MetroScape

Max Raabe and Palast Orchester swung into Philly again and they proved once again that their mix of authentic music from 20s Weimar cabaret, Tin Pan Alley and 30s Hollywood is something that still matters. It really is remarkable that the authenticity of this music is so joyous to such a crosssection of fans and in Philly, for the fourth time Max and his big band packed the house with multi cultural musiclovers.

For the second time it was the perfect venue, the Merriam, an old style Shubert Theater, with Beaux Arts moldings and deco frescos. Everyone seemed to be there, the theater writers and the serious music writers in a variety of genres. A.D.Amorosi from the Inquirer looked ready to meet Deitrich and Dita after the show. Women had vintage Chanel and cabaret pumps and a few of the gents were in tuxes.

Onstage, as usual, bandstands and the musicians were impeccably dressed in period Weimar supper club attire. Violinist Cecilia Crisafulli, the sole woman in the band, in a gorgeous wrap around vermillion gown and Max Raabe in Astaire tails. Some noir blue lighting and this is theater magic. But all of the accoutrement are divertissement to the genuine musical dreams being preserved here.

There’s something about German music that gets to me. I’m about a 6th German and I feel it when I hear DNA music like ‘Falling in Love Again’ in the language. I cry when Deitrich sang it and I cried tonight when Max did.

We all floated out with ‘Say nighty, nighty and kiss me’ from Dream and Little Dream for Me filling our hearts again even on a dreary rainy March in Philadelphia.

Rio, Riolama Lorenzo, making her her final bows. © Alexander Iziliaev.

Saying goodbye to Rio

Since joining the company in 2002, Lorenzo has created roles in several of the company’s new works. And without doubt, Rio has distinguished herself in many classical roles here ~ the short list includes Giselle, Swan Lake (Wheeldon), Carmen and Prodigal Son.

Barbara Weisberger, who founded PB in 1963, was among those standing for the thunderous ten-minute ovation. PB artistic director Roy Kaiser came onstage with a huge spray of flowers and embraced the star, gesturing her repeatedly to center stage under waves of lusty applause. Her husband and four-year-old son laid flowers at her feet and roses rained down on the stage of the Merriam Theater as Rio’s colleagues kept coming on to say goodbye.

Rio appears in Greek Song dance from Mat Neenan’s 11:11as the elusive pick-up of Francis Veyette, with great unexpected variations. Lorenzo’s trademark, diamond-hard arabesque flashes, and there is such flow in this pas de deux with these dancers. The full ensemble finale of Oh What a World is a riveting stage picture. Wainwright samples Ravel’s Bolero, with a rush of dancers streaming onstage with Lorenzo marching slowly through them. The last song was a bit scrambled because of a technical glitch — a curtain panel was supposed to make dancers vanish, but the effect didn’t go smoothly.

Keep choreographed for Lorenzo in 2009, is postmodern classicism with few Neenanism and very romantic scenarios scored to String Quartets by Borodin and Rimsky-Korsakov, played with pulsing clarity by four members of the ballet orchestra. The robust partnering for the four supporting couples featured standouts Amy Aldridge/Francis Veyette and Brooke Moore/Ian Hussey. Rio appears in silhouette, role as the sultry dancer floating around the stage in a gorgeous, scallop-skirt yellow flamenco dress. At one point, her partner Zachary Hench had his head on her shoulder and it was symbolic picture of her exit. We know how he feels- Lorenzo has been simply luminous in her technical and dramatic artistry- the complete dancer.

Eventually all eyes were on Rio’s every move, knowing they would be her last moments with the company. You had to love that fact that Neenan leaves her spinning on a bar stool, because yes, we all need a drink to think about life without Rio on the stage of the Pennsylvania Ballet.

Opera in Philly

OCP sets Mozart’s Seraglio in 20s era Istanbul


Reiter & Adam no desert storm in Seraglio

Mozart rarities in Philly this month with a concert version of Oberto by AVA and a flapper-era production of The Abduction of the Seraglio by Opera Company of Philadelphia and Teatro Comunale of Treviso. OCP’s director Robert Driver sets it in the 20s Istanbul, by way of silent film as interactive backdrops. Konstanze and Blonde, the lead women, using their wiles as foreign spies instead of as mere sex objects.

