Everlasting sob of life

29 September 2012

World Premiere of The Shoemaker at Plymouth Congregational Church, A Prairie Home Companion with Garrison Keillor and “American Romantics and Maria Schneider” at The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra

What a weekend. Besides the fact that Apple has temporarily complicated my life with their “revolutionary” new maps application which does not include a public transportation option, I made it to everything on Saturday that I intended. Not on my list of cultural experiences, but cultural nonetheless, I started the day with Jamie at the Iowa vs. Minnesota game at The Loop. I never knew there was such a thing as an “Iowa” bar in Minnesota. I could get into the habit of “beer, balls and boys,” however, if just to ensure some quality time with my domestic.

Yes, that’s an ice luge for beer. And boys. And Iowa football. This Culturevore never professed to be classy. It was fun. Everyone loud and drinking with testosterone filling the air with its sweet intoxication.

But too many things were on my plate for the day, and off to Plymouth Congregational Church I went (not to confession, of course).

I had been spying on the competition (if that’s what they can be called) earlier in the week prior to their opening. Let me be clear for a moment. Concert opera is NOT opera.With no disrespect to the musicians, it is a rehearsal. Opera is pageantry, lights, stage direction, movement, costumes, a full orchestra and so much more. My personal opinion toward concert opera is that it does a great disservice to the artform by not being authentic. But reading about Minnesota Concert Opera’s debut opening (to be truly transparent, I did not attend their performances of I Puritani, and cannot give a assessment of the performances) led me to discover the world premiere of a piece by local favorite composer Stephen Paulus with libretto by his collaborator 15 years prior on The Three Hermits, Michael Dennis Browne.

The Shoemaker, with a cast and orchestra assembled by Philip Brunelle including local opera veterans tenor Dan Dressen and soprano Maria Jette with stage direction by St. Olaf professor Gary Gisselman, is the adaptation of a “Good Samaritan” story by Leo Tolstoy. (To hear their piece on The Shoemaker, visit minnesota.publicradio.org.)

I have always appreciated Steve’s musical writing style. It’s always imaginative and fresh. Funny that a friend asked me later that day if I thought there was a “Pilgrim’s Hymn” in it. Or rather, a choral piece that could be excerpted to become more popular than the opera itself. I don’t necessarily think so. The chorus in this one (not that I’ve seen the entirety of The Three Hermits) seems to be much more supportive of the drama than something that stands out on its own. I have always loved “Pilgrim’s Hymn.” The power and simplicity of that piece cannot be duplicated. (I found a YouTube clip of Luther Nordic Choir…not necessarily for the sound quality, but because it’s followed by a chorale by J. S. Bach from one of his motets I’ll be singing this winter. Oh, and sung at the graveside of J. S. Bach himself in Wittenberg, Germany.)

My favorite moment of the afternoon was running into Gary Gisselman, director of the opera and my former theater advisor at St. Olaf. I probably haven’t seen him since I left the Hill, but what a wonderful guy. And wonderful to remember me after all these years. He actually added something to my Culturevore calendar when he mentioned that he was producing Sondheim’s Marry Me A Little this fall down at St. Olaf, with two women. LOVE my former profs and their commitment to justice. I mean, there is no coincidence that this was programmed so close to the election. I think it’s a brilliant way to get those extremely shielded kids down on the Hill to think about what’s happening in the world around them. And I fully intend to support my professors (if not the college) in their attempt to back the opposition to the Marriage Amendment.

I was quickly off to St. Paul for A Prairie Home Companion, on which the Minnesota Opera Chorus sang, and to which the marketing guy at PHC was so kind to allow me all access to get some pics for social media purposes. Listen to the entire episode of A Prairie Home Companion here. The Minnesota Opera Chorus sings within the first fifteen minutes along with a nice plug for our 50th anniversary season by Garrison.

Garrison Keillor. What can I say? My friend Daniel Vasquez called his the “voice of regret,” which strangely doesn’t bother me. There is some comfort in it…maybe only tangible to Minnesotans. I think it’s the voice of our culture…at least the Norwegian/German Lutheran Midwestern culture in which I was raised.

