Headbanging With Saruman

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I had heard something about Christopher Lee creating a heavy metal album about Charlemagne a little while back so I went searching for more information. Sure enough, I found an article about a project the actor has undertaken to create an album of symphonic metal about the Holy Roman Emperor from which he is a direct descendant.

There is more information on the project at Charlemagne: By The Sword and the Cross. The album isn’t released until March 15, but you can listen to some samples here.

It isn’t screaming 80s Heavy Metal. That would be a little too much to hope from an 87 old. The Charlemagne snippets sound more like Broadway than heavy metal. One of the samples is actually labeled as a rehearsal for the stage musical. Though Lee apparently has collaborated with the metal group Manowar. You gotta give it up for a guy who will make a foray into metal at that age.

Much as I am a Lord of the Rings fan and liked his role in the Star Wars saga, I hate to admit the songs didn’t really excite me. I didn’t think it was very good Broadway type material much less metal. But if his star power leads to some people learning and perhaps remembering some history along the way, I can’t complain too much.

Guest Poster: Kim Witman

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Kim Witman of the Wolf Trap Opera Company is celebrating today’s announcement of the WTOC 2010 season by doing guest blog posts and interviews in a few places across the blogosphere. I was intrigued by the idea of a virtual season announcement across the blogosphere so I agreed to host one of her articles.

Each participating blog will have a piece on a different subject so you will have to “collect them all” to get the full picture of the Wolftrap Opera Company season.  Check  Kim’s blog at www.wolftrapopera.blogspot.com for a complete list – all of the links should be active by midday on Tuesday, February 9.

You Decide How it Ends

We’re always looking for hooks, aren’t we?  Flashy, attention-grabbing ways to get folks’ attention.  So I know you won’t believe me when I say that the original motivation for this summer’s Zaide production was not marketing-based.

You see, Mozart didn’t finish Zaide.  He wasn’t writing it on commission, and he started it on his own when he was in between jobs.  A real commission with a paycheck was offered (for Idomeneo), and he had to go where the money was.  So Zaide was put aside, and he never got back to it.  To complicate matters, the point at which he broke off writing it gives no clear indication of what the ending might be.

The setup is pretty simple.  The hero (Gomatz) and heroine (Zaide) are prisoners who fall in love.  The other characters are the Sultan who’s holding them captive (and who has his sights on the beautiful Zaide), and two guards (Osmin, who is essentially evil; and Allazim, who takes pity on the young couple).   Gomatz and Zaide escape, with the help of the sympathetic guard.  They are recaptured by the other guard, and the Sultan condemns them to death.  And that’s where Mozart stopped.

The source material for the story is from an older libretto titled Das Serail, itself probably derived from Voltaire’s play Zaïre.  And here’s how Das Serail ends:  The Sultan discovers that 1) the kindly guard once saved his life, and that 2) Allazim is the father of… you guessed it… Gomatz and Zaide, who are brother and sister.

Well, this is a century before the opera world took on Siegmund and Sieglinde.  And although there’s plenty of precedent in mythology and literature for addressing incest, the fact that Mozart quit at this point is a bit of a conundrum.  Probably coincidental, possibly not.

Zaide is a Singspiel, an informal entertainment which doesn’t aspire to be “high opera.”  It isn’t a comedy, but there’s every reason to believe that it would have aspired to a happy ending.  (Witness what happened to Don Giovanni a few years later, where a happy ending was essentially grafted on.)  Would Mozart have gone on to make his dictator benevolent?  Would the Sultan’s actions be a prototype for Tito’s clemency?  And if so, would the impetus for his forgiveness have included a discovery that encompassed the specter of incest?

We’ve talked about doing this opera literally for decades.  Director James Marvel feels that the best way to present it would be to allow uncertainty to take a place at the table.  We will prepare at least two endings (maybe three), and during the intermission of each performance, the audience will vote on how they would like the opera to end.

When we came to that solution, I didn’t hesitate to embrace it on other levels.  As a producer, I am eager for our audience to have an investment in the performance, to interact with the opera in a different way.  The choose-your-own-ending aspect of our production will make its way into our web and printed materials, and if it engages some folks who might otherwise not be interested, I shall not complain.  But what I’m happiest about is that the device first emerged from our approach to the challenges of this beautiful yet problematic opera.

(Zaide will be performed on June 11, 13, 15 & 19, 2010)

Honolulu Symphony No Longer Stands Apart

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There is an oft expressed sentiment in Hawaii that the state is about 10 years behind the current trends. The Honolulu Symphony administration, however, seems to be right in step with the current approach symphony management nationwide takes while in negotiations with their musicians.

In an interview that aired last Friday on Hawaii Public Radio, Honolulu Symphony Executive Director Majken Mechling echos the usual arguments about musicians only working part time, being overpaid for their services and being obstructionist. My heart sunk when I heard this during my morning drive to work last Friday. These arguments sound so similar to those espoused by other symphony organizations across the nation, I wondered if Mechling, who was recently executive director at the local chapter American Diabetes Association, had researched those symphony negotiations in preparation for the symphony job. Intentional or just coincidence, I believe it was a mistake to follow this approach in terms of public and musicians relations.

The symphony administration has gone from the exemplar of civil relations with musicians I cited about a year and a half ago and Ron Spigelman praised about a year ago, to just like most every other symphony.

The Honolulu Symphony musicians’ pay was about 12 weeks behind by the time a large donation late last year caught them up. They had been continuing to play for about a year even though the gap in how far behind their pay was continually increased.

