Well, dear readers, I’m guessing you already know that it is Christmas. Yes, you heard it here, dear readers, it is Christmas, an odd Christmas to be sure, but Christmas, nonetheless. It doesn’t feel like Christmas, it doesn’t look like Christmas, it doesn’t smell like Christmas, and yet – it’s Christmas. And since it’s Christmas, it would follow that last night was Christmas Eve and yet there was no Christmas Eve Do – yes, the Christmas Eve Do didn’t. And to that I say a loud and vociferous “Bah, humbug.” And it was, sadly, not the only “Bah, humbug” that I uttered yesterday. But we’ll get to that in a moment. But I can tell you, the only thing that kept me from going off the deep end yesterday was music. Music saved the day and it saved the evening and if it wasn’t for music I might have done away with myself by plunging my head into a Bundt cake. Happily, thanks to music, rather than plunge my head into the Bundt cake I just ate a rather large piece, probably the size of my head or thereabouts. So, what music did the trick? Well, first of all an absolutely brilliant recording of both Weill’s The Seven Deadly Sins and The Berlin Requiem, together again for the first time on a Polydor CD, with Gisela May doing the vocal honors. I’d just heard the classic Lenya mono recording and the Ute Lemper with John Mauceri stereo recording. While I enjoyed Ms. Lemper, I thought the other singers were not so hot and as with most of Mr. Mauceri’s albums, the sound was mastered too low and the sound was too distant, as if everyone were down the hall. But the Gisela May recording gets everything right – she’s wonderful and very much in the Lenya mold, the band is up front and personal, so you really hear all those great orchestrations, the other singers are fantastic, the conductor does a great job, the band is great, and having it all in brilliant sound is best of all. So, I highly recommend it. And then later, after my viewing, I listened to Berthold Goldschmidt’s opera, Beatrice Cenci via a Sony CD. I really like Goldschmidt’s music and this opera is very beautiful – not a happy opera, mind you – the music is moody and haunting, and the singers do a fine job (Simon Estes and Della Jones, etc.) of it and the conductor is one I’ve become a fan of via the Decca Entartete series, Lothar Zagrosek. It runs around an hour-and-forty-five-minutes and moves along briskly. I wish the sound were more immediate but it’s not terrible or anything (the recording is from 1994) and I really enjoyed it and look forward to hearing more Goldschmidt. Haven’t heard a bum piece from him yet, and I really like his violin, clarinet, and cello concertos as well as the other orchestral music I’ve heard. And right now, I’m back to the Martinu symphonies, namely the second symphony, which is just wrapping up. I run hot and cold on Martinu, but the more I absorb the running is more hot than cold – I’m enjoying them this time around. Otherwise, I suppose I should tell you about the day of the Do that didn’t.
Yesterday was, well, how shall I put it – awful, at least for the most part. I did get nine hours of sleep, got some lovely flowers from the Pogues, answered e-mails and such, then went to the motor car to go pick up packages. Only the motor car would not start because the battery was drained. I’ve been worried about this ever since the car break in, because I’m now absolutely certain I didn’t leave the car unlocked and I’m pretty certain that whatever those peckerwoods used to circumvent the key fob screwed up the electrical system. I can always tell when something is off, because when it’s working properly, and I lock the car there’s a beep. When it locks without the beep it usually means something is still running electrics-wise. And it’s been very persnickety about the beep since the break-in. I don’t know if that’s it for sure, but the battery was drained, and I had to call the AAA. Happily, the guy showed up really quickly, like in fifteen minutes. He jumped it and it started right up – he left, and I let the car run for about twenty minutes before driving over to the mail place. I was so nervous about turning the motor off that I let it run while I was getting packages – of course, I locked the door, although on one could actually drive it without the fob. The mail place only had a couple of people there, but by the time I left two minutes later, there was a line out the door. I honestly wish I understood people – why would anyone be shipping anything the day before Christmas? And it’s not going to be better after because all the same people will be back to return everything they got from Amazon. Then I came home. I’d already talked to the person who was having the little outdoor four-person gathering and said I wasn’t comfortable taking a chance driving to Burbank and maybe having the car die again. So, that was depressing, but not worth the chance.
So, instead I stayed home. I ate about six or seven ounces of the tuna pasta salad, some cherry loaf, and that was quite good and filling, but by that time I was so far gone in terms of my “Bah, humbug” annoyances, that I knew that I’d be eating everything and anything that wasn’t nailed down or rotten. But that would come later. First, I sat on my couch like so much fish.