“I wanted to bring a fresh new look to Mozart’s comic masterpiece which launched the German comic opera in Vienna in the 1780s. my team of creative colleagues – costume and scenic designer Guia Buzzi, projection effects designer Lorenzo Curone, we decided to draw on the world of early Hollywood cinema in order to tell our romantic, swashbuckling, rescue story.“ Driver explains.

Elizabeth Reiter, 24, plays the scheming Blonde with her silvery soprano, has already landed major roles with OCP, plays her first buffo role. Cosmin, the overlord (with the hilarious Danish bass Per Bach Nissen) tries to seduce Blonde and not only does she file her nails on his ego, she canoodles all the more with Pedrillo.

Reiter talked about the challenges and the funsies of playing the part at OCP studios this week. “Vocally, it has its challenges, but the character of Blonde helps. Mozart was still finding out how to write for the voice, so this role goes very high and when she’s imitating Cosmin, it goes very low. The staging and this interpretation of the character lends itself very well to the music. And you see hints of what is to come with Figaro and Giovanni.”

Even though Blonde is comic relief, she gets to play some steamy scenes with her lover Pedrillo, played by Polish tenor Krystian Adam. “Yes, we get to do it in front of three thousand people, just part of the job. It’s tricky but this mixes serious opera and comedy. Blonde is a little one-dimension, so we tried to find more in the comedy to contrast.

The lovers contrast the more somber star crossed affair between Konstanze, played by 2012 Met finalist Elizabeth Zharoff, (a soprano, who like Reiter, studied at the Curtis Institute) opposite Spanish tenor Antonio Lozano, as Belmonte.

“When I see Elizabeth backstage, and she’s singing about these dark themes, it’s like we’re in two different operas.” Reiter said. “Blonde is a little one-dimension, so we tried to find more in the comedy to contrast. the story gets of ‘damsels in distress’ and this production we’re military spies who have been captured it gives us power and having the upper hand. Better than being the tragic heroine,” Reiter said. “With Robert’s productions he can bring something different to it without compromising the music. I love the 20s style and silent film era, it was rather perfect- especially with the movie the Artist coming out now.”

Reiter got raves last year in a new chamber opera of Phaedre last year, is very committed to new opera by contemporary composers. “So many young composers were at Curtis and it was very exciting hearing where opera can go. I think also there is something to be said about singing new music and to put our stamp on more historical music,” she said. For now she is stuck in the past for a while. After Philly, Reiter heads for Frankfurt, Germany where she will appear in The Magic Flute, then Wagner’s Ring Cycle.

The Abduction from the Seraglio
Academy of Music, Philadelphia
Through Feb. 26 ~
www.operaphila.org

MetroScape

Nothing erases a Philly grey day, like a clouds breaking up & a misty over the Schuylkill River. Biking over the South St. Bridge, hard to keep my eyes on the road- stealing moments of the gorgeous skyline, mysterious and rather luminous tonight when that old devil moon, directly overhead, was breaking through those Universal Studio clouds. Then on the serenely beautiful Penn Campus for the Eddie Palmieri Latin Jazz Orch. concert at the Annenberg which was pretty much sold out. Great crowd & just master musicians. Even though there were sound/tech problems, it was bothering no one but the 75 year old master of Afro-Carribean music, who said that the audience and his superb band deserved that it should be correct. There were equalizing problems and feedback moments, but over-riding them with sheer musicianship, Mr. Palmieri & co. cut their losses and played one sizzling, scintillating and memorable set. Mr. Palmieri’s piano just wending every which way to take us to that silvery moon and back before we knew what was happening.

