jwilzewske: russia

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Thursday, November 24, 2011

Gogol’s Terminal Psychosis, No Effective Medical Palliative Care in Sight

I n the last stage of his life Gogol is increasingly consumed by a religious mania. He considers his past work a sin and burns the second part of his major novel, ‘Dead Souls’. In the end he refuses to eat. In his final hours he is visited by the fantastic figures from his own works – and they show themselves to be more reasonable than he is himself at this point. Gogol has utterly broken with his previous life and renounces it; now it is avenging itself. … This opera is not so much a biography as a poetic and satirical study of one of the greatest Russian writers, whose emotional life is as mysterious and fascinating as his idiosyncratic works... Lera Auerbach … has found her own voice, and it is full of stylistic freedom and dramatic power.”
— Theater an der Wien opera, program notes, 2011.

T he person must, according to the DSM-IV, have at least two out of five symptoms:

(i) delusions, (ii) hallucinations, (iii) disorganised speech, (iv) grossly disorganized or catatonic behavior, or (v) functional incapacities or negative symptoms (such as alogia, avolition, etc)—for a substantial percentage of a one month period;
Plus, continuous signs of disturbance must continue for at least six months;
Plus, substantial social or occupational dysfunction must be evident;
Required exclusion criteria include substance abuse, mood disorder, and pervasive developmental disorder.

C heck, check, and check—with regard to Nikolai Gogol in the last 6 months of his life.

I f you are expecting in Lera Auerbach’s new opera a Gogolesque, cynical account of human nature, or about the ruling class (‘We are the 99%!’), or a scatology as absurdist art, you will not find it here.

N or will you learn famous Gogol’s concept of the untranslatable Russian word пошлость (‘poshlost’). [Vladimir Nabokov explained this as “posh-lust”, “not only the obviously trashy but mainly the falsely important, the falsely beautiful, the falsely clever, the falsely attractive” (Nabokov 1944, p. 70)—the falsely transcendent.] Пошлость reduces reality to a sort of cavalier mediocrity and unrepentant vulgarity—a moral and spiritual condition from which humankind cannot escape—compulsive smutiness, radical pointlessness, compulsive garish carnival, absurd superfluousness.

N o, in this fantastical new opera we get nonstop existential angst and horror—superbly manifested in Auerbach’s score and libretto, and in an exceptionally fine production by Theater an der Wien (who commissioned the work), with performances by ORF Radiosymphonieorchester, Arnold Schoenberg Chor, Grazer Kapellknaben, and Mozartknabenchor Wien… a convincing reenactment, showing the suffering Gogol, receiving no effective medical help for his end-of-life psychiatric condition.

I t is as though Gogol’s invention, пошлость, ironically haunted him during his final days. Which amounts to a lesson to us all, to be careful about what we dream, what we think, what we dwell upon. As our minds begin to fail late in life, those one-time droll ideas of ours—every hubristic preoccupation; every cynical mental posture we ever indulged—every one of them could become real in our waning days—and we may be powerless to make them stop from bothering us. Bad karma or poetic justice, hunting you down in your own lifetime! Ein Alptraum jagt den nächsten!

B efore writing a note of ‘Gogol,’ composer Lera Auerbach immersed herself in the writer’s complete works and over twenty books written about him. It would take similar efforts to begin to understand this opera: taking us inside the fevered mind of its title character, ‘Gogol’ is less a biographical narrative set to music than a phantasmagorical, psychological investigation. Given a virtuosic staging by director Christine Mielitz, it is also an overwhelming theatrical experience.” — Zwölftöner (Werner Kmetitsch), 17-NOV-2011.

