Leonard Link

A Week of Dramatized Biography

This past week I attended three productions that were dramatizations of the lives of real people.  On Tuesday, I saw "The Columnist," a play by David Auburn about Joe Alsop, the syndicated columnist who wielded outsize influence in the 1950s and 1960s.  On Thursday, I saw "End of the Rainbow," a play by Peter Quilter, about Judy Garland's December 1968 visit to London to perform a series of concerts in an attempted comeback from drug and alcohol addiction.  And on Friday morning, I attended a mid-day screening of "Mahler on the Couch," a German film directed by Percy Adlon, with script by Percy and Felix Adlon, about Gustav Mahler's consultation with Sigmund Freud during a crisis in Mahler's marriage.

Each of these productions had strengths and weaknesses, but all three impressed me as interesting attempts to capture the personalities of people who made a difference in the world but suffered terribly from various kinds of emotional instability, insecurity, and the brave projection of superiority.  And each provided a vehicle for some incredible acting.  John Lithgow as Joe Alsop created a memorably despicable character, a closeted gay man who marries a widowed mother of a teenage girl as a "cover" and insurance against blackmail generated by his indiscretion with a Russian agent while on assignment in Moscow.  Tracie Bennett does an incredible, over-the-top job impersonating Garland shortly before her drug overdose death, as she struggled with her demons to keep her concert commitment in London.  And Johannes Silberschneider creates a memorable Mahler - at least for me, if not for The Times' critic. 

Each of these leading characters is surrounding by a strong supporting cast in a very well-done production.

In "The Columnist," we get a convincing Washington, D.C., study as our setting for most of the drama, and excellent support from Margaret Colin as Alsop's wife, Boyd Gaines as his brother Stewart, Stephen Kunken as his journalistic antagonist on the issue of the Vietnam War, David Halberstam, and Brian J. Smith as the Russian "tour guide" who entraps him in the indiscretion that will haunt him throughout his career.  In "End of the Rainbow," most of the action takes place in the grand room of a London hotel suite; Tom Pelphrey is stunning as Garland's last boyfriend who struggles to keep her off pills and alcohol until it become obvious that she won't function with them, and Michael Cumpsty is winning as the gay pianist/music director for her show who goes far beyond the call of duty to get her through the ordeal.  In "Mahler on the Couch," apparently shot in the actual locations where much of the plot unfolded, Karl Markovics is a playful Freud, Barbara Romaner an enticing Alma Schindler, but to me the most enticing of the supporting players is Friedrich Mucke as the glamorous young architect, Walter Gropius, whose affair with Alma ignites the crisis that leads Mahler to Freud.

Despite all this talent on display (and excellent cinematography in the Mahler film), there are weaknesses in the scripts that undermine the effectiveness of the productions.  "The Columnist" is very talky at times and drags in the first act.  "End of the Rainbow" is full of histrionics, and at times I felt that Ms. Bennett's Garland becomes cartoonishly exaggerated - but her singing saves the day!  Finally, the Mahler film seems overly simplistic in "diagnosing" the composer's mental and family problems.  Despite these flaws, however, I found the sequence of biographical productions to be generally stimulating, entertaining, and worth the time I spent.

I would especially recommend that anybody interested in the Mahler film HURRY to see it (at Lincoln Center Film Society) since films of this sort tend to have short runs - although I've no doubt it will become available on DVD before too long. 

"The Hunger Games" - The Film

Confession up front.  I haven't read the novel by Suzanne Collins, and indeed had never heard of this series of books until the advance publicity for the film started surfacing.  I like science fiction, I like fantasy, and after reading the reviews I decided this was one to see on a large screen, although having seen it I think it will also be effective as a DVD to watch on my laptop some time down the line.

I found the film to be quite entertaining, and I was totally blown away by Jennifer Lawrence's performance in the lead role.  Woody Harrelson is another highlight for me.  He is just excellent in every film, as he disappears right into the role.  It hadn't registered with me in advance that he was in this, and it wasn't until towards the end that I figured out it was Harrelson playing the "mentor" to the District 12 kids.  (The wig certainly had me fooled.)  Donald Sutherland seems to pop up in so many different movies these days - just brief roles, but very effective, and true to form in this one.