botanticals

“Roseheads” by Michael Haschak

fr Days of Mercury

diamond
eyed
silver
ear
tango
tongue
mercury
touch
rain
perfume
recessed in the room
so that you come to them
little daggers drooping
on the hearts of men

fr ~ Right before I met Vincent

Morning music

| tone parallel
Chromatic dalliance
My belly button
in a drawer
under munchkin socks
at 7:40
Murmurings
Blue whispers
Vodka babble
My inside mind is out
In contrapuntal glory
A ripped wooly
Wrapped around my waist
Is glitteringly butch
As I listen to
The silky ropes
you putting
on à l’après-midi d’un faune Angled over
A silvery back alley
ground spring
There is no craggy
Hill to climb even
When I’m tripped by
The falling rock candydarling
from the club last night
1972 is drenched
In nameless sex
but a gallery of beautiful faces
even back in the closet
The rumbling
Stretti of joys
Of emotion
may have felt like false crimes
that those
Who felt full
of faith knowing we
we giving our bodies to each
other
Completely lost in sane human havoc
the sounds of knocking stones
whistling through
Leaves,
scrapping branches
Letting water run through
Fingers underwater
we hear a symphony
But it is
La la la Sacre du Printemps
Before the sacrafice
I kick him
off running Mercury
to escape the sound
Of the blood inside a
Cold room waiting for scarred
voices down here below
Flamingo, tangerine
sugar was there
Assainto was there, Larry was there
Paul was there, Keith was there
Christopher was there
Georgio was there, Alberto was there
Anthony was there, Michael was there
Jimmy was there, et fuckin’ al. baby
and nobody walked away
this
He seems
Is why,
not if inside a shadow
passing that might
Be street noise
Seeping in from the endless last night.

for all my brothers

MetroScape

I decided since it was so cold in the apartment, why not just make my way to the Ravi Coltrane Quintet concert at the Annenberg, since it would just be a little colder bolting through town on the bike, getting to see the iced skyline from the South Str. Bridge and the payoff not only being warmth, but hopefully great music. Couldn’t believe how gorgeously winter it was on the University of Penn campus, illuminating shadows of academia, reason and sanity in the air.

The Ravi Coltrane Quintet finished their stellar concert with an extended version of ‘I’m Old Fashion’ which accommodated memorable improvisations from each of the musicians and then was brought back to its famous refrain by Coltrane, in a completely lush, unshowy cadenza. The piece did seem like a commentary on what had just transpired through the ensemble’s two hour set- they were old fashion in delivering a full throated, musically invested and cohesive set. Among the many musical riches was Ornette Coleman’s Bird Food and really, showed such understanding of that era of hard bop, delivering it joyously and with warm, quicksilver articulation. More later, for now that image of the cloud scalloped full moon low in the sky over the city makes me want to do my homework.

Political theater

Rick, get a gay clue

After he triumphed in a razor-close victory in the Iowa caucus, former PA Senator Rick Santorum is close to the top of the GOP heap and his campaign is $1 millions richer overnight. The next day, Santorum was singing his same old songs to students at the College Convention in Concord, NH, he faced boos and hisses when a young woman asked him how he could be against same-sex marriage and for individual freedoms, he so cherishes as put forth in the US Constitution.

In Rick Santorum’s world, the question of the legitimacy of gay relationships is put in his own hypothetical meat grinder that if you are talking about two men or two women getting married than why not 6 men, four cats, siblings, polygamists and in fact whole communities of people who love to watch reruns of All in the Family.

As soon as the young woman asked, he was countered by the response “we’re not talking about polygamy’ that’s not what we’re talking about’ he shut down the Socratic session ‘I ask the questions and I call on you,” he said, obviously miffed. (Just for the record Rick, Socrates was gay.)

Of course, Santorum was infamous when he was PA Senator, for his homophobic views and his antigay agenda, more than anything else he did. Although he is claiming to have brought a $1 billion in urban renewal revenue to the blighted Chester, Pa., which bears repeating if it is in fact, true. He’s been singing this marriage equality threatens real straight marriage as a logical dictum to anyone who will listen.

But now I feel like it can’t be dismissed as morbid stupidity. Santorum is obviously a mouthpiece for the ultra-conservative, evangelicals who get rich demonizing gays. What Santorum does in effect is not address the fact that you can’t win elections by demonizing a class of people in 2012.

Rick, do you really think that millions of GLBT identified, tax paying, law-abiding Americans are going to stand by and let you trash them with hackneyed myths and lies about their lives in a national presidential campaign? Who does he think he is going to be facing on stump speeches in New York City, San Francisco and other gay populated metropolis? He also completely ignores their thriving communities, locally, statewide, nationally and internationally.

