Today's Birthdays

Caroline Miolan‑Carvalho (1827-1895)
Ernest John Moeran (1894-1950)
Silvestre Revueltas (1899-1940)
Nathan Milstein (1904-1992)
Jule Styne (1925-1994)
Jaap Schröder (1925)
Odetta (1930-2008)
Stephen Cleobury (1948)
Donna Summer (1948-2012)
Jennifer Higdon (1962)

and

Henri Matisse (1869-1954)
Nicholas Sparks (1965)
Junot Díaz (1968)

Today's Birthdays

William Croft (1678-1727)
André Messager (1853-1929)
Joseph Bohuslav Foerster (1859-1951)
Alfred Einstein (1880-1952)
Dmitri Kabalevsky (1904-1987)
Paul Bowles (1910-1999)
Sir David Willcocks (1919-2015)
Bo Diddley (1928-2008)
Bruno Canino (1935)
June Anderson (1950)
Stephen Jaffe (1954)
Antonio Pappano (1959)

and

Theodor Fontane (1819-1898)
Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936)
Sara Lidman (1923-2004)

And from the Composers Datebook:

On this day in 1879 was the premiere of Gilbert & Sullivan's operetta "The Pirates of Penzance," in Paignton at the Royal Bijou (partial preview to insure British copyright). The first full performance of the new work occurred at the Fifth Avenue Theater in New York City the following day, with Sullivan conducting and Gilbert in attendance. The New York premiere was arranged to register American copyright of the new work and pre-empt unauthorized "pirate" productions in the U.S.

Today's Birthdays

Tomás Bretón (1850-1923)
Pablo Casals (1876-1973)
Lionel Tertis (1876-1975)
Yves Nat (1890-1956)
Peggy Glanville-Hicks (1912-1990)
Billy Tipton (1914-1989)

and

William Gaddis (1922-1998)

And from the Composers Datebook:

On this day in 1903 took place the first concert by the Seattle Symphony at Christensen's Hall in Seattle under the baton of violinist Harry F. West. The program includes music of Massenet, Bruch, Schubert and Rossini.

Today's Birthdays

Christian Cannabich (1731-1798)
Julius Rietz (1812-1877)
B. J. Lang (1837-1909)
Francesco Tamagno (1850-1905)
Roger Sessions (1896-1985)
Earl "Fatha" Hines (1905-1983)
Johnny Otis (1921-2012)
Nigel Kennedy (1956)

and

Charles Portis (1933)

Today's Birthdays

Sir John Goss (1800-1880)
Tito Schipa (1888-1965)
Marlene Dietrich (1904-1992)
Oscar Levant (1906-1972)

and

Johannes Kepler (1571-1630)
Charles Olson (1910-1970)
Wilfrid Sheed (1930-2011)
Chris Abani (1966)
Sarah Vowell (1969)

And from the Composers Datebook:

On this day in 1841, Franz Liszt performs at the Singakademie in Berlin. Women swooned and the general audience reacts with such uncontrolled enthusiasm that Heinrich Heine coins the term "Lisztomania" to describe their fanatical devotion to the performer, which soon swept through most of Europe.

Today's Birthdays

Maurice Gendron (1920-1990)
Thea King (1925-2007)
Earle Brown (1926-2002)
Phil Specter (1940)
Wayland Rogers (1941)
Harry Christophers (1953)
Andre-Michel Schub (1953)
Gabriella Smith (1991)

and

Thomas Gray (1716-1771)
Henry Miller (1891-1980)
Jean Toomer (1894-1867)
Juan Felipe Herrera (1948)
David Sedaris (1958)

Today's Birthdays

Merry Christmas from the Poppyhead Choir!