A uerbach regularly collaborates with soloists and ensembles including Hilary Hahn, Vadim Gluzman, Leonidas Kavakos, Julian Rachlin, Philippe Quint, Gautier Capuçon, Alisa Weilerstein, David Finckel, Kim Kashkashian, Tokyo String Quartet, Borromeo Quartet, Artemis String Quartet, Vanbrugh String Quartet, Kremerata Baltica, Camerata Pacifica, and the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. Auerbach was born in the city of Chelyabinsk, adjacent to Siberia. After writing her first opera when she was 12, she moved to the U.S. in 1991 where she studied piano and composition at Juilliard. Her piano studies took her to the Hochschule für Musik und Theater in Hannover. She was awarded the Hindemith Prize by the Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival in Germany, Deutschlandfunk’s Förderpreis, selected as a Paul and Daisy Soros Fellow, and in 2007 she was selected as a member of the Young Global Leaders forum by the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

G ogol’s ‘grotesque’ is a—] means of estranging—a comic hyperbole that unmasks the banality and inhumanity of ambient reality.” — Susanne Fusso, p. 69.

Monday, November 21, 2011

Káťa Kabanová’s Admission-against-Interest: Janáček’s Kabanicha as ‘Cyberbully’

T he avant-garde lies surely in the fact that it does not presuppose the spontaneous social order to which Janáček constantly returns us; it is not addressed to a community but to the individual, who experiences through the music the alienation that reigns in his heart... This is a music which was not derived from the community portrayed in it: it was an attempt to create that community as a musical idea. And that, in part, is why it is so inpsiring... [we] hear in this music the working out of an ideal... an ideal of human community.”
— Roger Scruton, quoted in Whittall, p. 37.

O per erzählt vom Untergang einer jungen Frau, die zum einen an ihrer außerehelichen Liebe und der daraus resultierenden Angst vor Höllenstrafe, zum anderen an der Kälte und Heuchelei der Gesellschaft zerbricht.
[Opera about the downfall of a young woman who under duress confesses her extra-marital love affair—her admission due partly to fear of eternal damnation in Hell, and due also to the alienating hypocrisy of family and society.”
— Wiener Staatsoper program notes.

T he Leoš Janáček opera Káťa Kabanová at the Wien Staatsoper is a beautiful, intimate production. Lots of great “chamber-ensemble-within-orchestra” playing: the textures and dramatic timbre changes and “sectional” orchestrations are so varied!

F or a work that was composed in 1919-21, this has a lot of "contemporary" qualities to it. I had not expected it would resemble ‘Intervention’ or other reality television.

T he lead part (Káťa Kabanová, sung by Janice Watson) was compellingly performed, with a most convincing devolution from admission of infidelity to suicidality.

Janice Watson - Katja
Klaus Florian Vogt - Boris
Deborah Polaski - Kabanicha
Marian Talaba - Tichon
Wolfgang Bankl - Dikoj
Gergely Németi - Kudrjas
Stephanie Houtzeel - Varvara
Marcus Pelz - Kuligin
Alisa Kolosova - Glasa
Donna Ellen - Feklusa
N. N. - Eine Frau

T he intimidating, icy-cold Mother-in-Law-from-Hell (Kabanicha, sung by Deborah Polaski) reminded me of nothing so much as the situation several years ago in the real-life suicide of young Megan Meier subsequent to transgenerational cyberbullying by Mrs. Lori Drew. A tremendous amount of her aggression is projected “virtually,” by putting words in her son's mouth, making him say mean and manipulative things, or making it appear that her feelings and thoughts are really his.

L ike so many contemporary online behaviors, the Ostrovsky story on which this opera is based endorses the value of passion as a medium of truth and authentic identity. When that person—that identity—is persistently reproached, rejected, subordinated, and intimidated, a dark, deep depression sets in. Life seems unworth living. Katja feels lonely, helpless, convinced that nothing will ever change.

A nd Kabanicha the mother-in-law, like so many bullies, has profoundly low self-esteem and is even more unhappy than she makes her victims. She is evil, but more depressed and revealing of the meanness that can come from depression than simply evil per se.

T his is not pre-revolutionary Russian nor Soviet-era cynicism, nor even a criticism of the Church and its punitive tendencies in situations of marital infidelity. If anything, this is a straightforward indictment of dysfunctional family and community culture of 20th-Century modernity… evoked by the Art Deco metropolitan sets.

J anáček’s music is so inflected by the rhythm of the Czech language, whether performed in English or German or other languages. I try to keep up simultaneously, alternating between the English and German, on the small LCD text displays attached to the seatbacks in front of us.

