Opera 101—It’s Hard Out Here for a Poet

Earlier this year, I was invited to a preview of Ensemble Parallèle’s production of Orphée by Philip Glass. Far from familiar with postwar concert music or contemporary opera, I was wary at best. However, with the inspiration and libretto being taken directly from the film by Jean Cocteau, my love of French cinema soon won out. The presentation was impressive and, although I had my doubts about some of the design elements, I looked forward to the production.

La Princesse (Death) and Orphée.
Photo by Steve DiBartolomeo 

I was not disappointed. Much to my surprise, I liked the music (and I’m sure the young Philip Glass fan that was my brother in high school would be shocked to hear me say that). Additionally, the singing was outstanding. I had heard a sample last month, but the full cast was really impressive, especially Marnie Breckenridge as La Princesse and Eugene Brancoveanu as Orphée. If you’ve been reading this blog since I started it in September, you know that I only recently began exploring the world of opera with my first subscription to the SFO. I don’t claim to know much about opera singing, but my partner in crime and all things opera, the Maratonista Minimalista, agreed that we didn’t think anything we saw this past fall had such consistently strong singing by all the leads (although some of the French diction could have been improved).

As for the production, while the film Orphée is already a modern, surrealist spin on the Greek myth of Orpheus (who travels to the underworld to rescue his bride), this staging went a bit further by adding a circus element to the depiction of the underworld—harkening back to another French director, Marcel Camus, who set his Orpheus, Orfeu Negro, during Brazil’s Carnaval. This concept ended up working very well and really elevated the second act above some of the sillier surrealist elements of the first. I particularly enjoyed watching the silk aerialist (and, of course, sfmike, who performed admirably as a circus henchman throughout). I would have loved if they had also used the Roue Cyr onstage during the deaths of the first act, although I imagine it may have been too dangerous to do that.

It’s really a shame there are only two performances of this thoroughly enjoyable show. If you can make it to today’s performance at 2:00 pm at the Herbst Theater, I encourage you to do so. I don’t think I’ll ever prefer contemporary pieces over some of the “classics,” but Ensemble Parallèle certainly made me want to explore modern music further and I look forward to next year’s production of John Harbison’s The Great Gatsby. I can think of no higher praise.

[Disclosure: I received complimentary press tickets for this performance. Please refer to my policy page for more information.]

Opera 101—The Modern World and the Underworld

Earlier this week, I had the opportunity to dip my toe into the pool of contemporary opera when I attended Ensemble Parallèle’s preview of their production of Philip Glass’s Orphée, which will be performed on February 26-27 at the Herbst Theater here in San Francisco. While postwar concert music is not really my thing, and my knowledge of Philip Glass is limited to my brother’s repeated playing of the Koyaanisqatsi* soundtrack in high school, I was intrigued by the Orphée part of the equation, as the Jean Cocteau film was one of the first I studied in graduate school.

The film itself is a modern, surrealist spin on the Greek myth of Orpheus, whose main claim to fame was travelling to the underworld to retrieve his beloved Eurydice, killed on the day of their wedding. Orpheus persuades the gods through the power of his song to be allowed to bring his wife back from Hades, but only on the condition that he not look back at her until reaching the land of the living; however, like Lot’s wife, he fails to resist the temptation, losing her forever.

Cocteau updates the setting to postwar France, where Orpheus is a famous poet, hated by rivals, but adored by the public (only in France, people). In this version, Death falls in love with Orpheus, which complicates matters with his one true love just a bit. But how can one resist when Death is played by Maria Casares with steely determination and killer outfits? Although the special effects are laughable by today’s standards, the film remains extremely poetic, if a tad bizarre at times. I can totally see why it would appeal to a modern composer like Philip Glass, although I was somewhat disappointed to learn that he pretty much lifted the libretto straight from the film.

Surprisingly, I quite liked the music we heard and the singers, especially Eugene Brancoveau playing the lead, did an excellent job with it. This production is also adding a circus element to the depiction of the underworld, which I found to be a really interesting idea and totally in keeping with the spirit of the film. I particularly loved that the motorcyclist henchmen would be played by people in Roue Cyr. I was less convinced by some of the other design elements, but I’m willing to give them the benefit of the doubt based on what I saw.

As a side note, it was lovely to meet so many bloggers who have taught me so much about the San Francisco music scene these past months including SFMike (albeit briefly), The Opera Tattler, and Axel Feldheim, who I was thrilled to discover really isn’t a scary German. A big thank you to John Marcher for the invitation.

*As my New England town only had a 99-cent movie theater that played movies very late in their run, we would sometimes drive quite a ways to see something semi-interesting. However, these weren’t exactly “family nights” at the movies, since typically we all arrived together but then almost inevitably chose different theaters. The night my brother saw Koyaanisqatsi, my father and I saw the re-release of Rear Window, and my mother saw some Italian film, The Night of the Shooting Stars, maybe?

"Madame Bovary, C’est Moi!" Or, a Book Salon for the Twenty-First Century

As I mentioned in my inaugural post, one of my projects for the year was reading twelve classics that I had never gotten around to before. While the year started out strong, my newfound interest in reading led me to discover so many great contemporary books (such as Await Your Reply, City of Thieves, and 13 Reasons Why) that I had a bit of trouble keeping up with my should-reads. As you might guess, I soon found myself with half the year gone and Don Quixote and War and Peace still unread.

What to do? In an effort to conquer the remaining books on my list, I started a book salon with a few like-minded work colleagues. The concept is simple: instead of reading and dissecting one book, as in a book club, everyone selects whatever book they want that fits the theme of that month. The initial topics that I proposed revolved around my remaining should-reads: classic boys adventure, dystopian novels, quests, and Russian authors.

After a fabulous first discussion on quests (Moby-Dick, Don Quixote, The Road), this month’s salon was “Cherchez la femme!” and everyone chose books with eponymous heroines. Selections included Jane Eyre, Lolita, and Madame Bovary. I read two short works, both twists on classic tales: Mary Reilly is a retelling of the Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde from the viewpoint of a maid in Jekyll’s household and The Penelopiad tells the story of Homer’s Odyssey through the eyes of Penelope and the twelve hanged maids. Both provide an interesting take on narrative viewpoint and the female perspective. You can see my reviews of both of these works at http://www.goodreads.com/sylview.

So far, both these themes have proved to be excellent jumping-off points for literary discussions and I eagerly await our next salon: Russian Roulette.

Please feel free to post your thoughts and questions on the book salon concept. What do you think would make a good theme for a book salon session?