is stunning music with staging of pointed simplicity, deadman walking and jephtha are intensely acted by these young singers, and the salve regina is tremendously powerful. there is still another week to go, but i'm off tonight to rotterdam where i have a production of dido and aeneas opening this friday. on the move....

live men walking

2011-05-06T13:42:00.000-05:00

i'm sitting here at the end of the first week of coaa watching the students participate in some dramatic exercises with our guest drama coach jack. they are walking, normally, with varied tempi, sometimes following, sometimes changing directions, being public...and having a hard time of it. strange how the most normal things in life are the hardest to recreate on the stage. i find watching classes like this fascinating because it is so foreign to me, and to the way i understand and communicate, and yet we aim toward the same goal with these motives. now jack has them with closed eyes trying to remember details about how other members of the groups are dressed. i would fail this miserably because i'm so in my head. which is exactly the way i direct, trying to get into their heads and getting them to answer questions, ask question, divine and define motivations. neat how many path can lead to the same oasis.

dead men walking

2011-05-01T10:20:00.000-05:00

where opera meets life, hard ugly devastating and hopeful life, that is where i want to live. i'm in the midst of preparing scenes for coaa, and i have nine big ones, and one is the sextet from "dead man walking". it has led me on a really journey today. it is a difficult scene because one must, absolutely so, avoid the temptation to take a side - the scene is so terribly omni-dimensional. and, that is how the issue of the death penalty is. everytime i feel on one side of the issue, i suddenly realize with a pang of great sorrow that i've forgotten the other side. and always in the back of my mind is "what would i do", and i have no idea. its that ambiguity i want to capture in the scene. and this ambiguity:

i have a dear friend that's mother was violently assaulted sexually, and murdered in unspeakable terror. the man is sentenced to die. and this friend will make the trip to beg for his life. her sister will make the trip to beg for his death. the ambiguity of that family dynamic, and even more the inner complexity of a woman losing the source of her life in that way and still wanting the thief that took it away's life....its that, for me unimaginable in a real way, complexity i hope to capture in this scene.

o canada!

2011-04-29T18:13:00.000-05:00

i arrived in toronto two days ago and spent a good 15 hours with my beloved assistant alison wong. we were plotting and planning the rehearsal schedule and approach for operadagen rotteram's "dido and aeneas". we had to do this because i'm in london ontario to lead the canadian operatic arts academy, which means i can't get to rotterdam until after alison has started review rehearsals with the singers of scherzi musicali (we staged the piece in march).

now i'm in london with a couple days to prepare my staging of the 10 scenes i'm doing in coaa this year. its always really energizing and, i'll admit it, fun to come do these small chunks. sometimes thats because i get to do rep i wouldn't otherwise direct (today i worked in sondheim's "sunday in the park with george"), and sometimes its because i get to explore works i know i'll live with for the rest of my life and can start building my understanding and relationships (today i did the finale of act 1 of "don giovanni", which i'll direct in milan this summer, and in the past i've down parts of "pelleas" which will fall into a full staging this summer as well). i get three days of this and then we start on monday. over the course of the process i hope i'll be able to offer thoughts on some of these works (particularly "don giovanni", "les dialogue des carmelites", "pelleas et melisande", and "ariodante", which are all on this years course).

la voix fotographique

2011-04-26T11:45:00.001-05:00

i've been running around not looking terribly disimilar from a chicken sans-head, so i haven't been very good about posting. i had three days on the jury of the dutch national opera academy auditions (a hard job narrowing 70 candidates to 12 and then a final 6...and all on camera!!!! i'll write on it next time), interviewing to become the new director of the netherlands opera studio, finishing orchestration on "songs of the fisherman", and getting ready to teach for three weeks in canada (leave tomorrow!). but in the mean time here are photos from my "la voix humaine" with the amazing kristina bitenc and the residentie orkest. voila....

the child

2011-04-14T14:34:00.000-05:00

just a quick post...

today i worked most on entering my song-cycle into a notation software. it is taken infinitely more time to enter it into the computer than it did to recorchestrate it. anyway, that was the bulk of the day. i had a wonderful lunch with the young slovenian soprano kristina bitenc. she just sang my "la voix humaine", and there really isn't praise enough for her integrity and promise as an aritst. i'm completely confident in her future. in the near future she'll be singing blanche in "les dialogues" for me this summer, and "max" next year.

speaking of next year, i've been spending some time lately preparing my concept for "where the wild things are" and also "l'enfant et les sortileges". the former is a logical piece for me, difficult contemporary music with a clear hidden layer of adult meaning. the latter...well, i wasn't sure. i have what i think is a really beautiful concept, uniting the two together into one large piece, in which the two works meet face to face in the final moments. i can't really go too much into detail yet, but i encourage everyone that doesn't know this piece to give it a listen. it is music of terrible, devastating, humbling humanity. it is in no way a children's piece, but rather a tender poem my colette of great depth, expressing the inherent loss and nostalgia, sadness and redemption, of being a human being. so fantastically moving. i can't wait.

for now...its been a long day. tomorrow i'll start in on the fourth movement of "songs of the fisherman", a dance movement with lots of complicated notation issues. i'm aiming for one movement a day, and so far so good.

(incidentally, i'm on the jury for the entrance auditions to the dutch national opera academy. i got the packets today of what singers are offering...it is mind numbing how many singers there are, so similar, such tight competition. i'm just in awe of how brave this young people are. the odds are so tough, the reality so cold, and yet here they are. it is a large responsibility to have a hand in guiding them, i intend to give all the energy i have to the process and to being honest, fair, and sensitive)

Back to work...

2011-04-12T04:24:00.000-05:00

Back in Amsterdam after a beautiful weekend in Bugges. My husband was leading several performances of the Membra Jesu Nostri of Buxtehude. They were thrilling performances with fine singing and an excellent balance of drama and musical integrity. I often wonder if it is a sickness that I can't hear a piece of music without beginning to think of staging it. Buxtehude...I may have you yet!

But for now, it is back to work. In late May I'll be traveling to the Opera Ann Zee festival in the north of the Netherlands to direct some excerpts from Pelleas et Melisande. Seeing as I'm incapable of looking at any project as merely "directing excerpts", I'm creating a more integrated piece (not unlike what Peter Brook did in his "Impressions of Pelleas"), for the central trio involved. Pelleas is a bewitching work, whose sense of abstraction appeals to me right away. I'm interested in what it means to evoke that word of nostalgia, impressions, vagueness, without any sense of a larger "meaning". I need to work on that some today.

Tomorrow I'll have a meeting to discuss the double casting for next seasons "L'Enfant et les Sortileges". This is always a big discussion and I need to spend some time today looking at the various possible combinations and making some decisions. I also need to be in contact with the choreographer for "Aureliano in Palmira"...a big big work is ahead.

In other news, my good friend Nicolas Mansfield was named as the succeeding intendant of the Nationale Reisopera, to take over in 2013, yesterday. It is very exciting for him and for opera in the Netherlands. A bright future awaits!

everything changes in a moment

2011-04-09T11:53:00.004-05:00

sad news for quite thought for loudest action out of amsterdam today:

6 dead, 11 wounded in mass shooting

new beginnings on old neverendings

2011-04-09T08:12:00.001-05:00

today i was supposed to go to enschede to see some costume possibilities for "aureliano in palmira" that michelle cantwell is working on. the work is about the culture clashes of east and west, the consequences of our geo-political actions, the universality of love. because of that i want to set in in way that it connects with out current mid-east realities, but also not accept that as enough - rather find a setting the evokes the former, but also evokes the eternal and the ancient. i'm not making poor michelle's life any easier. anyway, the meeting didn't happen so i have an unexpected free day in amsterdam. the weather is stunning, people are out everywhere, and i'm at my window staring out as a i work. And what am i working on? a guilty little pleasure...

i began my formative artistic adulthood as a composer. that was 10 years ago, and i haven't composed since. its not that i gave up, or didn't want to do it, but i discovered that the impetus behind all my work was essentially dramatic. whatever i wrote had a dramatic undercurrent motivating it and me, and so i found theater later than most, but as a way to more acutely satisfy the urge that had been pushing me to compose. now the two worlds collide. my good friend brian areolla, a tremendously talented tenor and actor, asked me if i would like to do a project together with him. i jumped at the chance, and after considering several options, i suggested a song-cycle i had finished in 2001 for soprano, but which had never been performed. it is called "songs of the fisherman"...and now i'm hard at work rewriting to to fit a new ensemble and a new voice type. and, i'm loving it. the piece is epic, about 90 minutes, and is 8 songs and four instrumental movements. the whole musical language is in turn inspired by a cello piece i wrote some years earlier. the poetry is by a brilliant friend from college now doing important and captivating work in english medieval studies named andrew albin. it is strikingly truthful poetry, and it has always been a sore point for me that it has never been performed.

and now? well, the project is to mount the song-cycle as a staged work, collaborating with a fantastic dancer and choreographer, and to record it for dvd release, along with the original cello work as well. this experience is particularly exciting because, as a director, i get to turn my typical deconstruction and reconstruction approach in on myself. the original song-cycle essentially explores human solitude, yearning, loneliness. for the staging we want something more directly connected to today. we are going to transform this abstract work into one that traces the emotional experience of being an immigrant, of being an "other". it won't have any political mantra or agenda, but rather just explore what it feels like to be in that condition psychologically. it is really great fun to work again in this way.

on a completely different note, i spent the morning starting to learn "les dialogue des carmelites", which i'm directing in a workshop performance this summer in milan. its strange how my whole year, a year that has been extremely positive for me professionally and personally, has focused, in its work, on death, and more essentially the decision to live or to die. "dido", "la voix humaine", "les dialogues", "don giovanni"...for me all these pieces are about that decision. as camus says, suicide is the most fundamental philosophical question. to face either and both life and death in the face.

kcabgnikoollookingforward

2011-04-08T04:59:00.000-05:00

its been a long time since my last post and, reading it, things could not be more different today. from the depths of what seemed like an incredibly long winter has arisen the most magnificent spring. there are few places as beautiful at this time of year as amsterdam. the sky is blue, the canals reflect the sunlight, leaves are appearing, and tulips are in everyone's windows. its hard not to find a certain bounce to life on days like this.

"la voix humaine" is over. its always strange when projects that consume so much of your life end, and especially one like this that only has two performances. it was a real experiment for me, and in the end i was extremely proud of it. it was not perfect, but it was deeply honest - one of those moments when you feel "yes, that is exactly what i would want to see, that has what i want all my work to have". of course i was incredibly blessed to have the young kristina bistenc as my "elle". she is a true force of nature and i look forward to continuing to work with her (she will sing blanche in my "dialogues of the carmelites" this summer, and then max in "where the wild things are" next fall. we ended up throwing out the phone entirely. we treated the entire work as a piece of absurdist theater, and using "the myth of sisyphus" as our guide, traced that moment in a person's life when all of reality zooms out, when we realize how small and how alone we are, when we flicker between hope and suicide and decide to live on without illusion. i hope i can put some pictures up - i think it was very beautiful and meaningful. i also hope that it is a work a can continue living with for many years.

in the meantime the journey continues. we've been in oddly disjunct rehearsals for "dido and aeneas" for the operagaden rotterdam. again i'm blessed to have a great musical team with scherzi musical and nicolas achten, and the fantastic dutch mezzo-soprano rosanne van sandwijk in the lead role (she was my sesto in "giulio cesare" last summer and stole the show). connecting with that idea of living with a piece for year...."dido" is that piece for me. it was the first opera i ever directed and have done several times over the last 8 years. it is in many ways my favorite production, but what i really love, what exemplifies the long-view of opera, is that i get to chance to work and mend and rework and remend over years, over a lifetime. this production will be the most "produced" to date, with great detail in the quartet, and with a more evocative setting. the performances aren't until may, but i'm very excited by my wonderful team of artists and designers (especially lighting designer marc heinz and costume designer michelle cantwell).

at the same time preparing for a big summer....aureliano in palimira in martina franca (such a beautiful and inspiring town in the south of italy - i was there for meetings last month and it is stunning), then "dialogues des carmelites" and "don giovanni" for the academy in milan (a great way to learn and try out ideas on new piece, but also to focus on the integrity of the performances, with no reliance on gimmicks of sets and props and costumes), and then "riders to the sea" for the granchtenfestival in a new production that will combine it with britten's third (and last) string quartet, and rigoletto in sardinia. i've also begun work on "where the wild things are" and "l'enfant et les sortileges" which isn't until next year, but it is a touring production that needs careful planning well in advance. i've had the most exciting concept for that double-bill, simple and original, that i'm dying to share, but i guess i should hold on a bit.

the house is full of scores, full of music, just the way i like it. life is good and the sun is shining.

insert clever title here

2011-01-12T03:03:00.000-05:00

i haven't blogged in several days. there is a general feeling of malaise over things right now. part of that is amsterdam's spurious relationship with sunlight. i do love it here, but with the sun not appearing until 9am and disappearing at 4pm, it makes it hard to do anything.

of course there is also the tragedy in arizona...at times like that making art, and even more blogging about it, seems a bit trivial. i had a wonderful lunch with nicholas mansfield yesterday (artistic administrator of the nationale reisopera) and he said he felt we was good at his job because he realized that what he did (what we do) isn't that important in the big scheme of things. it was a strange thing to hear, one is so used to hearing artists expound on the ultimate importance of art, even if the causality to explain that importance is hidden in enigmatic ways. i'm not sure i agree with him, i do think making opera is deeply important, but i also struggle to understand how it stands up against politics, when politics has the power to so change the lives of people that will never see an opera.

anyway, didn't feel much like writing, and felt very angry about the mechanization of politics, of action, of journalism, of media. it all seems like such a performance now. a great curtain of irony has descended, nothing is true, words have no meaning, everything is now reading between the lines.

that thought connects with the work i've been doing lately on absurdism and poulenc's "la voix humaine". i never quite realized how much until this week. i have a suspicion, however true or not, that poulenc was directly influenced by camus in writing it. i thinke even cocteau did not entirely intend it as a melodramatic naturalistic work. i think there is an entirely different reading, an absurdist reading, to the piece. ultimately, and i haven't quite figured out how to put this into words, i think it is about man's seperation from the fantasy of life, how the viel of ojective "meaning" falls away, how painful and necessary that process is, how alone man then realizes he is, and ultimately about the decision to live or die. camus says that the central philosophical question of life is suicide, and i think "la voix humaine" is also about this question. at least for me.

mostly i've been reading and constructing that idea. i also have to go to milan next week and present a concept for rossini's "aureliano in palmira", which i have in my head, but need to figure out how to articulate effectively on paper and orally.

how to get restarted...