I think that in the music and in the text the opera does not try to explain itself but presents a situation which, on the surface, is very simple. The surface is what is primary. The mystery is already on the surface. In the text and music this is allowed to resonate. For me a work is like peeling an onion. You take a layer off, then another layer, then another and so forth, until you get almost nothing... All my work is choreographed, so I can do initial blocking and choreography with stand-ins and it is notated. This makes it much easier for me to teach the choreography to the singers. Western singers for the most part have no training in movement and dance. This way of working makes it easier for me to show the choreography to the singers.” — Robert Wilson, Prague, 2002 production of Káťa Kabanová.

I n the ending after Katja has hurled herself into the river, we hear the mordent/turn theme played by a trumpet. The river is something like the chorus in a Greek tragedy. The opera ends with a majestic and dignified presentation on choir and orchestra thundering out—and then lights out to black. Wonderful symbolism. Beautiful production, set design, and lighting. Superb singing and acting, and gorgeous orchestra.

L eave it to follow from what you are reading now: a different situation from the present one; a pattern of activity from different from the historical and psychological contexts where your reading is done in the Here and Now... Here and Now, the [opportune] place for engaging other impassioned unions and charged connections amongst us. Imagine a future where you connect like this exclusively, with the greatest fortune and unprecedented speed.].” — Wiener Staatsoper screen.

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Marc-André Hamelin’s Impressionism: Place, Memory & Identity

I wrote a Prelude and Fugue without thinking it would be part of a collection. Then gradually the idea [for composing a set of Etudes] came to me, because I was inspired by the Twelve Etudes in the Minor Keys by [the French composer] Alkan. I was playing a lot of [his pieces] at the time. But [while these Etudes were composed incrementally, over 25 years beginning in 1986] the ‘cycle’ didn’t really take shape until just a little while ago... When I had about nine of them finished, that’s when I got a letter out of the blue from C.F. Peters asking whether they could publish my Etudes. So that was really an incentive to finish the series.”
— Marc-André Hamelin, interview with Topher Levin.

M arc- André Hamelin’s Harriman-Jewell Series recital on Saturday evening explored the relation of the individual to ‘place’—impressions and memories of place and identity.

Berg - Piano Sonata, Op. 1
Liszt - Piano Sonata in B minor
Debussy - Préludes, Book 2 (excerpts): La puerta del vino, Les fées sont d’exquises danseuses, Les tierces alternées, Feux d’artifice
Hamelin - Twelve Études In All The Minor Keys (excerpts): Études 2, 7, 8, 11, and 12

H aving never heard them before, the 13-minute Berg Sonata and the 24-minutes of excerpts from Hamelin’s ‘12 Études in All the Minor Keys’ were, for me, the highlights of the performance.

T he 12 Études are like a time-lapse self-portrait of Hamelin as a person and as a musician. Each person’s identity is actively created: of that there is no doubt. Impressions of new experiences and memories of experiences past engage us on a lifelong, daily basis as each of us constructs our [multiple] identities, multiple personae. The dimensions explored in these Études include the body [including the left-hand Étude, No. 7], the neighborhood and community and nation, Time (the epoch in which you live or the person remembered lived), and our mobility between settings (émigréness)—some settings that we ‘own’ or belong to; other ones that are not ours, or that we are displaced from against our wishes, or that we out-live—how these all shape, and are shaped by, people’s identities.

U nlike some composers, I don’t regard writing for one hand as an opportunity to display pianistic proficiency. Instead, I consider it a fascinating compositional constraint. There is not much point in composing for one hand unless one tries to make the textures as rich as possible, and it is a special delight to make one hand sound like two.”
— Marc-André Hamelin, program notes.

T hese Études argue that sense-of-place and belonging are the result of our imagination as individuals and as families, communities, societies... that our identities are actively constructed over time, not passively received. Our narratives of place-situated belonging and identity are time-sensitive, context-sensitive. They mutate and evolve. They are a product of the things that we hold dear, fear, obsess over, remember; they are a product of where and with whom we spend most of our time. Hamelin is very modest about the happenstantial way in which the Études came to be the way they are—asserting that they merely or mostly accumulated over time; that they were never envisioned as a collection of 12 and were never meant to be autobiographical. And yet a great part of their beauty, I think, is that they are this 25-year pianistic portrait of his own personal Canadian narrative.

