In like a lion!
Its March and spring is here in the ATL - the daffodils are in bloom, the pear trees are blossoming, and the sun is shining non-stop until who knows when (THANK GOODNESS!). I'm anticipating a relatively quiet March, in comparison to last year, which may just have been the worst month of my life due to comps, final papers, traveling twice to D.C. (neither for fun), applying for WAY too many jobs at the PMF fair, and having pink eye and a sinus infection. YUCK!
Lent begins today and this year I'll be switching to the Weight Watcher's core plan as my sacrifice, which means I'm giving up sweet tea, processed foods, breads, and alcohol. What can I eat? Unlimited amounts of lean meats, legumes, fruit, veggies, and fat free dairy. I can also eat potatoes and whole wheat pasta, but its limited to one serving per day of either one. Read more here: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5774013/
Work is keeping me very busy and I'm finally back to feeling better so all is well in the world of Valerie. I also bought my ticket for the big trip out to Texas at the end of April - I cannot wait!
And oh yeah - I met a colleague at work who's name is... Valerie Rock. No joke. We've become friends now just to confuse the world.
In really great news, my great friend Anna was reviewed in the New York Times for her starring role as Emily in the world premiere of the play Our Town as an opera. Read more here: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/27/arts/music/27rore.html?_r=1&oref=slogin or for a great article from MusicalAmerica.com: At Last, “Our Town” the Opera
By George Loomis
MusicalAmerica.com
February 27, 2006
BLOOMINGTON, IN -- Ned Rorem is not the first composer who wanted to make an opera out of “Our Town,” but he is the first to bring desire to fruition. Copland and Bernstein also had designs on Thornton Wilder’s
1938 stage classic but were stymied because Wilder refused to grant permission. Artistic creations have lives of their own, however, and Wilder’s literary executor (his nephew Tappan Wilder) became persuaded with the help of librettist J. D. McClatchy that the time for the opera had come.
And so with the world premiere of Rorem’s “Our Town” by the Indiana University Opera Theater on Friday evening, another American literary classic joins “The Great Gatsby,” “A Streetcar Named Desire” and “An American Tragedy” in an operatic incarnation. And as before the question is what, if any, is the added value? The question is especially acute with this play because of its radically unadorned mode of discourse, scarcely separable from its larger content. By unavoidably compromising the play’s unprecedented directness, music alters what is most strikingly unique about it.
Rorem has taken pains not to be unduly obtrusive, turning out a score that was aptly praised in a pre-performance talk for its “transparency.” (The instrumentation is for small orchestra, no percussion, with piano adding a homey touch.) The play already calls for hymns such as “Blessed be the ties that bind” and wedding marches by Mendelssohn and Wagner. (No Wagnerian, Rorem scotched the latter.) The hymns turn up in amusing, wrong-note harmonizations and there is a lively instrumental fantasy on the Mendelssohn. But the prevailing musical mood is of gentle nostalgia, as Rorem conjures musically Grover’s Corners, NH, and its inhabitants. Languorous melodic lines or fragments, often with an unmistakable Americana flavor, interact with each other in the orchestra, and the vocal parts engagingly follow suit. Abrasive dissonance plays no part.
McClatchy’s libretto streamlines the action by eliminating, for example, the younger siblings of sweethearts George Gibbs and Emily Webb, but happily it retains much of Wilder’s language. Material for a surprising number of aria-like pieces and duets is already built into the play. And McClatchy follows the three-act structure -- “Daily Life,” “Love and Marriage,” “Death” -- so that there is the same growing awareness by the audience that the subject is not simply life in a small town but life itself. The opera builds to a moving climax when the ghost of young Emily, who died in childbirth, realizes that while she is able to visit the world of the living, it is frustrating to do so because human beings don’t appreciate life as they lead it.
Here the music turns passionately expressive in an aria that makes telling use of the high soprano range. On the other hand, one wishes that Rorem had found a way to differentiate Wilder’s Stage Manager-a unique figure in drama if there ever was one-more sharply from the other characters.
The production by the Indiana University Opera Theater, cogently staged by Vincent J. Liotta, is thoroughly professional, with a number of top-notch singers drawn from ranks of the School of Music’s masters-degree program.. C. David Higgins’ simple designs are enhanced by numerous projections of the town, perhaps a few too many. One oddity in the staging, which presumably stems from the libretto, is that when George throws himself on Emily’s grave at the end, the ghosts take no note of him, thereby minimizing the emotional impact of the gesture.
Heading the cast as a near-perfect Emily was Anna Steenerson, a radiant high soprano with flawless diction, who rose movingly to the challenge of her final scene. Marc Schapman was an outgoing, likable George, and Eric McCluskey’s Stage Manager had a down-home appeal. Jamie Barton sang sonorously as Mrs. Soames, with fine performances coming from Kevin Murphy and Sarah Mabary as Dr. and Mrs. Gibbs and from Benjamin Czarnota and Juliet Gilchrist as Mr. and Mrs. Webb. Conductor David Effron gave expressive shape to Rorem’s phrases. “Our Town” is an effective piece, even if the 82-year-old composer has turned an unconventional play into a rather conventional opera.