Jean‑Joseph de Mondonville (1711-1772)
Chevalier de Saint‑George (1745-1799)
Cosima Wagner (1837-1930)
Lina Cavalieri (1874-1944)
Giuseppe de Luca (1876-1950)
Gladys Swarthout (1900-1969)
Cab Calloway (1907-1994)
Noël Lee (1924-2013)
Noel Redding (1945-2003)
Jon Kimura Parker (1959)
Ian Bostridge (1964)

and

Dorothy Wordsworth (1771-1855)
Clara Barton (1821-1912)
Rod Serling (1924-1975)

Today's Birthdays

Peter Cornelius (1824-1874)
Nikolai Roslavets (1881-1944)
Lucrezia Bori (1887-1960)
Charles Wakefield Cadman (1881-1946)
Sir Vivian Dunn (1908-1995)
Teresa Stich-Randall (1927-2007)
Mauricio Kagel (1931-2008)
Arnold Östman (1939)
Libby Larsen (1950)
Hans-Jürgen von Bose (1953)

and

Matthew Arnold (1822-1888)
Dana Gioia (1950)

and from The Writer's Almanac

Today is Christmas Eve. One of the best modern Christmas Eve stories is a true one, and it happened in 1914, in the trenches of World War I. The “war to end all wars” was raging, but German and British soldiers had been engaging in unofficial ceasefires since mid-December. The British High Command was alarmed, and warned officers that fraternization across enemy lines might result in a decreased desire to fight. On the German side, Christmas trees were trucked in and candles lit, and on that Christmas Eve in 1914, strains of Stille Nacht — “Silent Night” — reached the ears of British soldiers. They joined in, and both sides raised candles and lanterns up above their parapets. When the song was done, a German soldier called out, “Tomorrow is Christmas; if you don’t fight, we won’t.”

The next day dawned without the sound of gunfire. The Germans sent over some beer, and the Brits sent plum pudding. Enemies met in no man’s land, exchanging handshakes and small gifts. Someone kicked in a soccer ball, and a chaotic match ensued. Details about this legendary football match vary, and no one knows for sure exactly where it took place, but everyone agrees that the Germans won by a score of three to two.

At 8:30 a.m. on December 26, after one last Christmas greeting, hostilities resumed. But the story is still told, in a thousand different versions from up and down the Western Front, more than a century later.

On Christmas Eve in 1906, the first radio program was broadcast. Canadian-born Professor Reginald Aubrey Fessenden sent his signals from the 420-foot radio tower of the National Electric Signaling Company, at Brant Rock on the Massachusetts seacoast. Fessenden opened the program by playing “O Holy Night” on the violin. Later he recited verses from the Gospel of St. Luke, then broadcast a gramophone version of Handel’s “Largo.” His signal was received up to five miles away.

And from the Composers Datebook:

On this day in 1920, the last operatic appearance ever of the Italian tenor Enrico Caruso took place in an evening performance of Halevy's "La Juive" (The Jewess) at the old Metropolitan Opera in New York City. Caruso would die in Naples (where he made his operatic debut on March 15, 1895) at the age of 48 on August 2, 1921.

Today's Birthdays

Joseph Boismortier (1689-1755)
Ross Lee Finney (1906-1997)
Claudio Scimone (1934-2018)
Ross Edwards (1943)
Edita Gruberová (1946)
Elise Kermani (1960)
Han-Na Chang (1982)

and

Harriet Monroe (1860-1936)
Norman Maclean (1902–1990)
Robert Bly (1926)
Carol Ann Duffy (1955)

And from the Composers Datebook:

On this day in 1989, Leonard Bernstein led the first of two public performances of Beethoven's Ninth at the Philharmonie in West Berlin, with an international orchestra assembled to celebrate the fall of the Berlin Wall. The second performance occurred on December 25 at the Schauspielhaus in East Berlin.

Today's Birthdays

Carl Friedrich Abel (1723-1787)
Giovanni Bottesini (1821-1889)
Giacomo Puccini (1858-1924)
Franz Schmidt (1874-1939)
Edgard Varèse(1883-1965)
Joseph Deems Taylor (1885-1966)
Alan Bush (1900-1995)
Andre Kostelanetz (1901-1980)
David Leisner (1953)
Jean Rigby (1954)
Zhou Tian (1981)

and

Jean Racine (1639-1699)
Kenneth Rexroth (1905-1982)
Donald Harrington (1935-2009)

Today's Birthdays

Zdeněk Fibich (1850-1900)
André Turp (1925-1991)
Frank Zappa (1940-1993)
Roger Lasher Nortman (1941)
Michael Tilson Thomas (1944)
András Schiff (1953)
Kim Cascone (1955)
Thomas Randle (1958)
Jonathan Cole (1970)

and

Benjamin Disraeli (1804-1881)
Maud Gonne (1866-1953)
Edward Hoagland (1932)

