Elektra

A friend had last minute tickets to see Strauss's Elektra at the Met last night! It was a *wonderful* surprise!

Elektra is totally different than any kind of opera I've seen so far. The music was far more dramatic and intense, and possibly more complex (although what do I know). It created this sense of emotional urgency that was actually exhausting. Even though the music had mellower or more haunting moments, and it wasn't exactly all on one pitch, the level of emotion was so high that it felt like there was little break from it. Also, literally there were no breaks. No pauses to applaud an aria, no intermission.

Susan Bullock sang Elektra, and gave a powerful performance. I was more empathetic to the other female characters, though. Klytamnestra was sung by Felicity Palmer and I found her part very moving. I was more able to empathize with her torment than with Elektra's (I have to say, sometimes Elektra just seemed petulant and pouty rather than filled with rage, but I think part of that had to do with the staging). Elektra's sister Chrysothemis was sung by Deborah Voigt and this also was a very moving performance, and a very moving role. There were few male parts, but the singer who played Orestes was very commanding and had a great voice and stage presence (Evgeny Nikitin).

I have to say I found the staging rather uncomfortable to watch. The set was terrific, but it was set at a near acute angle, and there was a set of stairs without a banister that was used frequently. It seemed like the performers had trouble feeling physically confident, and watching them deal with these structural impediments was kind of distracting. Plus, they had long trains I was nervous they were going to trip over.

Also, there was a giant dead horse on the side of the stage that was creepy and horrifying and beautiful all at the same time.

I should also note, this was my first German opera, and the sound of the words definitely took some getting used to.

Funny People

The other night I watched Funny People. I don't know what I expected but I found myself fairly absorbed in it.

Adam Sandler, who I've never liked, plays a famous comedian who's done a lot of schlock movies. He finds out he has a fatal blood disease and reconsiders the choices he's made in life. He hires Seth Rogan's Seth Rogan character as an assistant, and the movie is largely about the way they bond. The dialogue is excellent, and the acting, although by no means particularly impressive, is good enough. Seth Rogan is affable as ever. Sandler tries to be serious, but has very little nuance.

There was a major plot around a lost love of his life that took up a good part of the movie and felt rather strained. A lot of it could have been cut and the movie would have been better if it was 30 minutes shorter.

Making Opera: The Creation of Verdi's La Forza del Destino

Well, although not as problematic as Opera Fanatic, Making Opera: The Creation of Verdi's La Forza de Destino was not exactly wonderful. I mean, I liked it enough, but it really, really dragged for me and I was doing some serious multitasking while it was playing.

Making Opera follows a company putting together an opera from day one to the dress rehearsal 21 days later. There are very few talking heads, just scene after somewhat disjointed scene of rehearsals. It's interesting and boring at the same time.

It was interesting seeing the chorus rehearse, particularly the first time they had a stage rehearsal. It was interesting watching the singers perform their roles sitting down in a room on their first day. Although they focused on the singers, the conductor (Arenas) and the director (Copley), I was most curious about the backstage stuff. They showed all the painstaking work that is done by hand, such as the painting of every little square on the giant wall, and the sewing of the wigs and costumes. One of my favorite moments was during a principals' rehearsal. It was a one of their birthday's and the cast surprised them with a cake. I've never, ever heard such a wonderful rendition of the Happy Birthday song!

There were very long extended scenes of the singing, particularly at the end for the final dress rehearsal, and I found it boring. Maybe I would have liked it better if there were subtitles for the performance parts. The music was absolutely beautiful, but the documentary just didn't feel that compelling or even watchable.

(I thougth this moment of the brilliant soprano singing in a tacky cat t-shirt particularly amusing)

Phoebe in Wonderland

I just watched Phoebe in Wonderland on Watch Instantly. I started playing it so I would have something to look at while I beaded, and didn't really expect much.

It turned out to be a very sensitive, imaginative movie about a troubled little girl and her family's attempts to cope with her difficulties.

There were many, tense, lovely and upsetting scenes, and great acting across the board. I was riveted by it, and was very pained by the girl's isolation with her problem.

