Thumb-driven piano music by R P Collier

In this thumb-driven age, a tiny piano that you can play with your digits, seems appealing. RP Collier is a Portland-based composer/artist who has created a number of unique instruments and musical pieces for them, drawing inspiration from jazz and African music. You can hear and see RP Collier's creations on YouTube, and you can check out his latest at this web site.

Today's Birthdays

August Everding (1928-1999)
Colin Tilney (1933)
Odaline de la Martinez (1949)
Naji Hakim (1955)

and

Jan Vermeer (1632-1675)
John Keats (1795-1821)
Susan Orlean (1955)

from The New Music Box:

On October 31, 1896, the Boston Symphony premiered the Gaelic" Symphony in E Minor by Mrs. H.H.A. Beach (Amy Marcy Cheney Beach), the first symphony by an American woman ever publicly performed.

Today's Birthdays

André Messager (1853-1929)
Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge (1864-1953)
Alfred Einstein (1880-1952)
Dmitri Kabalevsky (1904-1987)
Sir David Willcocks (1919-2015)
Bruno Canino (1935)
June Anderson (1950)
Antonio Pappano (1959)

and

John Adams (1735-1826)
Theodor Fontane (1819-1898)
Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936)
Ezra Pound (1885-1972)
Fred W. Friendly (1915-1998)
Robert Caro (1935)

Colin Currie and the Oregon Symphony careen about the funhouse with “Switch”

Whenever you see a hedge row of percussion instruments lined up along the front of the stage at the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, you know that Colin Currie is in town. Sure enough, the intrepid, world-class drummer sprang in from off-stage to a lively and witty performance of Andrew Norman’s “Switch” with the Oregon Symphony on Monday evening (October 24nd).

In “Switch,” written in 2015, Currie had to dance between stations of his percussion battery. At one moment, he commanded a marimba, wood blocks, bells, and tin cans. Then he would jump to an impressive ensemble of tom toms, snare drum, bass drum, and cymbals, and then quickly move to another group that consisted of gongs, xylophone, wood blocks and a drum. According to the program notes, the dynamics that Currie, and even the other musicians, played were determined at times by snapping slapsticks from members of the orchestra’s percussion section. The snapping sound was the “switch” that signaled what to do. Often he had to react quickly and that meant figuring out where he was in the score that placed on three music stands in three different places. Yikes!

Despite ricocheting around, Currie seemed to be enjoying himself while using his virtuosic talent to create all sorts of fascinating sounds, many of which were mezzo-piano or softer. The orchestra had a major role, because it also expressed an eclectic assortment of passages that often careened from short blasts to uninhibited wagga waggas to mini-glissandos. Just when you thought you knew what was going on, something unexpected would happen – sort of like a conversation run amok but in a good way.

The second half of the concert was devoted to Richard Strauss’s “Ein Heldenleben” (“A Hero’s Life”), which the orchestra played with gusto and wry insight. Highlights included the grand opening statement, the chattering and bickering woodwinds, pulsating brass, and glistening strings. The nine French horns, led by John Cox, sounded terrific as did the offstage trumpets. At one point, the flutes impressively sneaked into the picture from out of nowhere, and Kyle Mustain’s expressive playing of the English horn was exceptional. But the best solos were delivered by Concertmaster Sarah Kwak, who elicited the wonderful warmth and playfulness – especially the little zings at ends of some phrases – of the hero’s wife.

The concert began with Christopher Rouses’s “Supplica,” (composed in 2013), which left an indelible impression because of its lovely subtleties, depth, and sublime emotional content. It was a slow moving piece that seemed to expand and contract in a way that was similar to breathing. There was a sense of tragedy that got resolved and moved into a space resembling prayer. It was a very remarkable performance. Music Director Carlos Kalmar and the orchestra seemed to find a personal space that reached out to each individual in the audience. At the start of the concert, President Scott Showalter remarked that the concert was being recorded for a future CD release. I really hope that “Supplica” is on that recording.

Today's Birthdays

Harold Darke (1888-1976)
Vivian Ellis (1904-1996)
Václav Neumann (1920-1995)
Jon Vickers (1926-2015)
James Dillon (1950)
Lee Actor (1952)
James Primosch (1956)

and

James Boswell (1740-1795)
Henry Green (1905-1973)
David Remnick (1958)

Today's Birthdays

Giuditta Pasta (1797-1865)
Howard Hanson (1896-1981)
Dame Cleo Laine (1927)
Carl Davis (1936)
Howard Blake (1938)
Kenneth Montgomery (1943)
Naida Cole (1974)

and

Evelyn Waugh (1903-1966)
John Harold Hewitt (1907-1987)
Francis Bacon (1909-1992)
John Hollander (1929-2013)
Anne Perry (1938)