Today's Birthdays

Henry Hadley (1871-1937)
Vagn Holmboe (1909-1996)
Gordon Getty (1933)
John Harbison (1938)
Roger Woodward (1942)
Mitsuko Uchida (1948)

and

Elizabeth Benedict (1954)
Sandra Cisneros (1954)
Nalo Hopkinson (1960)

Today's Birthdays

Louis‑Nicolas Clérambault (1676-1749)
George Frederick Bristow (1825-1898)
Fritz Reiner (1885-1963)
Paul Dessau (1894-1979)
Edith Piaf (1915-1963)
Dalton Baldwin (1931)
Phil Ochs (1940-1976)
William Christie (1944)
Marianne Faithfull (1946)
Olaf Bär (1957)
Steven Esserlis (1958)
Rebecca Saunders (1967)

and

Italo Svevo (1861-1928)
Constance Garnett (1861-1946)

and from The Writer's Almanac:

It’s the birthday of French chanteuse Édith Piaf (1915). Piaf was born Édith Giovanna Gassion in Belleville, on the outskirts of Paris. Her mother was a café singer and a drug addict, and her father was a street performer who specialized in acrobatics and contortionism. Neither of them particularly cared for Piaf, so she mostly grew up with her grandmother, who ran a brothel. Piaf was looked after by prostitutes and later claimed that she was blind from the ages of three to seven because of keratitis, or malnutrition, though this was never proved.

Her father reclaimed her when she was nine and Piaf began singing with him on street corners until he abandoned her again. She lived in shoddy hotel rooms in the red-light district of Paris and sang in a seedy café called Lulu’s, making friends with pimps, hookers, lowlifes, and gamblers, until she was discovered by an older man named Louis Leplée.

Leplée ran a nightclub off the Champs-Élysées. He renamed Piaf La Môme Piaf, “The Little Sparrow,” dressed her entirely in black, and set her loose on the stage. Piaf was a hit, and recorded two albums in one year, becoming one of the most popular performers in France during World War II.

Édith Piaf died on the French Riviera at the age of 47. More than 40,000 people came to her funeral procession. Soviet astronomer Lyudmila Karachkina named a small planet after Piaf; it’s called 3772 Piaf. Her songs have been covered by Madonna, Grace Jones, and even Donna Summer.

Édith Piaf’s last words were, “Every damn thing you do in this life, you have to pay for.”

VSO goes into overtime at its classical holiday concert

Sometimes you can have too much of a good thing. That was the case at the Vancouver Symphony’s concert (December 15) at Skyview Concert Hall, when the program of holiday treats became too much. The suite from Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker, featuring the Columbia Dance Company, the selection of classical Christmas numbers sung by Charlotte Pistor, and the orchestral arrangement of seasonal tunes went well. But the Johann Strauss Jr. numbers needed a little more zip, and the addition of four more pieces as encores tested everyone’s endurance.

At last year’s holiday concert, Columbia Dance, a training academy for young dancers, made a terrific splash with selections from Swan Lake. This time around, the ladies scored another hit, dancing to Suite No. 1 from The Nutcracker, showing poise and focus as they made exceptional use of the narrow area in front of the orchestra. A supple ballerina created an elegant Sugar-Plum Fairy. Two very young girls cavorted about in the Chinese Dance. The most dramatic entry came at the beginning of the Arabian dance when four girls entered, carrying another dancer who stood on top of a platform. An ensemble made strikingly graceful poses during graceful the Dance of the Reed-Pipes, and a bevy of lissome young ladies fashioned delightful tableaus while dancing to the Waltz of the Flowers. Kudos to the company’s artistic director, Becky Moore, for the marvelous choreography.

Soprano Charlotte Pistor sang three gorgeous pieces: the Bach-Gounod “Ave Maria,” Pietro Yon’s Gesu Bambino, and Adolphe Adam’s O Holy Night. I liked her performance of O Holy Night the best, because I could hear her voice much more clearly. Brotons allowed the orchestra to play too loudly during the first two pieces, which was a shame because Pistor posses a beautiful instrument with a radiant top. This also happened during the first encore, Irving Berlin’s “White Christmas.” There was no such problem when she sang Silent Night because she was accompanied only by a guitarist, in homage to its first performance 201 years ago.

