jwilzewske: comedy

Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Gotham Chamber Opera: “Lexapro… for anxiety, fictional and non-fictional!”

B ecause you're so close you have no choice but to feel a part of it... It’s really visceral!”
— Neal Goren.

A ttended the 10^th anniversary celebration performance of Gotham Chamber Opera last night, at Le Poisson Rouge. Founded in 2000 by Neal Goren, Gotham Chamber Opera is dedicated to producing rarely-performed chamber operas from the Baroque era to the present (including Piazzolla’s 1968 tango opera, Sutermeister’s 1935 ‘Die schwarze Spinne’, Britten’s 1947 ‘Albert Herring’, Haydn’s 1779 ‘L’isola disabitata’, and Handel’s 1733 ‘Arianna in Creta’). As last night’s performance demonstrated, GCO is also dedicated to new music combined with a hefty dose of comedy. Their concert included the première of a new work by Gabriel Kahane, ‘You left me, Sweet, two legacies’, a setting of the Emily Dickinson poem with that first line, performed by soprano Jennifer Check and pianist Neal Goren.

A lso on the program were Opera Company of Philadelphia composer-in-residence Lembit Beecher’s dark, poignant and beautiful ‘Heart Rhythms’ 2008 trio for bass clarinet (Amy Zoloto), violin (Nurit Pacht), and cello (Sophie Shao); Mozart’s ‘Quercia annosa su l’erte pendici’, aria No. 7 from ‘Il sogno di Scipione’, K. 126; Ravel’s ‘Chansons Madécasses’; George Lam’s and Benjamin Rogers’s ‘Variations’; Purcell’s ‘Sound the Trumpet’ 1694 aria/ode celebrating the birthday of King James II [Maeve Höglund, soprano; Gennard Lobardozzi, tenor; Keun-A Lee, harpsichord; Sophie Shao, cello]; Richard Strauss’s ‘Wie schön is doch die musik’ [Benjamin LeClair, bass] and ‘Marie Theres! Hav’ mir’s gelobt’ from ‘Die Rosenkavalier’ [with Eve Gigliotti, mezzo-soprano]; and ‘Les vents furieux’ from Rameau’s 1745 hit ‘La Princess de Navarre’. Gabriel Kahane and ensemble Miracles of Modern Science (MoMS) [Evan Younger, vocals/double-bass; Josh Hirshfeld, vocals/mandolin; Kieran Ledwidge, vocals/violin; Geoff McDonald, vocals/cello; Tyler Pines, vocals/drums] contributed comic and atmospheric pieces as well.

O ne of the works, George Lam’s and Benjamin Rogers’s ‘Variations On’, incorporated fragments of ambient/overheard conversations in public spaces combined with satirical quotes from recent pharmaceutical advertisement voiceovers. The latter were sometimes edited or transformed slightly (as, for example, with the one in the title of this blogpost, for Forest Laboratories’ Lexapro® escitalopram SSRI antidepressant), which makes the quoted material function as commentary on contemporary society—in a manner that is only incrementally more disturbing than the original ad.

T he audience in the sold-out LPR club loved the whole evening. Bravo! Happy GCO 10^th anniversary! Many happy returns!

Sunday, February 17, 2008

Bruce Adolphe and Daedalus Quartet: Serious Joking Around

Bruce Adolphe and Daedalus Quartet at Missouri Southern State University, Joplin, 16-FEB-2008

L ike the philosopher Theodor Adorno, I say that every work of Art is a crime not committed. Art keeps us wayward artists off the streets.”
— Bruce Adolphe, 15-FEB-2008.

D o video games help you play as fast as you do?”
— Anonymous, audience member, age 9, question to violinist Kyu-Young Kim

Y es, well, video games couldn’t hurt; they probably do help with coordination and finger-speed. But I think it’s better to practice with your instrument and the music and start very slowly and get faster that way. Use your metronome to see how fast you get.”
— Kyu-Young Kim, supportive but directive response to young audience member at MSSU, Joplin, MO, 16-FEB-2008

Bruce Adolphe’s ‘Piano Puzzlers’ program recasts folk tunes and popular songs in the styles of famous Classical composers for call-in contestants. U.S. National Public Radio (NPR) personalities Robert Siegel, Susan Stamberg, and Nina Totenberg are the sort of guests who appear on Piano Puzzlers. Adolphe’s comic compositions are very popular with adult audiences. But they’re also tremendously well-suited to younger audiences and educational programs in schools. In fact, the kids are much better than the adults, at recognizing what folk or pop songs have been disguised in the ‘recompositions’. The kids’ superiority at this game is as empowering as it is unexpected, for the kids and parents alike.

It’s a joy to observe Bruce and the members of Daedalus Quartet interacting with a theater of about 150 kids and their parents—as I did yesterday, at MSSU in Joplin, Missouri. After a series of Puzzlers, Adolphe and Daedalus Quartet embark on a series of dramatic, thematic ‘Urban Scenes for String Quartet and Kids’ that Adolphe composed for young-audience programs such as this.

The movements include ‘Rush Hour’ (depicting the events of urban traffic, gridlock, and healthy and unhealthy responses to it), ‘Window-shopping’ (mostly from the perspective of the self-absorbed shopper), ‘Waking Up’ (replete with alarm-clocks, plus gaping yawn sounds by the violins), and ‘Dreaming’ (an aleatoric-antiphonal piece with distant horns and sirens in the aisles of the auditorium, plus massive audience-generated breathing effects simulating a snoozing cat-napper).

I t’s when you walk around and don’t buy anything at all, and the store-owner is furious.”
— David, audience member, age 7, answering Bruce Adolphe’s question ‘What is window-shopping?’

W ell, that’s correct! A far more complete definition, ‘A-causes-B’, than I usually get. Although I suppose you could go even further to say how window-shopping causes the store-owner to go bankrupt, and how enough merchants’ going bankrupt destroys the country’s economy, and ultimately ruins civilization. All of that is what you mean? Yes. But that’s more than we need for this movement of this piece of music that we’re about to play, entitled ‘Window-shopping’. Your definition is far more sinister than this music, I think. But it adds a dimension that we can’t now eliminate from our thoughts, right? Perfect! Thank you!”
— Bruce Adolphe, replying, to the great delight of David (who didn’t realize his blunt definition contained a joke so big as this) and the entire audience.

This family-oriented chamber music program is thoroughly enjoyable. Adolphe and members of Daedalus Quartet well and truly animate the event and clearly derive as much fun from it—from the unexpected directions that the program takes via the young participants’ contributions—as the kids and the parents do. This is not any conventional ‘out-reach’ or didactic ‘stuff that’s good for you’ program. It’s an hour of non-stop, genuine fun. Adolphe and all of the Daedalus Quartet members are lightning-quick wits and totally spontaneous. Fantastic!

G reat! But what’s with your shoulder-shrug thing at the end of whenever you let the alarm-clock ring? Next time, can you do the alarm without the shrug, do you think? Actually, leave the shrug in! It happens a lot in orchestras. At least in orchestra pits. People don’t want to admit it. The glock or the cymbal is waiting for their note, and finally it comes and they play it. And what was the big deal? [Shrugs.] Kind of ruins it for the other players, and for the audience, if they see the shrug. Says that everything else is small, too. Drives conductors crazy. Yeah, leave your shrug in. It’s perfect! ”
— Bruce Adolphe, instruction, to the 12 year-old boy who agreed, I’ll do your alarm-clock effect, No big deal, I can take a cue, What, This is all you need me for here?