text:
Category: politics in opera
2019 in rearview mirror
The Pite-Young Revisor was the hightlight of the year. It's probably harder to be moved by it than by Betroffenheit – which may explain some of the puzzled reviews by Toronto dance critics – but it's a larger work of art in every sense of the word. The work has multiple co-producers from around the world, so if it comes anywhere near you in 2020, do not miss it. I saw it (twice… and the tickets weren't cheap) at the Canadian Stage.
Now on to the usual classification.
Tim Albery-directed Giulio Cesare in Egitto by Opera North which I watched in Leeds, was the standout. Completely unknown (to me) singers all impressed, and the set was some sort of golden multi-purpose edifice that revolves (by Leslie Travers) – absolutely the most was made of it. Christian Curnyn conducted what turned out to be a spritely, cohesive, gleaming performance.
Lucie Chartin (Cleopatra) and Maria Sanner (Giulio Cesare) in a photo by Alastair Muir
Locally, the COC's Elektra revival with Christine Goerke wasn't too shabby either. I also saw an oldie Rosenkavalier production in Leipzig with the gorgeous-looking and sounding Wallis Giunta, but though musical side of it all was lush, more actual acting by some of the principals would not have gone amiss. The Little Opera That Could award this year goes to Pomegranate, which I hope to see re-mounted with a different cast. Dud of the Year? The ENO Orphée, which I abandoned at the intermission. Torture. Granted, Alice Coote will never be my cuppa, but even so: had the production been different, I'd have soldiered on.
Via Met in HD, I saw Nico Muhly's Marnie and I'm glad I did. I read the novel soon after and enjoyed being able to compare the Hitchcock film with the novel with the opera. While in both the movie and the novel, Marnie's husband rapes her – which in the movie slooowly results in her getting used to her situation and male sexuality, and in the novel things end on the status quo, she's resigned to her life – the opera removes the rape from the story. Marnie's husband in the opera accepts her refusal and doesn't force himself on her. Why the Met-commissioned team made that decision, and whether the opera is better work of art or a less truthful one for it, I'll leave to you to ponder.
Gemma New conducting Hamilton Philharmonic in Mahler 5
Vesuvius Ensemble's The Plucking Opera
Agnela Hewitt playing Goldberg Variations
The Happenstencers give Bach a re-do, via Vivier, Southam, Dusapin et al.
Barbara Hannigan conducting the TSO
MUSEUMS, GALLERIES
Sir John Soanes Museum (London, UK) all the way! It had a big Hogarth exhibit when I visited, but the museum's permanent collection is a Disneyworld for anybody interested in the 18th century.
Fondation Luis Vuitton (Paris, France) for Charlotte Perriand: Inventing a New World.
The Piaf/Dietrich musical was very pleasant (and has been recently extended into January).
Michael Healey's 1979 has some incredibly accomplished scenes but it relied too much on text projections to let the audience know what's going on and the cross-sex casting didn't quite work.
Robert Lepage's take on Coriolanus was good fun. This I saw in cinema via Stratford in HD.
And that is where I draw a blank. I've seen some atrocious Toronto theatre last year – The Cherry Orchard at Crow's Theatre, Four Sisters at Theatre Centre – which put me off theatre altogether.
A good year. It opened with Paweł Pawlikowski's Cold War, which though eeever so slightly sexist, is a work of art quand même. Icelandic film Woman at War about an eco-terrorist who applies to adopt a child from Ukraine has everything a film needs. Olivier Assayas' Non-Fiction and Mike Leigh's Peterloo are fine but I won't remember them in a few years. Johanna Hogg's The Souvenir on the other hand is ah-mazing, as is her entire opus (I've finally seen Exhibition, thanks to a Tiff retrospective, the only remaining film of hers that I hadn't and… she's a fecking genius, no ifs or buts). Madeleine Olnek's Wild Nights with Emily was a riot. Patricia Rozema's Mouthpiece is Patricia Rozema's best film. What to say of Celine Sciamma's Portrait of a Lady on Fire that the raving critics and the adoring audiences already haven't? (Which I saw at the London Film Festival, where it was much easier for me to get a ticket than at my local international festival. Tiff is a lost cause. Don't even bother trying.) The 2019 Palm D'or, Parasite, was good and the Berlin winner, Synonyms, even better, I thought. Official Secrets with Keira Knightly was a decently done whistleblower drama. Chanya Button's Vita & Virginia (based on Eileen Atkins' play) was a very smart delight. Sophie Deraspe's Antigone, which puts the Greek heroine in an immigrant family in Quebec, is a sophisticated brain bon-bon, if perhaps not as engaging as one might expect. And 63 Up and Knock Down the House stand out among the documentaries.