2011-01-05T04:27:00.000-05:00

i'm finding it difficult to restart after the holidays. yesterday was, in some terms, very productive...but it all ended up revolving around aot...press releases, interviews, blah, blah, blah. anne midgette did a nice piece in the post (here) about the end of that enterprise, and "lost in the stars" was saved for our final production may (now i need to get cracking on it!).

but now on to all the other projects. i'm wrapped on in "aureliano in palmira", which will probably be the biggest project i've ever done. it will also be new territory for me (pseudo-comedy...political satire). i have to admit the music is really growing on me. i go to milan in a couple weeks to meet with the conductor and the designer. that is also a new and exciting experience. but at the same time i have gonzales cantata opening in a month. i did it last year at bard, but need to relearn it. it is a tremendous piece and i hope to post more about it. i had forgotten how much i like it...witty, funny, poignant, smart...everything opera should be. but no rest for weary, right on the heels of that is la voix humaine which needs a lot of work. it is late cocteau, so post surealist, but i want to find a way to return to some of the absurdist elements and escape the typical damaged woman melodrama. we'll see... (that seems to be my moto lately).

1.1.11

2011-01-01T06:54:00.002-05:00

I do find a guilty pleasure in the order of numbers...

Just to announce a fantastic, if slightly blurry, New Years Eve 2010 with the divine soprano Rebecca Duren vising us in little ol'Amsterdam. We made visits to Mankind, the house of Max von Egmond and Jean Francois Beauchais, and finally to Sandy Olivers court, where we rang in the new year on the Rembrandt Plien. Somehow finding our way home and crashing to a very late morning. Now I think a little vondel in the vondelpark.

"just a little step between the sublime and the ridiculous"

2010-12-30T06:07:00.001-05:00

-napoleon

ramón del valle-inclán

2010-12-29T05:15:00.003-05:00

"the artist can see the world from three different positions. he can look upwards, as if on his knees before it, and present an idealized, reverent picture of reality; he can confront it standing on the same level, which will lead to a realistic approach; or he can see the world from above - and from this distant vantage point it will appear ridiculous and absurd, for it will be seen as through the eyes of a dead man who looks back on life."

to be (funny) or not to be

2010-12-29T03:28:00.000-05:00

i've never felt like a funny guy...what do i mean by that? in my personal life i think i'm funny, or at least i think i'm lighthearted, i try to be. and, as i've just read and ionesco points out, laughter is the one escape from the absurdity of man's condition. and yet, in my work on stage, i've also tended towards the serious, not having much use, or to be more honest, not feeling at home and/or edified by comedy. and yet, not i'm faced with a difficult problem for me...aureliano in palmira.

this is an early rossini opera seria. the libretto is definitely seria, and it has strong political parallels to today, dealing with cultural clashes of east and west and cultural imperalism, and all the things i love to deal with. but, rossini hadn't quite found the mature voice he later would in works like zelmira...no, this is classic 21 year old rossini, like barbiere, infact even lifting a lot of the that music. it is funny music, and i don't know if that is because contemporary sentiment has made it that way or rossini wrote it that way, but it verges towards a sort of om-pah-pah formalism that is funny. well, that takes me into the land of satire, or absurdity, maybe farce. and then i feel a bit lost - how do i move in that direction (where the music seems to want to go) and still retain my own voice, my own clarity that i value so much. i'm not sure...it is turning over and over in my brain and no distillation has made it out yet. help...

new names in a new year

2010-12-28T05:46:00.000-05:00

i finally got around to changing the address for this blog today. it has been a slow divorce process from aot. i don't think anyone, least of all me, knows what is going to happen to that little company that couldn't. i'm not sad so much as exilerated at its unraveling. it was good run, with some good art, that allowed me to create, to learn, to grow. but now that it is gone, or soon to be gone, i realize that it had become a cruch for putting energies elsewhere than on me. so...onto the future.

it was difficult finding a new name. so many were already taken that it made me consider the sense in even having a blog, but since i don't think anyone reads this, it is most certainly more for me than for anyone else. Finally I landed on "intricate imperfect various things", which is a small extract from my favorite e.e. cummings sonnet:

if i have made, my lady, intricate
imperfect various things chiefly which wrong
your eyes (frailer than most deep dreams are frail)
songs less firm than your body's whitest song
upon my mind - if i have failed to snare
the glance too shy - if through my singing slips
the very skillful strangeness of your smile
the keen primeval silence of your hair

- let the world say "his most wise music stole
nothing from death" -
you only will create
(who are so perfectly alive) my shame
lady whose profound and fragile lips
the sweet small clumsy feet of april came

into the ragged meadow of my soul.

it also i think happens to be an ideal title for a blog that seems to have no consistent direction or theme, and is so terribly flawed at its core, and hopelessly so i'm afraid.

it is a season of newnesses. lately i've been reading on the theatre of the absurd, which because of its lyricism draws me. but, it has put a lot of things int disarray artistically. i'm totally confused about questions of style and meaning and importance and all those things mentors would say to not think about and just make the art, but it seems when push comes to shove i have to solve, at least to some extent, some of those questions. particularly with this "aureliano in palmira". it is a real problem for me...a work with serious libretto and goofy music and what? what? what? i don't know...yet.

i don't make resolutions for new years, but this year i might. i really want to be more honest, more me. how is it possible for that to be so difficult? it should be the easiest thing in the world right? and yet, i feel that i have such a hard time being me, to the point that i'm not sure i even really know who that person is. in fact, i feel that what defines me most is being afraid of being me...in a word "afraid". maybe i can fix that this year. again, i don't know...yet.

Mountain Mamma

2010-11-29T10:29:00.000-05:00

Here I am in Virginia at the home of my folks. I came in for American Opera Theater's "Butterfly" and "Harawi", which have been cancelled. BUT...as the tickets were already purchased and it was a chance to be home for Thanksgiving I came anyway. I haven't been home to Christiansburg in a long time, actually, and it is as beautiful as ever no matter how much changes, the essence still remains. I'm also supposed to be using this time as a chance to dig in "La Voix Humaine", a piece for which I'm gaining a great deal of respect and with which I'm stumped for answer, and also to start work on "Two Caravans", and opera to be based on the awarding winning novel of the same title. It is a funny and poignant look at the horrors of immigration in the UK.

I have to admit I haven't started on any of that. I've piled myself down with book I should have read long ago and never got to: "Pensees" of Pascal, "The Consolation" of Boethius, "Inferno" of Dante, "Orlando" of Virginia Wolfe, and poems of John Donne. It is also COAA time, and we are chosing singers and making offers. I have yet to actually be there for the auditions, so I work remotely with Sophie to choose numbers and particulars. This year we are going to run a similar program in Lucca. It is called Accademia Europea Dell'Opera, note the acronym please (a prize to whoever can tell me what it is). The program will be half North Americans and half Europeans, and so we are making the N.A. offers now.

Busy times and I can shake the feeling that I'm being lazy and not getting much done. Argh!!!!!

More signing

2010-11-11T05:55:00.002-05:00

The first is a poem without translation, the second with. Very beautiful...I suggest watching it without first.

Opera Signs

2010-11-11T05:41:00.000-05:00

Today I'm wrestling with something new...something I've never thought about and am not sure if it could or will go anywhere. I'm wondering about the use of gesture in opera. Anyone who has seen my work knows that I use gesture a lot, I find the body an expressive tool. I was reading this morning about poetics, and something the struck me in this article was insertion of the absurd (in a literal sense, ie. something that is intentionally non-logical within the given context) into a poem creates a level of concentration in the reader/listener. Could it not be the same on the stage? That the use of gesture is an absurdist element that focuses the audience member?

That isn't really what I'm wrestling against, but rather the notion of the use of sign-language in opera. I can't even tell you what I mean by that. I'm sure it isn't a literal use of ASL or ISL or BSL or any SL. Opera is an art form for the hearing, it can't be argued otherwise, so the gestures used have to communicate with a hearing audience. And yet an essential element of signed linguistics, and especially of signed poetry, is neoglism, or the creation of new words. Essentially meaning that the contemporary state of sign language is such that new signs have to be created all the time, it is common practice. And, in looking at signed poetry, signs are al the time adapted to make them more beautiful or flowing within the poetic context and/or experience. So surely I could develope a gestural language to move in and out of sync with the textual language of a production. But how...I don't know yet. That is what I'm working on.

In the meantime I found this video. It is some highschool performance, and of a terrible song from a terrible musical. BUT, the gestures are beautiful, I almost would go further and say stunning. And though I don't know ASL, after some research into the common signs for many of these words, this pair of students have made heavy use of neoglism to create an art that is between dance and signing. I find it compelling and encouraging.

Die Soldaten

2010-11-07T12:26:00.000-05:00

I went last night to the general rehearsal of Zimmerman's "Die Soldaten" at the Netherlands Opera. I've wanted to see the piece for a long time. It is one of those giants of the 20th Century, both famous and infamous, but never done because of how difficult it is and how large are the forces. There is a fairly famous production that Mortier started first in Germany and then brought to the Lincoln Center Festival at the Park Avenue Armory. There is also a filmed version by Graham Vick (or David Poutney...I tend to get the two confused).

This production was by WIlly Decker, who I sincerely believe is one of the great directors of our time. That said...it was a curious experience for me. First things first, I found the score extremely compelling, sometimes horrifying, provoking a physical reaction in my gut...both disgust and terribly remorse. The piece is, to over-simplify, based on a 18th century play and is about the fall of a young woman at the hands of herself, but also a group of soldiers. The themes are the horrifying psychological and spiritual costs of war. Deckers The singing was remarkable (particularly the soprano singing Marie), and the orchestra deserved the largest ovation that it, indeed, received at the end of the night. Decker's production was perfect. It was thoughtful, remarkably well executed, in tune with the music, never boring. And yet, absolutely soulness. I felt watching it guilty for falling into cultural stereotypes, but it was just what we've come to think about German culture. Everything was in its place, everything "right", but without any humanity. Clearly this is what Decker was going for, and that I respect, it was not by accident. Still, I longed for a piece that would ultimately move me, and this definitely did not. A piece like this should be moving, I should come out changed and speachless, but I found the whole directing style made it so easy for me as an audience member to disconnect, to remove myself from Zimmerman's equation. Decker wanted to alienate, but for me it made me long to be invited into the conversation.

It was a good wake up call to something I had always felt, but never articulated. In finding one's own style that is important. I took a lot from Decker, the cleaness, the precision of the execution, the connection to music and ritual (which I've long gravitated towards), but I ultimately reject his post-WWII emotional void. I want to make art that asks the audience to consider themselves part of the message, part of the experience wholly. I guess that is the way of things...stepping on the shoulders of a great man like Willy Decker, to reach ever closer to new ways to communicate eternal truths.

Back in Business (and ain't it grand)

2010-11-02T08:24:00.000-05:00

Wow...we FINALLY got internet at home! What a concept. I know I probably now seem like the bad boyfriend saying "I swear honey, it will be different this time" but, I swear it will be different this time.

Here are some photos from Opera York's "La Boheme" that I was proud to have directed (but sad not to be able to see). In any event, I hear it was a great success and I was so touched be the cast and total team there. I look forward to growing the concept and the detail of the piece of the rest of my life.

O Canada!

2010-10-08T06:15:00.000-05:00

So the involuntary pause continued for some time. We still have no internet at home (crazy Dutch system). I'm finally here in Canada though, and able to have plenty of internet access to write on the ol'blog. It was an interesting flight over. I sat between a wonderfully talkative Mormon kid (it has to be said...he was only 22) on his way to pick up his fiance to be, and a wonderfully talkative Budhist women returning from the Plum Village Monastary in France (a place I've always wanted to go).

