Topic: BREEZIN' ALONG WITH THE BREEZE (Read 37398 times)

Matt H. · « **Reply #150 on:** December 30, 2009, 01:12:57 PM »

I started off with a reviewing of a MENTALIST episode. This is the one where Patrick helps out his former psychiatrist who's one of the suspects in a murder investigation.

Matt H. · « **Reply #151 on:** December 30, 2009, 01:13:09 PM »

Page Six Dance!!!

Matt H. · « **Reply #152 on:** December 30, 2009, 01:14:27 PM »

Then I watched an NCIS for last season's box set. This one had Gibbs reluctantly allowing a trainee to join the team for a case. He's also figured out that Agent Lee was the mole in the organization. I believe he traps her in the next episode in the set.

Cillaliz · « **Reply #153 on:** December 30, 2009, 01:14:47 PM »

Quote from: JMK on December 30, 2009, 10:53:00 AM

I am now more convinced than ever that I've been dealing with apparently very small stones for years, as my kidneys since yesterday have had the same dull aching, slightly numb feeling I get once or twice a year. I am assuming this is residual pain from the stones. Who knows when I will be able to see the urologist--every time I call, they place me on hold, and it has been a nightmare to try to get the ER records to them.

Do they say "Urology Department...please hold" ?

Cillaliz · « **Reply #154 on:** December 30, 2009, 01:17:38 PM »

Quote from: JoseSPiano on December 30, 2009, 11:43:33 AM

Quote from: JRand59 on December 30, 2009, 10:38:25 AM
Yes, MR BK - I remember your musings on The Brothers Smothers....this new book is most interesting. And as the years have gone by.....and even at the time - I had the boys mixed up and thought that it was Dick who was causing all the trouble....turned out to be the older brother Tom - who played the younger brother in the boys' act.... Tom's dealings with CBS were most interesting, and the network really did try to work with them, until Tom decided he was bigger than CBS.... He wasn't.

That reminds me of the old joke - which can be applied to most any profession:

Q: What the difference between a sound designer and God?

A: God doesn't think he's a sound designer.

They use the same joke with federal court judges

Matt H. · « **Reply #155 on:** December 30, 2009, 01:17:58 PM »

I spent the majority of the afternoon watching THE BOURNE SUPREMACY on HD-DVD. The Bourne films are being individually released on Blu-ray soon (box set already out but too expensive for me to buy), and apart from an upgrade in the soundtrack from Dolby DIgital Plus to Dolby TrueHD on the Blu-rays, there wouldn't be any difference in these discs, so I won't upgrade; I'll continue to enjoy what I already have (and paid almost nothing for: I got one of the BOURNE films on HD-DVD free and the other two were $4 close-outs).

SUPREMACY had been my least favorite of the three films, but looking at it again today, it's really a fine action film and no better or worse than the other two. They're all about equal in quality: thrills galore, fast paced action, and great cat-and-mouse plotting.

Matt H. · « **Reply #156 on:** December 30, 2009, 01:18:51 PM »

I ended my afternoon watching the Kyle-Fish make-up/love scene on ONE LIFE TO LIVE. Wonderful, sexy, endearing, memorable.

Ginny · « **Reply #157 on:** December 30, 2009, 01:28:09 PM »

Back from Kroger, where I bought enough to keep us fed and entertained if we get snowed in for New Year's. Not that we're expecting that, but you never know!

Jrand74 · « **Reply #158 on:** December 30, 2009, 01:33:15 PM »

Yes DR MATTH - Here's Lucy is from MPI and The Lucy Show is from Paramount/CBS.

Jrand74 · « **Reply #159 on:** December 30, 2009, 01:33:57 PM »

I guess Tommy played the younger persona - the goofy brother who always told Dick "Mom liked you best".

Ginny · « **Reply #160 on:** December 30, 2009, 01:53:57 PM »

DR JRand - congratulations on today's milestone!

Druxy · « **Reply #161 on:** December 30, 2009, 01:56:17 PM »

I just got back from seeing AVATAR.

