Good morning, all! Around 2am I was wide awake pondering my telephone conversation today with the Man from Philadelphia, which will have unpleasant moments and which I am not looking forward to. An hour and a half later I went back to bed and slept fitfully. When the alarm went off at 7:30, I turned it off and slept until 10. I'm now awake, bathed, and prepping myself for the Big Phone Call.
Today, Sept 18, is the late John McGlinn's birthday. Once we were friends, and by the time of his death I feared he was getting crazy and desperate enough from unemployment to show up at the doors of Robert Kimball and myself to blow us away; he blamed us for his being asked to leave the Packard Humanities Institute project on Kern and Herbert, and his last six years of life were desperate attempts to reassert himself as THE early American musical theatre genius - a bit of fraud he created and we all once believed - and to find employment. He sadly never realized that most of the reasons no one wanted to hire him were brought on by his own personal demons and problems, and even more sadly he died in squalor and poverty in an apartment with no working utilities where he owed too many months back rent. Very sad.
Last night I watched the Opera Lyon production of Offenbach's musical farce LA VIE PARISIENNE, directed by Laurent Pelly and updated to contemporary Paris, since nothing's changed much in the past 140 years in the tourist world where people arrive daily to play and splurge in Paris. From the cover, I expected to dislike the production, and I quite enjoyed it. Some of the updated text and business in Act One with the PA announcements drove me a bit mad, but then it settled down. I liked the cast immensely, especially the Swedish Baron of Laurent Naori, husband of Natalie Dessay, and the two handsome dandies whose fight over the courtesan Metella sets the farce into motion, Jean-Sebastien Bou and American Marc Callahan, both looking like spoiled rich collegr boys. If I had any major complaints, it's my usual critique of Pelly's updated Offenbach productions: most of the humor comes from the updated scenery and costumes, and not the staging; he organizes things well, his choreographer and he keep things moving, but I don't find much humor derived from staging the dialogue. Some ideas are wonderful: the employees at the terminal dividing the arriving tourists into various groups and the tourists giddily dancing with their luggage, the rich Brazilian and Gabrielle showing up for their party in soccer fan and cheerleader clothes, the amazing acrobatic ballet of the streetcleaners and drunken debutramps before Act Four.
What I missed from the 1958 Renaud-Barrault Company production was the sense of grotesque and outrageousness in the dialogue. Still, the score is one of the best ever written for a comedy and the orchestra and cast sparkle as soon as the music begins.