Gary Ross's direction of this big ensemble is superb, and novelist Collins led a team of script-writers in what most reviews I've seen have described as a very faithful adaptation of her novel, ending with a set-up for sequels.  I'd go to them.  I can understand why this has hit big with movie-goers.  For once we are getting a chronological story with interesting characters who really come to mean something to the viewers by the end, and the entire thing is also a delightful spoof of the "reality television" trend.  I could wish it were in 3D, but on a normal big screen it was fine.  The only major complaint I've seen registered is with the hand-held camera that results in some jerkiness from time to time in the visuals, but I adjusted to that pretty quickly and didn't even notice it after a while.

So I would highly recommend this one.

Weekend Diversity: St. Louis Symphony Orchestra at Carnegie Hall; HIM at Soho Playhouse; "John Carter" at the Movies

Three weekend events to mention today: On Saturday night, I attend the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra's concert at Carnegie Hall.  On Sunday afternoon, I attended a performance of Clifford Streit's play, "Him," at Soho Playhouse.  And Sunday evening I saw the new movie "John Carter," which was widely accounted a failure by critics who have little sense of humor and consider a very expensive film to be a failure if it was only the second best attended film in the country this past weekend.

First things first.  I've always enjoyed David Robertson's conducting, and so, apparently, does his talented group of musicians in the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, where he is in his seventh season as music director.  Defying the usual orthodoxy of coming to Carnegie Hall with a program of repertory standards, they played the rarely heard "Printemps" of Claude Debussy, the complete Firebird ballet by Igor Stravinsky, and a Carnegie Hall premiere of a song cycle by Kaija Saariaho, the brilliant Finnish composer who is in the midst of a Carnegie Hall residence.  Soprano Karita Mattila was soloist in the Saariaho songs.

The orchestra sounded fabulous.  Debussy's piece is rarely heard because if one is going to put on Debussy, why not do an acknowledged masterpiece like Iberia, La Mer, or the Nocturnes?  Doing a good job with Debussy is difficult. The orchestra must play with exquisite precision, balances are tricky, and there must be a transparency of sound and an ability to play very softly with full sound.  There must be great rhythmic flexibility.  "Printemps" lacks some of the memorable tunes that one hears in the more frequently-performed Debussy, but anything by this composer is worth hearing because one always hears something new, and the great wash of beautiful orchestral colors is always stimulating.

The Saariaho songs were a bit more difficult to take on a first hearing.  The composer is influenced by the French "Spectralist" school which is mainly concerned with color, texture, and harmonic movement, and much less with traditional notions of melody and thematic development.  In the context of a song cycle, this means forget about catchy tunes, that's not what this music is about.  It is about creating moods, finding drama in repeated fragments of language (the text is in French), and giving the singer a chance to engage in some histrionics on stage, which Ms. Mattila certainly did with great exuberance.  I found it quite absorbing, but I can imagine somebody coming to this kind of music for the first time could be totally baffled.

Finally, the Firebird.  I find that the various suites that Stravinsky extracted from the 45 minute ballet are usually enough to fulfill my musical appetite, but it is interesting to hear the full ballet from time to time, keeping in mind that it was written to accompany a dance scenario, not to stand on its own as a concert piece, so there are stretches of music that are not quite as interesting as the "good parts" that show up in the suites.  That said, this was a rather restrained performance until they got to the infernal dance, lullaby and finale, which were superbly well done.  Few pieces are better caculated to fire up audience enthusiasm than the finale of Firebird, and the excellent orchestra and conduct on stage made the most of it.

The artistic achievement on view Sunday at the Soho Playhouse could barely compete with my Saturday night experience.  Despite a reasonably good review in The Times when this play opened in December, I found the material quite thin.  The sequence of short scenes with blackouts didn't conduce to dramatic continuity, and the acting -- while undoubtedly constrained by the limitations of the script -- was not particularly convincing. 