Now, here I am for a wonderful weekend with Sophie-Louise Roland, hopefully productive as well. It is Thanksgiving weekend here in London Ontario and I'm looking forward to lots of Canadian family time (with Todd, Eleonore, Anabelle, and Denise as well of course). BUT, then its off to Toronto to begin work on Opera York's new "La Boheme". I have to say...it isn't a show I EVER thought I'd want to direct. I always loved it, but didn't see myself in it. I take it all back. I think it is an absolutely perfect, timeless, and extremely human piece. I'll write more about what I have in mind for it in the coming posts, but I'm very excited It will be simple, direct, honest. I have never met the cast, the conductor, anyone from the company. It is going to be a real adventure for me. Can't wait...

Involuntary Pause

2010-09-24T10:34:00.000-05:00

I'm not out of commission for lack of ideas or time. We don't have internet in our brand new apartment in Amsterdam, so it has been hard to post. I've actually been VERY productive the last couple days, working on my blocking for an upcoming "La Boheme" with Opera York in Toronto. I've always thought "Boheme" (I used to go see it EVERY Christmas in New York) was perfect, but not one I would ever stage. Actually, though, I've found it quite wonderful to work on and have a great concept which I hope to share soon. What a fantastically perfect piece, absolutely without any problems. I love it. Other than that I'm preparing two competitions, one for Opera America based on John Adams "The Flowering Tree" and one for Opera Europa based on "I Capuleti ei Montecchi"...both I have to say rather inspired. Dan (husband) is off in Cremona this week looking for a new violin, so I've been on my own and working hard. I just got offered a new "Voix Humaine" which is a wonderful piece, with the Dutch National Opera Academy, and have lots of AOT things on the burner. Busy time...but then again they all same busy these days. I hope we'll have internet and I can write more soon. After the competition deadlines I'll post photos of Ryan Winneinger's (my beloved designer) stage designs, and info on the concepts. Great stuff...I think...I hope.

Back in Action

2010-09-17T07:10:00.002-05:00

So yeah...took a LONG break from blogging this Summer. I needed a chance to refigure what I wanted to do with this blog and also was busier than I've ever been with projects all over the world. First things first! The blog is doing now what I like to think about as "expanding". In reality, I'm feeling that it might be a little easier for me to write regularly on the blog if I felt like I could write about everything I'm up to, and not just the AOT projects. Making the blog exclusively for AOT was fine when I didn't have much else going on, but now I find myself pulled from project to project - dream to dream - and was frustrated that I couldn't write just about what was going on in my mind. If I'm going to give to the blog I think the blog should give back to me. I mean, using the blog as a place to air out ideas and think outloud could really help me develope concepts and communicate with myself (and since giving up journaling several years ago...I'm in desperate need of self-communication). So, I'm still going to keep readers abreast of AOT activities, but I'm going to open the blog up to writing about a whole lot more.

And second of all...what have I been up to? Well right after the "Giulio Cesare" in London I returned to the Netherlands where I staged Peter Maxwell Davies opera "The Lighthouse" for the Nationale Reisopera to open the 2010 Grachtenfestival. I left right from those performances to Sardinia where I staged my old "Dido+Aeneas", which just gets more refined everytime, and premier a new piece called "Butterfly" based on the Puccini, but much more about her fragile psychology than all the Asian trappings. Maybe I'll find time to expound on all that in the weeks to come. But for now here are some photos and video of all that stuff.

John Molloy, center with Kris Belligh and Richard Rowe
THE LIGHTHOUSE

Sarah Barnes as Cio-Cio San
BUTTERFLY

Sophie-Louise Roland as Suzuki

Brian Arreola as Pinkerton

Vlog 3 [a trilogy]

2010-05-09T18:12:00.004-05:00

I'm in a great COAA masterclass given by Eric Melear, and taking a moment to post a vlog entry I made last night. I got carried away a bit and did an extra long vlog, but I've split it up into three parts.

COAAed

2010-05-08T09:08:00.001-05:00

I'm in London Ontario teaching about 13 hour days at the University of Western Ontario. AOT finished its 2009-2010 season with a great success in "Jephtha"...sold out houses of enthusiastic crowds, all standing ovations. Now I'm onto work for "Giulio Cesare" which opens in Canada in about one month. I'm keeping a blog on that production work and you can find me there during this little hiatus. I'll try to update AOT news hear, but mostly I'll be writing on "Giulio Cesare" (as you know, my favorite opera) for the most part.

Find the "Giulio Cesare" blog HERE

Addendum:

2010-03-29T05:21:00.001-05:00

I write a little more on my "other blog" about "Giulio Cesare" here.

Trying something new...

2010-03-29T05:08:00.003-05:00

As most of you readers can figure out, I'm not the best at keeping the blog as up-to-date as I would like. I'm also not the slickest kid on the block when it comes to technology. BUT, I'm going to try something new. Orchestra London, with whom I'm directing a production of Handel's "Giulio Cesare" this summer, has asked me to document the process via video blogs, or rather VLOGS (which I can't decide if I love or hate as a piece of terminology). I spent hours, that hopefully won't have to be repeated next time, yesterday figuring out how to do this, and I made my first one which I'm going to post here. If the process goes well, it is something I'd like to continue and do more often on this blog for AOT pieces (I will incidentally cross-post all my "Cesare" video here since "Cesare" is in Baltimore's future as well...though I'm not telling...).

Maybe I'll figure out podcasts one day!

Doppelganger

2010-03-28T01:54:00.003-05:00

Ok, I'm super busy and STILL want to contribute to this post. I have so many things to write about, from my trip to the American Cemetary in Normandy (a profoundly moving experience), to Afghanistan, to the "Lighthouse"...tons. But in the meantime here is a fantastic short video by Patsy Rodenburg on why we do theater.

Addendum to the last post:

2010-03-10T04:15:00.001-05:00

I thought the Synopsis for "Intermezzo" might be interesting to some of you...sounds like great drama huh?

Synopsis
Setting: Vienna and Grundlsee during a 1920’s winter

The conductor Robert Storch is about to conduct a concert one night. Christine, his wife, feels under-appreciated and dislikes the fact that his work keeps him away during the evenings. Christine goes to a winter resort and meets Baron Lummer, with whom she enjoys a flirtation. Baron Lummer is revealed as a destitute nobleman in search of a loan. At one point, Christine receives a letter apparently addressed to her husband, and opens it. It turns out to be a love letter to him from a young lady, Mitzi Meyer. Christine is furious and intends then to divorce Storch.

Robert and his friends, including the conductor Stroh, play cards one evening, and talk about Christine’s mercurial personality. Christine has mailed a letter to Robert to say that she is leaving him. She visits a notary to try to obtain a divorce. However, the notary suspects that her real motivation is her relationship with Baron Lummer. Stroh and Storch eventually figure out that Mitzi Meyer had confused their names, and actually intended the love letter for Stroh. Christine is apprised of this situation, and she and Storch reconcile.

City Opera Announces:

2010-03-10T03:32:00.002-05:00

So...their 2010-2011 Season

I have to admit I'm a bit surprised and perplexed. Once again it is only 5 shows, but that doesn't bother me (in fact, 5 shows is the perfect number as AOT watchers will soon learn...nudge-nudge wink-wink). And, it is the same pattern as this year (I think, the Times wasn't completely clear on this), 1 new production and 4 old productions. That is disappointing, but understandable with the money problems these days. And, the 1 new production is by Christopher Alden, which is a big disappointment; not because he isn't good (his "Don Giovanni" was a big success there, so clearly people like him), but if they are only to offer 1 new production, it should be a different perspective (I think that is the job of a cultural institution like City Opera). And, from a company that had, I thought, clearly articulated their goal to offer extremes of the repertoire (early and later), it is an incredibly conservative and, dear I say it, "bourgeois" season. Get this:

"A Quite Place" - Leonard Bernstein (Christopher Alden production)
"Intermezzo" - Richard Strauss
"Elixer of Love" - Donizetti (Jonathan Miller production)
"La Machine de l'Etre"/"Erwartung"/"Neither" - Zorn/Shoenberg/Feldman
"Seance on a Wet Afternoon" - Stephen Schwartz

Ummmmmmmmm....WHAT?

First of all, the Bernstein. Actually this is a great, or at least an interesting piece. It is based on the shorter opera, and gem of a piece, "Trouble in Tahiti", but expands upon the domestic story to also include a grown-up gay son, and digs more deeply into their lives and relationships. It is great music that deserves to be explored further and, though theatrically it is mundane and soap-opera style, this is an understandable choice. What I don't get it why Christopher Alden? Personally I think Christopher Alden is the lesser of the two Alden brothers (his brother David Alden is more active in the European scene and, even though he is the definition of an enfant terrible, his production are brilliant and thoughtful). Christopher Alden's work tends to just be strange and provocative for the sake of provoking. Most of all, there just isn't any dramaturgical work or actual directing of singers there. This can work I think for contemporary opera, or works with less cultural specificity like Handel, typically unstaged works like Bach oratorios, and some would argue Mozart (though I thought his "Don Giovanni" was lacking...to be kind). "A Quiet Place" is uber-specific, it is melodrama, and I can't imagine why choose Chris Alden for it....

The next two, "Intermezzo" and "Elixer of Love" are the most strange. "Intermezzo" is the weakest of all the Strauss operas from that period (perhaps because he wrote the libretto himself...and a poet he was not). Put alongside "Rosenkavalier" or "Capriccio" it just can't hold up. Some great music, but not drama worth watching (though I do prefer it to "Arabella"). Then "Elixer"...well, "Elixer" is just drivel. It is tuneful, but makes "Barber of Seville" look like a Shakespearian play, so little depth it has. It is just so fluffy as to make me hard pressed to jusitfy its existence. Furthermore, Jonathan Miller, though an immensely gifted director, is about as conservative as they come. Which brings me to a larger point about these two productions. These are shows one could easily see at the Met, 200 feet from City Opera, in better productions with better singers. That is the nature of the beast. I thought the whole point was that City Opera finally realized, now that the Met is showing signs of a pulse and bringing in productions that are interesting to watch, they need to produce operas you can't see at the Met. Why would anyone go to see Donizetti or Strauss at City Opera if they could see them at the Met? Jonathan Miller may be talented, but he is a Met style director, not a City Opera that is differentiating itself enough to survive.

Okay, the triple bill is interesting contemporary music. I'll return to that. And then "Seance on a Wet Afternoon". This is a new opera by Stephen Schwartz, the composer of many brilliant musical theater pieces including "Godspell", "Pippen", and "Wicked", and also of the Disney score to "Pocohantas". He is not, however, an opera composer. And, having heard this piece in Santa Barbara, let me say it again, he is NOT an opera composer. Unlike the Berstein that opens the season, I don't think this is fit for the stage of City Opera. Which brings me to the contemporary music question. City Opera, and I know this from Ed Yim, the talented creative force in the Artistic Administration there, was going to make contemporary music a focus of theirs. So, what is contemporary here? Bernstein...yes, okay, but not really. I had been thinking of Messiaen or Ligeti or even Adams...but Bernstein? Great music, but not challenging at all. And Stephen Schwartz? Same and even more so. So the only truly contemporary music is the triple-bill, but they can't even give an entire program to a challenging contemporary opera?

The other focus of City Opera (we were told this is where George Steel's true passion was) was going to be early music. The earliest thing here is Donizetti!!!! No Handel, not even Mozart. This season, I have to say, is playing it SO safe as to be utterly boring. It makes me so nostalgic for the days when we thought, or tricked ourselves into hoping, that Mortier was going to take over. Ah..."St. Francois"..."Einstein on the Beach"..."Brokeback Mountain"..."Rappresentatione di Animo e di Corpo"..I think with this sort of uber-conservative programming, they are putting the noose around their necks. And, I have to say, the AOT season for next year looks MUCH more interesting than this. Can't wait to tell you all about that.

I'm probably not making any friends here...I LOVE City Opera. I want them to do more than survive, and I think they more potential than the Met to produce interesting and important work. I respect and admire George Steel, and his is not a job I would want. I just don't understand these choices...I think they are drinking the cool-aid of cultural lowest-common-denominator. It doesn't seem like George Steel or Ed Yim, who I know gravitate more towards works of depth and profound strength. This seems like a dangerous path for City Opera to go down, but I hope they can make it work.

Check this out....

2010-03-09T06:20:00.004-05:00

It isn't clear if this will be for an AOT production yet, but here is what wunderkind designer Ryan Wineinger is working on for my upcoming Giulio Cesare with Orchestra London in London, Ontario (though it does have its own Thames).

At and Not-At the Opera

2010-03-07T06:51:00.005-05:00

In the midst of everything else I have watched a lot of opera this week(end). I never did report of the DNO's "Il Prigioniero" and "Bluebeard's Castle" last week, and then this weekend I've watched DVD's of "Tamerlano", "Dido and Aeneas", "Castor et Paloux", and "Don Giovanni". Not enough to give a full report of each, but I'll give my general thoughts...of course I watch everything through the guise of a director, so that is my main interest.