The orchestra got on a roll with “Around the World at Christmas Time,” an arrangement of Christmas carols and The Hanukkah Song by Bruce Chase. Strauss’ “Thunder and Lightning Polka” was also given a good whirl, but it didn’t need the extra shenanigans of a fellow running around in a raincoat and an umbrella. The Overture to Rossini’s “La Gazza Ladra” (The Thieving Magpie) piped along nicely. But Strauss’ “Vienna Blood Waltz” and “Blue Danube Waltz” dragged a bit too much.

Julie Anderson, who was the highest bidder at the orchestra’s gala auction, made an excellent guest conductor appearance by leading the musicians in a spirited performance of Leroy Anderson’s “Sleigh Ride." At one point she even hopped about the podium which reminded me a bit of Brotons.

Brotons and the orchestra closed out the evening with an energetic performance of Johann Strauss Sr.’s Radetzky March. Brotons enthusiastically got the audience involved in the rhythmic clapping. It was a great way to generate enthusiasm at the end of the evening.

Today's Birthdays

Charles Wesley (1707-1788)
Carl Maria von Weber (1786-1826)
Edward MacDowell (1860-1908)
Fletcher Henderson (1897-1952)
Rita Streich (1920-1987)
William Boughton (1948)
David Liptak (1949)
Christopher Theofanidis (1967)

and

Saki - H. H. Munro (1870-1916)
Paul Klee (1879-1940)
Christopher Fry (1907-2005)
Abe Burrows (1910-1985)

Today's Birthdays

Domenico Cimarosa (1749-1801)
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)
Arthur Fiedler (1894-1979)
Ray Noble (1903-1975)
Art Neville (1937)

and

John Greenleaf Whittier (1807-1892)
Ford Madox Ford (1873-1939)
William Safire (1929-2009)
John Kennedy Toole (1937-1969)

and from The Writer's Almanac:

It's the day that The Nutcracker ballet was performed for the first time in St. Petersburg, Russia (1892). Czar Alexander III, in the audience, loved the ballet, but the critics hated it. Tchaikovsky wrote that the opera that came before The Nutcracker "was evidently very well liked, the ballet not. ... The papers, as always, reviled me cruelly." Tchaikovsky died of cholera less than a year later, before The Nutcracker became an international success.

Today's Birthdays

Joseph Boismortier (1689-1755)
Ross Lee Finney (1906-1997)
Claudio Scimone (1934-2018)
Ross Edwards (1943)
Edita Gruberová (1946)
Elise Kermani (1960)
Han-Na Chang (1982)

and

Harriet Monroe (1860-1936)
Norman Maclean (1902–1990)
Robert Bly (1926)
Carol Ann Duffy (1955)

And from the Composers Datebook:

On this day in 1989, Leonard Bernstein led the first of two public performances of Beethoven's Ninth at the Philharmonie in West Berlin, with an international orchestra assembled to celebrate the fall of the Berlin Wall. The second performance occurred on December 25 at the Schauspielhaus in East Berlin.

Today's Birthdays

François Adrien Boieldieu (1775-1834)
Augusta Holmès (1847-1903)
Zoltán Kodály (1882-1967)
Turk Murphy (1915-1987)
Steve Allen (1921-2000)
Dame Thea King (1925-2007)
Alice Parker (1925)
Kenneth Gilbert (1931)
Rodion Shchedrin (1932)
Philip Langridge (1939-2010)
Trevor Pinnock (1946)
Isabelle van Keulen (1966)

and

Jane Austin (1775-1817)
George Santayana (1863-1952)
Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944)
Sir Noel Coward (1899-1973)
Noël Coward (1899-1973)
V. S. Pritchett (1900-1997)

OSO concert juxtaposes melancholic songs with vigorous Prokofiev

The Oregon Symphony’s concert (December 7) featuring Danish conductor Christian Kluxen and newly orchestrated works by pianist-singer-songwriter Gabriel Kahane offered a lot of interesting contrasts. Kahane’s pieces presented a somber and melancholic world view while Kluxen in his conducting of Sergei Prokofiev’s Fifth Symphony unleashed a wildly exuberant one. Consequently, the audience at the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall reacted warmly and politely to Kahane’s pieces but enthusiastically jumped to their collective feet at the end of the Prokofiev. Perhaps a slight change in programming might have evened things out a bit, however, that’s how the evening went down.