Lent begins today and this year I'll be switching to the Weight Watcher's core plan as my sacrifice, which means I'm giving up sweet tea, processed foods, breads, and alcohol. What can I eat? Unlimited amounts of lean meats, legumes, fruit, veggies, and fat free dairy. I can also eat potatoes and whole wheat pasta, but its limited to one serving per day of either one. Read more here: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5774013/
Work is keeping me very busy and I'm finally back to feeling better so all is well in the world of Valerie. I also bought my ticket for the big trip out to Texas at the end of April - I cannot wait!
And oh yeah - I met a colleague at work who's name is... Valerie Rock. No joke. We've become friends now just to confuse the world.
In really great news, my great friend Anna was reviewed in the New York Times for her starring role as Emily in the world premiere of the play Our Town as an opera. Read more here: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/27/arts/music/27rore.html?_r=1&oref=slogin or for a great article from MusicalAmerica.com: At Last, “Our Town” the Opera
By George Loomis
MusicalAmerica.com
February 27, 2006
BLOOMINGTON, IN -- Ned Rorem is not the first composer who wanted to make an opera out of “Our Town,” but he is the first to bring desire to fruition. Copland and Bernstein also had designs on Thornton Wilder’s
1938 stage classic but were stymied because Wilder refused to grant permission. Artistic creations have lives of their own, however, and Wilder’s literary executor (his nephew Tappan Wilder) became persuaded with the help of librettist J. D. McClatchy that the time for the opera had come.
And so with the world premiere of Rorem’s “Our Town” by the Indiana University Opera Theater on Friday evening, another American literary classic joins “The Great Gatsby,” “A Streetcar Named Desire” and “An American Tragedy” in an operatic incarnation. And as before the question is what, if any, is the added value? The question is especially acute with this play because of its radically unadorned mode of discourse, scarcely separable from its larger content. By unavoidably compromising the play’s unprecedented directness, music alters what is most strikingly unique about it.
Rorem has taken pains not to be unduly obtrusive, turning out a score that was aptly praised in a pre-performance talk for its “transparency.” (The instrumentation is for small orchestra, no percussion, with piano adding a homey touch.) The play already calls for hymns such as “Blessed be the ties that bind” and wedding marches by Mendelssohn and Wagner. (No Wagnerian, Rorem scotched the latter.) The hymns turn up in amusing, wrong-note harmonizations and there is a lively instrumental fantasy on the Mendelssohn. But the prevailing musical mood is of gentle nostalgia, as Rorem conjures musically Grover’s Corners, NH, and its inhabitants. Languorous melodic lines or fragments, often with an unmistakable Americana flavor, interact with each other in the orchestra, and the vocal parts engagingly follow suit. Abrasive dissonance plays no part.
McClatchy’s libretto streamlines the action by eliminating, for example, the younger siblings of sweethearts George Gibbs and Emily Webb, but happily it retains much of Wilder’s language. Material for a surprising number of aria-like pieces and duets is already built into the play. And McClatchy follows the three-act structure -- “Daily Life,” “Love and Marriage,” “Death” -- so that there is the same growing awareness by the audience that the subject is not simply life in a small town but life itself. The opera builds to a moving climax when the ghost of young Emily, who died in childbirth, realizes that while she is able to visit the world of the living, it is frustrating to do so because human beings don’t appreciate life as they lead it.
Here the music turns passionately expressive in an aria that makes telling use of the high soprano range. On the other hand, one wishes that Rorem had found a way to differentiate Wilder’s Stage Manager-a unique figure in drama if there ever was one-more sharply from the other characters.
The production by the Indiana University Opera Theater, cogently staged by Vincent J. Liotta, is thoroughly professional, with a number of top-notch singers drawn from ranks of the School of Music’s masters-degree program.. C. David Higgins’ simple designs are enhanced by numerous projections of the town, perhaps a few too many. One oddity in the staging, which presumably stems from the libretto, is that when George throws himself on Emily’s grave at the end, the ghosts take no note of him, thereby minimizing the emotional impact of the gesture.
Heading the cast as a near-perfect Emily was Anna Steenerson, a radiant high soprano with flawless diction, who rose movingly to the challenge of her final scene. Marc Schapman was an outgoing, likable George, and Eric McCluskey’s Stage Manager had a down-home appeal. Jamie Barton sang sonorously as Mrs. Soames, with fine performances coming from Kevin Murphy and Sarah Mabary as Dr. and Mrs. Gibbs and from Benjamin Czarnota and Juliet Gilchrist as Mr. and Mrs. Webb. Conductor David Effron gave expressive shape to Rorem’s phrases. “Our Town” is an effective piece, even if the 82-year-old composer has turned an unconventional play into a rather conventional opera.