The visual effects are amazing, but I found the film to be rather boring.

Matt H. · « **Reply #162 on:** December 30, 2009, 01:58:37 PM »

Quote from: JRand59 on December 30, 2009, 01:33:15 PM

Yes DR MATTH - Here's Lucy is from MPI and The Lucy Show is from Paramount/CBS.

I'm guessing THE LUCY SHOW didn't sell well enough for Paramount to bother any further with it. MPI probably manufactured fewer of the HERE'S LUCY sets and they sold well enough to continue with the series.

That's just a guess, but Paramount has stopped production of LOTS of shows after just one or two boxes if they didn't sell well.

Matt H. · « **Reply #163 on:** December 30, 2009, 02:02:14 PM »

I know for sure tonight I'll be watching my Warner Archive disc THE VERDICT. No, not the Paul Newman legal thriller. This is the 1946 Sydney Greenstreet-Peter Lorre-Joan Lorring whodunit.

I love this movie so I hope it's a decent print of it used for the transfer.

Matt H. · « **Reply #164 on:** December 30, 2009, 02:03:14 PM »

No UPS afternoon delivery, so tomorrow's work/play schedule is still undecided/unknown.

Matt H. · « **Reply #165 on:** December 30, 2009, 02:03:41 PM »

Now I guess I'll finish up on the computer and then head down to begin my evening's entertainment.

WBBL.

JoseSPiano · « **Reply #166 on:** December 30, 2009, 02:36:24 PM »

Yeah! RAGTIME just announced a one week extension. It will now be closing January 10.

JoseSPiano · « **Reply #167 on:** December 30, 2009, 02:37:47 PM »

Good Evening!

Greetings from the Holland Tunnel. - Lots of outbound rush hour traffic today. But at least it's moving.

JoseSPiano · « **Reply #168 on:** December 30, 2009, 02:38:41 PM »

DR Jennifer - Just remember the next time you "loose" something...

elmore3003 · « **Reply #169 on:** December 30, 2009, 02:49:09 PM »

Quote from: JMK on December 30, 2009, 12:07:35 PM

Quote from: JoseSPiano on December 30, 2009, 12:01:17 PM
And while I'm re-packing my bags, here's some reading material for you. I would link to it, but then you would have to register for the site, so... It's sort of a lengthy review, but it's lengthy for a reason.

Quote

Disaster at the Vienna Staatsoper
By Larry L. Lash
MusicalAmerica.com
December 21, 2009

VIENNA -- There are disasters, and then there are disasters. The Titanic was a mere drop in the bucket compared to Vera Nemirova’s new production of “Macbeth,” which premiered at Wiener Staatsoper on Dec. 7, just in time for Pearl Harbor Day. The booing, yelling and unmitigated outrage from the audience that began five minutes into the performance, rising in a deafening crescendo when the provacateuse and her design team took their bow, was unprecedented in my eight years in Vienna.

Did no one in the company’s artistic administration take a peek in the rehearsal hall?

Where was in-name-only Music Director Seiji Ozawa to ask, “Who is this unknown conductor, Guillermo Garcia Calvo (called upon to replace Daniele Gatti who withdrew for health reasons, as did the conductor of the last Staatsoper premiere, Kirill Petrenko), who doesn’t know the score or how to communicate with the pit or the stage, and certainly not how to coordinate them? Who are these singers who are totally unequipped to perform Verdi’s music?”

Where were the company dramaturges Andreas Láng and Oliver Láng to say, “Whoa! This has nothing to do with the intentions of Verdi or Shakespeare or librettists Francesco Maria Piave and Andrea Maffei. This is not a ‘Monty Python’ sketch.”

Most notably, where was lame duck Intendant Ioan Holender to say, “How dare you put this pile of excrement on the stage of one of the world’s greatest opera houses, further tarnishing its reputation as well as what’s left of mine?”