I shall return for the 2019 in Books. Till tomorrow!
By Definitely the Operain dance, Elektra, Handel, Mezzos with Sopranos, Opera, politics in opera, Richard Strauss, Toronto town, trousers, twenty-first century December 30, 2019 January 1, 2020 872 WordsLeave a comment
When a woman thinks of man, her thinking is praised
I watched the streaming of Olga Neuwirth's new opera Orlando (libretto Catherine Filloux and Olga Neuwirth) today and have a few thoughts – mostly on the libretto.
Which is based on Virginia Woolf's novel Orlando, though the story here continues past the end of WW2 and into our own era. The early scenes follow the novel relatively closely. The events at the court of Elizabeth I when the young and dashing page Orlando catches her eye and is granted a title and land, is followed by him meeting the Russian princess Sasha on the coldest winter in living memory, having his heart broken, and withdrawing to his country pile. Waking up from the stupor, he declares I will become a poet! which leads to his messy aspirational sponsorship of the Prominent Poet Mr. Greene who patronizes him (but whose patron he is) and who eventually writes a parody of Orlando's long work-in-progress poem The Oak Tree. Dispirited, Orlando cheers himself up by furnishing and learning how to appreciate his ancestral home.
While in Constantinople as the ambassador for the King Charles II, Orlando falls in deep sleep and wakes up a woman. His persistent suitor from previous life, a duchess, continues the pursuit once Orlando as a woman is back home in England, but she is revealed to be a man. This character as far as I can tell was excised in the opera (correct me if I missed her). She (Orlando) continues wanting to write and hosts the great writers of the era, including Pope, Dryden and Addison. Critic Nick Greene still lives (and is getting uglier and uglier features as the opera progresses – he is the ugliest in our own age). While male Orlando's poetic efforts were mocked because he was an aristocrat, female Orlando's right to write anything in the first place are questioned because she's a woman. Still, she presses on – it helps that she's a wealthy aristocrat — publishes The Oak Tree, gets an award for it, wins a legal dispute over her country mansion (this is fiction after all), meets a feminine male sea captain campily named Mermeduke Shelmerdine. The masculine woman is attracted to the feminine in the man, and he by her butchness, and they marry. The novel ends there, which is the day it was supposed to be published in Oct 1928. The opera aims to continue until the day of the performance, Dec 2019.
There are some very effective scenes in this, novel-based part of the opera. The narrator is initially a very good MC (played by Anna Clementi; the originally scheduled Fiona Shaw bailed out, and I don't blame her). Throughout the opera she could be the narrator of Orlando, maaybe for a second here and there Virginia Woolf herself, but as the story continues, she's a narrator who definitely lives today and uses some very contemporary vernacular. In the Elizabethan era, she reads the probably most famous quote attributed to the queen "I may have the body of a weak and feeble woman, but I have the heart and stomach of a king", which was great: I thought, okay, this libretto gets it, this is a good sign.
The three fairies of Modesty, Purity and Chastity fussing over the sleeping Orlando's bed before she wakes up as a woman is fine touch, and the narrator and Orlando are given some good lines about this unfortunate outcome. Visit to a hairdresser now takes an hour… skirts are nothing but a bother… but do I really be chaste year in year out?… etc. The female Orlando is at first clad in a ridiculous pink dress adorned with gajillion flowers – fine, the contrast is the point, sure. The chorus is singing Woman: fold upon fold which is accompanied by appropriately sensuous imagery. Narrator then lists all that Orlando won't be able to do anymore – and it's a long list. All she'll be able to do is pour tea to the lords and ask Do you like it. Next scene: Orlando as she offers Pope, Dryden and Addison sugar cubes for their tea, which quickly leads to a scene of one of the men proposing, propositioning and pestering.
Did I mention, there's a countertenor singing some sort of Guardian Angel role throughout. That doesn't exist in the book, and there is no need for it in the opera either. Yet here we are. Even in Orlando, an opera based on a book written by Virginia Woolf for and about her former lover Vita Sackville West, a man has to be cast in a prominent role. Whenever a scene would complete itself, there he'd go, commenting AGAIN as if he mattered.