The story centers around her involvement with the school's production of Alice in Wonderland, which her mother had written a dissertation about. As she gets immersed in her role as Alice, her "symptoms" get more severe. Her acting teacher(Patricia Clarkson) allows her uniqueness to flourish, and doesn't see the problems; her mother (Felicity Huffman) blames herself and struggles with her own issues; the father exudes a sense of alienation from the family... The ending didn't really do it for me; it seemed to tack on a gloss of a diagnosis as if that would solve everything. And, weirdly, the play suddenly included a musical number that was rather cheesy and didn't fit with the tone of the rest of the movie.

Perverts and Predators

Perverts and Predators: The Making of Sexual Offending Laws by Laura J. and Lisa Anne Zilney, is decent overview of sex offending legislation in the US, with a nice mix of sexology, and sex-positive sentiments. But it's really more for someone who is not familiar with these issues. Also, it raises some contradictions that it doesn't resolve.

M. Butterfly

Last night I watched David Cronenberg's M. Butterfly with Jeremy Irons.

It's a very unusual story, about a French diplomat in China who falls in love with an enigmatic Chinese opera singer. He first sees her performing excerpts from Madame Butterfly, and the themes of that opera, as well as the music, pervade the movie.

It is a story of sexual obsession and Jeremy Iron's enslavement to his "slave" (as she calls her self), Butterfly.

It is complicated by the fact that his "Butterfly" is a communist spy, and, even worse, is really a man. The extent of his belief in their romance and passion was such that he never realized, or let himself realize, that he was with a man (he never saw her naked, and she performed all the sexual services in their relationship).

After years of being together he learns the truth and is imprisoned as a traitor. He is shocked and repulsed to learn that his lover was actually a man, and he goes crazy in jail and eventually, while dressed as a geisha, kills himself.

I watched it on Watch Instantly, which is hard to hear; so I missed a lot of the dialogue. Cronenberg and Irons are a creepy team, and, when all is said and done, I think that although I was intrigued by this movie, I did not in fact enjoy it.

Opera Fanatic

(This was one mezzo's response to Zucker's intimations about the sexual proclivities of mezzos)







(This is an example of the yellow cast to the footage)







So, Opera Fanatic-- Not sure what to say about this, uh, "singular" documentary.

It chronicles an opera fanatic in his quest to find out what drove the "expressive" singing of opera divas from the 40s & 50s (that is, the divas of his childhood). He manages to get a number of interesting interviews with some very impressive, elegant, quirky, accomplished, and charismatic elderly ladies, and these are juxtaposed with footage of them singing in their heyday. So, that was pretty good.

However, the fanatic himself, Stefan Zucker is really kind of problematic. His voice is almost impossible to get past, and he is the slowest speaker I have ever heard. His fanaticism with opera seems linked to some oedipal issues (his mother and he both were opera singers, and sung many duets together. He said that none of the women he loved as an adult had the emotional range that his mother had) (Also worth mentioning, Zucker achieved the world's record for highest tenor).

Furthermore, his weird sexuality seeps into the film in an unpleasant way. He informs the filmmakers while they are in the car on the way to interview a famous mezzo-soprano, that mezzos are known for their sexual proclivities. To quote: "To judge from accounts of singers I've interviewed, they enjoy kinds of intercourse other women might find painful." (I placed a picture above of the mezzo's retort to this suggestion.). He also tells one woman he interviewed that he felt "an erotic intensity" to her "emanations". Yuck.

Also the film quality was pretty poor. Much footage had a yellow cast to it, and most of it seemed grainy. Not only that, but there were entire chunks of dialogue that weren't subtitled.

Here's what one Netflix reviewer wrote:

"The bad color is surely an accident of inept filming, but the rest reflects the character of interviewer Stefan Zucker, a bloated, simpering prig with tunnel vision about singing technique. The first offense is that Zucker speaks, at all times, in an affected falsetto that is torture to hear. It's a wonder he isn't beaten to a pulp by everyone he dares to address. The second is that he omits any overview of each diva's professional accomplishments during a bygone era and instead hounds them all with the same two questions about the nature of "expressive singing" and the utility of "the chest voice." He writhes appallingly to encourage one diva's twisted wisecrack about a "spanking," gushes that he finds another interview "erotic," and otherwise tries to worm his way into their confidences through flattery and little gifts that they complain about having to accept ("What shall I do with THESE?"). Marcella Pobbe finally gives him a much needed verbal whack by refusing to go along with his "stupid questions," which is probably the highlight of this otherwise unbearable film."