Nemirova, a pupil of and assistant to Regietheater gods Ruth Berghaus and Peter Konwitschny, has pulled stunts like this before, most notably with the operetta “Gräfin Mariza” at Volksoper Wien in 2002 which provoked such a scandal it made national front-page news. At her Staatsoper debut, Tchaikovsky’s “Pique Dame” in September 2007, audiences expecting the worst were startled by her well-thought-through, coherent, compelling, memorable production. She had, it seemed, grown up.

No such luck. Nemirova set “Macbeth” in a burnt-out forest (blackened tree trunks courtesy of Johannes Leiacker) on which was set a small, flimsy proscenium like you might see at a summer camp. A few set pieces – Duncan’s bier and coffin, Mr. and Mrs. Macbeth’s bathroom – rose and fell on a central elevator.

The witches seemed to be a cult of rich dames, all dolled up in black evening gowns, gathered in the forest to watch a piece of performance art featuring a canvas stretched on the ground onto which nude women slathered in paint rolled around. (Cue the first boos.)

Things really got ugly when fat King Duncan (Peter Leutgöb) and his kilt-clad retinue entered in a sort of three-steps-forward-two-steps-backward prance, aping the Pythons’ immortal “Department of Silly Walks.” The king then took a bubble bath, blowing foam into the air, followed by a nap on the Macbeths’ bed.

Screwing his courage to the sticking place, Simon Keenlyside, who at 50 still has his Billy Budd body, stripped off his shirt and tie for Macbeth’s blood-soaked murder of Duncan, and was then made to take a shower onstage joined by his wife, both of them clothed.

Banqo’s murderers wore trench coats, white gloves and red clown noses and carried red helium-filled balloons. Banquo’s ghost appeared at the banquet with a balloon. Included for the first time at Staatsoper was the rarely-performed ballet music for the witches’ frolic in the third act. During this farrago, the ladies’ club donned white terrycloth bathrobes and wrapped their heads in bath towels. Booing occasionally drowned out or postponed the music.

The bearing of children’s corpses by the chorus men during Macduff’s lament to his country made a striking image, but how to get them offstage? For the duration of a small eternity, they rose in silence and slowly backed upstage, garnering outright guffaws from the audience. They reappeared at the opera’s end bearing small pine trees, as Birnam Wood to Dunsinane Hill did come.

The first post-performance boos were for Stefan Kocán, a Slovak basso with a tendency to sing flat, utterly lacking the depth and style required for Banquo. Considerably more vehemence greeted debutant Erika Sunnegardh, who sounded more like a provincial soubrette than a Lady Macbeth, her voice tiny, screechy, unable to meet Verdi’s demands for fioratura, and totally blowing the climactic high D-flat at the end of her Sleepwalking Scene, so poorly sung it drew both laughter and booing.

Garcia Calvo, too, received his share of contempt in exchange for his consistent incompetence in the pit. New York native Dimitri Pittas, another debutant, was given a hearty welcome, very possibly because he wasn’t awful. He cut a handsome, sympathetic figure as Macduff and sang his big aria quite well, even if his sizeable tenor comes across steely, lacking Italianate warmth and beauty.

The sole triumph of the evening was Keenlyside’s brave performance. Save for a few dramatic moments where a sympathetic conductor might have worked with him rather than make him force, his was a masterful, elegantly-sung Macbeth, his big, burnished gold baritone flooding the house with true Verdian style. That he made it through the production without any sacrifice of dignity (when a pram containing an Uzi pushed onstage by Lady Macbeth kept rolling, Keenlyside kicked it far upstage, earning applause) was a further testament to the artistry that makes him one of the most intelligent and fascinating singers of our time.

Adding insult to injury, Nemirova took repeated bows as if she enjoyed being the center of the hatred of 2,000 people, perhaps with the foresight that she will not likely be on a stage in Vienna again anytime soon. This was no Scottish tragedy but merely a puerile farce.

Masochists and fans of Keenlyside may wish to attend performances this week (Dec. 21 and 26) or five more in May 2010.

www.wiener-staatsoper.at

It was a disaster when it premiered, too.