Kahane scored a big hit when he collaborated with the orchestra to perform his emergency shelter intake form in May of 2018. It resulted in a recording of that piece with the orchestra, which will be released next year, and in his being appointed to the orchestra’s first Creative Chair. According to the Symphony’s president and CEO, Scott Showalter, Kahane has wasted no time embracing the Creative Chair position by visiting various organizations as an ambassador for the orchestra.

Kahane also brought an orchestrated score for a cycle of songs from his Book of Travelers, which he originally wrote for piano and voice after the 2016 election, crisscrossing the United States on Amtrak. So, the Oregon Symphony, with Kahane at the piano and Kluxen on the podium, played the world premiere of Pattern of the Rail: Six Orchestral Songs from Book of Travelers.

After a brief orchestra introduction that hinted at a train-like rhythm, Kahane, singing into a microphone that was perched on the piano, launched into his first tune, “Baedeker,” giving us a slice of the famous guidebook yet etching it with apprehension and a feeling of being lost. The following sequence of songs: “Model Trains,” “Baltimore,” “Friends of Friends of Bill,” and “What If I Told You” gave a poetic synopsis of conversations that Kahane had with strangers on the train. Loss, despair, and fear were their main themes, and they were tied together with the final number, “Oct 1, 1939/Port of Hamburg,” which drew on Kahane’s Jewish grandmother who fled Nazi Germany.

As Kahane delivered an amazing amount of text from memory, his light-tenor voice darted all over the map with amazing agility. His style was that of a modern troubadour, who sang words of caution about our culture. The text was printed in the program, but they were difficult to read in the dim light of the hall. The orchestra added texture with word-painting sounds: siren-like violins, marching brass, and breezy woodwinds.

Picking up an electric guitar, Kahane and the orchestra performed his Empire Liquor Mart, which poetically related the tragedy of Latasha Harlins, who died while trying to purchase a bottle of orange juice about two weeks after the Rodney King beating. Harlins was 15 years old. It was moving, but perhaps Kahane could have done an upbeat piece instead. In any case, he followed it by returning to the piano and singing a wistful and poignant encore “Little Love,” which is also from his Book of Travelers.

Kluxen and the orchestra gave a thoroughly electrifying performance of Prokofiev’s Fifth Symphony. Bright trumpets, a striking line for the clarinets (including the bass clarinet), the threatening sound from the bass drum and timpani, and a roaring, big finish to the first movement took the audience’s breath away. The second had a wonderful nervous energy accented with crisp attacks by the strings and a thrilling cascade of sound near the end. The lower brass section established an ominous and forlorn feeling with the tuba (JáTtik Clark) reaching into the depths. A serene melody from the strings led to dramatic statements that faded away. The fourth movement featured a wonderful gnawing sound from the violas, a spirited clarinet solo (James Shields), and a gripping, propulsive, stemwinder of a finale that brought everyone out of their seats. It was a magical moment for the orchestra which (by not standing) allowed the thunderous acclamation to shower the conductor.

It should be noted that Kluxen and the orchestra opened the concert with an incisive performance of Beethoven’s Overture to The Creatures of Prometheus. The punchy beginning, the fleet phrasing of the strings, and the vigorous ending flew by quickly, making an excellent impression as well.

Since this is Kalmar’s last year as music director, the orchestra has brought in a number of very talented young conductors. Kluxen, who in his witty opening remarks said “I am from Denmark, the southern most region of Greenland,” made his U.S. debut with this concert. He is the music director of the Victoria Symphony (Canada) and the chief conductor of the Arctic Philharmonic (Norway). He has a terrific way of letting the orchestra breathe and express the music. Hopefully he will be back again!