The story posits a gay couple suffering the pressures of sudden fame for one of them, accompanied by his agent's attempt to keep the same-sex partner as far as possible from the public eye.  Todd Alan Crain as the victim of this activity was probably the most effective of the actors, followed by Julian Mercer as an apologetic publicist.  Lead man Jon Fleming, playing the member of the couple suddenly thrust into the limelight with his breakthrough movie role, looked the part and certainly knowa how carry off formal wear, but I didn't feel much emotional engagement with the part coming from him.  Lindsay Goranson as the bitchy agent who secretly wants to get her gay star into her bed (and to separate him from his partner)  really gets into her part, what there is of it, and Georgia X. Lifsher as the transsexual woman seeking the limelight for her own movie career makes a giggly beard for Mr. Fleming's "Nick Cooper."  Rounding out the cast was James Sautter as the agent's sex-toy-in-waiting, who actually struck me as more likely to make a success with the lead role.  Mr. Streit directed from his script, with a minimalist production designed by Josh Iacovelli suitable to the limited resources at hand.

From minimalism to maximalism - I was intrigued by the reviews for "John Carter," based on an old novel by Edgar Rice Burroughs, so that was the evening's entertainment.  The idea is a young veteran of the U.S. Confederate Army of Virginia prospecting for gold in the west when he blunders into a cavern where a tangle with a strange guy in a white robe leaves him waking up on Mars in the midst of tribal warfare between various "civilizations" that are technologically in advance of Earth circa 1868.  Well, in science fiction you can do anything you want, but it takes a while to catch on to what is happening since one is thrust into the middle of a situation where bits and pieces are exposed but it takes some time for a coherent story to emerge.  Just about everybody who has made a science fiction film in the history of the genre seems to have been a model for something or other in this film, but the entire thing seems to be a $350 million dollar excuse to show off the fine upper body development of Taylor Kitsch, an actor previously unknown to me whose personal trainer should probably get the lead credit for this film.

According to news reports, it brought in the second-highest weekend revenue in its first few days of release, runner up to the second week of a Dr. Seuss cartoon, and thus must be accounted a failure at $30.6 million (even though it also earned over $70 million overseas this weekend), since the estimate of what it will have to earn to turn a profit is over $600 million.  Reportedly the studio allowed things to get wildly out of hand out of regard for the "auteur," who had success with prior efforts in different genres.  No names here.  But it was fun to see actors familiar from their roles in various cable TV series making appearances, including some stalwards from "Rome" and "The Wire."  (I know, what are Julius Caesar and Marc Antony doing on Mars, not to mention a Baltimore police detective as a power-hungry dolt set on marrying and then murdering a Princes of the planet?  Am I giving away too many surprises here?  Somehow I doubt it.)  Heads will roll, I guess.

The Five Borough Songbook - The Show and the Recording

Last year I attended the Queens, NY, premiere of the "Five Borough Songbook," a collection of 20 songs commissioned from 20 composers by the Five Boroughs Music Festival.  A few weeks ago, I attended the Manhattan premiere - the same twenty songs, but a slightly different mix of singers.  I was curious to hear this music a second time, having been so impressed on first hearing.  So on January 12 I was in the auditorium at Baruch College in Manhattan, not only to hear the live performances but also to pick up the recording, which was released that day (and since the release has quickly climbed to number 12 on the Billboard classical list). 

This is not a "live in concert" recording.  Instead, taking the collection of 20 songs as a starting point, producers Glen Roven (one of the participating composers), Peter Fitzgerald, Richard Cohen, and Megan Henninger took the musicians into the Sound Associates studio during October and November, dividing up some of the songs between people who had sung them at the Brooklyn premiere and the Queens premiere (since there were cast changes between the two shows) and also involving 5BMF Artistic Director Jesse Blumberg (a noted baritone) in some of the performances even though he hadn't sung in the two concerts.  The results are splendid.