Last night, I watched another production of Street Scene, this time the Houston Grand Opera production that was restaged with a mostly American cast in Germany. Thankfully, it was a traditional production – the director was Francesca Zambello, and while I don’t think she’s a great director, at least she trusted the material. As I watch these things, I imagine what I might do with piece, and she missed so many obvious opportunities to get some needed laughs, and so many moments that she could have helped. She clearly does not know how to elicit the best from her performers – I suspect they’re left to their own devices in terms of the acting stuff and no one really comes off as well as they should in that regard. The cast is all fine and with some actual direction I believe could have been much better. It’s the talking bits, and there’s a bit of that in Street Scene, where they come up short, but even in the singing bits I felt they could have used some acting notes. But it was so far above that wretched production I saw the other day. Musically, the band sounded good and the conductor seemed fine, although he rushed a few things a bit too much. But mostly I was very happy to see it. It wasn’t all roses, however. The sound was not mixed well, with the orchestra drowning out singing and dialogue frequently – there’s no excuse for that. But mostly all of the brickbats go to the guy who directed it for video. First of all, he has the chutzpah to have his credit FOLLOW Francesca Zambello, as if his contribution was more important that, I don’t know, call me crazy, the person who actually directed what was onstage for this guy to film.
This was a production in a theater, with an impressive set. But you’d never know it was in a theater because never get one single shot that would tell us that, not even a really wide shot of the entire stage that would reveal that it IS a stage. No conductor, no band, no curtain, no nothing. Just this show-off idiot making with crane shots and arty shots that have nothing to do with what’s going on. Oh, I’m sure he thought he was an auteur and brilliant, but I’m afraid not. I mean, you can hear coughing from the audience, you can hear a few laughs from the audience, so who are you kidding, Mr. Director. You’re not making a film – you’re filming a stage production is what you’re doing. We get a wide shot that still cuts off a lot of the side action, we get a LOT of close-ups, and, of course, the endless crane shots – we get it, you made them get you a crane. The editing is equally wacky – frequently someone is singing a solo but the director cuts to some nice shots of the set for reasons only he must know. People converse – we know that because we hear them, but unfortunately, we don’t see them because the editor is on some other shot they’re not in. It’s mind-boggling, really. It doesn’t kill it completely, but if he’d just done his job this would be ever so much better. Since these are the only two videos available, I’d obviously recommend this one over the Eurotrash other one from Spain. Oh, and the capper? No curtain call, no applause ever, even though the audience clearly would have applauded certain arias and numbers, and you could actually hear the audio edit where they edited that out. One just shakes one’s head, one does.
After that, I had a Marie Callender’s frozen chicken pot pie, which I didn’t eat frozen even though I was tempted to, thinking it might kill me quicker than the Bundt cake. The chicken pot pie was good – did I need to eat it after the tuna pasta salad? Apparently, I did. And I still ate less than I would have at the Do – there, I would not only have eaten all that tuna pasta salad, but I would have eaten an equal amount of the spaghetti and then rolls, donuts, and whatever else was around. Then, after the pot pie, I had some of the Bundt cake, which was very good – red velvet with icing. The rest you know, and you know the rest.
Have I mentioned that it’s Christmas? Today, I’ll be up when I’m up and the first thing I’ll do is see if the motor car starts, which it hopefully will. When I locked it after getting home yesterday, I did get the beep, so that was good, at least that’s the hope. I have no plans, although I may take a drive and bring the rest of the tuna pasta salad to the Haverty clan, as wife Dorathy does love it, and I won’t be in the mood to have any more of it. But that does beg the question of what I’ll eat. I do have other pastas I could rustle up – red sauce, butter, that kind of thing, but I’m hoping something will be open and I can do Postmates or just drive somewhere and pick something up. We shall see. But mostly I’ll watch, listen, and relax. I have another Weinberger opera to watch and I’m looking forward to that very much. I will, of course, miss the visit with the Darling Daughter.
Not much going on for the weekend either, and that’s fine by me because there are a few things to do next week before we finally get to the end of this rather strange and horrid year.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, be up when I’m up, hopefully start the motor car and perhaps take a drive to deliver tuna pasta salad, eat something whether homemade or take out, and then I’ll watch, listen, and relax. Today’s topic of discussion: It’s Christmas AND Friday – what is currently in your CD player and your DVD/Blu and Ray player? I’ll start – the rest of the Martinu symphonies, followed the all the Kurt Atterberg symphonies, which I’d like to hear again. Blu-ray, the Weinberger opera. Your turn. Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, wishing you all a wonderful and cozy Merry Christmas with no “Bah, humbug” allowed.