Today's Birthdays

Niccolò Paganini (1782-1840)
Helmut Walcha (1907-1991)
Conlon Nancarrow (1912-1997)
Dominick Argento (1927)
Julius Eastman (1940-1990)
Håkan Hardenberger (1961)
Vanessa-Mae (1978)

and

Lee Krasner (1908-1994)
Dylan Thomas (1914-1953)
Roy Lichtenstein (1923-1997)
Sylvia Plath (1932-1963)
Zadie Smith (1975)

Today's Birthdays

Hans Leo Hassler (1564-1612)
Domenico Scarlatti (1685-1757)
Mahalia Jackson (1911-1972)
György Pauk (1936)
Christine Brewer (1955)
Natalie Merchant (1963)
Sakari Oramo (1965)

and

Andrei Bely (1880-1934)
Napoleon Hill (1883-1970)
John Arden (1930-2012)
Andrew Motion (1952)

Almost enough grim in Seattle Opera's Hansel and Gretel

Sasha Cooke and Ashley Emerson. Photo by Philip Newton

When thinking of an opera that suits the Halloween season, Humperdinck's Hansel and Gretel is a natural fit. Profound juxtapositions abound: the harvest season and the coming scarcity of winter, the gaiety of childhood under the specter of poverty, hunger when there is so much food nearby. Seattle Opera's performance at McCaw Hall on October 22 began with great promise, but ultimately the production yielded a mixed bag in terms of interpretation and overall effectiveness.

The musical performances were wonderful. Sasha Cooke as Hansel was especially arresting vocally--her delivery was rich and profound--a real pleasure to hear. Ashley Emerson joined as Gretel, and between the two they were extremely convincing as children--at times playful, bratty, unreasonably frenetic, strangely calm. There was no 'buy-in' to them as children--it simply felt natural. Marcy Stonikas as Gertrude imparted a sense of verismo as to the grinding effect of poverty--blinding anger and crushing weight were evident in her portrayal, as was ecstatic joy at the bounty of food that Peter brings home.  Mark Walters as Peter was excellent as well--his rolling, easy baritone formed the foundation of the effable father, and yet when he began singing about stories of the witch, he brought out the most in Humperdinck's score, reveling in the sense of creeping menace--infectious, inviting somehow.

Marcy Stonikas. Photo by Jacob Lucas

It was the non-delivery on this promise of menace that rendered the production less poignant than it otherwise could have been. Barbara de Limburg's sets right from the start pointed to something that could be special; giant images of duct-tape over a rag-tag curtain, the house an immense, ramshackle cardboard box with falling down walls--unflinching images of severe shortage and its effect on people's lives pointed toward a profound interpretation.  The sets continued to impress: the forest, tumbledown and barren of leaf or green, fit with the image of sparsity, and when coupled with the imperceptible creep of twilight, the children huddling in a pool of light with the darkling woods just behind, it set up for what should have been the fulfillment of the promise of a dark and disturbing happening.

John Easterlin as The Witch did a fine job within the confines of the production. His cackle was baudy and grating, and he warmed into the humor of the role as the final act moved on, and as the action moved toward its conclusion he did look disturbing--bald and frowzy and uncomfortable to look at. But somehow it never felt as if the children were really in peril--the candy house was imaginative, looking as though it were made of shelves of goodies from a box store with every sweet and soda imaginable. But it was confusing as to where the oven was--difficult to figure out why the witch kept climbing to the top of the house, and all the action happened outside of the house, which was really just a large object on stage, so it was only just before the witch was pushed into the oven that it became apparent where it was.

The final set, while eye-catching, was confusing in terms of the action, and the the witch  was portrayed as nonsensical and slapstick without enough believable predatory intent. That coupled with the sense that the children in the finale were essentially not scared (or not scared enough) of the witch led to the let-up on the promise of a dark ending--and make no mistake, a child forced into burning alive an evil witch in order to avoid being cannibalized is a dark ending--yet somehow by the end it just didn't feel that way.

Today's Birthdays

Thomas Weelkes (1576-1623)
Johann Strauss II (1825-1899)
Georges Bizet (1838-1875)
Galina Vishnevskaya (1926-2012)
Peter Lieberson (1946)
Diana Burrell (1948)
Colin Carr (1957)
Midori (1971)

and

Pablo Picasso (1881-1973)
John Berryman (1914-1972)
Anne Tyler (1941)

Reviews of Portland Opera productions in Opera magazine

My reviews of "The Magic Flute" and "The Italian Girl in Algiers" with a brief introduction to Portland Opera's new summer season have been published in the November edition of Opera (UK). Brian Kellow's review of "Eugene Onegin" is also in that issue.