The DNO, unforunately, was the only live viewing out of all of these. "Il Prigioniero" is an amazing piece from the 1940s by Luigi Dallapiccola. It tells the story of a prisoner of the Spanish inquisition that is given hope by is warden that "this" will all be over soon. Then the warden leaves the door to his cell open and the prisoner, taking it as a sign, decides to escape. We see him make his way through the chambers of the inquisition till he finally breaks into fresh air, and the arms of the warden...who is turns out is the grand inquisitor. You can guess how it ends, but the message is that the cruelest from of torture is hope. I have always wanted to see this live, and it was thrilling. The production, by Peter Stein, had a very nice design, with coup-de-theatre at the end (even though, at the final dress, there were stil LOTS of technical problems...Heins Mulder, Artistic Director of the DNO, tells me this is because they programmed just way too many pieces this year and there isn't enough time for rehearsal). All in all, it was OK, not great. "Bluebeard's Castle", by Bartok, is one of my favorite pieces and I reported on the breathtaking production in Barcelona two years ago. This one, however, felt strangely like a highschool musical, and I won't say much beyond that. The brass in the house, however, was shattering (literally to the ears, and figuratively to the imagination).

Yesterday I started with the "Tamerlano" of Graham Vick with Paul Mcreesh conducting the orchestra of the Teatro Real in Madrid, staring Placido Domingo (this is not the same production of "Tamerlano" Domingo did two years ago at WNO). It was pretty terrible, VERY boring. Domingo's singing was good but tired, and the orchestra had tuning problems that made it hard to even concentrate on the style issues. It was all very spare and decadent at the same time, and afterward I felt a bit sick and dirty.

Then on Pierre Audi's "Castor et Paloux" or Rameau. This is an amazing piece with tremendous music. I don't like Audi's directing, in fact I don't think he does direct. He is more of a window dresser creating pretty pictures and, at the very least, there is absolutely no dramaturgy going on. It was basically the same here, but the set was glorious (a sort of 3-D representation of the Gemini constellation) and the dancing was superb, as was the lighting. I couldn't help liking it...though it got old fast. The costume were a little space agey for my taste.

I ended last night on an up note, Peter Brook's "Don Giovanni". There was absolutely no concept. There was no set. There were no props. It was the type of spare that isn't just for appearances, but really is getting to the basics of theater. The fact remains that Brook doesn't need any of that. He is just a great director. His direction was seamless, ever bit of action and dialogue made sense, there was always a reaction, and things had an energy and a dynamism that I loved.

This morning I watched the choreographer Wayne McGregor's "Dido and Aeneas" from the ROH. "Dido" is the first piece I ever directed, and it is appearing on next year's season following a string of performances this summer in Italy...so it is something I have a lot of opinions about. This was visually beautiful. It was spare, but the piece is so direct that that worked for me. The dancing was fantastic, he is more than a gifted choreographer. A director, however, he is NOT. Why is it that company's think that just because someone can direct a movie, or paint a picture, or design clothes, or choreograph dancers they can direct opera. Do we really have so little respect for our genre that we think people with no training in opera can just jump in and do a good job (for heaven's sake! now Mark Morris is directing regularly, as well as conducting, Issac Mizrahi is directing at Opera Theater of Saint Louis, William Kentridge is directing at the MET,...ugh). These are great artists, but they haven't trained as directors, let alone opera directors. Anyway...in this production, it showed. The concepts, dramaturgy, and especially performances were utterly lacking.

Now...I'm off to work on my own projects. This week is dedicated to "Jephtha"!

"The Prisoner" indeed...

2010-03-04T02:24:00.003-05:00

I was going to write today about going to see "Il Prigionero" and "Bluebeard's Castle" yesterday at the Netherlands Opera, directed by Peter Stein. I'm not going to because something much more disturbing than luke-warm stage direction has happened here in the Netherlands.

Yesterday Dutch MP Geert Wilders won a larger share of the vote here than ever. I don't understand, I'm really at a loss. In American it has become popular now to throw around analogies of Nazi Germany, and compare political figures to Hitler. Honestly it has started to lose its meaning. This man, however, really, in tangible and literal ways, embodies the beliefs and policies of Hitler and the early Nazi party. He over-compensates for weak mental faculties and several disturbed psychology with hate speech against the Islamic world that for some inexplicable reason is resonating with the people of Holland. He wants a permanent ban on all mosques that preach in arabic, and a five year ban (surely we can't trust it would end after five years...) on the builidng of any mosque of Islamic school. He wants a ban on all immigration from non-Western countries, and all Muslim immigrants returned to their native countries. But, most striking, he wants the first clause of the Dutch constitution changed to indicate the superiority of Western, Christian, and Jewish cultures over Islamic culture, which he calls retarded. This rhetoric and his demeanor come closer to Hitler than anything witnessed since that time. And he is winning, people love him here (he was the 2009 politician of the year!). He is so clearly not mentally equipped with context, intelligence, compassion, or even stability, and yet...

I don't know. I'm very sad and very frustrated today.

A Bit Gratuitous but...

2010-02-27T02:48:00.003-05:00

Okay...yeah, I know...but...

Opera at the Met in 2010-2011

2010-02-26T07:58:00.004-05:00

I've known for a while now that Peter Sellars would be directing "Nixon in China" next year at the Met, but I've kept quiet until they announced this week. Peter hasn't revisted the piece in a long time, so I'm very anxious to see how time will change his approach to it. It is the first time he as directed at the Met. He was approached years ago to direct a double-bill of "Bluebeard's Castle" and I think "Il tabarro" (if memory serves). He countered with "Bluebeard" and "Il Prigionera"...Jesse Norman refused to learn the piece and it all fell through. Then he was supposed to direct "Dr Atomic" last season, but they insisted on cuts he was unwilling to make, and it fell through as well. So this is really something...

There is a lot of interesting work planned there at the Met (as well as a lot of crappy old wine in fancy new bottles...but at least they are getting rid of another F.Z. production). But yet another Bartlett Sher production...ugh.

Read all about it here.

Also, read all about Muti's debut at the Met with Verdi's "Atilla" and Pierre Audi's staging (they strangely call him a French director...hmmmm). Audi is not so much a director as a window dresser, so I'm not so sure I would like to see it myself. He is a wonderful window dresser though. Read all about it here. The set sounds amazing.

Trying this new format

2010-02-26T05:04:00.000-05:00

Apparently I can email posts to my blog. I'm trying now to see if it works. Everything crossed...

Mums the word.

2010-02-26T03:33:00.004-05:00

There are a lot of exciting things going on at the moment...but I can't tell what they are yet. I have three productions next year in Europe, one of which will be a co-production with AOT on one of our season's shows, and one which could mean 30 international performances of an AOT favorite show, but none of which I can talk about yet. I also have AOT's season pinned down, but I can't reveal it yet. It is going to be big and exciting though.

To hold you over here is a video of Adonis Abuyen as Escamillo in AOT's irreverent take on the Toreador Song.

Two Clips from Carmen

2010-02-15T04:11:00.004-05:00

Have a meeting today about taking this production to the Nationaltheater Mannheim. Keep fingers crossed....

Card Aria + Duet

Final Scene

Trailer for "Le Cabaret de Carmen"

2010-02-10T12:20:00.005-05:00

Barely two weeks since it closed, here is the trailer video of "Le Cabaret de Carmen" from our friends at tonal vision. Enjoy!

A masked ball...

2010-02-03T06:09:00.004-05:00

This week is opera week. I already reported on Flying Dutchman, and last night we saw Verdi's "Il Ballo in Maschera" (The Masked Ball) given in Amsterdam by the National Reisopera. This is The Netherland's "second" company, performing each of their operas in 13 cities around the country. Because of that the design and directorial approaches are different, but the quality no less strong.

I won't write AS much as I did on Dutchman simply because my work load has increased CONSIDERABLY in the last couple days. I've gone from having two operas to direct this Spring, to having five, and that means LOTS of preparation.

In short the production was fantastic. I had quibbles, and there were some cliches, but all-in-all is was a wonderful evening out. I sometimes forget how great this opera is. I think it is Verdi's best piece of drama. Most people feel that award should either go to the late "Otello" or Falstaff", but what I like about "Ballo" is that it is tragic and grotesquely comic all at the same time, making the drama that much more intense. The ensemble writing is beyond belief, and the final act is shattering. LOVE IT! In this production, there were a lot of metaphors used, and that worked for me. I thought the director balanced the comic and tragic perfectly. The costumes were ALL white, and there were some clever story changes that worked for me...the "ballo" became a surprise party (I've ALWAYS hated those), and Oscar remained a girl in love with her boss Ricardo. There was a lot of use of leaves and Ulrica was placed heavy-handedly in almost every scene, but I liked the production. The singing was wonderful (particularly the Oscar whose bright and crystalline voice was the right contrast to the dark and cold voices of the leads), and the orchestra was, by all accounts, perfect.

Afterwards we spent an engaging evening of drinks with both Nicolas Mansfield of the Reisopera and Hein Mulder of the Netherlands Opera. That is interesting because they are both what we would call in the States "Artistic Administrators" of their respective houses. Very smart people indeed.

Tonight I'm back at the Netherlands Opera to see "Nozze di Figaro", and I hear, because they are the only seats available, I'm being given Pierre Audi's seat. Not sure how to feel about that...

Lots of work to accomplish first though!

One of those days...

2010-02-01T14:57:00.003-05:00

Its been one of those busy days where a lot of things happened, and at the end you don't feel you've accomplished much. I spent a large portion of the day pouring through the Jephtha score and making final decisions about cuts. Of course Handel operas can be extremely long (yesterday I did cuts for Giulio Cesare which clocks in at almost four hours of music, and I needed it down to 2.5). The oratorios aren't much better; and more, since they were written as concert pieces, a lot of the music is contained within spectacular choruses that don't do much for the action.

I'm a little unsure about large cuts, but in both of these cases outside pressures require the score be cut down. One of the greatest challenges is to still tell the same story without all the music. Baroque purists would urge against cutting da capos, and would prefer that the whole aria be cut instead, the same for internal cuts. BUT...in the real world, the dramatic world, I need most of those movements in order to tell the story. If I cut half the arias, I cut half the story. So it becomes a painful and long process of making delicate and not across-the-board cuts. Also, in both cases, I'm doing some radical things with the stories, which means the cuts are even more unconventional. It took a long time...

It was an encouraging day in other aspects. I was asked to direct two seperate and innovative new music projects. Both of these have a lot of depth and possibility. I look forward to exploring them further, and talking about them here on the blog once things are a little more clear. One in particular is the wonderful combination of philosophical substance, and marketing "sex" appeal.

The Flying Ship of Immigrants

2010-01-31T05:44:00.003-05:00

(WARNING: I should probably be more careful about what I write, but count on me for my honest opinion)

I went last night to see my first "Flying Dutchman" live at the Netherlands Opera. It was my first time inside this strange modern opera house that is referred to here as the "stopera" because the building also is the State House for the city of Amsterdam, and they combine "state" and "opera" to get "stopera". It is actually a lovely theater with 1500 seats, but feeling much more cozy. We were happy to be there as the guest of the chorus master Martin Wright for this dress rehearsal.

I was surprised how muted such a large orchestra could be, but it allowed the singers to be vastly more expressive. All in all the orchestra sounded fantastic, particularly in the opening of the third act when joined by the tremendous Netherlands Opera Chorus, it was thrilling I have to say. Also thrilling was the decision to perform the entire opera without intermission the way Wagner had intended. It flew by (no punn intended), and was much more exciting this way.

Unfortunately there was the production with which to contend. The director was an Austrian named Martin Kušej. He has apparently done a fantastic Lady Macbeth here, that I wish I had seen. This however...

He had a unit set, which is understandable with no intermissions to change things around, and I actually liked the potential in the set, though the lighting was uninspired. The concept was that the Dutchman's was a ship of dark (as in Arab and black and the occaisional Asian) "others". Senta apparently had a thing for "others", while all the rest of the women were pretentious desperate housewife types, and Erik went around murdering the immigrants. In the final act the crowd tried to attack the ship of immigrants and finally Erik goes mad with hatred for immigrants, and shoots both the Dutchman and Senta.

Now, as you know, I am all for concepts and especially polemical concepts (particularly when they deal with some of the frankly racist policies popping up now in Europe against immigrant communities). But, unfortunately for Kusej, the devil is in the details. One has to stand by their concept completely, and one needs the basic directing chops to see it through. The most obvious problem was that the Dutchman was still a caucasian, which was explained away by saying he was just the captian of a ship of immigrants, but wasn't one himself. Frankly to me that seemed weak, and it smelled like they couldn't find a darker skinned singer to sing the role. Beyond that there was A LOT of just basic bad direction (ie. stand and sing, actors that talk to each other but don't look at each other, and not for any good reason; and scenes that go on and on without any real action). Concepts are great, but what makes the firs generation of concept directors great is that they were also directors. There was basically no direction for the singers here. Also the point was extremely heavily handed. All the white people in bright colors, and all the immigrants in blacks, including Senta who apparently liked immigants so much she already dressed in all black before they arrived.