Each of the composers was asked to come up with a text to set.  Some looked through available published poetry, others reached out to poets for new text or devised their own.  The unifying factor was that the Five Borough Songbook was not just composed by individuals who live or work in the City of New York, but would also provide musical settings for texts that somehow had something to do with New York City, the "something to do" being loosely defined.  Several of the songs relate to the subway system, which is surely one of the defining features of New York.  Others focus on particular places, from Times Square to the Fresh Kills landfill on Staten Island to Coney Island Avenue.  Others relate experiences, incidents, or feelings associated by the poets and/or the composers with New York.  There is even some "found text," such as Lisa Bielawa's song "Breakfast in New York" which sets snippets of conversation she would overhear and jot down while eating breakfast in her favorite Queens diner.

There's even something in here for my own specialized collection of musical settings of The Psalms, as Yotam Haber set a poem by Julia Kasdorf which is based on Psalm 137 in his song "On Leaving Brooklyn." 

The composers also ranged from well-established people with international reputations to those with more localized fame.  In some cases this marked my first exposure to music by these composers, while in other cases I am very familiar with the work.  But despite this range of reputation and experience, I thought the entire collection achieved a uniformly high standard of inspiration and quality.

With twenty different composers, there are also a wide variety of musical styles on display, demonstrating a melange of influences from Broadway to the highest of high art songs.  Two things noticeably missing, however, are atonality or serial music.  All of these songs sound to me like they have a tonal center, and most seemed concerned with inventing and developing lyrical lines.  The enunciation of the singers is so fine and the audio engineering is so well done that one can pick up just about all the text without having to look at a printed version, but this release is also excellent in providing complete texts in the insert booklet, something that one can't necessarily count on when purchasing vocal recitals on independent labels.  (This is a production of GPR Records.)  (The booklet cover provides two appropriate NYC scenes, one of an MTA train, of course....  The only thing missing that would have been useful are bios of the composers and performers.)

It remains, for purposes of Google accessibility, for me to list the artists involved with this superb production.  The composers are Christopher Berg, Lisa Bielawa, Tom Cipullo, Christina Courtin, Mohammed Fairouz, Renee Favand-See, John Glover, Ricky Ian Gordon, Yotam Haber, Daron Hagen, Martin Hennessy, Gabriel Kahane, Gilda Lyons, Jorge Martin, Russell Platt, Glen Roven, Matt Schickele, Richard Pearson Thomas, Christopher Tignor, and Scott Wheeler. 

The singers are: Tenors Javier Abreu, Keith Jameson and Alex Richardson; Sopranos Mireille Asselin and Martha Guth; Mezzo-Sopranos Meg Bragle and Blythe Gaissert; Baritones Jesse Blumberg, Scott Dispensa, David McFerrin and David Adam Moore.  Violinist Harumi Rhodes and Pianists Thomas Bagwell and Jocelyn Dueck collaborate with the singers.  The pieces range from unaccompanied singing to "choral" numbers involving the entire cast at any given performance.  On the recording, the songs have been arranged to present a coherent and entertaining cycle varying vocal types and instrumental participants in a way that keeps things fresh and exciting.

Favorite songs from among those presented?  It would be invidious to single any out, since having heard two complete performances and listened to most of the recording twice, I have to say there is not one dud in the bunch.  Every song is interesting and entertaining or moving or stimulating in its own way, and they are all worth hearing. 

I hope that there can also be a sheet music publication, or at least a downloadable version of the sheet music, because this Songbook would be a wonderful source of individual numbers for singers to take up in their song recitals.  There is something in here for most vocal ranges, and quite a few that limit themselves to piano accompaniment, making them more easy to integrate into a general song recital.  (Perhaps in a publication of the music the composers could adapt their compositions so that all could be performed with piano accompaniment, but that would definitely undermine the distinctive flavor of some, especially those that used the violin rather than the piano as the sole instrumental collaborator.)  Several of these songs would make dandy encores, and it would certainly be possible for any singer wishing to include a selection of NYC-related songs to make up a fine "suite" extracted from the book.  Indeed, I can imagine an entertaining suite made up of just the subway songs...