Because let us remember the basics. Woolf wrote this fanciful multi-century 'biography' as her affair with Vita was ending. Both women were roughly what we'd now call female homosexuals – Vita very actively so, and her devastating previous relationships with Violet Trefusis lives on in a number of extraordinary cultural creations, including the Sasha-Orlando story – and both were married to men who they loved (asexually) and who loved them back (same). (While Leonard was as far as anybody knows hetero, Harold Nicolson had numerous affairs with men – while also remaining in a fairly good marriage with Vita. It's possible that Marmaduke is based on him). But let us not get bogged down in Bloomsbury promiscuity: the point is, lesbianism and any kind of homosexuality was then considered an 'inversion' of sorts, an innate reversal of sex and sexual preference – your inner male desire for the female sex makes you a female invert – and this is probably in part what's behind the story of the changing of the sex through the centuries. What it also comes from, and this more directly, is Vita's inability to inherit the ancestral home Knole (look this castle up, will you) due to her sex. It went to some male cousin instead. As far as I know, women still can't inherit most of the hereditary peerage titles in England, not even if they become trans men.
So potentially, Orlando the opera could have tapped into this and have been indeed an opera about the freedom of the female sex to do whatever it damn well pleases – write and publish, inherit property, become ambassador or soldier, in addition to the more traditionally gendered activities and choices. But this opera is that only up to a point – when it dissipates into I'm not sure what. There is a streak of that, I can't deny it – Orlando's struggle to have his/her artistic creation taken seriously does appear at a few key places, and the Mr Greene figure stands for all cultural gate-keepers and powerful critics, and I am guessing some of his features comes from the composer's and librettist's own experience with gatekeepers. The Knole business is completely removed from the story. In fact Vita and Virginia are both cast aside about half way in, as the opera moves to some more bizarre areas.
When the history reaches the Victorians the narrator suddenly changes tone to a very different, didactic, humourless, contemporary one. "Patriarchal family was considered ideal family, but there is significant increase in child abuse in the Victorian era," she declaims while the femininely dressed Orlando observes a chorus of children in pyjamas and the video projects an image of an adult man at a door and a child looking from the pillow. Increase in child abuse, compared to what? Or is it increase in the reporting of child abuse? Middle classes or all classes? Child labour is not of interest, I take it? "Children need care and protection" is an actual line that Lindsey was given to sing in this scene. The narrator goes for some time about the victims of incest feeling guilt and the family members' inability to stop abuse, and it's all rather puzzling and feels parachuted. Wise of Fiona Shaw to dodge it. (The production has also lost the original director, Karoline Gruber, and ended up being finalized by Polly Graham, the artistic director of Longborough Festival Opera.) "From now on, Orlando will be committed to rewriting the history from the point of view of the victim and outsider", says the Narrator, to which I say, sure, let's go.
But then we get the video sequences that rush us through the milestones of the century. The POV is roughly Anglo-European with the inevitable excursion to some US and Vietnam War imagery and the selection is fairly narrow, whole bunch of Europe (not to mention the world events) ignored. We are rushed to 1980s, back in England it seems, and punk is happening, there's a girl in plaid suit who Orlando ends up kissing for a long time, but she is soon gone from the proceedings.
The party segment, which is meant to show that all kinds of desires and loves and bodies are allowed to flourish now… is a lucklustre affair. The dominant voice is the performer Justin Vivian Bond, who is meant to be Orlando's 'child' in our own era. Really? You couldn't find a gender-non-conforming female like dunno any number of living writers or filmmakers or someone like Megan Rapinoe or Kara Swisher or some modern equivalent of Storme DeLarverie or even some of the male drag performers from the RuPaul school of sashaying? The statements declaimed during the party are feeble too. There's a lot of "born this way" Lady Gaga parroting and yet "it's glorious to be a they". "Fuck the patriarchy": is that the most eloquent that "Orlando's child" can get?
Justin Vivian Bond is one of those people who insist they be called a "they" and claims s/he is "non-binary". Everybody else is happy to live the life of a gender stereotype, the classification suggests, except for the "they" people. They have stepped out of sex and gender by fiat, you know! And yet women can't self-identify out of oppression: women are oppressed because of what their bodies are, what their reproductive function is, what their height and strength is (most women can be easily overpowered by most men), and yes also what gender roles awaits them upon birth. The world will still correctly sex the women who will be raped or who need to gestate offspring, the exploitation will proceed undeterred however we decide to 'identify'. Plus, any male should be allowed to wear dresses and look like JVB, without having to do anything about their pronouns or body. That is the more radical thing, that is what the Orlando children would do, people like David Bowie, Robert Smith, Boy George, Quentin Crisp, Grayson Perry, Russell Kane.
