Brookline Chorus: Two Bach Cantatas and Benjamin Britten

Our Brookline Chorus concert on Saturday night surprised me with the size of the crowd -- who knew that around 250 people would come out on Saturday night to hear a community chorus sing Bach and Britten?

We performed the pieces (Bach Cantatas 149 and 19, and Britten's cantata, "The Company of Heaven") better than we had ever sung them before. Lisa Graham, our conductor, had moved us through the preceding rehearsals just right. She radiated energy. The soloists (Alexandra Lang, Ethan Bremner, Stephanie Kacoyanis, and Sepp Hammer) were each terrific. The basses rolled through the endless snaking sixteenth notes of the Bach more crisply than ever before.

And the Britten piece sounded almost shockingly modern, by contrast. And yet, its subject was angels and Satan, and St. Michael. As if to talk and sing of such things in the 20th century was somehow still possible. How can you not feel captivated by lines that refer to God with, "...He, Whom angels with veiled faces adore...."?

"Julius Caeser" at the A.R.T. -- tuning out the claptrap

We saw Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar" at the American Repertory Theater this past Sunday. As usual, we had to fight hard to ignore the A.R.T.'s laughable and absurd directorial flourishes. I felt that the actors and the play managed to overcome the claptrap and show us a Brutus whose torment is the central issue in the first act -- does Brutus, a patriotic nobleman, act against Caesar when he threatens to become a despotic tyrant, even joining the plot to kill him, or does he acquiesce and become, in his terms, a well paid slave? The second act is about the bedfellows you make and the consequences after you've joined that plot and carried out the crime.

Of course, it would have helped if Shakespeare had shown us a Julius Caesar who actually seemed to be a tyrant, somebody willing to hack off a few heads or pluck a a couple of eyes out of his opponents before breakfast. Instead, we get an uncle-like figure who enjoys having his breakfast tea with his beautiful wife, calling for the day's augury from the local priestesses (Rome's version of the Times).

The lines were acted straightforwardly. Cassius is ravenous and terrific. A real schemer, with a genuine lean and hungry look. The actor who played Mark Antony, although not much in the way of a stage presence, did have the wonderful presence of mind to save the funeral oration scene -- Brutus walked off center stage before he was finished. He'd forgotten that he had more crucial lines. Mark Antony made two subtle whispering asides, the second loud enough for the audience to hear, and Brutus, startled, remembered the rest and bounded back into the rest of the oration.

The claptrap: black suits, hats, and sunglasses on the squad of conspirators -- yes, I got the insane grassy knoll allusion to the supposed CIA plotters who took part in the assassination of JFK -- which made them look like the Blues Brothers. Caesar rises up all bloody from the dead at the end of the first act and lets out a long primal (very primal) scream. I suppose that was to tip us off that his ghost was going to be around in the second act. The acrobatic stage entrances and exits by the lesser characters. The misplaced songs by the quite good jazz trio ("Suicide is dangerous"). The ensemble dance scene at the end of the play.

All of this only distracted from the drama. You can only feel embarassment for the actors.

From Moby Dick: "Oh, my Captain! My Captain!"

Moby Dick was sighted by another ship. They're racing after him, and in his wake. Starbuck, struggling with his own precepts to save his men and himself from disaster, and to remain loyal to Ahab, makes a final appeal to Ahab.

"Oh, my Captain! my Captain! noble soul! grand old heart, after all! why should any one give chase to that hated fish! Away with me! let us fly these deadly waters! let us home! Wife and child, too, are Starbuck's --wife and child of his brotherly, sisterly, play-fellow youth; even as thine, sir, are the wife and child of thy loving, longing, paternal old age! Away! let us away! --this instant let me alter the course! "

For a moment, Ahab softens, and takes part in the dream; he talks of his young wife and small son.

But it's over in the next moment. Crazy Ahab reminds himself at the last instant that he's bound to his fate, and demands that the ship and its men be the instrument of its fulfillment. Starbuck is in despair.

The next day, they sight Moby Dick, and the three day hunt begins.

"Third" at the Huntington -- when characters are too nice

I keep expecting to dislike Wendy Wasserstein's plays: the characters are always appropriate and stereotypical emblems of their types -- the brassy domineering mother with a heart of gold, the self-assured publishing academic who still has an air of dittziness about her, the successful lawyer who knows all the lawyer jokes and tells them before anybody else can. Yet, I always enjoy her plays always laugh my way through them. They don't disappoint.