Today's Birthdays

Ferdinand Hiller (1811-1885)
Conrad Leonard (1898-2003)
Paul Csonka (1905-1995)
Tito Gobbi (1913-1984)
Luciano Berio (1925-2003)
George Crumb (1929)
Sofia Gubaidulina (1931)
Malcolm Bilson (1935)
Bill Wyman (1936)
George Tsontakis (1951)
Cheryl Studer (1955)

and

Moss Hart (1904-1961)
Denise Levertov (1923-1997)
Norman Rush (1933)

Today's Birthdays

Albert Lortzing (1801-1851)
Denise Duval (1921-2016)
Ned Rorem (1923)
Lawrence Foster (1941)
Toshio Hosokawa (1955)
"Weird Al" Yankovic (1959)
Brett Dean (1961)

and

Robert Bridges (1844-1930)
Johnny Carson (1925-2005)
Nick Tosches (1949)
Laurie Halse Anderson (1961)

Today's Birthdays

Franz Liszt (1811-1886)
Sir Donald McIntyre (1934)
Elizabeth Connell (1946)

and

John Reed (1887-1920)
Doris Lessing (1919-2013)

From the Writer's Almanac:
It was on this day in 1883 that the Metropolitan Opera House opened with a performance of Faust. The opera was based on Goethe's German poem, and it was composed in French, but it was sung in Italian. The New Yorkers who designed the opera house wanted it to have an Italian feel, so they had it built with a palazzo on Broadway, and Italian was the language of choice.

There was already an opera house in New York, the Academy of Music, near Union Square. It was one of the main gathering places of the city's high society, who watched each other from the opera boxes as eagerly as they watched the opera itself. But there were only 18 opera boxes at the Academy of Music, and in the 1870s a whole generation of industrial millionaires were emerging in New York. These nouveau riche were not so welcome at the Academy of Music, or in any of the social circles of old money. But they wanted a place to display themselves, so they decided to build their own opera house. Seventy people got together and pooled $1.7 million to buy land and build a concert hall. They put in three levels with 36 box seats in each, more than enough for everyone.

In The Age of Innocence, Edith Wharton wrote:
"On a January evening of the early seventies, Christine Nilsson was singing in Faust at the Academy of Music in New York.

"Though there was already talk of the erection, in remote metropolitan distances 'above the Forties,' of a new Opera House which should compete in costliness and splendor with those of the great European capitals, the world of fashion was still content to reassemble every winter in the shabby red and gold boxes of the sociable old Academy. Conservatives cherished it for being small and inconvenient, and thus keeping out the 'new people' whom New York was beginning to dread and yet be drawn to; and the sentimental clung to it for its historic associations, and the musical for its excellent acoustics, always so problematic a quality in halls built for the hearing of music."

Today's Birthdays

Joseph Canteloube (1879-1957)
Howard Ferguson (1908-1999)
Alexander Schneider (1908-1993)
Sir Georg Solti (1912-1997)
Dizzy (John Birks) Gillespie (1917-1993)
Sir Malcom Arnold (1921-2006)
Hugh Wolff (1953)

and

Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834)
Alfred Nobel (1833-1896)
Ursula K. Le Guin (1929)

Today's Birthdays

Charles Ives (1874-1954)
Jelly Roll Morton (1890-1941)
Alfredo Campoli (1906-1991)
Adelaide Hall (1909-1993)
Robert Craft (1923-2015)
Jacques Loussier (1934)
William Albright (1944-1998)
Ivo Pogorelich (1958)
Leila Josefowicz (1977)

and

Christopher Wren (1632-1723)
Arthur Rimbaud (1854-1891)
John Dewey(1859-1952)
Robert Pinsky (1940)
Elfriede Jelinek (1946)

San Francisco Opera’s “The Makropulos Case” a timely affair with great soprano Nadja Michael

©Cory Weaver/San Francisco Opera

Humans have always had the desire to live forever. Even today there are those wealthy enough to have their bodies frozen in a cryogenic state and others who fervently believe that the wizards of Silicon Valley will preserve them digitally. Leoš Janáček’s opera, “The Makropulos Case” addresses the desire for eternal youth head on, and San Francisco Opera’s masterful production on opening night (October 14) was a timely reminder that it’s a good thing that our lives are finite.

Based on a play by Karel Čapek, “The Makropulos Case” revolves around the life of opera singer Emila Marty, who drank a special elixir when she was a child. The strange thing is that that happened during the time of the Hapsburg Emperor Rudolf and the concoction has allowed her to live for 300 years. At the outset of the opera, set in the 1920s, Marty is 337 years old, even though she doesn’t look a day over 30. However, she knows that her time is up and she will die unless she can get her hands on the document that contains the formula for the potion. The document was placed in a home of one of her former lovers and that estate is tied up in an interminable legal case. By the time that Marty receives the document, she realizes that her life doesn’t have any meaning and existing for another 300 years would only bring more boredom and loneliness.