No matter how hard you try Rick, the world if full of people with same sex attractions and they are going to live their lives. The closet will exist only in tyrannical, oppressive regimes, not in ostensibly free societies. You forget, even in the queer baiting 50s and 60s, of J. Edgar Hoover and Joseph McCarthy, when gays were summarily rounded up and thrown in jail (a right of passage for gays, lesbians and drag queens of a certain age) the sub-culture thrived and grew into the political force it is today. No one is talking about marriage to their pets, or multi-partners ala old-time Mormonism, they are talking about committed consenting adults, who in some cases have been together for decades.

Marriage equality will not lead to the disintegration of the institution of heterosexual marriage. Straights will still be able to get weekend arranged Elvis officiated weddings in Vegas in between Barry Manilow shows. Marriage equality is a reality that is happening all over the globe.

But, Rick, politically, if you want to advance, you are being too stupid to be an idiot. Even Michele Bachmanm, the other hysterical homophobe among the candidates, immediately started to pull out of her previous antigay statements, because she knew that even though that queer baiting money got her where she was, it would cost her on the national political stage.

Yes, Rick, even if you do end up at the bottom of a Romney ticket you still have to accept that there are radical, lesbian, feminist Americans who have a power base now. The military didn’t fall apart when DADT was repealed and when there is marriage equality everyone who is in a healthy heterosexual marriage is going to continue on. That Rush Limbaugh even paid the biggest queen in the world $2 million to sing “Your Song” at his wedding.

You have survived in your homophobic, no contraceptive bubble for so long that you refuse to accept certain facts. If you want to continue your campaign, seek therapy for your homophobic tendencies, it is not normal to harbor such negative views about individuals that you obviously know nothing about.

MetroScape

I’ll be home (alone) for Christmas

What’s it to ya~!

Alternate traditions have always been a part of gay Christmas (whether the straight family at home was aware of it or not). Eventually there is either a G=SHA (gay-straight holiday alliance) between old family traditions and new inclusive ones that feature same-sex couples at family functions for starters- then the holiday mixed nuts of all stripes~

~Anyway when you find yourself a onesie again, under whatever circumstance, relatives and friends express concern that you might be brooding, soused & ready to take the long swim, if you are alone on major holidays. Well that is much appreciated, I guess, you wonder why it doesn’t occur to people that being alone in a group at say, holiday feasts, makes you feel worse. Togetherness isn’t the answer to everything. Besides, home alone on a holiday in the city really can be magical~

~When xmas falls on a Sunday, this is a city alive with such serenity and urban calm. There is no traffic. I can seek out new architecture on my bicycle, craning in pan and scan. I’ve been discovering new old buildings in this city for 30 years and it continues to teach me where and who (thank you gayborhood) I am~

~First there is always WRTI & fab programming of holiday music with Basie, Ellington, Ella, Louis, Nat, Eartha & Giraldi; Bob Perkins always has something new from the old days. Then there is YouTube for guilty favorites- this year- scenes from Valley of the Dolls & selected celeb Christmas camp starting with Bing & Bowie~

{Mostly you miss the old gang on the return from home holiday bar crawl, course most of all your missing partner & drinking, dancing, and the possiblitily of sex under the tree, last dance at Equus~ then a nightcap at Roscos on Spruce~}

~No regrets, c’est la vie. But if you are lucky enough to live in Philadelphia when xmas falls on a Sunday – alone can be bliss~

~these sugarplums dancing as I stroll through Rittenhouse with, finally, a tree befitting the center of town for Christmas and a Menorah sculpture for Hanukka and the lights in the trees for everybody, including the blue deco lazars atop Liberty Place~ 

~as I tool through town to catch the French silent film hit The Artist at the Ritz Five for the 2:40, with a pocketful of dark choc Godiva balls (thanks Liz!)& my heart on the sleeve of my 20s ratty hounds-tooth overcoat. I’m pretty sure I was the only one there alone, but I felt so much part of the crowd.  Let’s see, even though I saw Chaplin at the old TLA when they showed movies, this is the first silent I’ve ever seen on the big screen, so it was a transcendent experience.  More about that in a separate piece… well it had FACES as Norma Desmond would say-  the star Jean Dujardin, a cross between John Gilbert, Gene Kelly & Fred Neblo (of silent Zorro fame). Berenice Bejo luminous in Adianesque noveau.  Not only was there a Jack terrier and a big dance finish~ the music, entranced. This is not stylized cinema, but a work of cinema art. I wept.  