Finally, the decision to have the Dutchman turn out not to be an immortal ghost, and instead be someone that could be killed by Erik's bullet, proved problematic to say the least. Why didn't the Dutchman just kill himself to begin with? And he dies before Senta, which makes her death completely useless. He is supposed to be redeemed by her death. I'm all for altered endings, but the problem here is that Wagner has shoved the Dutchman's musical theme down the audience's throat for about three hours at this point, with its dissonant final cadence. This is the first time in the opera that the theme arrives in a wonderful consonant harmony (a foreshadowing of Tristan in more than a few ways). SOMETHING has to happen, there has to be some redemption even in death. Here it was anti-climactic at best.

Ah well, the whole thing was worth it a thousand times over to hear Catherine Naglestad as Senta. She was stupendous, and I was blown away. She is probably the second most affecting dramatic soprano I've ever heard live, next to Waltraud Meier. What I loved is how subtle her voice could be in this rep. She sang it almost like bel-canto, with stunning pianos and messa di voce, even the occaisional arresting straight tone. It was absolutely stunning. So, all is well that ends well!

I will be seeing the Reis Opera's "Ballo" in Tuesday, and then at the Netherlands Opera again on Wednesday to see "La Nozze di Figaro" set in an automobile dealership...hmmmm, I need convincing.

Video Trailer of SONGSPIEL

2010-01-29T05:50:00.004-05:00

From our talented friends at Tonal Vision, a trailer of the DVD recording of AOT's "Songspiel".

Photos from Carmen

2010-01-24T15:26:00.005-05:00

Check it out...an almost all soldout weekend!

Good problems are problems none-the-less.

2010-01-23T17:14:00.002-05:00

It has been an exciting and very stressful week at AOT. In three days we remounted our "Le Cabaret de Carmen". We've done the show several times now, and toured with it. Still, each time it changes a little, and three times isn't as much time as one would hope for those changes. For those of you that saw it last time, it is much darker and dramatically focused this time, and we are thrilled to have Brian Areolla as Don Jose and Adonis Abuyen as Escamillo. Last night was sold-out, and tonight is over-sold (though I think it will be alright). This is a good problem, but until we are sure we can get everyone in, it is a problem none-the-less.

In other news, I've been busy trying to schedule a series of meetings. Folks from the Bregenz Festival surprsied us at performances of "Songspiel" last weekend and have expressed an interest in AOT's work. They are coming to tomorrow's performance of "Carmen" and will hopefully like it just as much. David Poutney, their intendant, is coming to America next week and will meet with me on Wednesday. Problem is, I'm supposed to be at a meeting with the Landstheater of Salzburg in Dusseldorf on Wednesday. I haven't quite figured that out yet...hmmm.

Songspiel reviewed in the Post

2010-01-19T16:11:00.002-05:00

It isn't easy to get a good review from Anne Midgette, but I think this is as good as it gets. Check it out here

We are hard at work on Carmen which opens this weekend at our home at the Baltimore Theatre Project. One of the joys of directing opera is that the same production grows over time. Our "Le Cabaret de Carmen" gets more and more refined with each restaging, the vision this time is particularly acute and poignant.

LE CABARET DE CARMEN
January 21-23 8PM
January 24 5PM
BALTIMORE THEATRE PROJECT
45 W. Preston Street, Baltimore
1-800-838-3006

Songspiel with a twist

2010-01-15T17:58:00.002-05:00

One of the things I love about opera, is that a production changes over time with each new staging of it. In the Baltimore premier of "Songspiel" we didn't have percussion in the band because of how live the accoustic is at Baltimore Theatre Project. After the last night of the performance one of the volunteers, a guy named Shodekeh, started laying out the most amazing beatbox beat. Suddenly AOT's fearless soprano Rebecca Duren began the opening song from "Songspiel"...the rest is history. For this DC revival of the show we've incorporated the amazing talents of Shodekeh into the performance to create something never done before in opera. Here is a video the Rebecca and Shodekeh made today, jamming back stage. It is a teaser for this new and improved production playing this weekend only at Georgetown University. You should definitely check it out - you won't see anything like it anywhere else I am pretty positive.

In Virginia

2010-01-11T05:51:00.002-05:00

Surprise of surprises! I was able to make all my stand-by flights yesterday, and here I am in Virginia to pick up the sets to Songspiel. Sylvia McNair has already arrived in Washington, DC where she is rehearsing today with Eileen Cornett and my assistant Alison Wong (who is an amazing lifesaver). Tomorrow morning I will depart very early indeed, so as to arrive in DC with the costumes, properties, and sets, in time for a morning rehearsal. Today it is lots of prep work and details galore.

The flight in over Charlotte Douglas International Airport last night was stunning and made one think about the larger questions in life. Which was a great relief after eight hours of transatlantic flying while thinking about "Fledermaus". For me, my most creative hours are always when fying or driving or in the train. That is when I have had my most screwball ideas...Acis and Galatea as a circus, Messiah as an opera, Carmen with a tango band. But, sometimes its nice to just look out the window and consider the bigger and less specific concepts of life.

The best laid plans

2010-01-09T05:23:00.002-05:00

So, I missed yesterday. So much for resolutions. It was a busy day. I had a long with Kitty de Geus, a fantastic young soprano here in the Netherlands, someone who is going to go very far indeed, but facing the same problem as many young artists...being too good too soon and always told to wait. It can be frustrating.

Then I had a wonderful evening meeting with Carsten Schmidt. He is an acclaimed pianist, and harpsichordist, and now condutor, that teaches at Sarah Lawrence College, and founded the Staunton Music Festival. We have been talking about some plans with this great little festival. Often times they perform at the Blackfriar's Theater, a replica of the Globe Theater built by the American Shakespeare Center, and they provide an excellent resource to that community. Carsten is an experienced and intelligent musician and I look forward to continuing work with him.

Today is the day of preparation for returning to the States tomorrow...I HOPE. Might not get on the flight, and might have to wait until Monday, which would really squeeze things for Songspiel. All well...we shall see. It is a cold day in Amsterdam, and set to snow. That isn't going to help things either.

Almost forgot!

2010-01-07T08:59:00.004-05:00

Thats right...a blog a day. Last evening I had a delightful meeting with Nicholas Mansfield, the Artistic Administrator of the National Reisopera (Touring Opera) of the Netherlands. This a great company that takes their shows all on tour throughout the country. Most of them, I should say...they are mounting a new ring that is too big to tour and will only be at their new home in Enschede. He was off today to see the Boheme in London and for auditions. A wonderful man doing exciting and important work here in the Netherlands.

Today I've been setting the season for next year. I can't say too much yet, except that it looks to be an extended season, offering four fully staged productions instead of three. And, that AOT will be in residence at the Baltimore Theatre Project. It was one of the first spaces we ever performed in and, though a great opera performing space in Baltimore is a BIG problem, we are happy to finally have a home in the cultural center of Baltimore. Next season will include an array of groundbreaking musical dramatic pieces, and there will be something for everyone. I wish I could devulge now, but alas.

Now back to work on the budget for next year...something else entirely!

Off and going...

2010-01-06T03:25:00.003-05:00

Yes, I know. I've taken a small break from the blog (not so small actually). The Fall was a crazy time...AOT's first international performances in September, Annunciation+Visitation in October, and the Songspiel in November. By the time I got home to Amsterdam, I needed a break.

Since then, however, I've been gearing back up for December, which has two AOT productions back to back, both revivals, but still a lot of work. The first is "Songspiel with Sylvia McNair", this time in Washington, DC at Georgetown University. It completes our three year residency there. The week after we'll revive our acclaimed "Le Cabaret de Carmen" at our home at the Baltimore Theatre Project. More about that in a later post...

There is a lot of work to be done for those fronts, but there is also planning for the coming year. Jephtha, a new production of Handel's epic final work, is coming up in April with Handel Choir of Baltimore. We will perform this in a non-traditional church space, so there is extra planning and crafting to be done. Again AOT has been invited to Sardinia this Summer, and we will be producing two productions. The first will be a piece that combines Purcell's "Dido + Aeneas" with Bernstein's "Trouble in Tahiti" with one plot. We'll then produce it in Baltimore as part of next year's expanded season. The other production in Sardinia will be a version of "Pelleas et Melisande" that I'm creating. We'll hold off on producing it in Baltimore a little bit because of Opera Vivente's production of the Peter Brook "Impressions of Pelleas" this Spring (I hope you all have your tickets!!!!).

Then there are the other things in life. I'm working on a new Giulio Cesare for production in Canada this Summer, and will return as Artistic Director of the Canadian Operatic Arts Academy, so there will be a lot to do in terms of choosing and casting scenes. Because the level there is so high, and with an international faculty from City Opera, La Scala, Houston Grand Opera, Opera de Montreal, and other places, we get to do large scenes from large rep (Strauss, Janacek, Wagner, and others). AOT is in talk with the Nationaltheater Mannheim to produce "Carmen" in Germany next year, and I'm off to Dusseldorf straight from Baltimore to discuss production in the Landstheater of Salzburg. In the meantime Sophie is working on new co-productions with Italian houses. AND, there is planning next season, which is almost done.

I promise to re-energize this blog though. A post a day for me, that is the New years resolution, however optimistic.

Happy 2010!

Songspiel reviewed in the Baltimore Sun

2009-11-11T08:56:00.001-05:00

Here is a link to Tim Smith's Baltimore Sun review of "Songspiel".

Sylvia On The Radio

2009-11-11T08:52:00.004-05:00

Here is a link to WYPR's Maryland Morning iinterview with Sylvia McNair. Tom Hall did a fantastic job of highlighting her past, present, and future. Check it out.

(If you have any problems - right clink on the link, and "save target as" inorder to listen)

Images from Songspiel

2009-11-06T01:17:00.008-05:00

AOT's most ambitious production yet opens tomorrow. Here is a sneak peak (these fantastic images are by Jesse Hellman).

Sun on Sylvia

2009-11-01T06:57:00.002-05:00

I'm been pretty swamped, and when that happens unfortuntely the first thing to go is writing on the blog. Apologies...But this week has been utterly amazing. Sylvia McNair has been in town, and the she is beyond words amazing. Songspiel really is going to be AOT's best show yet, and you have to check it out. This week Tim Smith interviewed her at length, and that interview appears in today's Baltimore Sun.

Story Here

A short visit home

2009-10-13T21:04:00.002-05:00

I'm in Virginia enjoying the shortest of visits with family before continuing on. We had a two fantastic performances of "Annunciation + Visitation". I'm currently overseeing the construction of the sets for "Songspiel" and the costume design, which I enjoy being part of since color, texture, and harmony are so integral to my staging. It is good work though, a way to be creative in a three-dimensional space when I'm used to working creatively in my head mostly. Tomorrow I will leave for Detroit and then to London, Ontario where I'm teaching masterclasses and meeting about a new opera project there which looks very exciting. Then onto Amsterdam for four days of dramatic coaching at the Netherlands Opera Studio. In the meantime, I thought I would post one of my favorite Sylvia songs!

Annunciation + Visitation

2009-10-09T15:11:00.002-05:00

So, I've been so busy with rehearsals that I haven't had much of a chance to write about the project I'm working on. I'm here in Bloomington, Indiana creating a new production of two one act pieces that are vaguely connected. The project is called "Annunciation + Visitation". The former uses songcycles by the American composer George Crumb, and the latter the Tenebre lessons of Francois Couperin. After last nights dress rehearsal I can officially say that the production is going to be amazing. A main element of it is the infusion of not just projected video, but interactive media. Cameras in real time record both the singers and even the audience, and incorporate that information into a real time project effect. It is a bit beyond my understanding, but the visual is really cool. As I don't have enough time to write about it in full...I will include my program notes here in hopes that they will be interesting.

Annuncation + Visitation
Some brief thoughts....

“Annunciation + Visitation” takes its title from two biblical episodes in the life of the Christian matriarch Mary. The former is the announcement of her impending pregnancy and her ultimate reception of that message from the Angel Gabriel. The latter is her visit to her cousin Elizabeth, at the same time pregnant with John the Baptist.

The production you will see tonight bares only a very tangential relationship with those scriptural references, and instead uses the imagery of an idealized woman (in this case Mary) as a starting point for the exploration, through music, movement, and video projection, of multiple conceptions of female sexuality. As inspiration the creators take the figure of Simone Vespucci, the Florentine model for almost all of Sandro Boticelli's female paintings. In this way Simone has been immortalized as both the prototypical virgin (Mary) and the prototypical sexual woman (Venus). In her eternal assumption of those roles, she has virtually lost all self identity, as little else is known about this enigmatic figure.

“Annunciation” explores the idealization of the female as mother, using imagery from the biblical annunciation. Through stylization the work meditates on that mysterious story, and this prototypical girl becoming a woman through her assumption of the role of mother. The piece traces her through childbirth and the inevitable, and ineffable separation that occurs between mother and child. While using the figure of the Virgin, this woman represents at once a sort of every-woman, and an idealized woman that can not possibly exist.

“Visitation” is a janus-face to that first piece. It looks at the objectification, and even more the consequences of that objectification, of the woman as a sexual body. In contrast to “Annunciation”, “Visitation” portrays a very real women dealing the aftermath of being a victim of sexual violence, sexual objectification that ends in rape. Together with her cousin, these two women embark on the journey to find their way out of the depersonalizing and demoralizing effects of female idealization, whether in the form of a virgin or a venus.

