Someone Named Teodora Vladinski Wants Me Dead

Okay okay, "dead" may be just a wee bit strong ("severely injured" might be closer to the mark), but just because I'm paranoid doesn't mean she's NOT out to get me.

Had another "Maclean's on the bike at the Y" session this morning, and right there in the November 30th Letters section, Teodora Vladinski--note: isn't that a GREAT name!--takes a great big swipe at Vancouver Opera, and clarifies why she won't be renewing her subscription. She writes of recent VOA productions she has hated (IN THE HOUSE OF THE DEAD, TURANDOT, RIGOLETTO and SALOME), and one that she is prepared to hate (NIXON IN CHINA), lamenting that "every season there is an opera that no one wants to see and no one enjoys." Ouch. She goes on to say that "the staging is becoming more and bizarre and the costumes ridiculous." Double ouch, as yours truly was the director of the TURANDOT "with Chinese peasants wrapped like Egyptian mummies in rags." Ouch for the third time in a row.

Now, as a Baptist Bible-Belt-born Libran, who just wants everbody to be happy, I can sorta see Ms. Vladinski's point. This is the era of "Regietheater", where the more outlandish the directorial and design concepts the better...and I'm with her, I hate that, too. Trouble is, none
of the productions at the excellent Vancouver Opera is particularly radical or conceptualized:
trust me, we in North America are considered almost bland, overly-traditional and overly-faithful to the composer when compared to the Europeans. Case in point, "my" TURANDOT...
with hat doffed to the superb costume design of Anna Oliver: boy, how the heck else would you
dress the hordes of peasants in ancient China than the raw silk, historically-correct extra-long
sleeved, stylized pyjama-cut costumes of the production? Egyptian mummies??? Not a chance.

But IF that is "over the top", consider the Europeans. Consider the Berlin production of Mozart's delightful and romantic ABDUCTION FROM THE SERAGLIO, in which the seraglio
becomes a blood-spattered bordello, and the traditional happy ending is replaced by the last
onstage survivor, Konstanze, slowly placing a machine gun in her mouth as the lights snap to black. Consider the Dutch production of Verdi's NABUCCO, where, for some unfathomable reason, the chorus of Hebrew slaves are all dressed in--get this!--bumble bee costumes, tiny little wings and all. Or how about the Spanish production of CARMEN, where all of the poor factory women are decked out in Frederick's of Hollywood lingerie? I'm not making this up, you know. TURANDOT? The new Deutsche Oper production has Calaf and Turandot together assassinating the Emperor, and are climbing the steps for the slaughter of Ping, Pang and Pong as the curtain falls. Yikes.

Ms. Vladinski is correct in decrying the worst excesses of "director's theatre", but to be honest,
we Canadian operalovers in whatever Canadian city tend to be offered pretty great storytelling with pretty great singing and musical values, in productions with a genuine commitment to truthfully interpreting the vision of the opera's creators. Tell you what: when my lottery
ticket pays off, I'll schlep her to Europe for the best and worst that opera has to offer. We come off pretty darned well in Canada.

Gee, I kinda liked TURANDOT in Vancouver.

ps I don't know if anyone reads these things, but my next bundle of thoughts will hopefully come from somewhere in the Galapagos Islands. In the meantime, if you haven't checked them out already, promise me you'll google both "Antwerp Train Station Sound of Music" and "Opera at the Market 2009". I wept.

Late Night Obsessing

Okay, is this something we should all be worrying about? It was a bit of a jolt for me, but nothing compared to the hundred thousand volt slam to the american National Endowment for the Arts, when their recent polling revealed that only 34% of Americans attended a cultural event in the past year, the lowest number since they started asking in 1981. THIRTY-FOUR PERCENT???
That's heartbreaking. More than that, it's a frightening indication that the arts have become less important in that land to the south of here (no, not Calgary), and the moment that the culture of a society becomes less essential...well, le'ts start talking about empty shells and scrambled brains.

Obviously, my real concern is what the numbers are like here in Canada. Surely tuh gawd they're much better than the U.S., but what nobody seems to know is if the decline in american arts-going is a sign of things to come. Is it the recession and belt-tightening? Are people staying at home and living on these hideous machines instead? Is it all just a blip? Are we all going to hell in a handbasket?

Even scarier food for thought was that article in the Nov. 23rd issue of Maclean's (gimme a break, I'm weeks behind my catch-up reading on the bike at the Y), the one where the Toronto DJ and part-time sociologist--I'm NOT making this up about his combined professions--finds that he rarely plays any song in a club for longer than a minute. At his ripe old age of 24, he finds that his own generation is "unable to listen to a piece of music for longer than ninety seconds." He's even got a name for this syndrome: Musical Attention Defecit Syndrome, or MADD. Yeah I know, the acronym's already been spoken for,but if this guy really has a point, if he's right that sustained concentration is going the way of the dodo or good television, if we really are doomed to attention spans shorter than a newt's, then I'm feeling kinda twitchy. I need to believe that the so-called "younger crowd" of music listeners won't be aching to flip the switch less than ninety seconds into a Mozart opera or a Brahms concerto...heck, they won't even be able to focus long enough for Maria von Trapp to teach them "Doe, a deer". Music will be dead.

I've got to stop reading Maclean's before bed.

Fates Worse than Death

Could there be a more appropriate first entry for a blog than one which deals with a first step in an opera...the dreaded audition? Okay, even more appropriate is the fact that this is my SECOND attempt at a blog entry: like far too many auditions, my first didn't pass muster with my "handlers" (shooting from the lip doesn't work with everyone), and I got sent back to the drawing board.

I'm on the flight back to Edmonton after a weekend of dozens of auditions in the Evil Empire, Toronto. Man oh man, there are a lot of immensely talented singers in this country, and what
breaks my tiny little fist of a heart is that there is so little work for such a fantastic bunch of fine
Canadian artists. Heard everything from Sondheim to Stravinsky, from Mozart to Massenet and from Bellini to Berlioz. I was absolutely blown away by a couple of sopranos, really excited to hear quality countertenors making a go of it in this country, and hey, there were only two "crash and burn" auditions in the entire lot.

Singers hate auditions. Guess what: the folks on the other side of the table hate them, too! Problem is, we've yet to find another system that really works. Normally, singers have between ten and fifteen minutes to show themselves off at their vocal and charismatic best. They offer an audition list of around five arias, and they start off with the first being their choice; the auditioner/s choose the second, something that highlights another language, another part of the voice, or something specifically of interest, from the remainder of the list. And in those agonizing, excruciating and occasionally exhilarating few minutes, a decision may be made as to whether the singer is offered a job. Basta. Yikes.

Like I said, it's an imperfect system. For me, what's really hard and really exhausting is "being there", being completely supportive and encouraging as a singer does his or her best to convince you that they're the right one for a job. So few jobs for so many, and the least we can do on our side of the table is give the artists the respect they deserve....sometimes, for hours and hours and hours without a pee break.

But it's hearing something magic, taking a risk, following up on a hunch, asking around and trusting in some beautiful notes in a church hall or a COC practise studio that may lead to a performer showing up on the Edmonton Opera stage. This was a GREAT audition tour: at
least four roles for next season will be offered based on this trip to Toronto.

And now, I sleep.