"The Artist" - What's the Fuss?

There's all this buzz about "The Artist," a new "silent film" about the difficult period (at least for actors who didn't speak English very well) when movies began to have soundtracks. 

The film, shot in sharp-focus black and white with a musical soundtrack and some brief moments of sound effects and speech, is done up with 1920's style credits and occasional dialogue cards.  It's shot in the style of an old silent film until the very end, when the lead character speaks and you realize why he couldn't make it in "talkies."  And this was the problem, of course, for many silent film actors.  They had been recruited for their looks and abilities at pantomime, without regard for the quality of their voices, diction, or abilities to project text convincingly, since that was unnecessary.

Then soundtracks were invented and all of a sudden a past in the theater became important and looks had to be complemented with the ability to learn and project text convincingly, and lots of silent stars were suddenly out of demand.  This film tells the story of one of them.

OK, so it's an interesting story, but I don't understand all the fuss.  The lead actor does a good job of pantomiming the emotions necessary, the production values are high, but I fail to see any special interest beyond that of a stunt well-done.  I went to see it because it's won some awards and gotten good buzz, but I think there are plenty of other films of more immediate interest now playing.

Revisiting "Margin Call"

I saw "Margin Call" during its brief run at the Lincoln Center cinema.  The show I attended looked to be sold out, and so were others than weekend according to press reports.  The film got enthusiastic reviews from the NY Times, the New Yorker, and other commentators.  It played briefly and disappeared.  I assumed they were hoping for Oscar nominations and would open it wide in January after they were announced.  But then it showed up in the local store as a DVD, which I promptly bought.  So now I've actually seen it three times - once in the theater, once on my laptop, and once at my brother's house with my brother and sister-in-law.  And every time I see it, I am more impressed.

This is a terrific film.  It is intense, witty, full of insights about human behavior and the financial industry, and features incredible performances from a stellar cast: Kevin Spacey, Jeremy Irons, Demi Moore, Stanley Tucci, Paul Bettany, Zachary Quint, Penn Badgley... everybody involved is superb.  Mr. Chandor, the writer-director making his first feature film, does a great job.  The cinematography is gorgeous. 

So I'm puzzled?  Why did it open small and disappear quickly?  If the plan was to re-release in theaters after Oscar nominations, why did they issue it on disc and send it to retailers so quickly?  I hope it wins a wide following, because I think it is an important film to help people understand some of what was going on in 2008 when things seemed to fall apart.  And it is just so watchable!

The Descendants: The Rule Against Perpetuities Provokes a Family Crisis

Who knew that you could build a successful movie out of a potential violation of the Rule Against Perpetuities?  In "The Descendants," George Clooney plays a prominent Hawaii real estate lawyer who is also the sole trustee of a family trust holding title to a large undeveloped tract of seafront property.  According to the script, under the Rule of Perpetuities the trust has to sell the property within 7 years, and the sole individual who will make this decision is Clooney, although he has indicated openness to letting members of the family weigh in with their opinions.  Various developers are vying for the opportunity to exploit this property, but many on the island are opposed, as are some in the family.  Selling the property will make all the beneficiaries of the trust fabulously wealthy.  What is Clooney to do?

Things become more complicated, as one imagines, as family issues get mixed up in the decision-making.  Clooney's wife has a water-skiing accident that leaves her in a coma, he's left to content with his two young daughters, with whom he had not built much of a relationship prior to the accident, and the usual complications one would expect in a film then ensue.  I won't say more about the plot, so as to avoid spoiling the film for anybody.

Maybe my reaction as a lawyer (law professor) puts the emphasis in the wrong place.  This is a film about family, not about law.  But it's interesting how law drives one part of the plot, although it's never really explained in the film how the rule against perpetuities is involved.  (Did they pick that for euphony?)