Two disparate composers separated by a common voice.

The choice of using, let alone combining, music of 18th century French composer Francois Couperin and 20th century American composer George Crumb, for this performance will no doubt seem strange. Their compositional processes, perspectives, aspiration, and objectives could not be more different; and as for both performers and audience members, they share very few. And yet in their music (and for Couperin it must be admitted that these notes are uniquely relevant to the three Tenebre lessons) there is something that for me seems common. It is the enigmatic and the eternal. Both musics exist in a sound world of the infinite, both stretch aurally toward the furtherest reaches of man's understanding of the universe, and inadvertently come close to Eastern musics which function more as ritual and less as performance pieces.

The peculiar nature of lecons de tenebres (a genre of composition common throughout the French late-Renaissance and Baroque) pushes them towards the eternal quality that is so much more obvious in Crumb's works. Each strophe in the Couperin, taking its text from the Lamentations of Jeremiah, begins with a melissmatic intonation of a Hebrew letter. This peculiar aspect gives the music a ritual and ancient quality that makes it unique. With its overall affect reasonably static, the music begins to resemble the slow unfolding sounds of Crumbs own world, perhaps not in the literal aural experience, but at least in the sensory imagination that aural experience elicits.

Textually, the pieces are not so far from the conception of this performance as they may seem either. Crumb's “Apparition” comes from Whitman's “When Lilacs Last on the Dooryard Bloom'd”, a funeral ode for Abraham Lincoln. Read out of context, however, the poem really is about impending doom; not dread, but rather doom in the sense of the unknown coming upon one. In this way, the poem's images lend themselves to an interpretation where the proverbial girl enters, ritualistically, into the mysteries of adult womanhood. By the same token, “Ancient Voices of Children”, taking its many texts from poems of Federico Garcia Lorca, has texts that can be understood to explore separation, perhaps from mother and child, and perhaps even the post-partum experience. Even the change of language mid-performance is not so incongruous. The girl, having received the most divine experience imaginable, slips into a new paradigm of consciousness, and even her language is transformed.

The Lamentations of Jeremiah offer ancient meditations on the destruction of the Jerusalem temple. Read in a non-literal way (perhaps even intended this way?), they can easily be read as the mourning of a woman who has been invaded, who has lost her innocence, and her precious self-identity. The verses resound with the self-guilt, anger, blame, and exultation which abound in post-rape psychology. And, the author's choice of the female for his description of “Jerusalem” exhibits the very objectification this work attempts to explore.

A telling paradox happens with this understanding of the text and concept of “Apparition and Visitation”. Very contemporary secular music is used to tackle a look at the ancient and sacred understanding of Mary's birth of the Messiah. The ancient and sacred music is used to portray a most modern and profane experience. It is, in its way, a sort of unification, perhaps even reconciliation in both artistic and social worlds.

From the vaults!

2009-10-03T06:23:00.001-05:00

I just found this amateur archival video made of a rehearsal of AOT's "Dido and Aeneas" earlier this year. We will be touring with this show next summer to a number of festivals, and then bringing it to Baltimore next year!

Practicing Healthy Living in London

2009-10-01T08:36:00.002-05:00

I'm in Heathrow Airport...and have been here for about 6 hours on a layover between Amsterdam and BWI. It makes a great chance to catch up on work, but also makes me anxious to get going. Last night night I went to a performances of Dido and Aeneas by Opera Zuid in the Netherlands (the performance was a run out into the Hague). It was a coproduction with the Netherlands Opera Studio and had Canadian mezzo Catherine Daniel in the lead (she has just finished the young artist program in Montreal with my good friend Chantal Lambert, and will this year be coming to the opera studio here in Amsterdam). The production was directed by Hans Nieuwenhuis, who in a real masterstroke combined the piece with Purcell's funeral music for Queen Mary and staged it as a funeral for Dido's first husband Iarbus. A really nice touch...it is always a problem figuring out what to pair with Dido. We are trying something very interesting with the piece next year...but more on that later. I'm particularly keen on the opera studio, because they have asked me to do some guest teaching and directing there this year in a number of projects.

What I really want to be doing is posting a blog on my real thoughts about Francesco Zefferlli....a so-so director, but perhaps the greatest window dresser in the world. In reality I admire his work in a certain empty-but-beautiful way, but it is him as a person and public figure that really gets to me. No excuse for that kind of behavior. But, I'm resisting the urge to a diatribe...and will sate myself my posting another video of the wonderful talents of Sylvia McNair. I'm off to Bloomington right now to start coaching some Weill with her. Can't wait!!!!

A little Sylvia Jazz in the morning

2009-09-29T05:26:00.003-05:00

It is an overcast day here in Amsterdam. I returned from London yesterday, after an amazing performance of Harawi, which will be appearing in some London festivals next year after being seen in this premier. I had a great meeting with Hans Neiuwenhuis here yesterday, who runs the respected Netherlands Opera Studio and does a fantastic job of it indeed. They have a Dido on now in the Hague, and I will go tomorrow and give a full report.

In the meantime...I have long said the Sylvia McNair is one of the few opera stars that can sing jazz convincingly...here is a little sample!

HARAWI

2009-09-27T06:07:00.002-05:00

Tonight is the premier of my new piece, "HARAWI"...which Messiaen's epic 1945 song-cycle, fully staged as a "cabaret on eternity". It is an exploration of the idea of transfiguration, a concept that exists in all cultures and is that moment and mankind reaches out into the infinite, the eternal. My fantastic performers (soprano Sarah Barnes and pianist Ido Ariel) and I have been working at the farmhouse of Steve and Cherry Large. These are remarkable people that lost their daughter Sophie in a car accident nearly 10 years ago. They honor her by their foundation (patronized by Dame Judi Dench) which supports young artists and their creative work. They have turned their barn into a theater where we workshopped the piece all week and gave an informal premier on Friday which was fantastically received. Now we are in the big city and will give the work its London premier tonight at The Space. Then back home to Amsterdam tomorrow!

The incomparable...

2009-09-19T12:30:00.003-05:00

My next series of posts are going to be on the divine Sylvia McNair. Sylvia, outside of being a beautiful friend, is one of the great sopranos that American has ever created. She has a huge recording career and has won two Grammy aways. I fell in love with her first for her work on Mozart and Handel, and that is where I will start my posts. Here she is singing Susanna's aria from the last act of Mozart's Marriage of Figaro. What a voice and what an artist!

I'm going to mention this again and again, but this heavenly voice is coming to Baltimore to perform with AOT November 6th-14th, in a Kurt Weill staging designed just for her. It is a HUGE honor, and it is going to be the hottest opera ticket in Baltimore in years. She is truly beyond words, and Kurt Weill's music is among some of the most memorable of the 20th century. Tickets are limited and still available (though going fast). They are available here.

Photos from Sardinia

2009-09-18T05:10:00.009-05:00

I'm back in Amsterdam and hard at work for a few days before going to London to work on a new project, a staging of Messiaen's "Harawi" with dynamite soprano Sarah Barnes. Here are some pictures from AOT's trip to Sardinia. None of the production unfortunately. The first is work beginning on the theater, a long way from finished. Then Maestro Simone Luti from La Scala that led the production musically with Sophie Roland who was our Carmen. The two Fiats kissing, a picture we just couldn't resist. Then at the bottom you'll find a series of photos from our day at the beach (some of you might recognize soprano Bonnie McNaughton who sang a beautiful Micaela with us). There is a free pair of tickets to the show of your choice to the first person that can tell me which opera I'm scoping the site out for to make AOT's first filmed opera...

Ignoti Dei's Stabat Mater

2009-09-15T09:39:00.003-05:00

Off tomorrow to return home to Amsterdam for a couple of days before beginning a new project in London. But before that, one more concert in Sardinia...the Pergolesi Stabat Mater and some fantastic Italian 18th century chamber music.

Success in Sardinia

2009-09-13T03:25:00.003-05:00

Two performances of "Carmen" successfully completed to sold out houses of enthusiastic crowds. The production has grown a lot since its Baltimore premier and I look forward to bringing it back with some new cast members and a greater honed artistic vision. In the meantime, AOT has been invited back to the festival next year as part of a larger European tour of one of our Baltimore home grown shows.

"Le Cabaret de Carmen" Tonight!!!!

2009-09-11T03:58:00.002-05:00

AOT will open "Le Cabaret de Carmen" as part of the Ente Concerti festival in Iglesias, Sardinia tonight. Artistic Director GianLuca Eriu has done a fantastic job of organizing this festival. It is a thankless and gigantic task, and all of us at AOT are very much appreciative of his efforts. The show is in great shape and looks fantastic in this very unconventional space. I'm thrilled to have this opportunity to continue developing its concept and realization. It is a real pleasure as a director to be able to revist these works over and over again. Unlike other theatrical forms that develope a show over a long rehearsal period and then it is set, in opera a show is put together over a relatively short period. It is only changed of years and years of remounting. It is a slowly evolving creature that has continuous dialogue with an entire history of composers, directors, opera stars, and myriad designers. It is a fantastic thing to be cog in this process!

Sardinia with or without my clothes

2009-09-01T04:54:00.002-05:00

I made it to Sardinia, and despite all my good intentions to keep you up to date...there is VERY little internet here. Things are progressing for a fantastic production though. A baritone has been lossed, replaced, lossed again, and now replaced with Adonis Abuyen, a fantastic American bass-baritone living in Berlin, but who will also be singing in AOT's next two Handel productions (Jephtha and Giulio Cesare, both in 2010).

My clothes however...they seem to be enjoying a nice vacation in Palermo, and in no rush to rendez-vous with me in Cagliari!

Waterloo

2009-08-28T05:57:00.003-05:00

Anyone else thinking of the ABBA Eurovision contest?????

Thats right, I'm at the scene of one of the most famous battles in world history. But, I'm not here as a tourist, and I even skipped the tour of the battlefield...something I'm sure I will regret, but I am hard at work on the orchestrations for "Songspiel", and with "Le Cabaret de Carmen" starting rehearsals in Sardinia next week I have supertitles to translate, lines to learns, and blocking to remember. Alas...

Tonight my good friend Reinhard Andries will conduct Kantores at a wonderful festival called Le Nuit des Choeurs. It is novel idea where each of many choirs performs 20 minutes of music and the audience rotates between the performance. I'm happy to bring my piano chops to it, but I'm afraid they are rustier than I would have them be. Alas...again.

Brugge

2009-08-25T04:46:00.003-05:00

I'm off today to probably the most beautiful city in Belgium. I'll be in Brugge for a couple days rehearsing with Kantores, a wonderful choir directed by my good friend Reinhard Andries. We are doing several performance at a festival in Wallonie, and I look forward to reporting more from there. Then off to Sardinia next Saturday to beginning putting together AOT's first international performance, our "Le Cabaret de Carmen". There will be a lot to do, turning a warehouse into a theater, lighting, restaging, and musical rehearsals. In the midst of the Ignoti Dei will perform a concert of sacred Italian music from the 18th Century. But, there will also be good friends, lots of exotic and authentic Italian food, and the best wine in Europe (we won't tell Sophie Roland, AOT's General Director that, she is under the impression that the French have the best wine!).

I look forward to giving updates as to the progress of the production. I hope the fact the Sardinia has remained detached culturally from the mainland won't mean it is too hard to find internet access. Besides work on "Carmen", AOT has two other large projects on the horizon: our Crumb/Couperin show in Bloomington, IN (part of the New Frontier Project demonstrating the future of technology and opera and using two of AOT's regulars, Rebecca Duren and Emily Noel), and of course of Kurt Weill presentation with Sylvia McNair. Busy times for everyone involved!

Cleaning house

2009-08-24T04:22:00.002-05:00

Its one of those days where I spend lots of time clearing the dust off of AOT's e-sources (ie the website, the blog, the facebook page, and now the flickr page). It is a steep learning curve for me, but healthy none-the-less. It is the way AOT eats its veggies!

Tomorrow I am leaving for a brief performance at a festival in Belgium, and then AOT's first international performance in Sardinia. We are doing "Le Cabaret de Carmen" as part of the Ente Concerti festival in Sardinia. That should be a blast, but it takes me away from home (and regular internet access) for a number of weeks. So I'm in a rush to get everything done before I leave!

(Notice the new Facebook gadget on the side of the blog! If you're not yet a Facebook fan of AOT's...sign up now to get all the updates on us you could ever want. I have also posted the 2009-2010 season here finally, and made my recording recommendations.)

One Last Thing Before I Go...

2009-07-23T07:54:00.003-05:00

I'm leaving this coming Monday to move our stuff from Antwerp to Amsterdam which will now be home. Before then though, I will be spending the weekend at first staging rehearsals with the dynamic-duo sopranos Rebecca Duren and Emily Noel. In October they will be performing a new concept piece called "Annunciation + Visitation" at Indiana University and funded through the New Frontiers Foundation. The music is in two parts, the first being song cycles by George Crumb and then the Tenebre Lessons of Francois Couperin. SO...that will keep me pretty occupied this weekend.