Verdi's MACBETH was a big hit for him in 1847, so I'm not sure what means. His later revisions to the work in the 1860's, prompted by Leon Carvalho's wish to stage the opera in Paris, led Verdi to reexamine with embarrassment some of his early thoughts as a composer. His major disasters in first performances were LA TRAVIATA and SIMON BOCCANEGRA.

I do not understand Eurotrash productions, such as the Viennese one reviewed here, and I cannot comprehend why such idiots continue to be hired to direct and are allowed to enforce such idiocy onto a work.

Jrand74 · « **Reply #170 on:** December 30, 2009, 02:53:09 PM »

No vehicle can survive a bone headed director - who usually leaves a trail of professionals in the wake.....those who finally say no.

Jrand74 · « **Reply #171 on:** December 30, 2009, 02:53:50 PM »

That would be too bad, DR MATTH......The Lucy Show is much more fun than HERE'S LUCY which was a celebrity a week with Kim and Craig.

elmore3003 · « **Reply #172 on:** December 30, 2009, 02:54:50 PM »

Joshie thanks you all for your good wishes and I believe he made a most auspicious conducting debut. His opening number "This Time of the Year" was a bit fast and Rob and I decided it was adrenaline. "How Are Things In Glocca Morra" was quite lovely and he seemed to settle down after that. Rob had a few notes but I think he was very pleased with Josh's performance.

Jack Viertel, who's one of the show's producers as well as the current director of Encores! and Josh's boss there, stood on the stairs to the mezzanine with Rob and me. A group of Josh's friends had the front rwo center, right behind Josh, and they cheered him on as well. The matinee was packed and latecomers were still arriving at 45 minutes after the show had begun. During the Overture an old man sitting in the second or third row center of the orchestra stood up to remove his coat and he was suddlenly in Josh's spotlight. Several audience members thinking he was somebody started to applaud. I turned to Rob and said, it's the ghost of Burton Lane risen from the dead.

The packed house loved the show and gave it a standing ovation today; this is not a common occurrence at the St James.

TCB · « **Reply #173 on:** December 30, 2009, 02:55:07 PM »

I was going to try and see INGLORIOUS BASTERDS based on BK's review, but then he said that he didn't mind the violence in KILL BILL I, and that lost me.

elmore3003 · « **Reply #174 on:** December 30, 2009, 02:56:30 PM »

Quote from: TCB on December 30, 2009, 02:55:07 PM

I was going to try and see INGLORIOUS BASTARDS based on BK's review, but then he said that he didn't mind the violence in KILL BILL I, and that lost me.

DT TCB, I saw Cheyenne today and got your signed photo.

Jrand74 · « **Reply #175 on:** December 30, 2009, 02:57:00 PM »

I just emailed CBS/Paramount to see if there are plans.....my guess is the answer will be no.....if I even get an answer.

TCB · « **Reply #176 on:** December 30, 2009, 02:58:19 PM »

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO DAKOTA CELT!!!

Jrand74 · « **Reply #177 on:** December 30, 2009, 02:59:14 PM »

Where is the autographed picture of Cheyenne Jackson what should have come to me, is what I say. I say them what did her in, pinched it!

elmore3003 · « **Reply #178 on:** December 30, 2009, 02:59:16 PM »

Quote from: JoseSPiano on December 30, 2009, 02:36:24 PM

Yeah! RAGTIME just announced a one week extension. It will now be closing January 10.

Marcia Dodge, who directed RAGTIME, and her husband Tony came to the matinee today. I spoke to them as they were coming in the stagedoor to say hello to Chris Fitzgerald and Kate Baldwin. Kate's husband is going to be in the new Transport company production of THE BOYS IN THE BAND.

Jrand74 · « **Reply #179 on:** December 30, 2009, 03:00:16 PM »

Should we preorder the FR Cast Album at Amazon.com to get the numbers up? Or should we wait until closer to the release date? At Amazon we don't get charged until it ships.

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Author Topic: BREEZIN' ALONG WITH THE BREEZE (Read 37398 times)

Cillaliz

Cillaliz