The inability to inherit, become a writer and other obstacles shown in this opera that Orlando faces are actually relatively lucky ones. In Western Balkans and other parts of the world, this thing still exists which is called selective abortions: early detection of a child's sex – there's science for that, you only need to find your way to a private clinic in another jurisdiction – leads to the getting rid of female fetuses. So those girls had no chance to "identify" in any way. As soon as the material reality of their sex was determined, they were doomed. I don't need to hammer on about the femicide (every two or three days anywhere in the world a woman is killed by a man she knows, often an ex or current partner) and various other things that happen to women that have nothing to do with how individuals declare themselves but with their sex.
So… trans activists are Orlando's children? Not really. Defiant, non-conforming women who overcome societal limitations posed on them are Orlando's children, as well as women who *survive* – there are so many of us now who are surviving and were never meant to, who are finally finding poetry and pleasure in our lives, wrote Audre Lorde. This should never be forgotten.
I conclude that sadly the second half of Orlando the opera which paradoxically aims to step out of the charmed life of the high classes that populate the first part – is somewhat uninformed, oblivious of the current lgbt conversations, massively bourgeois (you have to adore the scene in which the haute couture Comme des garçons-clad chorus and extras shouted WE ARE THE PEOPLE) and rather purposeless. Is it about liberation of women or is it about every single thing under the sun, climate change, the liberation of men from their own gender yokes, exploitation of workers in Amazon dot com depots? (There's a brief scene showing workers in a huge warehouse filled with goods, packing and shipping things: good idea, but underdeveloped, because this scene quickly ends, as does the contemplation of working conditions in low-wage jobs.) You could make an argument that all that is connected to the liberation of the female sex, but 1) the libretto doesn't do a good job of it, and 2) opera should have a focus of some kind.
At least there is Kate Lindsey's vocal stamina (and legs) to hold it all together, just about. We'll always have that.
The official description of Orlando by the Vienna State Opera
By Definitely the Operain Mezzo, Opera, politics in opera, trousers, twenty-first century December 21, 2019 December 23, 2019 2,205 Words2 Comments
Interview: David McVicar
Stills from the documentary David McVicar's Salome, A work in progress: Backstage in Covent Garden, ITV Productions, 2008.
"You are my only interview," says the director David McVicar as he joins me in the boardroom that has been reserved for us for this purpose at the COC's Front Street HQ, and I presume he implies "so make it good." Fifty minutes later, it looks like both of us could very much go on, but the Rusalka rehearsal is about to start down the hallway and he is needed there.
In person, McVicar has a punk, no-bs attitude and the gruff, butch energy of a character from one of the fast-paced Patrice Chéreau movies. He fully invests himself in the conversation, though, and doesn't hesitate to reveal his vulnerabilities. He often makes long pauses and here's a tip for the next interviewer: there's usually good stuff coming at the end of each.
Now, I was going to write that he is one of my favourite opera directors, but that is not quite it, because in his shtick, McVicar is unsurpassed. That shtick is human intimacy, the way we are with each other behind closed doors, and that entire ugly to sublime gamut of the human psyche. I've adored productions by Herheim, C. Alden, Albery, Kosky, Mitchell, but I don't obsessively replay any bits of them the way I (and many opera lovers that I know) do with for ex. the McVicar Cesare, or Clemenza. While the Konzept school of opera directing is top-down, McVicar, in the best tradition of British liberalism, starts pointilistically, from the individual character, from the ground up.
There is a lot left that I still want to ask him. As somebody who's refused the obligatory Bible in his Desert Island Discs episode on Radio 4, what does he make of the Christian eschatology at the end of The Rape of Lucretia? Does he really re-read Thackeray's Vanity Fair with regularity? Do film and TV influence him to any extent? That will have to wait for the next time. Here's what we did manage to cover.
What a lot of your productions have in common, I think…
What have you seen?
Let's see… Enführung on DVD, Figaro in cinema, Giulio Cesare live and DVD… Some Donizetti thing on the Met in HD, but I don't really care about that opera so didn't really get much out of the production…
I probably didn't like it either.
…I watched the Ariodante from Vienna online, and I thought was exceptionally coherent. It's hard to make that opera cohere. Also seen The Rape of Lucretia. There's probably more.
That's a good number.
So what I often find in your productions is… this coherence. And depth of characterization. People behave as they would actually behave in life. How do you get to that point?
