I left before the jump and Big Link Friday….
Jeff offered me a ticket to go and see the new Tosca at the Met. I caught most of the “controversial” moments that led to the opening night crowd booing the director, but was nodding out despite the lovely, stirring singing and so I made my exit at the second intermission. The production? There were definitely weird bits, but it was a pretty run of the mill “updating” in opera sense: sets were pared back and symbolic rather than illusionistic costumes the same, and there seemed to be little faith in a line of the libretto or the presence of a singer being able to tell us about the character or even hold our attention by just, you know, singing. So everyone has to act out their emotions which might be OK if it wasn’t also coupled with a strange directorial idea that people should wander back and forth across the stage at all times. Nobody seemed to have a direct idea of why they were going to a particular spot on stage or why they should stay there once they got there (unless they got killed. Then they stayed put). The parts that freaked out the Met’s audience? A guy embraces a statue of the virgin. The same guy has three chicks at his house and fondles them a bit (not even second base here). Pretty thin broth, if you ask me especially after seeing things like this, but maybe people are hungry for something to angry about.
One other little oddity about the performance: the singer playing (or the player singing?) Scarpia (statue groper), was suffering from a cold. Before the first curtain someone came out from the wings and asked us to indulge the iffy performance he anticipated giving. Then at the second curtain the same guy came out and announced that while the same person would be providing the action of the character, a second singer would be providing the voice. No understudies for the role? It was a system that actually worked fine, with the relief baritone discreetly placed stage right at a music stand. Of course this is what happens with puppet opera, which leads me to think, why not spare opera singers the trouble of having to trundle all over the stage, wrangle horses and jump off of parapets, swim in chilly polluted German Rivers, or descend into hell entirely? They could sit snugly in the pit with the rest of the orchestra, and stunt people could engage in all the arduous action, or have chimps do it. Everyone likes that, except Peta, and I’m pretty sure they already hate opera.
Instead of worrying about fictional villains engaging in mild petting, or elephants having to do eight shows weekly, maybe we should think back to a time when people were worried about Big jerks from outside of our solar system having non-consensual tentacle sex with Gaia. That’s a link to Pappy’s Golden Age Comics Blogzine, one of my other new loves. I’m finding that now that I check in with feedly so much, I’ve got a window onto all of these other amazing caches of drawing and design. I’m going to try to take some time on Fridays to point you towards them.
Like today I stumbled across this:
Which is part of a flickr set of book covers by Romek Marber. A great use of two color printing. I’m easily seduced by this sort of design. Here’s an article on his role in the redesign of Penguin’s line of paperbacks in the early Sixties.
Just typing the word “controversy” above made me unable to proceed further without listening to some early Prince. The world was better when everything was purple.
At some point the Term “Bag Lady” morphed into “Homeless Person” (“Bag Man” never had the same traction as a catchphrase, maybe because of its previous meaning as the guy who carries the loot in a heist. “Squeegee Man”, however, had the same sort of life) but if the term hadn’t fallen out of fashion the bag ladies’ union might have been interested in this invention. Insane unitasker? or ergonomic gift to the disadvantaged?
Speaking of street life: tomorrow is the Vendy Awards out in Flushing, but don’t bother going because they’re sold out. I’ll be interested to see if my current local fave The Biryani Cart can capture their second consecutive win (you can tell their energy is being put into street cooking and not web design).
Maybe you’re feeling angry and anxious and want to put hurt on somebody in general. Don’t do it! Most people don’t deserve a sock on the kisser. Except for the few that do, and I’ve found that looking over those few getting their just desserts is enough to tide me over until I calm down again so you might want to bookmark Hitler getting punched for your bit of vicarious violence.
And that’s enough for now.
Tags: big link friday, comics, daily photo, design, friends, links, music, new york in black and white, new york life, opera