My take on the film - it starts being very low-key, but works up a nice head of steam.  Clooney, who rarely ever sets a foot wrong on screen, turns in a sterling performance (for which I believe he won a Golden Globe award last night and is likely to win an Oscar nomination), although I don't think this script was quite as challenging for him as some of the others he has done.  The Hawaiian setting is pretty spectacular, the supporting case is fine, and the whole thing is well put together.  I had a sense at times that The Book of Job and the play King Lear may have provided source material for the writers.  I saw this in Ormond Beach, Florida, while in town to visit my Mom, who is recuperating from an accident, so it was a bit eerie to go from the hospital scenes in the movie to real-life Rehabilitation Center scenes.  Although Mom was just napping when I was there, not in a coma, thankfully.

War Horse the Movie v. War Horse the Play

Now I've seen both "War Horse" the movie and "War Horse" the play.  As I previously commented on this blog, the play is sensational.  The more I think about it, however, the more I feel that the plot itself is rather simple-minded and predictable.  What makes the play sensational is the production, in which the life-size "puppets" of horses and other farm animals are operated with such virtuosity by the dancers (both as to movements and sound effects) that one is entranced.  On top of that, the Lincoln Center cast was absolutely superb, and the thrill of having it all enacted live in one's presence in a relatively small theater swept away any reservations about the story itself.

These elements are missing with the movie.  Instead of puppets, we get real horses, but not in "real time" of course.  Rather, a group of trained horses are put through their paces numerous times, and the results are cut and edited together to imbue these horses with personalities consistent with the dramatic needs of the film.  The weaknesses of the plot thrust themselves forward.  The acting is not nearly as distinguished as in the live theater experience I had, although certainly proficient.  The entire thing is gorgeously photographed, effectively directed, and accompanied by a somewhat intrusive score by John Williams.  (I say intrusive because it is so musically rich that it calls attention to itself, which perhaps is a blessing since attention paid to the score diverts attention from the plot, after all!)

Is it a bad film?  Not at all.  But as a dramatic experience it falls short of the live theatrical version.  On its own terms, it's a pretty decent family-oriented film (despite some rather graphic bloodshed in the battle scenes - but most kids old enough to operate a remote or get on-line have seen worse).  I saw it in a theater with a reasonably large screen, which is necessary to do justice to some of the gorgeous photography and the big battle scenes, but I suspect it will also be reasonable effective on small screens and laptops once it becomes available for streaming or DVD/Blueray release.

"Hugo" and "Blood and Gifts"

Contrasting cultural outings here....

One evening last week I went to see Martin Scorsese's new 3-D film, "Hugo," a sort of fairy-tale about an orphan boy who occupies himself keeping all the clocks running in the Paris Railway Station in the 1920s.  The boy gets involved in various adventures with a toy store owner, the owner's niece, a security official at the train station...  You get the drift.  It is very entertaining most of the time, although I found that the scenes focusing on the security official, played by Sacha Baron Cohen, tended to drag a bit.  When the kids are on-screen, the action picks up.  Ben Kingsley as the toy store owner comes across as rather stiff ands scowling through most of the film - undoubtedly just what the director asked for - but unbends in the end when his true identity is revealed.  Perhaps the most suspenseful acting is provided by the automaton that is central to the plot (as to which, see this morning's NY Times Science Section). I thought the 3-D effect almost detracted from the look of the film, seeming a bit gimmicky and not always so well in focus as I would have liked.  (I thought the 3-D in "Avator," the first feature film I saw in this technology, seemed much more sharply defined and pleasant to view.  During the previews, there was a glimpse of "Titanic" done up in 3-D, which will be released for a brief run in 2012.  More artificiality here, taken a film that was shot in two dimensions and simulating the 3-D effect through some computer program.)