I will never forget the year after I moved to Chicago…when Kate Hayes (my first Chicago roommate) and I were off on our own paths, getting our own apartments…sitting in my bedroom on Wilson Avenue in Ravenswood and unpacking boxes one Saturday evening. 9/11 had already happened, the country was still in shock but life was moving forward. I moved into my new place, got Ariadne and Naxos (my twin cats), visited friends in NYC for Halloween (grey dust everywhere…I won’t forget the look and feel of that city a month and a half after the tragedy) and settled into my new place for the winter. But I was lonely. And as I plugged in my stereo for the first time and tuned it to WFMT Classical, lo and behold it was a live broadcast from St. Olaf College…A Prairie Home Companion. I lost it (my brand new kittens succeeded to comfort me by dabbing at the tears coming from my eyes), regained control and curled up to listen to the sounds of home through the radio. Sounds of Minnesota, my dear college, of happy Saturday afternoons in the living room of my childhood home with my parents and I listening in. And loneliness faded away.

After PHC, I ran over to Ordway to get some pre-show work done before trekking up to Summit Avenue UCC for The SPCO’s concert. Ahhhhhh, Dawn Upshaw. And what a program it was. And what a terror in my heart that it might be the last time to hear orchestral music this season in Minnesota.

First off, a Walter Piston piece, Divertamento for Nine Instruments, which neither inspired me nor turned me off. Apparently, Piston was one of the most respected composers of the last century. But in my slowly growing appreciation for modern and contemporary music, I can’t say that I’ve heard another of his works.

Then the fun began. Dawn Upshaw, my American soprano sweetheart for nearly a decade and a half, who I’ve only had the pleasure of hearing live a handful of times in my life, sang a piece composed and conducted by Maria Schneider, Carlos Drummond de Andrade Stories for Soprano and Chamber Orchestra. (You can listen to these in The SPCO’s fantastic listening library by following the link.)

Sexy and sweet, Latin yet placid. Perfectly suiting Dawn’s wonderfully singular voice. I was initially a bit off-put by the Prologue’s “vocalise” which sounded a bit out of sync. And the acoustics of the UCC sanctuary didn’t necessarily show off the subtleties of her voice. But she is as American a voice as they come. She is the sound of the childhood of my music education.

In 1999, I picked up two recordings. Jake Heggie’s debut art song album “The Faces of Love” which featured several of the leading American sopranos (Fleming, Von Stade, Larmore, etc.) and a 7 year old “Gorecki Symphony No. 3“ which featured Dawn. To me, these two albums were a foot in the door to the singers of the day…and the sound of classical music in the 90s. And I have been a fan ever since of all of these voices. A bit more intimate a portrait of each of them than any aria or opera recording one could find.

The Barber Adagio for String Quartet, op. 11 was stunning (although I’m pretty sure the Violin I was a bit under pitch). If you’ve never heard that piece live before, DO IT! It’s chilling, really. A string quartet for mourning. And the concert closed with the wonderful Harbison Quintet for Piano, Two Violins, Viola and Cello. Harbison and Upshaw are forever linked in my brain through his opera The Great Gatsby which she premiered at New York City Opera before having to cancel the first remount at Lyric Opera of Chicago in my first year at the company in October of 2000.

I close with some texts from the Schneider:

The Dead in Frock Coats

In the corner of the living room was an album of unbearable photos,
many meters high and infinite minutes old,
over which everyone leaned
making fun of the dead in frock coats.

Then a worm began to chew the indifferent coats,
the pages, the inscriptions, and even the dust on the pictures.
The only thing it did not chew was the everlasting sob of life that broke
and broke from those pages.

Souvenir Of The Ancient World

Clara strolled in the garden with the children.
The sky was green over the grass,
the water was golden under the bridges,
other elements were blue and rose and orange.
A policeman smiled, bicycles passed,
a girl stepped onto the lawn to catch a bird,
the whole world…Germany, China
all was quiet around Clara.

The children looked at the sky: it was not forbidden.
Mouth, nose, eyes were open. There was no danger,
what Clara feared were the flu, the heat, the insects.
Clara feared missing the eleven o’clock trolley.
She waited for letters slow to arrive;
she couldn’t always wear a new dress.
But she strolled in the garden,in the morning!
They had gardens, they had mornings in those days!

– Carlos Drummond de Andrade