T hat they are all in minor keys is, I hope, not a consequence of his living in Boston!

H amelin’s encore, an obscure Prelude by Leonid Sabaneyev (1881–1968), was a captivating little character piece, mysterious, inviting, poignant, jewel-like... a by-now-nostalgic example of Soviet modernism embodying the will of the individual rather than the Party. Self-actualization of each comrade, is what it sounds like. Contemplate, if you will, the utopian dream of the national unity of free-spirit comrades creating, producing, acting in concert, is what it seems to suggest. This Prelude made me think, among other things, of how ungodly far humanity has come (regressed?) in 100 years! The things that, to many, once seemed reachable, in one’s own country! It feels like we are all émigrés now...

T he ineffable qualities of instrumental music meant that the authorities continued to regard music as a less-than-critical ideological arena.”
— Amy Nelson, Music for the Revolution, p. 243.

Friday, April 8, 2011

Musorgsky’s Dream Worlds: I Musici and Natasha Turovsky’s Animations

W hen Victor Hartmann, an artist, designer and sculptor, died of a heart attack in 1873, his close friend Modest Mussorgsky was devastated and slipped into a depression aggravated by his alcohol problem. Vladimir Stasov, a music critic and friend of both Mussorgsky and Hartmann, arranged an exhibit of about 400 works of the deceased artist, hoping that this tribute might relieve Mussorgsky's depression. Thanks to Stassov, Mussorgsky was inspired to create a suite of ten musical portraits for piano, but it did not achieve popularity in any form until Maurice Ravel orchestrated it in 1923. ... Two years ago, Yuli Turovsky made his own arrangement for string orchestra. Each musical portrait of the original work is based on one of Hartmann’s paintings, though the visual element has been reinterpreted in surrealistic terms by Turovsky’s daughter Natasha.”
— Robert Markow, program notes.

K nowing that most of the paintings by Victor Hartmann which inspired his friend Mussorgsky were lost, I asked Natasha to paint new pictures, pictures inspired by the music, just as the music had been inspired by the pictures. After this was done, the next idea was to make these pictures and their personages ‘dance’ with the music. In this ‘symbiotic’ form, the audience will listen as well as ‘see’ the music.”
— Yuli Turovsky.

P ossibly the best, most compelling imagery to accompany music ever, these animated paintings [mainly watercolors] by the talented artist/violinist Natasha Turovsky, daughter of I Musici’s founder, Yuli Turovsky that were projected during their performance in Kansas City tonight.

I was reminded of Guerino Mazzola’s and Stefan Müller’s work on music information retrieval (MIR), semantic matching, and visualizations of music vector-fields with his Corebounce and EspressoRUBETTE® software (2003, pp. 920ff)... a set of notes comprising a score S, a corresponding performance P, and the associated set of field vectors F.... The animations reminded me of Mazzola’s so-called ‘Inverse Performance’... how expressive shapes can be extracted from performance and can then be re-represented in other media.

M odest Musorgsky began with a combination of title and then music... It is natural that anyone listening to music probably will have images going in his or her mind. Painting these pictures simply captured some of them for me, our version of images, in a concert. I would listen thousand times to the same piece... some are inspired more by ideas, some more by actual music color... At that point, when I was doing these paintings, there was no question about [the possibility of] doing something more with a painting [an extended opportunity to amend and enhance it]. But when I was asked now to do animation, then I thought, okay, now it [conventional painting] is not enough. If I would have known in advance the details of the performance or animation production that [Yuli] had intended, probably I would have done the paintings differently; I would have made different pictures. It is okay. In animation, I thought, how to make this stand out, since this character is very small? I did maybe ten drawings of a rooster... which became all 10 into one animated rooster that moves around on the screen. It is like a ballet: this movement, you try to see how the image, how this particular part of the image corresponds to [signification in—] the music... It’s not just animation; it’s not just music: they became ‘one’.”
— Natasha Turovsky, NPR interview with Laura Spencer, 06-APR-2011.