I enjoyed this play. Wonderful performances. Funny lines. Lovable characters...in fact, that's the hole in the play for me. Laurie Jameson, the professor, is such a likable woman, so composed and self-assured, so articulate, so dynamic, and full of warmth (she obviously loves her ailing friend, and puts up with her aging, difficult father) that when she accuses the supposedly right-wing student, Woodie, of plagiarism, and then doesn't relent -- what can we think other than that the playwright has not finished working on this play? We don't see the hot resentment in her that would make her do such a thing.

And Woodie. He is supposed to be a firebrand politically conservative right winger, a kind of lonely outcast in this rural liberal arts college in New Hampshire (or maybe it's Vermont). He is no such thing. He's nice. He is the boy next door. He practically idolizes professor Jameson and would gladly have an affair with her. And she likewise.

It doesn't make sense.

"Streamers" at the Huntington Theater

Leaving aside our reactions that David Rabe's play is full of stereotypes and cliches about young men in a barracks waiting to be sent to Vietnam, and that we are subjected to a series of dutifully instructive scenes meant to inform us about the nature of manhood, expressed and repressed homosexual identities, and the madness of war, and that the play careens toward a violent melodramatic climax that is completely nonsensical, and that this is not a play I would choose to see on Thanksgiving weekend...I do think there were solid theatrical moments here. Men do go crazy from something--from fear. Whether it's fear of being sent to Vietnam, fear of the two comically psychopathic sergeants, or fear of not being a man acceptable to the army and your bunkmates, the fear and menace is palpable.

If only Rabe had worked on the play a few more drafts.

The Brookline Chorus's "Carmina Burana"

The 22nd movement makes your heart race -- Tempos est iocundum, "This is the joyful time." The chorus sings, baritone sings, the women sing, the children sing, the men sing, then everybody sings, and we lead right into the soprano singing the brief 23rd movement, Dulcissime -- "Sweet boy, I give everything to you."

Then comes the 24th, Blanziflor and Helena, about the victory of these two lovers (about whom we know nothing), about the victory of love, both sensual and spiritual, as your reward for enduring all of Fortune's struggles, deprivations, failures and sacrifices.

And with hardly a pause, we come down into the final 25th movement, O Fortuna, a reprise of the very first movement, but bigger, more ominous. The bass drum pounds. We're back where we started, back on the Wheel. We pick up tempo and sing hushed and curt, semper crecis, aut de crecis, "Ever waxing, ever waning." And we're back again, resigned to accept a new round. When we boom out the final massive wall of sound, we're proclaiming our willingness to endure, to keep turning on Fortune's Wheel.

Last Saturday night (November 17), when our director Lisa Graham cut the air with her baton for the final note of this Brookline Chorus concert, there was a second of silence in the huge church. Then the crowd jumped to its feet. They didn't just clap, they jumped up yelling. I've never seen a crowd at a classical music concert get to its feet quicker. From where I stood on the top riser with the other basses, it looked like a rock concert audience. But better dressed.

For a second, Lisa looked drained. She faced us. Then she smiled and spread her arms out, as if to thank and hug everyone around her. She's tall, with long arms and fingers that seemed to stretch further with the rising noise from the crowd. The soloists (David Kravitz, baritone, Kristen Watson, soprano, Matthew DiBattista, tenor -- all great that night) bowed, the percussionists bowed, the pianists Jenny Tang and Eliko Akahori bowed, the chorus clapped and nodded (we can't bow, we don't have enough room on the risers).

This was joy, this was why we make music.

We're having an open rehearsal and auditions Tuesday night, November 27. You can find out about us at The Brookline Chorus website. Our March concert has Bach cantatas and a Britten piece, and in May we're performing parts from Duke Ellington's "Sacred Concerts." If you want to ask me about the chorus or the concert, you're welcome to leave a comment.

Jerzy Kosinski's "Blind Date" and a definition for pornography

It's been thirty years since I read "The Painted Bird," or "Steps," but I immediately recognized the narrative style that grabs you from the first paragraph and doesn't let go.