Artscaped

2009-07-20T20:06:00.003-05:00

I never went to Artscape until this weekend. I always thought it too hot and, in what now seems cynical folly, always thought that is was either light on the arts and heavy on the funnel cake, or too esoteric. I'm happy to admit I was wrong, and I'm super proud of my city. Artscape, from the perspective of the AOT booth, was a great melting point. I got to meet folks from all different backgrounds and all different ages. Right outside our booth on Sunday an African drumming circle and I saw people of different races, ages, and creeds dancing with each other. For all the talk that goes around the opera community about reaching out to new audiences, this weekend I felt we were really doing it as all sorts of people visited us, expressed their joy at opera surviving in Baltimore, and signed up for tickets for next year. Even more, at our, admitedly difficult, performance on Sunday the diverse group of young and old and black and white and rich and poor that were enthused by the performance gladdened my heart. So, I can't believe I'm going to be so hokey as to write this, but BALTIMORE BELIEVE!

Artscape Away

2009-07-19T09:53:00.002-05:00

I am sitting at a Cafe enjoying a few moments of quite before the last day of Artscape begins. I love being part of this enigmatic festival that brings together so many people from so many diverse backgrounds! AOT has been able to tell literally hundreds and hundreds of people about what we are doing this year. Time and time again we hear "I thought opera was dead in Baltimore." And it is my delight to tell them about whats going on.

Today we will present two short performances of "A Pilgrime's Solace" at 2pm and 5pm. Come out to Artscape if you can - great weather for the first time in years!

Artscape and in the news!

2009-07-13T18:15:00.003-05:00

Here is a great little picture that was sent to me recently. It is from the cover of a magazine that had an article about the workshop I was honored to be Artistic Director of with Sophie-Roland...and here we are having a great time. It is also a perfect AOT image because it shows the two directors of the company doing what we love to do most, have fun.

I'm in the midst of rehearsals for "A Pilgrime's Solace", which is AOT's offering in Artscape this year. This is a collection of 12 songs by John Dowland, the 16th century singer-songwriter that wrote songs of unparalleled deep of emotion. I've compiled these songs roughly into a piece that explores the human grief cycle, for mezzo soprano and guitar. I'm thrilled to finally be working with Monica Reinagel, who has performed so much in Baltimore, but not yet with AOT. Andrew Dickenson, a Peabody alum (and incidentally from my home town!) is our guitarist. We finished staging this weekend and it is a powerful and moving piece. It is only 45 minutes, and 45 minutes that fly by, but the ocean of feeling explored is deep indeed. There are two performances on Sunday the 19th, at 2pm and 5pm. They are both free and I hope to see you all there (Corpus Christi Church across from MICA).

Incidentally Dowland is one of the great poets of all time. I'm going to try to share some of his poetry here in the days leading up to the performances.

Now Oh Now I Needs Must Part

Now, oh now I needs must part,
Parting though I absent mourn.
Absence can no joy impart:
Joy once fled cannot return.

While I live I needs must love,
Love lives not when Hope is gone.
Now at last Despair doth prove,
Love divided loveth none.

Sad despair doth drive me hence;
This despair unkindness sends.
If that parting be offence,
It is she which then offends.

Dear when I from thee am gone,
Gone are all my joys at once,
I lov'd thee and thee alone,
In whose love I joyed once.

And although your sight I leave,
Sight wherein my joys do lie,
Till that death doth sense bereave,
Never shall affection die.

Sad despair doth drive me hence;
This despair unkindness sends.
If that parting be offence,
It is she which then offends.

Dear, if I do not return,
Love and I shall die together.
For my absence never mourn
Whom you might have joyed ever;

Part we must though now I die,
Die I do to part with you.
Him despair doth cause to lie
Who both liv'd and dieth true.

Sad despair doth drive me hence;
This despair unkindness sends.
If that parting be offence,
It is she which then offends.

Thats what summer is for...

2009-06-04T07:49:00.002-05:00

Here I am back in Bloomington. I finally arrived this past Tuesday, but this is the first chance I've had to write. My last days in Canada were great. I had a wonderful time getting to see my friend Timothy Vernon who is the conductor and artistic director of Pacific Opera Victoria, which now also performs as Opera London. I saw their Magic Flute with some fantastically talented young singers and Timothy and I got a lot of time to chat. Now I'm here at IU for a series of meetings about AOT's collaboration on Appartition/Visitation (staged songcycles by George Crumb and Francois Couperin) that we will do here in October. There is also exciting talk about future collaborations (perhaps even John Adam's El Nino) that have me busy here.

In the free time I am working on putting together a version of Debussy's "Pelleas et Melisande" for performance in Amsterdam next Winter. Peter Brook did a version for two pianos (which is actually just a splitting of Debussy's original one piano reduction) that lasts about 90 minutes. After spending some time with the score, however, I'm not altogether happy with the changes he made. A lot of beautiful, and important, material was cut, including the sung lines of Yinold which are a fantastic addition. So it looks like I will do my own version. Also I'm orchestrating the songs for our Kurt Weill program with Sylvia McNair (who is here in Bloomington and I am happy to get to spend some time with again). And somehow I'm managing to help the Summer Opera Workshop with some acting classes for their students. Oh...and learn Dutch.

Happy Summer!

All the men in my life...

2009-05-25T11:50:00.002-05:00

Well, COAA (that is the Canadian Operatic Arts Academy for those of you that missed my last blog) is finished. It has been an intense three weeks that culminated this past Saturday and Sunday with a performance of 15 scenes (a marathon performance of large scenes from everything from La Calisto, to Jephtha, to Rusalka, to Rigoletto, to Albert Herring, to Pelleas et Melisande, to everything inbetween). The performance was completed full, had to keep adding seats, and the audience was blown away. Then on Sunday, a repeat of many of the scenes with Orchestra London. Today was a postmortem and the program seems to have been a huge success. There are exciting things in the works for it next year, even bigger and more extensive, but I can reveal those just yet.

And now about those men in my life. They are John Dowland, George Crumb, Francois Couperin, Olivier Messiaen, and last, but not least, Kurt Weill. I'm hard at working with the dramaturgy and staging of the John Dowland cycle AOT will present as part of Baltimore Artscape with Monica Reinagel. The Crumb/Couperin are part of a large and well funded production of several pieces that has lots of video and multimedia, with two of AOT's sopranos, Emily Noel and Rebecca Duren. The production isn't until October, but I need to map out all the elements now so that the video design lab can start creating the technology to make it come to life. The Messiaen is for a staging of his songcycle Harawi that I'm doing in London in September, and of course the Weill is for Songspiel with Sylvia McNair. It is all the way in November, but I have to select the songs, the order, do translations of those not in existence yet, and orchestrate them all for our band.

One the other hand, I can't think of five men I would rather spend this last days in Canada with....

Alice Through the Looking Glass

2009-05-22T09:10:00.004-05:00

My thoughts recently have been heavily on the experience of the artists performing opera. Being a director is extremely rewarding, it is a chance to allow the human imagination to run wild. It is also safe emotionally, we get to ask singers to do things we ourselves never have to do, and sometimes we forget what that experience is like. I go out on a limb saying that it is something unique to singers, more than even instrumentalists and actors.

One of the scenes I'm directing here is from Dvorak's "Rusalka", a piece of epic emotional power, and I am thrilled to get a wack at the end of Act II. The scene begins with an aria for Rusalka's father, continues through Rusalka's dramatic second act aria, and ends with the Prince and Princess' duet and the rejection both of Rusalka and the Prince. It is heavy stuff, and I have developed a concept that is even heavier. My four young singers are excellent. Even more, they are brave to go to these places with me, to explore some of humanities darker elements. It is scarey for them.

The other evening in rehearsal, my wonder Rusalka was giving a drop-dead performance, and collapsed during the area sobbing and unable to go on. It was a profound moment. I often talk to the singers about needing to go to far in order to know the right place to play the scene and still be safe. Well, she did, and I was very proud of her. Later, in an email, she told me that she has been lately working on opening up the physical mechanism of the voice, releasing tension. That, she said, has also left her open emotionally, and singing this scene with the concept I have asked for became too much. It is a beautiful and true idea that we sometimes forget, this profound connection for singers between their instrument and their psychology. I am honored to work with such a group of talented and committed young artists. I helps to remind as all why we do this.

2009-05-16T09:38:00.002-05:00

I have been out without word again for a long time! My apologies. The production of Venus/Dido was a huge success. It was a revival of AOT's first production, but with five years of experience to improve upon what is already a very inventive, moving concept. I couldn't have been more happy with the experience, and it was so nice to close a show and then have the company in town the next day for my marriage! Dan and I were very happy to share that day with artists who have over the years become great friends, it was so special.

Now for two weeks I have been in Canada for the past two weeks. I am co-Artistic Director of the Canadian Operatic Arts Academy in London Ontario. This is the first year of the three week intensive workshop for young singers, that focuses on all the arts that go into making opera. It is a remarkably busy period....everyday dance at 8:30, then musical rehearsals, then masterclasses that range from vocal work, professional studies, stage combat, and finally staging 16 scenes in the evening. There are 27 vocalists, 4 collaborative pianists, two stage managers, and an assistant director. I am very impressed with the level of the students, fantastically high and a diverse group of voices. It is allowing me to stage some big scenes. I am doing 9 of the scenes and they are from Falstaff, Figaro, Rusalka, Calisto, Jephtha, Pelleas, Ariadne auf Naxos, Rosenkavalier, and Don Pasqaule. Just wonderful! And we have an impressive list of guests that include Stephen Blier, the famous coach and founder of the New York Festival of Song, and Chantal Lambert of Opera de Montreal, and Timothy Vernon of Pacific Opera. A great group and a great program that is already funded and in the works for next year.

That is keeping me busy though. We did have a wonderful gala evening on May 1st. Due to a family emergency Sophie Roland could not join us, but baritone Ryan de Ryke rose to the occaision, and he and I performed an hour long program of cabaret music, including his now infamous rendition of the Toreador's song from our Le Cabaret de Carmen. I am so appreciate to our wonderful board of organizers: Alex Ledbetter, Dana Johns, Jesse Hellman, and Stephen Campbell. Thanks for a wonderful kick off to AOT's new season...more to come on that this weekend I hope!

I feel like a plate of tapas...

2009-04-17T16:31:00.002-05:00

That is because I have had little more than three hours sleep in the last 36 hours and am getting ready to crash before it gets too late. Barcelona is beautiful this time of year, and it feels great to visit old friends. But, also to meet new ones. Today I have lovely conversations with Calixto Bieito, Pierre Audi, Sir Brian MacMasters, and Thaddeus Strassbourg. It was a full day, with a lively and interesting conversation on opera, creativity and innovation. I decided not to go to the dinner reception at the royal palace tonight, and to instead stay in and prepare for the competition tomorrow. I will duly report on what goes on.

One really nice thing was to sit in on a discussion of opera criticism by young people under 25 led by my friend Peter de Caluwe from La Monnaie. Fascinating and encouraging to see so many eager opera lovers wanting to write criticism.

"Where ya goin? Barcelona."

2009-04-16T07:08:00.001-05:00

I'm off this morning to the Opera Europa conference in Barcelona, the Liceu is being good enough to host it this year. I will try to post along the way...I'm atleast taking my computer. It will also be a good chance to see lots of friends who live in the area, and to meet a whole host of personalities from the opera world. Most importantly, I will compete in the World Directing Prize on Saturday afternoon. More to come soon I hope...

AOT's Spring Cabaret Gala "La Vie en Rose"

2009-04-12T10:38:00.004-05:00

Home visiting family in Virginia, I finally have a chance to write a bit about AOT's upcoming Spring Gala. What better way to celebrate May Day (May 1st) than with two of American Opera Theater's brightest stars in an evening of cabaret music, fantastic food, delicious drinks, and a silent auction of goodies from all around Baltimore?

French mezzo-soprano Sophie-Louise Roland and Baltimore's favorite baritone Ryan de Ryke (the two stars of AOT's acclaimed "Le Cabaret de Carmen") will perform the most beloved cabaret songs of all time, from the musical lifes of Jacques Brel, Edith Piaf, and of course Kurt Weill. The evening will be full of special guests and surprise announcements, and is a fantastic way to support Baltimore's most innovative and imaginative opera company. Presented in the intimate Hamden setting of The Elms, this is the perfect way to usher in the summer. It will be a summer evening not soon forgotten!

Tickets are only $75, and your attendance will make AOT's largest and most exciting ever a reality. You can purchase tickets online here, or over the phone at 1-800-838-3006. For more information you can call (443) 253 6825.

Back in the USA

2009-04-11T06:27:00.002-05:00

I arrived back to Washington, DC last night for what will be a three month stay in America, except for the month of May in Canada (though my European friends enjoy pointing out that Canada is in America...yeah yeah).

Initially I'm only hear for five days beause I fly this Thursday to Barcelona to compete in the international Opera Europa directing prize. I will direct a scene from "Die Gartnerin aus Liebe" (which is the German singspiel version of Mozart's La Finta Giardiniera, and I have propsed to produce the work in German with spoken texts instead of sung recitatives). Then it is back to America to direct Dido and Aeneas with AOT singers at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, VA.

