Thanks for the Memories
December 28, 2007 - Well 2007 is rapidly drawing to a close, and since everyone else and their brother are publishing a "best of" or "worst of" I felt compelled to jump on the proverbial bandwagon and offer my own favorite cultural moments from this past year. Don't worry, I wouldn't dream of being so churlish as to offer my "worst of" list. I feel those things are best left to pass into oblivion as quickly as possible. So, here we go:
Shameless self-promotion first: Four OV moments really have stuck with me from this year. First, the heart-wrending moment of catharsis at the end of our production of The Return of Ulysses to His Homeland. As you may have figured out from our promotional materials this year, the final image of Monica Reinagel and Jesse Blumberg embracing lit only by candlelight is one of the moments that I continue to be most proud of as a director. An image of a very different sort, though just as compelling came courtesy of Jennifer Blades and Will Heim in our Artscape production of Bernstein's Trouble in Tahiti. The searing frustration and pain that those two generated across a breakfast table touched many of our audience with its dramatic truth and emotional rawness. On the comedy front, I still laugh when I think of Ah Hong as Morgana taunting Zachary Stains as the hapless Oronte with her Nancy Sinatra go-go boots and a neon pink lollipop poised naughtily on her index finger (yes, to those of you who were wondering, it was her index finger not the middle one) in our groovy 1960s Alcina. And finally, Frederic Rey and Will Heim bringing the house down with "The Better Tree" during our Holiday Cabaret is destined to become a holiday tradition at OV.
OV, however, didn't provide all of my favorite sights and sounds this year. Other standouts came from Washington National Opera in the form of the second installment of Francesca Zambello's "American Ring Cycle" with Anje Kampe as a riveting Sieglinde and Placido Domingo showing that he is still capable of entrancing an audience with his glorious singing and passionate acting. The astonishing Catherine Malfitano also permanently seared herself into my brain with her heart-stopping portrayal of Kostelnicka in WNO's Jenufa.
Leon Major and the Maryland Opera Studio turned in a brilliant world premiere by John Musto entitled Later the Same Evening. This stunning and chimeric work based on the paintings of Edward Hopper runs the gamut from farce to tear-inducing poignancy and was beautifully sung and acted by the talented group of young performers for whom the work was written. I was so impressed with this piece that you shouldn't be surprised if it shows up at OV sometime in the next few seasons.
Lest you think that I only attend opera, the Handel Choir of Baltimore produced a wonderful evening of Purcell and Bach in November that was a paradigm of technical polish and musical subtlety. The Johns Hopkins Symphony performed a truly uplifting Symphony No.9 (Beethoven's of course) which showed that piece's ability to transfigure its performers. And there were two musical entries that came to me via the internet which will definitely become part of my regular listening: a truly "unique" rendition of "O Holy Night" which must be heard to be believed and an extraordinarily clever arrangement of "The Twelve Days of Christmas" which actually succeeded in making me like this "catalogue carol".
Finally, the last thing I saw in 2007 was American Opera Theater's category-defying Messiah at the Baltimore Museum of Art. I tip my hat to Tim Nelson for continuing to push the boundaries of what we understand as opera and for exploring the evermore fluid borders between performance, ritual, and shared experience. I would also like to applaud the Chandos Singers of the Handel Choir of Baltimore for not being swayed by all the (in my opinion) quite unwarranted hooplah surrounding the production. The by now infamous abuse of the Angel to me seemed to be exactly what art has always been about: creating a space in which people can explore the darker sides of human experience in a safe and hopefully productive way. I hope that all those who got their proverbial panties in a wad about that scene are just as appalled by the sight of actual atrocities being committed in Iraq, Darfur, Pakistan, and far too many other places on earth AND are actully appalled enough to do something to change those atrocities rather than contenting themselves to blog about things which in the end are not real themselves but rather mirrors of reality.