Today's Birthdays

Michel‑Richard Delalande (1657-1726)
Lotte Schöne (1891-1981)
Stan Kenton (1911-1979)
Ida Haendel (1924)
Eddie Palmieri (1936)
Nigel Robson (1948)
Jan Latham-Koenig (1953)

and

Ludwig Lazarus Zamenhof (1859-1917)
Maxwell Anderson (1888-1959)
Freeman Dyson (1923)
Friedensreich Hundertwasser (1928-2000)
Edna O'Brien (1930)

Today's Birthdays

Maria Agata Szymanowska (1789-1831)
Joseph Jongen (1873-1953)
Georges Thill (1897-1984)
Spike Jones (1911-1965)
Rosalyn Tureck (1914-2003)
Dame Ruth Railton (1915-2001)
Ron Nelson (1929)
Christopher Parkening (1947)
Thomas Albert (1948)
John Rawnsley (1949)

and

Shirley Jackson (1919-1965)
Amy Hempel (1951)

Preview of the VSO's holiday concert in The Columbian newspaper

In today's edition of The Columbian newspaper, you'll find my preview of the Vancouver Symphony's holiday concert with special guests from Columbia Dance (which will present selections from Tchaikovsky's The Nutcracker and soprano Charlotte Pistor. I hope that you will enjoy reading the article. The online version of the article is available here.

Today's Birthdays

Alexis de Castillon (1838-1873)
Josef Lhévinne (1874-1944)
Eleanor Robson Belmont (1879-1979)
Samuel Dushkin (1891-1976)
Victor Babin (1908-1972)
Alvin Curran (1938)

and

Mary Todd Lincoln (1818-1882)
Kenneth Patchen (1911-1972)
James Wright (1927-1980)
Lester Bangs (1948-1982)

And from the Composers Datebook:

On this day in 1836, at a musical soiree at Chopin's apartments in Paris, the female writer "George" Sand, determined to make a good impression with her host, arrives wearing white pantaloons and a scarlet sash (the colors of the Polish flag). Paris Opéra tenor Adolphe Nourit sings some Schubert songs, accompanied by Franz Liszt. Liszt and Chopin play Moschele's Sonata in Eb for piano four-hands.

Today's Birthdays

Andrey Schulz‑Evler (1852-1905)
Kurt Atterberg (1887-1974)
Frank Sinatra (1915-1998)
Philip Ledger (1937-2012)
Donald Maxwell (1948)
Margaret Tan (1953)
Jaap van Zweden (1960)
David Horne (1970)
Evren Genis (1978)


and
Gustave Flaubert (1821-1880)
Edvard Munch (1863-1944)
John Osborne (1929-1994)

Today's Birthdays

Hector Berlioz (1803-1869)
Joseph Jongen (1873-1953)
Mieczyslaw Karlowicz (1876-1909)
Leo Ornstein (1893-2002)
Elliott Carter (1908-2012)
David Ashley White (1944)
Neil Mackie (1946)

and

Grace Paley (1922-2007)
Naguib Mahfouz (1911-2006)
Grace Paley (1922-2007)
Jim Harrison (1937-2016)
Thomas McGuane (1939)

and from the Composers Datebook:

On this day in 1918, Russian-born conductor Nikolai Sokoloff leads the first concert of the Cleveland Orchestra at Gray's Armory, presented as a benefit for St. Ann's Church. His program included Victor Herbert's "American Fantasy," Bizet's "Carmen" Suite, two movements of Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 4, Liadov's "Enchanted Lake," and Liszt's "Les Préludes".

Today's Birthdays

César Franck (1822-1890)
Olivier Messiaen (1908-1992)
Morton Gould (1913-1996)
Sesto Bruscantini (1919-2003)
Nicholas Kynaston (1941)
Julianne Baird (1952)
Kathryn Stott (1958)
Sarah Chang (1980)

and

Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)
Melvil Dewey (1851-1931)
Adolf Loos (1870-1933)

Today's Birthday

Emile Waldteufel (1837-1915)
Joaquin Turina (1882-1949)
Conchita Supervia (1895-1936)
Elisabeth Schwarzkopf (1915-2006)
Dennis Eberhard (1943-2005)
Christopher Robson (1953)
Donny Osmond (1957)
Joshua Bell (1967)

and

John Milton (1608-1674)
Joel Chandler Harris (1848-1908)
Léonie Adams (1899-1988)
Ödön von Horváth (1901-1938)

From the Writer's Almanac:

Milton coined more than 600 words, including the adjectives dreary, flowery, jubilant, satanic, saintly, terrific, ethereal, sublime, impassive, unprincipled, dismissive, and feverish; as well as the nouns fragrance, adventurer, anarchy, and many more.