Last April I had observed that the moral victory the musicians achieved by their dedication to their organization in spite of not having been paid didn’t put food on their table or pay their mortgages. I will likewise acknowledge that dedication, commendable as it might be, doesn’t pay off the symphony’s debts today.

But I can’t imagine that the decision to donate $2.13 million to the symphony last September wasn’t in part influenced by the dogged loyalty the musicians showed to the organization. I am sure the musicians’ gesture impressed a number of people enough to make less publicly recognized donations.

Now about three months after the symphony filed for bankruptcy protection, to hear the musicians disparaged as if they hadn’t provided such a significant sign of their investment disturbs me. Frankly, even if they are being obstructionist, it is hard to blame them after enduring such a long period of uncertainty and making concessions only to have things fall apart on them anyway. Even if the musicians aren’t as cordial in private as they were before, where is the benefit in employing antagonistic language?

I certainly don’t condone any threats Mechling may have received from musicians or their supporters. But after a long period where the relations between the administration and the orchestra were at least publicly polite, there doesn’t seem to be anything to gain by being critical of the musicians. The organization still retains a halo of goodwill. What is the cost of being complimentary of the musicians or saying nothing? The situation may unavoidably end with the number of musicians being severely cut. It would be better that the narrative continually be that the orchestra has always valued its musicians, always honored their loyalty and is heartsick to have reduced their numbers. That would be the sort of thing that convinces donors the orchestra is still worth supporting, even in it’s diminishes capacity.

The thing I disliked the most was Mechling’s comparison of the dealings with the musicians union to that of the state and its union employees. I believe she was trying to tap into the popular sentiment expressed on online comment forums that was recently running against the state employees while they were making obligatory noises resisting pay cuts and furloughs. (Disclosure: I am represented by one of the union bargaining units which did settle and take pay cuts and furloughs.) I believe her attempts were misplaced and unnecessary. For one thing, the state employees would have been striking and making all sorts of noise if their pay was just a couple weeks in arrears. The musicians barely made the slightest critical statement publicly against the symphony. Even now Steven Dinion’s comments in the interview that they have been frustrated by the process and don’t understand the administration’s agenda are about the strongest public statements that have been made by the musicians on the situation.

I understand and empathize with the frustration Mechling may be feeling having taken the helm of an organization that seemed to have cause for hope only to have bankruptcy declared a short time later. The time she was provided to feel any sort of elation was quickly curtailed and now she is faced with overseeing the (hopefully) partial dismantling of a long storied institution. This includes being faced with making decisions about the futures of 80 some individuals. That can’t be easy. Artists, administrators and technicians grousing about each other in turn is a national past time in the performing arts. Limiting the timing and the forum in which these are done, however, is critical.

Engaging Production Blog

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Over the last few months, I have been following Don Hall’s An Angry White Guy In Chicago blog as he discusses the process behind the show he is directing, The (edward) Hopper Project..

Hall directed a play based on Edward Hopper‘s iconic Nighthawks painting. He was inspired by a retrospective of the artist at the Art Institute of Chicago.

Nighthawks, Edward Hopper via Wikipedia.org

What has kept me coming back on a consistent basis is the fact that he does such a great job talking about his process and holding my interest when so many production blogs fail to do so.

So I thought I would direct a little attention his way (though he certainly doesn’t need my help) and point out some of the entries that caught my attention most:

-His discussion of how to make a play written by a group work. He acknowledges writing by committee generally isn’t going to yield anything of quality and talks about working through the conflicts he had with people who didn’t agree with his cuts. (And here is a reposting of Time Out Chicago preview piece he inserts into his blog later in which his process is described less charitably. To his glee, it seems.)

-Post about the start of rehearsal

One of the interesting things he does is reposts all the reviews of the work, starting on January 19 (if you followed the link to all the Hopper entries, just scroll up and start reading upward from the review by Joe Stead.) He then reflects, pretty fair and honestly for the guy who directed it, about the review, further discussing what his aims had been.

He acknowledges why some people may find the show difficult or dislike the style in which the show was presented. He says as much in response to one of the first reviews

“I’d be lying if I didn’t feel a sigh of relief that someone appreciated the fractured narrative structure and found it “consistent with the mystique evoked by Hopper.”

His review of reviews illuminates in one place the truth that you shouldn’t attempt to gear your show toward pleasing critics. What each seemed to think he lacked contradicted at least one other reviewer.

-One of the entries I loved the most since I have never heard of anyone else even trying to experience their show in this manner is the entry where he listens to his show being described for the blind. He laughs so hard that he approaches the point of sabotaging his own show.

However, Don does suffer some repercussions for his practice of reprinting reviews whole cloth and receives a cease and desist letter in response. The Chicago Tribune Theatre Editor pre-emptively reminds him of the limits of fair use when he provides Don with the link to the review which appeared in that paper. (I assume he does that with all the blogs and not in reaction to the desist letter.)

While I don’t wish legal action on anyone, I appreciate the reminder about the intellectual property issues and concerns one must be cognizant of when creating art. From what I understand, the cease letter was sent in reaction to reprinting a review from a web only publication. Since he fully credits and links to the original review, the only motivation I can think of for hiring a lawyer is that the advertising revenue lost by not having people visit the site. I am not sure Don was even asked to take the post down prior to receiving the letter. As more newspapers move to web only presences, I wonder if this sort of thing will become more prevalent.