In the interest of timeliness, I'm going to post this now. My goal, however, is to link a bunch of the things mentioned above so check back in a few days if for no other reason than to hear the "O Holy Night". It is indeed life-altering. With best wishes for a safe, healthy, prosperous, and culture-filled 2008 - John Bowen
Shameless self-promotion first: Four OV moments really have stuck with me from this year. First, the heart-wrending moment of catharsis at the end of our production of The Return of Ulysses to His Homeland. As you may have figured out from our promotional materials this year, the final image of Monica Reinagel and Jesse Blumberg embracing lit only by candlelight is one of the moments that I continue to be most proud of as a director. An image of a very different sort, though just as compelling came courtesy of Jennifer Blades and Will Heim in our Artscape production of Bernstein's Trouble in Tahiti. The searing frustration and pain that those two generated across a breakfast table touched many of our audience with its dramatic truth and emotional rawness. On the comedy front, I still laugh when I think of Ah Hong as Morgana taunting Zachary Stains as the hapless Oronte with her Nancy Sinatra go-go boots and a neon pink lollipop poised naughtily on her index finger (yes, to those of you who were wondering, it was her index finger not the middle one) in our groovy 1960s Alcina. And finally, Frederic Rey and Will Heim bringing the house down with "The Better Tree" during our Holiday Cabaret is destined to become a holiday tradition at OV.
OV, however, didn't provide all of my favorite sights and sounds this year. Other standouts came from Washington National Opera in the form of the second installment of Francesca Zambello's "American Ring Cycle" with Anje Kampe as a riveting Sieglinde and Placido Domingo showing that he is still capable of entrancing an audience with his glorious singing and passionate acting. The astonishing Catherine Malfitano also permanently seared herself into my brain with her heart-stopping portrayal of Kostelnicka in WNO's Jenufa.
Leon Major and the Maryland Opera Studio turned in a brilliant world premiere by John Musto entitled Later the Same Evening. This stunning and chimeric work based on the paintings of Edward Hopper runs the gamut from farce to tear-inducing poignancy and was beautifully sung and acted by the talented group of young performers for whom the work was written. I was so impressed with this piece that you shouldn't be surprised if it shows up at OV sometime in the next few seasons.
Lest you think that I only attend opera, the Handel Choir of Baltimore produced a wonderful evening of Purcell and Bach in November that was a paradigm of technical polish and musical subtlety. The Johns Hopkins Symphony performed a truly uplifting Symphony No.9 (Beethoven's of course) which showed that piece's ability to transfigure its performers. And there were two musical entries that came to me via the internet which will definitely become part of my regular listening: a truly "unique" rendition of "O Holy Night" which must be heard to be believed and an extraordinarily clever arrangement of "The Twelve Days of Christmas" which actually succeeded in making me like this "catalogue carol".
Finally, the last thing I saw in 2007 was American Opera Theater's category-defying Messiah at the Baltimore Museum of Art. I tip my hat to Tim Nelson for continuing to push the boundaries of what we understand as opera and for exploring the evermore fluid borders between performance, ritual, and shared experience. I would also like to applaud the Chandos Singers of the Handel Choir of Baltimore for not being swayed by all the (in my opinion) quite unwarranted hooplah surrounding the production. The by now infamous abuse of the Angel to me seemed to be exactly what art has always been about: creating a space in which people can explore the darker sides of human experience in a safe and hopefully productive way. I hope that all those who got their proverbial panties in a wad about that scene are just as appalled by the sight of actual atrocities being committed in Iraq, Darfur, Pakistan, and far too many other places on earth AND are actully appalled enough to do something to change those atrocities rather than contenting themselves to blog about things which in the end are not real themselves but rather mirrors of reality.
In the interest of timeliness, I'm going to post this now. My goal, however, is to link a bunch of the things mentioned above so check back in a few days if for no other reason than to hear the "O Holy Night". It is indeed life-altering. With best wishes for a safe, healthy, prosperous, and culture-filled 2008 - John Bowen
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