Then on May 1st is AOT's Spring cabaret gala, which I will post more in tomorrow. This is going to be a great event with lots of food, drink, and fantastic cabaret songs sung by Sophie Roland and Ryan de Ryke. That will be followed by a month teaching in London, Canada at the Canadian Operatic Arts Academy - a great new national young artist program at the University of Western Ontario, the looks to be a university music program on the cutting edges of opera.

June will be a month of catch up and preparing for next season and the season after...yes we are that far ahead! And then in July I'm absolutely pleased the AOT will be a part of Baltimore Artscape. I will have the opportunity to produce a work I've been developing for some time. It is a one-person show of 12 John Dowland songs that will explore the human grief cycle, scored just for mezzo-soprano and guitar. I'm really happy to be collaborating with one of Baltimore's most beloved mezzos, Monica Reinagle, on this project. She is a wonderfully sensitive musician, and a fantastic actor. It is great the Baltimore supports these sorts of activities each year, and I hope everyone will come be a part of these free activities.

So, it will be a Summer of posts....I will try to keep up with it all, starting with my weekend in Barcelona.

Some thoughts on Mozart (and La Finta Giardiniera)

2009-04-06T10:00:00.000-05:00

"The fascination lies in seeing his dramatic genius in embryo, in watching him learn on the job. La Finta Giardiniera is full of pointers to the future: we recognise the characters and situations, but not yet who they really are and why they are there."

". . . I also heard an opera buffa by that wonderful genius Mozart; it is called La finta giardiniera. Flashes of genius appear here and there; but there is not yet that still altar-fire that rises towards Heaven in clouds of incense -- a scent beloved of the gods. If Mozart is not a plant forced in the hot-house, he is bound to grow into one of the greatest musical composers who ever lived."

Mozart always learned voraciously from others, and developed a brilliance and maturity of style that encompassed the light and graceful along with the dark and passionate—the whole informed by a vision of humanity "redeemed through art, forgiven, and reconciled with nature and the absolute".

A bit of sunny news from rainy Belgium!

2009-03-25T07:50:00.002-05:00

This is on a bit of a personal note, but I found out yesterday that I have been passed through to the finals of the Opera Europa Directing Prize. There are 4 of us remaining in the finals, from an original 40 or so. The prize this time around is for a concept proposal for Mozart's "La Finta Giardiniera". For those of you that know this opera, it is a very funny piece that, despite lots of problems and awkward sections, harkens the young genius' growth to maturity. Our propsal, however, focuses on a potential dark side of the work, and looks at the issue of domestic violence in emerging economies of the eastern block. In any event, I will fly to Barcelona for the 2009 Opera Europa conference this April to present the concept and to direct a group of singers at the Liceu in the Act I Finale.

That was a great way to begin the day!

Clips from across the pond.

2009-03-18T09:50:00.003-05:00

Here are two short clips from AOT's January production of Philip Glass and Allen Ginsberg's opera "Hydrogen Jukebox". One is a trailer of the entire production. The second is the movement Wichita Vortex Sutra which ends act one. It is my favorite movement of the piece, and the one which never failed to move me every performance - it is a tremendous statement to the strength and endless capacity for hope of the human spirit.

Tis the season!

2009-02-02T11:05:00.005-05:00

Thats right, time to announce AOT's 2009-2010 season! Next year we will present a core subscription season of three Baltimore shows. Outside of that we will have several projects in Baltimore, Washington, and New York. It is a busy season in this tough time, and I look forward to writing more about that thought soon.

AOT 2009-2010

November 2009
Kurt Weill's
AMERICAN REQUIEM
(Mahagonny Songspiel, Happy End Songspiel, The Seven Deadly Sins, The Berlin Requiem)

Featuring two time Grammy Award winning soprano SYLVIA MCNAIR!

January 2010
Georges Bizet's
LE CABARET DE CARMEN

A revival of AOT's intoxicating version of the classic opera - called "smashing...fresh, inventive, invigorating" by the Baltimore Sun.

April 2010
G.F. Handel's
JEPHTHA

Handels last and finest dramatic work brought to life in a rare and powerful staging.

Subscriptions will become available in April 2009, so be on the look out. And I will write a lot more on each of these productions in the coming months.

Other projects AOT has in the works include:

ANNUNCIATION/VISITATION
This is a staging of George Crumb songcycles combined with the Lecons de Tenebres of Francois Couperin that AOT will premier at Indiana University. We hope to bring this production to Baltimore audiences next season as well.

THE DEATH OF KLINGHOFFER
AOT recently received a large grant from the NEA to present John Adam's controversial and epic opera at the Park Avenue Armory in New York. There are a lot of details to work out still, but I am hoping to make the project a reality.

I'm currently in Bloomington, IN working on a production of Handel's most famous opera Giulio Cesare. And, because I just can't contain my excitement about these things, I will also announce now that we plan to open our 2010-2011 Baltimore subscription series with...GIULIO CESARE. A great work, with tremendous music (the greatest Handel hits), and a compelling story to tell.

A Few Images on Hydrogen Jukebox

2009-01-22T13:51:00.004-05:00

Here are three photos from Hydrogen Jukebox. I hope some of you got to see the performances (all shows were completely sold out and received standing ovations!). The experience was capped off by not being able to get a train from Baltimore to Washington for Sunday's performance. I had to find a way to the College Park Metro station and then walk from the Rosslyn stop across the Key Bridge into Georgetown. The energy in that city was palpable, and as I crossed the Potomac with the Kennedy Center and the Washington Monument in the distance I was struck by how special it was to be doing this piece at this time in this place. It is a moment that all of us will remember forever, and to have transformed HJ into a work the celebrates the American spirit was a tremendously exciting way to be a part of the inauguration experience. The cast worked terrifically hard, and I am honored and awed to have worked with them. It is a great piece that I hope we can do again in the future!

HJ Continues...

2009-01-08T08:10:00.003-05:00

Hydrogen Jukebox is going fantastically well. I hope you can all make it. It has, unfortunately, kept me in rehearsals almost 12 hours a day since we have such a short time to prepare it. I can't express how much the piece has grown on me. Glass' sensitivity to Ginsberg's text is ironic, witty, and saddly touching all at once. I am blessed with an enthusiastic, talented, and hard working cast. The set is coming together a little more each day and the costumes look great. Today I have meetings with the projection designers and the lighting designer. REALLY - you all should not miss this one, it is an extremely rare opportunity to see this piece on stage.

If you aren't sure about Philip Glass...trust me, I understand the feeling. But, this piece is different, I promise. It is accessibly and profoundly moving.

Back in the USA

2009-01-02T05:38:00.003-05:00

Freshly arrived in Washington, DC yesterday evening and ready to start rehearsals this morning, jetlag be damned. I will try to faithfully report and even provide some photos, if I can track down a camera.

Listening to the Crack of Doom on the Hydroden Jukebox

2008-12-13T04:36:00.007-05:00

Working on "Hydrogen Jukebox" has been more than a little consuming. Both the challenge and potential reward of working on a piece like this are far greater than traditional opera - here there is no linear narrative, no characters, no groundwork with which to begin. It is all starting from scratch and letting the mind run wild. All that to say that my days are being spent sequestered in my study creating what will eventually be the production. In the meantime - here are my recently completed program notes, that I think or hope will wet some whistles.

“Hydrogen Jukebox” is a song-cycle. It is epic in length, epic in scale, and epic in scope. Perhaps because of this, it was conceived as a staged work from its inception, and is widely understood, for lack of other vocabulary, to be an opera. It defies true categorization: a number of texts spanning the entirety of Ginsberg's work, set for a myriad of permutations (solos, duets, quartets, full choruses), which are strong in their images and diverse in their subject matters. What holds this all together – what is essential throughout the entire work – is its deeply-American language of symbols, and the balancing of extremes which it communicates.

“Hydrogen Jukebox”, with texts selected by Ginsberg himself, premiered for six singers at the 1990 Spoleto Festival. The production we present tonight is vastly different. Most noticeably, the cast has been expanded to nine and the movements have been reordered to suggest a particular dramatic arc. In its original form “Hydrogen Jukebox” was described at its premier as “a portrait of America throughout the 1950s, 60s, 70s, and 80s”. It is my belief that by arriving at this new ordering of movements, and understanding Ginsberg's cultural references as metaphors for larger universal themes, it can be a piece about much more. Instead of a nostalgic retrospective of the most domestically-tumultuous decades of the twentieth century, our “Hydrogen Jukebox” is an abstract portrayal of the rise and fall, ebb and flow, of an entire society using the imagery of the great American century. It is a portrayal of the necessary and inevitable paradigm shifts which define the human story, with metaphors which are distinctly American in character.

By expanding the message of “Hydrogen Jukebox” far beyond its initial conveyance, this production paradoxically arrives at a general philosophy much closer to a fundamental truth contained within the body of Ginsberg's work: the meeting of apparent opposites in lasting harmony. In a way, this is the meeting of eastern and western thought which is increasingly prevalent in Ginsberg's poetry. It permeates all aspects and layers of “Hydrogen Jukebox”.

“First, in its large scale structure, the work is cyclical. It is indeed the rise and “Fall of America” (to quote the title of Ginsberg's National Book Award-winning collection of poems), but understood as the meeting ends of a circle. The series of texts which begin and end this performance focus simultaneously on creation as destruction as creation. This is an understanding of the world deeply relevant to Ginsberg, and Glass for that matter, as practitioners of eastern thought. In Hinduism, from which almost all of the non-American references in these poems come, creation-destruction can be understood as a function of the dance, called naraja, of the trimurtis-deity Shiva. Naraja is the sustaining of the universe; it is the cosmic vibration and undulation of everything beyond human consciousness. In creation there is destruction, and in the end there is beginning. Likewise, the beginning of “Hydrogen Jukebox” is about the formation of a new society, but contained within that beginning is the struggle and necessary destruction implicit in all new communities. By the same token, the end of “Hydrogen Jukebox” is about the passing away of a society, but within that is the creation of something new. Their time has past, and a new age has come.

“Secondly, the imagery of the work is about balance. In talking about the cyclical structure of this performance I cited its beginning and end as an example. At the center of the work are two movements which balance each other: “Under Silver Wing” and “from Howl”. Essentially, the references in these movements are the same. They are about the American structure; they are about technology, infrastructure, man's interaction with the natural world, and the realization of the American Dream. They are, however, opposite sides of that coin. “Under Silver Wing” portrays the wonder of the American building – skyscrapers rise like crops, airplanes are metallic insects hopping across the landscape. This America is awe-inspiring, wondrous. The America of “from Howl” is the same, but vastly out of balance. Molloch is the technological and psychological god created by man, who demands the ultimate self-sacrifice. The movement portrays materialism, ultra-capitalism, consumerism, fanaticism, and all the 'isms' which define the new global age in dark and catastrophic terms. In a sense, “Under Silver Wing” and “from Howl” portray the same exact city, but they are Metropolis and Gotham. In just this way, almost every movement is mirrored on the other side of the intermission. Ying and Yang permeate “Hydrogen Jukebox”.

“Thirdly, the small scale minutia of many of the individual movements' imagery is about balance between extremes, and in that way the sameness of extreme differences. The strongest example is the dead center of “Hydrogen Jukebox”. Between “Under Silver Wing” and “from Howl”, lies “Wichita Vortex Sutra”. It begins and ends with the personal and the trivial: a man traveling in a car across the middle of America, beginning with a rumination on the solitude of the American automobile, and ending with a pit stop in Florence, Kansas for “tea and gas”. Between these, in what could be considered the epicenter of the vortex which is “Hydrogen Jukebox”, Ginsberg the poet wanders out into the immensity of the universe. He portrays a solitary man summing from within himself all of human consciousness, all deities, all powers, to “make mantra of American language” in the phrase “I declare the end of the war”. It is microcosm and macrocosm come together; it is the most eastern and western of images along side each other to evoke the very definition of “yogi”, defined in shiva samhita as “someone who knows the entire cosmos is situated within his own body”.

“This same pairing of extremes exists in many of the movements of “Hydrogen Jukebox”. It is a literary device that Ginsberg used often, and treasured as endemic of his own style. This he took from the paintings of Paul Cézanne, where he noticed that there was a physical reaction, an “eyeball-kick”, when the eye moved between vastly different colors. He often cited this phrase itself, “eyeball-kick”, as an example in literature of how the same reaction could be achieved. Likewise, he cited the phrase “Dexedrine Clown” which he used to describe Bob Dylan. The most frequent example he used to describe this literary phenomenon came from his most famous poem “Howl”. The line is “Listening to the crack of doom on the hydrogen jukebox”.

“Our production of “Hydrogen Jukebox” is markedly different than what was presented at its debut nearly two decades ago. It isn't about a museum portrait of America throughout its twentieth century growing pains. It is about a universal truth: ages pass away, times come and go, and societies rise from the sea of posterity to which they inevitably return. All of this, when told through the imagery of Americana, is profoundly powerful, and pregnant with meaning. Yet, on a fundamental level, the production you will see tonight reconnects with a mystical thread of insight which runs throughout all of Ginsberg's poetry, and which is latent in the music of Philip Glass.

A teaser...more to come!

2008-12-02T12:20:00.003-05:00