Today's Birthdays

Claude Balbastre (1724-1799)
Frantisek Xaver Dussek (1731-1799)
Jean Sibelius (1865-1957)
Manuel Ponce (1882-1948)
Bohuslav Martinů (1890-1959)
Gérard Souzay (1918-2004)
Moisei Vainberg (1919-1996)
James Galway (1939)

and

Horace (65-8 B.C.)
Diego Rivera (1886-1957)
James Thurber (1894-1961)
James Tate (1948)
Mary Gordon (1949)
Bill Bryson (1951)

Today's Birthdays

Bernardo Pasquini (1637-1710)
Hermann Goetz (1840-1876)
Pietro Mascagni (1863-1945)
Ernst Toch (1887-1964)
Rudolf Friml (1879-1972)
Richard Franko Goldman (1910-1980)
Daniel Jones (1912-1993)
Helen Watts (1927-2009)
Harry Chapin (1942-1981)
Daniel Chorzempa (1944)
Tom Waits (1949)
Kathleen Kuhlmann (1950)
Krystian Zimerman (1956)

and

Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598-1680)
Willa Cather (1873-1947)
Joyce Cary (1888-1957)
Noam Chomsky (1928)
Susan Isaacs (1943)

Today's Birthdays

Orazio Vecchi (1550-1605)
Johann Christoph Bach (1642-1703)
Ira Gershwin (1896-1983)
Dave Brubeck (1920-2012)
Nikolaus Harnoncourt (1929-2016)
Henryk Górecki (1933-2010)
Tomas Svoboda (1939)
John Nelson (1941)
Daniel Adni (1951)
Bright Sheng (1955)
Matthew Taylor (1964)

and

Baldassare Castiglione (1478-1529)
The Encyclopedia Brittanica (1768)
Alfred Eisenstaedt (1898-1995)

Today's Birthdays

Francesco Geminiani (1687-1762)
Vitezslav Novák (1870-1949)
"Little" Richard Wayne Penniman (1935)
José Carreras (1946)
Krystian Zimerman (1956)
Osvaldo Golijov (1960)

and

Christina (Georgina) Rossetti (1830-1894)
Joan Didion (1934)
Calvin Trillin (1935)
John Berendt (1939)
Lydia Millet (1968)

And from the Composers Datebook:

On this day in 1704, George Frideric Handel (age 19) refuses to turn over the harpsichord to Johann Mattheson (age 23) during a performance of Mattheson's opera "Cleopatra," leading to a sword duel between the two. It is said that during the swordplay, Handel was saved by a button on his coat that deflected Mattheson's mortally-directed blade. The two reconciled on December 30 that year, dining together and attending a rehearsal of Handel's opera "Almira," becoming, as Mattheson put it: "better friends than ever."

Today's Birthdays

André Campra (1660-1744)
Michel Pignolet de Montéclair (1667-1737)
Sir Hamilton Harty (1879-1949)
Alex North (1910-1991)
Yvonne Minton (1938)
Lillian Watson (1947)
Andrew Penny (1952)

and

Thomas Carlyle (1795-1891)
Samuel Butler (1835-1902)
Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926)
Cornell Woolrich (1903-1968)

Today's Birthdays

Nicolo Amati (1596-1684)
André Campra (1660-1744)
Antonio Soler (1729-1783)
Émile Waldteufel (1837-1915)
Anton Webern (1883-1945)
Halsey Stevens (1908-1989)
Nino Rota (1911-1979)
Irving Fine (1914-1962)
Charles Craig (1919-1997)
Paul Turok (1929-2012)
José Serebrier (1938)
Matt Haimovitz (1970)

and

Joseph Conrad (1857-1924)
Anna Freud (1895-1982)
Zlata Filipović (1980)

PSU Opera’s “Mirror Game” reflects gender bias and distorted values in hi tech world

Left to right: Lydia O'Brien, Eric Olson, Maeve Stier, Avesta Mirashrafi, Madeleine Tran

Inspired by the Me Too movement and the quick rise and fall of charismatic Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes, Mirror Game, a brand new opera commissioned by PSU Opera and presented on November 29 in Lincoln Hall Studio Theater, touched and torched many issues that affect women in world of hi tech. Set in a Silicon Valley company that produces video games, Mirror Game, written by composer Celka Ojakangas with librettist Amy Punt, can be seen as a cautionary tale for women and basically anyone who uses deception to achieve “success.”