The main character is Levanter (don't recall if he has a first name). The book pieces together sketches of his life, many of them revealing aspects of a personality that do not seem possible to abide in the same person. He seems to be rich. He sometimes acts with savage, unfeeling cruelty to people who have not harmed him -- a rape (meticulously detailed by the narrator), a hideous murder of a supposed spy. He also acts with sensitive warmth and compassion, with no memory of that other Levanter. How can this be? Is it possible for these two beings to not be in communication with each other, while sharing the same body?

Kosinski makes me squirm. Reading the rape scene is like suddenly being expected to find pleasure in the degradation and humiliation of another human being. And Levanter seems to find that pleasure. Something about Kosinski's details puts the reader in that position. Is that his intention, to expose the reader unexpectedly to a pornographic event, and to make the reader squirm, as if to say, "You've been accepting degradation and humiliation all around you, all your life, and you just let it pass. How can you?"

It's more than Kosinski simply instigating a physical sensation in the reader (repulsion, confusion), just for the sake of creating a riveting literary effect. I'm just not sure what it is.

Bored with James Watson's "Avoid Boring People"

It's possible that this autobiography would interest Watson's old colleagues and students, particularly those nursing a grudge or fearing a rebuke of some kind. I found the writing dry and rote. The other personalities in his life rarely have much life. He ends each chapter with a number of "lessons learned," which ostensibly can guide us in our own lives and careers. Except that I soon found the lessons to be common cliches about academic life and vague pontifications.

Worst of all is that Watson himself seems bored. Wasn't this a chore for him to write? So I abandoned the book a third of the way through.

Have taken up "Blind Date" by Jerzy Kosinski.

"The 39 Steps," at the Huntington Theater -- Why?

If you are steeped in PBS dramas, comedies, and mega-series from Britain, you might like this play.

If you love Alfred Hitchcock's films, have seen them all three or four times, and are waiting for the next biography about him, one of his friends, or someone writing about him, to come out, you might like this play.

If you love funny exaggerations about the Scots, you definitely will like this play.

If you like the three stooges, you probably will like this play.

If you like everything British, and think you should have been born British, or think that perhaps you actually have a British soul even though you're not sure what that means, you might like this play.

If you like Sid Caeser's comedy show from the 50s (I've seen footage of it), you could like this play.

If you like all of the above, or resemble all of the above, you will surely like this play.

If you keep asking yourself the question, "Why was this play written? I mean, like, if it was written in 1949, I might say, sure, it's cute and funny. But why was it written now?" -- if you keep asking that question, you won't like this play.

Here's Marilyn on the play: "Well, if I finish a play, and I'm not totally bummed out and grossed out by it, then, yeah, I think it was a good play."

Great performances, especially the two clowns, who are exemplars of vaudevillian showmanship. The scenery and stage were a little too spare and dark (I know the idea was to spoof the Hitchcock noir ambience, but I was getting confused by the slapstick comedy fighting with the brooding darkness).

I basically fall into the category of the first few paragraphs above, and so I can agree with Marilyn...but I don't know why this play exists.

Ken Burns's "The War": not the same emotional experience as "The Civil War"

After two episodes of "The War" on PBS, we're absorbed by it, and are learning new things about that huge war and our involvement in it -- yet, I think it doesn't move with the same emotional weight that the Civil War series had. There's a storytelling element that isn't quite here. The Civil War had layers and layers of detail about people, much of it from their letters, or from historians, or from the wonderful commentators that Burns had (think of Shelby Foote). We got to live more of that series in our own imaginations.

Here, we're relying on the massive documentary footage. Of course. Yet, it's mute. The stories of the men and women who lived through the scenes are powerful, but somehow filtered by distance and time. The narration doesn't quite color the scenes.

You could say that Burns's more literary approach for the Civil War better fit the era, but I think it has more to do with the power of the literary word when telling history, when telling stories, whether from fifty years ago or a hundred fifty years ago.

A side note: the music for this series doesn't thread its way through as elegantly as the Civil War's music did. The music was identifiable, rich, and evocative. It was immediately recognizable and was repeated as codas and themes. With this series, we have big band music, alternated with occasional piano dirges and what sounds like a Japanese stringed instrument. It's not quite connecting the scenes and narrative.

It's a huge achievement, and I want to see the rest of it. But it's a different experience from the Civil War.