~Biked down to Penn’s Landing and tapdanced a bit on the causeway perch over the Delaware, at sunset with the skyline cut with a pink burnished and mauve sky.  Back through town able to ride without stopping for 12 blocks without a car in sight and such gorgeous silence.  and even the bars aren’t open until tonight, but detox boy will have to be content on being drunk on the Artist.

Merry Christmas Jack,
see you at the movies
or in a dream
~ t’amo darling j’taime ~

Ballet

 

 

Pennsylvania Ballet
The Nutcracker
Academy of Music, Dec. 11 

Pennsylvania Ballet opened their celebrated production of George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker in Ottawa, Canada this year and are now back home for a three week run in the Academy of Music, with rotating lead casts.

Even with the tour warm-up, the Sunday matinee performance in the Academy had a subdued, rote air for much of Act I. After all, Mr. B’s long Christmas party scene is pantomime-heavy and through Balanchine, has lineage that dates back to the Imperial Russian Ballet, which can look dusty.

All of the gestural work with relatives and guests can get wheezy without sharp character embellishments, and the mice war with the toy cadets needs to be sharpened, if not retooled.

But livening things up were the junior corps girls, who really dug in with charm and excitement. And former principal William DeGregory appeared as a very animated Herr Drosselmeier, who wielded his cape and a wand a la Liberace.

Leah Hirsch and Phoebe Gavula as Harlequin and Columbine held to razor-like doll moves. Alexander Peters as the soldier, dancing to Tchaikovsky’s dark drill, was all bolt and technical fire.

Act I’s erratic quality was completely jettisoned by the Waltz of the Snowflakes; these ladies had glittering carriage and supple precision in their point work, especially when serenaded by the silvery voices of the Philadelphia Boys Choir from the gilt Academy box.

Act II is all about the dancing. The full flow that had been missing was now very much onstage. At the center, there was a great performance by Amy Aldridge as the Sugar Plum Fairy and her Cavalier Zachary Hench. Except for minor corrections en balance, their chemistry and sublime technique pretty much nailed one of Balanchine’s most demanding pas de deux.

Sparking things up was William DeGregory as a very animated as Drosselmeier, who wields his cape and a wand a la Liberace.Advertisement
Aldridge kept floating diamond-hard pirouette runs and her adagio turns were a dream. Hench, a most attentive partner, executed steel-centered grand pirouettes and unfussy jetes.

Among the hightlights of those Balanchine jewel box divertissements: Riolama Lorenzo burning the floor without even trying as Coffee, the harem seductress with finger chimes- How many ways can you say sultry and luminous?

James Ihde and Rachel Maher were the strong leads for the tarantella Chocolates dance. Brooke Moore looked tentative in her Waltz of the Flowers, pitching out of a couple of turns, but recovered on her second entrance along with ensemble of flowers, locked in with Balanchine’s showgirl classicism.

Peters, who just became an apprentice this year, was back leading the Candy Cane Brigade with plum hoop jumps for the Russian Dance presto. The Shepherdesses held tight, rhythmic patterns framing the gorgeous pacing of lead Holly Lynn Fusco and Jermel Johnson nailed those signature tea dance jumps with mile-high aerial splits.

Among the child leads, Mary Lee Deddens kept her dancing fleet while reflecting the evening’s wonder in her eyes even as the smitten Christian Lavallie stole her heart as her valiant prince.

And the party girls from Act I were back as the gliding Angels orchestra and The Polichinelles, who appear out from under the sails of Mother Gingerbread. These lovies showed tight unison work and airy jumps. Needless to say, it takes a lot to upstage this yuletide Dragzilla.

The orchestra played textbook Tchaikovsky, although that could have spiked a little more in key moments. And again this year Luigi Mazzocchi’s fine violin solo just bathed the opera house