Delivered in 80 minutes without intermission, Mirror Game, covered a lot of territory and suffered just a tad because it sped by at a fast pace. Yet, the skillful directions of Kristine McIntyre worked well with a strong cast led by Maeve Stier in the central role of Cybil, a coder who schemes her way to the top of her company, running over her colleagues and her lover in the process. In the final scene, Cybil’s perfidy is exposed to her colleagues and the general public, and she is left alone.

Like many cautionary tales, everything starts innocently enough. In Mirror Game, we follow Cybil and fellow coders Melody and Olivia, all of whom have enough gaming prowess to be accepted into a male-dominated team at a startup in Silicon Valley. Opportunities to be a “team player” require each woman to go along with the sexualized overtures of the CEO Rohm, and to a lesser extent Tony, the team’s manager. Cybil learns how to play along, but she then rejects her lover, Olivia. Cybil develops a marketing strategy for her company’s video game. That morphs into selling the game as a way for girls to become free of bullying. The success of Cybil’s new strategy propels her ahead, and her own machinations bring her to break into Rohm’s computer. Events turn quickly so that Rohm is disgraced and Cybil promoted to CEO. But then the company finds that she has trolled herself online and created a totally false impression.

Brilliant acting and singing by Maeve Stier created a totally captivating Cybil with an impressive palette of emotions that included pouting, charming, and scheming. Lydia O’Brien’s Olivia gripped us with her anguish. Madeleine Tran was playfully rambunctious in the role of Melody. Eric Olson created an earnest Tony, who fell for Cybil and was crushed after he learned of her deception. Avesta Mirashrafi had plenty of swagger to make Rohm a believable playboy-like CEO. Wyatt Jackson distinguished himself as the Voice. Music director and pianist Chuck Dillard had the right touch for the singers.

Ojakangas’s score for electronic piano and synthesized music evoked the gaming world with an agile, lightweight texture. The dialogs between characters were sung, and Ojakangas sprinkled in duets, trios, and ensemble numbers that worked well. She also included timely arias for the main characters, including a 60’s styled pop number that Tony sang.

Punt kept things moving at a fast pace and threw in references to the #MeToo movement, Harvey Weinstein, Amy Adams, and others along the way. Punt and Ojakangas made terrific use of the Pause button to create asides for Cybil to communicate her intimate thoughts. The Humiliation Half Life situations were also excellently conveyed.

Crisp stage directions by Kristine McIntyre enhanced the story and made good use of the sparse props, including a bench that barely accommodated a seduction scene between Cybil and Tony. The video projections by Kathy Maxwell were outstanding, with some suggesting the chaotic inner world of the characters, some imitating the gaming experience, and others displaying views of the Bay Area. A tip of the hat to costume designer Madeleine Beer, because Cybil changed her top to a black turtleneck sweater a la Elisabeth Holmes (who had a copied that style from Steve Jobs).

Mirror Game is an admirable opera that deserves more than one hearing. It will be interesting to find out how Ojakangas and Punt’s creation plays on other stages, especially if it is done in the Bay Area.

Today's Birthdays

Harry T. Burleigh (1866-1949)
Rudolf Friml (1879-1972)
Harriet Cohen (1895-1967)
Sir John Barbirolli (1899-1970)
Robert Moevs (1920-2007)
Maria Callas (1923-1977)
Jörg Demus (1928-2019)

and

Georges-Pierre Seurat (1859-1891)
T. Coraghessan Boyle (1948)
George Saunders (1958)
Ann Patchertt (1963)


And from the Composers Datebook: On this day in 1717, J.S. Bach is allowed to leave the Duke’s Court at Weimar. He had been imprisoned since Nov. 6th by his former employer Duke Wilhelm Ernst of Weimar for accepting a new post at Prince Leopold’s court at Cöthen without first asking permission.

Today's Birthdays

François‑Xavier Richter (1709-1789)
Ernest (Louis-Etienne-Ernest) Reyer (1832-1909)
Agathe Grøndahl (1847-1907)
Gordon Crosse (1932)
Lou Rawls (1933-2006)
Bette Midler (1945)
Rudolf Buchbinder (1946)
Leontina Vaduva (1960)