S ocial pressures shape anybody’s personal expression, composers maybe more so than others. But while both internal and external issues imbue the composition with its material and color, meaning does not imply pathology. Handel’s ‘O, Sleep, why dost thou leave me’ doesn’t necessarily mean that Handel was an insomniac or obsessing over his sleep patterns. Writing ‘Kindertotenlieder’ wouldn’t necessarily mean that Mahler was morbidly depressed, even though this was composed to memorialize the death of a friend’s child.

S o the message sent does not necessarily define the sender. And yet, “poiesis is concerned with the individual condition of the work’s creator as a consequence of the history [of the work’s] development as well as with the role of the broader frame of the work... neither the frequency of the vibration nor the envelope of its amplitude is uniquely determined... In fact, Fourier’s Theorem only states uniqueness of the coefficients if the fundamental period is given; but the latter is not automatically inscribed: such parameters are part of poiesis... the way of making the sound, not a ‘neutral’ sound-object.” [Mazzola, p. 12]. Here we have in Yuli Turovsky’s chamber orchestral arrangements of Musorgsky’s ‘Pictures at an Exhibition’ Natasha Turovsky’s ‘inscribing’ us, just as she was herself ‘inscribed’ by this music. Truly beautiful.

B y 1871 [age 32] he was already becoming irrelevant, and he sensed this. His intensifying depression made him fair game for anyone who might seem to have an answer, and he fell under the influence of a soothsayer who turned him from a freethinker into a fervent believer... For four years he withdrew completely from Russian musical life...”
— David Brown, p. 204.

T he sync’ing of the animated montages to the orchestra’s playing was flawless, crisp, elegant. The moods of the Natasha Turovsky’s paintings (and Gäel Hollard’s choreography and digital renderings and animations of the paintings by Hollard and Marie-Josee Auclair and Jean-Philippe Traore) embody the best of atmospheric aesthetics in animated film production. The imagery powerfully evokes the fantastical hallucinations, the playfulness, the vivid dreams and nightmares, the bipolar depression, the impressionability of Musorgsky near the end of his short life—evokes his inertness leading to dependence on others to get him to act, alternating with extreme agitation. The paintings are edgy and have wonderful visual 'depth'... they are at times sweet but not sentimental. Turovsky’s brush and pen and charcoal techniques are varied, capturing and keeping the audience’s attention and lending dramatic emphasis to the sonic gestures and arc of the music—exciting yet coherent throughout the work, despite the considerable variety in technique and visual composition.

W hen many struggle to integrate light and imagery with serious music, Ms. Turovsky and Mr. Hollard, Ms. Auclair, and Mr. Traore succeed. If you wish to have an iconic example of an approach that works, combining imagery and music, this is it. Bravo!

T abaimo’s installations clearly propose a notion and position of implicated ‘spect-actorship’ for viewers, where ‘implicated’ designates simultaneous participation and immersion—physical, political, theoretical, poetic... ‘Spect-actorship’ captures our strangely split positionality of being a part of this installation—we act like, and even become, additional characters in the animated film... the work's mechanical reproduction of a double reflexivity: the reflexivity inherent in the artist’s implicit conception of the virtual image and creative evolution as animation; and the reflexivity of the animated film as an art that is endlessly fascinated by its own elastic capacity for world-making.”
— Steven Brown, p. 209.

F rom the back room the sound of plates crashing and uncorking of bottles was to be heard. Each time Musorgsky emerged, he was becoming ever more ‘tight’. After supper the concert began, where Musorgsky would appear already completely ‘plastered’, as accompanist and solo performer. He played his own compostions with amazing perfection, making a stunning impression... At this time he was suffering from frightening hallucinations so often observed in alcoholics. Leonova reported on this in her recollections.”
— Sergey Rozhdestvensky, Univ. St. Petersburg Dept. of History, passage from Keldish & Yakovlev, 1932, ‘Musorgsky k pyatidesyatoletiyu so dnya smerti’, quoted in Brown, p. 352.