On Saturday afternoon, I saw a performance of a new play by J.T. Rogers, "Blood and Gifts," which tells a story about the U.S. involvement with attempts to rid Afghanistan of its Soviet occupiers during the 1980s.  The story is told from the perspective of various secret security services - the U.S. Islamabad CIA station chief, his Soviet Russian counterpart, and the head of the Pakistan secret service.  The first act is set mainly in Islamabad and the hill country near the Afghan border; the second act centers at first on Washington, D.C., where one of the "warlords" who is leading the effort against the Soviets in Afghanistan comes to seek funding and weapons, but then reverts to Afghanistan after the expulsion of the Russians.  The entire thing is quite gripping, as staged at Lincoln Center Theater  by Bartlett Sher with a truly stellar cast, among whom the male lead, Jeremy Davidson as the CIA operative, stands out.  But the entire cast is really stunning, and stunningly well directed to keep the audience's attention throughout a very serious play.  I can highly recommend this one.

Grading Breaks - Mindless Movie and Great Music

"Grading season" began for me on Tuesday, my Contracts students having taken their final exam on Monday afternoon (Dec. 12) and my Employment Discrimination students on Friday afternoon (Dec. 16).  So now I face two little mountains of exams to grade.  I try to do some grading every day, take a culture break when I can squeeze it in, and get in some office time preparing for spring semester, working on Lesbian/Gay Law Notes, and making progress on my current book project.  December is, as usual, a busy time despite the lack of classes.  This week was very busy: the annual holiday party at the LGBT Center in Manhattan on Monday evening; a book party in honor of Prof. Dale Carpenter of University of Minnesota Law School, whose fantastic "Flagrant Conduct: The Story of Lawrence v. Texas" will be published in March, on Tuesday evening; some mindless movie entertainment on Wednesday: "Breaking Dawn, Pt. I" - the latest installment of the "Twilight" film series based on the popular books; a magnificent concert by the Orchestra of St. Lukes with guest conductor Robert Spano (music director of the Atlanta Symphony, who brought along that orchestra's chamber choir for works by Messiaen and Bach) in Carnegie Hall on Thursday night; and capping the week, co-leading Shabbat services at Congregation Beit Simchat Torah on Friday night with Judy Ribnick and Joyce Rosenzweig.  Today I took a break from grading, having done some four days in a row, and will be attending Gounod's Faust at the Metropolitan Opera tonight, particularly to hear the Met conducting debut of Pierre Vallet!

But here just some reflections on the "culture breaks" of the week:

Breaking Dawn, Part I.   Taking inspiration from the Harry Potter producers, who prolonged their valuable franchise by chopping the last novel into two films, the producers of the Twilight series have done the same.  I haven't read the books, so I have no idea whether the last book was substantial enough to support this.  I found this installment to be reasonably entertaining, although it seemed to me that it stretched rather thin plotting over a full-length film.  The pace sometimes seemed to me more like a European art film than a commercial Hollywood product, satisfied to dwell on its pleasant-looking young actors rather than get into anything complicated in the way of plotting.  The central issue of the movie seems to be whether it is a good idea for a male vampire to get a "normal" human being pregnant and then have her carry the "baby" - whatever it is - to term.  The film is rather casual about the passage of time, but it seems as if the entire pregnancy consumes a matter of weeks.  One of the main attractions of the Twilight films - the hunky Taylor Lautner undraped - is rather sparingly employed in this segment, thus making it a bit of a disappointment for fans of youthful male pulchritude, a major attraction of some of the previous films in the series.  But everybody fulfills their assigned roles - Kristen Stewart pouts her way through her wedding, looking continuously worried, and later manages to convey the difficulty of carrying a vampire's spawn in her belly; Robert Pattinson continues to mumble his way through the role of Edward the Vampire, looking continuously worried as well; and Taylor Lautner, who still hasn't figured out much about conveying emotion and could stand for some work on his vocal projection, conveys stalward rectitude.  So the saga of vampires vs. wolves vs. humans continues, and we all wait for the inevitable conclusion in Breaking Dawn, Pt. II.  I solemnly request that nobody who has read the book send me any hint as to how the thing continues...

Orchestra of St. Lukes is a reliably excellent ensemble, and their presentation of what passes for an unusual Christmas concert Thursday night at Carnegie Hall was an involving event. 