Theatre de la Jeune Lune's "Figaro"

Last Sunday, we saw "Figaro" the companion piece to the opera-play-circus "Don Juan Giovanni". But Figaro was a more cohesive production and had a trimmer narrative. We understood who the people were, and mostly what they were doing. Almost all the wonderful things we felt about Don Juan were here as well, the great singing, the great stagecraft, and the surprising acting performances (especially Momoko Tanno as Susanna, who doesn't get the mention and praise she deserves, at least not from Louise Kennedy at the Globe in her review of Figaro).

Why does Figaro -- Fig, to the count -- stay with the Count and continue serving him? The French Revolution is upending everything. Riots in the streets. The guillotines working. And yet, Fig stays with that tiresome, demanding, demented old fool. It can't be for the money -- the Count doesn't appear to have any left. His estate is about to be taken over by the mobs. Fig complains and rails at the count, sure, but there he is, preparing the Count's dinner, taking a beating outside the front gates of their house in order to get food for him, rushing -- yes, rushing -- to get a chair for the old man as he motions to sit down, waiting for trusty Fig to place the chair under him.

This is the man who attempted to humiliate Fig on his wedding day, attempted to invoke his sexual seignorial rights with Fig's bride, Susanna, and this is the man who boasts of it and taunts Fig even now.

And there is Fig, still getting that chair. I feel overwhelmed. It's so true. Of course Fig gets the chair for the Count. I don't know why, but I know it has to happen.

Once again, as in DJG, a ridiculous bit of simulated sex, utterly untrue to the spirit of the scene, the characters, or the play.

I would say that DJG evoked our emotions on a bigger, more chaotic scale than did Figaro.

There was that scene from Don Juan Giovanni -- the beautiful soprano bicycling around the stage, singing. Her foolish boyfriend tries to catch her, make her stop. She pedals faster and faster, singing and taunting the clueless fellow. Finally, the poor guy can't stand it any more and he collapses on his face while she pedals offstage -- cheerfully singing. We laughed and laughed.

"Don Juan Giovanni" at the American Repertory Theater

Last night at the ART, there were moments of this Theatre de la Jeune Lune opera-play-gymnastic production that made my heart race. It had some of the best theater I've seen in my life. The climax to Act One is the ensemble singing "Viva le Libertate!" as the huge battered black car lurches across the stage, the singers hugging the exterior and raising their fists in the air as they sang. I wanted to jump out of my seat, join them and help push the car out into the street to march around Harvard Square singing. And who knows and who cares why you're singing "Long Live Freedom!" at that point?

This is the second Theatre de la Jeune Lune production we've seen (saw Carmen last year). I loved the choreography and singing. It was nicely paced and the music and tempo worked the audience toward the various climactic moments. The physical agility of the actors was astounding and circus-like: they skipped and danced on the moving car, bicycled and ran around the enormous stage, kissed and caressed -- and all of it while singing Mozart! Then tension and sense of danger on stage was like watching trapeze artists.

The exhilaration I felt made me forget that what was actually happening on stage was...kind of scatterbrained. Why are we seeing that young Don Giovanni on the stage? He's not part of any narrative I could figure out, although he's a great singer, and his sidekick Leporello was terrific (the performer Bradley Greenwald played him as an Italian thug with a real sense of menace mixed with comedy). And how does Don Juan finally get thrown to Hell in the end? I couldn't figure it out (although it is a deus ex machina, in any case).

But I'm willing to live with the flaws.

Is the production saying that morality and God really don't matter? That morality is all hypocrisy in any event? The play/opera's heart seems to be with the cynical Don Juan (we loved Dominique Serrand in the role -- but Don Juan is still a bastard) and the confused rants from the frenetic Sganarelle. It can only be evil and self destructive to repeatedly lie and cheat Donna Anna (played and sung by Momoko Tanno, who sang so gorgeously). In this production, there's no satisfaction in the comeuppance that Don Juan suffers.

Other things we could have lived without: the brief instances of mock urination, simulated sex, and the juvenile jokes about George Bush and Republicans. These seemed awkward, almost grotesque attempts to establish street cred with the well-off Cambridge audience. These instances diminished the play, but they were fortunately overwhelmed by the rest of it -- the river of music and visual fantasy.

As we filed out, the out of breath actors stood in a receiving line in the lobby. What a wonderful idea. We shook each of their hands, and gushed to them about how much we loved their work and the production. It was inspiring.