Olivier Tambosi oversaw the staging of the San Francisco Opera production, which the company premiered in 2010 in a co-commision with Finnish National Opera. German soprano Nadja Michael gave a captivating performance as Marty, the ageless opera diva. She prowled on top of the lawyer’s desk and a bed mattress, daring men with her haughty beauty. Dazzling also was Michael’s opulent voice, which was mesmerizing throughout the evening.

The men who swirled about Marty were exceptional across the board. In the role of Albert Gregor, Charles Workman convincingly pled with her to love him but to no avail. Stephen Powel created a suave Baron Jaroslav Prus who nevertheless was transfixed by her. Dale Travis mixed skepticism and gravitas in his portrayal of Dr Kolenatý. Joel Sorensen’s soaring tenor fit the role of Vítek perfectly, and Brenton Ryan’s Janek conveyed a believable naiveté. In the role of Count Hauk-Šendorf, Matthew O’Neill colored his passion for Marty with a web of reverie.

Julie Adams created a convincingly naïve Kristina who was totally enthralled with the famous Marty. In lesser roles, Latvian mezzo Zanda Švēde and Brad Walker sang with distinction.

©Cory Weaver/San Francisco Opera

Except for the first act, which featured a huge bookcase stuffed with books and manuscripts, Frank Philipp Schlössman’s sets were minimalistic yet evocative. All of the sets included a large illuminated clock that reminded the audience of the passage of time in the story as well as the exact time of the performance (no need to look at a watch or cell phone). Schlössman’s costumes were traditional with the Michael standing out in the first act, pacing about in a white dress and short platinum blonde hair, which reminded me of Sharon Stone in “Basic Instinct.”

The orchestra, guided by conductor Mikhail Tatarnikov conquered Janáček’s tricky score although there were a couple of shaky entrances. The offstage brass ensemble elicited the time of Hapsburg Emperor Rudolf II. Overall, the music shifted wonderfully between lyricism and a propulsive dynamic thrust and is worth hearing again and again.

Today's Birthdays

Sidonie Goossens (1899-2004)
Karl-Birger Blomdahl (1916-1968)
Emil Gilels (1916-1985)
Robin Holloway (1943)
Robert Morris (1943)

and

Leigh Hunt (1784-1859)
Auguste Lumière (1862-1954)
Miguel Ángel Asturias (1899-1974)
Jack Anderson (1922-2005)
John le Carré (David John Moore Cornwell) (1931)
Philip Pullman (1946)

Today's Birthdays

Luca Marenzio (1553-1599)
Lotte Lenya (1898-1981)
Alexander Young (1920-2000)
Egil Hovland (1924-2013)
Chuck Berry (1926)
Wynton Marsalis (1961)

and

Heinrich von Kleist (1777-1811)
Henri Bergson (1859-1941)
A. J. Liebling (1904-1963)
Rick Moody (1961)

Today's Birthdays

Herbert Howells (1892-1983)
Shinichi Suzuki (1898-1998)
Rolando Panerai (1924)
Reiner Goldberg (1939)
Stephen Kovacevich (1940)

and

Georg Büchner (1813-1837)
Nathanael West (1903-1940)
Arthur Miller (1915-2005)

and from The Writer's Almanac:

It was on this day in 1933 that Albert Einstein officially moved to the United States to teach at Princeton University. He had been in California working as a visiting professor when Hitler took over as chancellor of Germany. Einstein’s apartment in Berlin and his summer cottage in the country were raided, his papers confiscated, and his bank accounts closed. He returned to Europe and handed in his German passport, renouncing his citizenship. He considered offers from all over the world, including Paris, Turkey, and Oxford. Einstein eventually decided on Princeton, which offered him an attractive package teaching at its Institute for Advanced Study — but he had his hesitations about the university. For one thing, it had a clandestine quota system in place that only allowed a small percentage of the incoming class to be Jewish. The Institute’s director, Abraham Flexner, was worried that Einstein would be too directly involved in Jewish refugee causes, so he micromanaged Einstein’s public appearances, keeping him out of the public eye when possible. He even declined an invitation for Einstein to see President Roosevelt at the White House without telling the scientist. When Einstein found out, he personally called Eleanor Roosevelt and arranged for a visit anyway, and then complained about the incident in a letter to a rabbi friend of his, giving the return address as “Concentration Camp, Princeton.” In 1938, incoming freshmen at Princeton ranked Einstein as the second-greatest living person; first place went to Adolf Hitler.