Robert Spano, reliably excellent as well, conducted the orchestra and women of the Atlanta Symphony Chamber Chorus, in Olivier Messiaen's Trois petites liturgies de la Presence Divine (1943-44), in which the composer tried out the strange coloristic mix of Balinese gamelan with western harmonies, bird song motif, and whistling sounds of the Ondes Martenot.  I first became acquainted with this piece through an LP release - Westminster? - acquired in college, Marcel Couraud conducting a French radio ensemble, with the composer's wife at the piano, recording during the composer's lifetime and, presumably, with some participation on his part.  I wasn't ready at that age to appreciate his music, but found this piece an easier entry than some of the later works I had heard on records.  It retains its charms more than 30 years later.  I don't have a sense that it is frequently performed - certainly I haven't come across it in live performance in almost 35 years of regular NYC concert-going - but it is worth a hearing.  I hadn't guessed from recordings that the orchestration was so sparing - no wind instruments, just strings, percussion, piano and Ondes Martenot (the strange electronic instrument that sounds sort of like whistling with an edge) with a female chorus - since the sounds are so rich and varied and bright.  This proved a good entertainment for the season, although the text, compiled by Messiaen, is rather bizarre to anyone not "of the faith."

The rest of the program was devoted to Johann Sebastian Bach.  Ten members of the orchestra's string section (3 violins, 3 violas, 3 cellos, 1 double bass playing continue with the inaudible harpsichord) began with the 3rd Brandenburg Concerto, played chamber-music style without a conductor.  From my experiences attending concerts in the big main hall at Carnegie, it makes almost no sense to have a harpsichord with an instrumental ensemble of any significant size if you're not going to amplify it.  I know purists will blanch at this, but the hall is just too big for the harpsichord to have any real presence unamplifed.  It might as well not even be there; one hears some distant jangling and little else from it.  The performance struck me as sprightly but a bit vacant.  That is, the tempi were rather unvarying to my perception, and underinflected compared to performances one has come to expect from recording and concerts by groups using period instruments and versed in the latest musicological discoveries about Baroque performance practice.  Of course, Bach well played by talented professionals will always sound beautiful, but there is a lot more interest to be mined from the 3rd Brandenburg than we heard on this occasion.

On the other hand, the Magnificat in D was magnificently done.  This time we had the full chorus, of course, women and men, and four vocal soloists: Susanna Phillips (soprano); Sasha Cooke (mezzo-soprano), NIcholas Phan (tenor) and Joshua Hopkins (baritone).  Spano set excellent tempi and the orchestra played to its high standard, the high trumpets being especially notable, as well as the excellent woodwind soloists and timpanist Maya Gunji, whose outstanding work with both St. Luke's and Orpheus are highlights of the Carnegie season.  Of the soloists, at first I thought Cooke might be a weak link, as her first solo (Et exsultavit) seemed to lag a bit beyind the beat, but she was extraordinary in the Et misericordia duet, and her other solo (Esurientes implevit) was confident and spirited.  Soprano Phillips was excellent in her one solo, Quia respexit.  Baritone Hopkins, who made a big impression on me with his first solo recital disc and his performance in Bernstein's "A Quiet Place" at NYC Opera last season, also had but one solo - Quia fecit - which he sang with excellent warmth but some strain in the extended melisma.  Tenor Nicholas Phan does not quite have the heroic tenor sound needed to make the most of Deposuit potentes (I'd love to have heard Pavarotti sing this!!  or Lauritz Melchior!!!), but did his best.  I thought he was more effect as Cooke's duet partner.  The chorus was splendid.

This performance reinforced my judgment that the Magnificat in D is among the very best works of JS Bach, and should be a regular feature of Christmas-time concerts.  There are altogether too many performances of Handel's Messiah in NYC this time of year.  I'm managing to give it a miss.  I like the piece very much, it is certainly Handel at his best, but one doesn't need to hear it every year and I wish our large choral organizations would bring a bit more originality to their seasonal concert programming.  St. Luke's ingenuity with this concert was much appreciated in this quarter.