That's probably because of my training as an actor. I didn't go to university [Ed: He attended to the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama] so my solution to directing an opera is to approach it as an actor, and my solution to directing a singer is: How would I play this. I'm weak on concept. Though there is always a conceptual foundation to everything I'm doing – there's always a reason why things are happening. But the conceptual interpretation is not the overriding thing for me: it's how the performers perform it, that's the primary concern. How the performers invest in the character and tell the story, and is the story clear to the audience. That's really important. Anything that I do that obfuscates the story, that gets in the way is something that I try to edit out. Because at the end of the day people are sitting in the theatre and watching the performance. It's sort of immaterial whether I was there or not. The relationship is between the people on the stage and the audience.
I watched the documentary about the making of your Salome at Covent Garden, and took from it that every minute of a production is fussed over and thought through.
It is thought through. Even when I did a title like Il Trovatore, which I absolutely don't like – I've learned a big lesson doing it: never take on something you don't fundamentally believe in – but even with that, I thought, OK, we're going to make this work somehow. We're gonna damn try and make this coherent and hang together and make the audience believe in it.
That was the Met production?
Yes. But I don't like Trovatore and I don't think I did a good job. I don't like it. It's such a retrograde step, after Traviata and Rigoletto, to tell that kind of story in that kind of way. And also, you've got a tenor with absolutely zero psychological interest. Every time Manrico's on stage, I'm like, that's 12 minutes of my life I'm not getting back.
But you try. You latch on to other things, in Manrico's case his mother and his lover and their reactions to him, to try to generate some interest.
I've read somewhere that you much prefer the eighteenth century to the nineteenth?
I feel really at home doing eighteenth-century opera, whether it's Mozartian Classical period or whether it's the baroque period. I find opera, especially Italian opera, in the first 40 years of the nineteenth century very problematic. The forms, that is. I've done some but I'm not doing another bel canto opera. I've done enough.
I hate Rossini, oh my god! I listen to Rossini and think, How did you get away with this. You just repeat the same bar fifteen times? I've been asked to do Barber about four times and I've always said no.
What about I Capuletti?
I don't want to do that.
But you really get the trouser role. In fact, your trouser roles, with Sarah Connolly in particular, I don't know if you know this, have a huge lesbian fan base from all over the world. How do you know so well what happens between two women?
I can imagine it and I can guess. And because I'm coming into it with an actor's background and I'm always observing people. And I'm fascinated by what I can observe and the interactions that people have in real life and things we're not even conscious of and don't even think about. Sometimes with an opera singer, you just have to make them aware of the simplest things to unlock them. Imagine this is a glass of wine [he's pointing at the bottle of mineral water on the table between us]. How would I pass this glass of wine with intent? [Grabs the bottle and takes a sip inattentively and places it in front of me while carrying the conversation] …anyway we're talking about this and that and I'm not even looking at you and you won't notice I took a sip because we're talking about something else. But if I want to do it with intent, I'd go like this [he makes direct eye contact and slowly draws the bottle toward me in a straight line]. It's really good to ground singers and make them think about little details of life like that. And then you can get somebody to act if you can get them focused. Focused, and having thoughts.
Of course some people are lost cases and some are not interested and some of them don't know what's going on when they're not singing. You'd be surprised how many people don't know what's going on when it's not their music.
Sarah Connolly said in an interview that she started really acting in opera since she started working with you. From your first Alcina, and her first Ruggiero. Do you remember that production?
Yes, of course. It was at the ENO in London.
How do you unlock people? Do you… antagonize them?
Noooooooo!
Some film directors do that.
Noooooo. I never have an antagonistic relationship with the singers. Never, there's no point. You'll never get anything out of them.
Sarah really has got it by the dress rehearsal. Early in the process she needs my help because I need to tease out the strands which are useful to her. Otherwise stuff which isn't necessarily useful will distract her. And then something just happens to her. Normally I would do the piano dress before we move onto the stage and at that transfer point she locks it in the place, she gets it. And with the stage and the orchestra it just gets better and better.
She trusts me and I trust her. It's a good relationship. There's several ladies with whom I have a strong relationship of trust. We don't have to say very much to each other when we're working together. We hardly say things explicitly very much. Sarah follows my body language. She watches me a great deal. Sometimes when we're doing an aria, I'll be acting it for her, and she watches me and then she gets into her own body.
I remember watching parts of your La Clemenza from Aix-en-Provence where she's a Byron-like Sesto and watching those long arias like Parto, parto, and how she and Vitellia interact and how she walks – and thinking, you filled every moment of that aria, nothing's random or loose, everything holds together.
Well, yes, but Mozart filled every moment of it. I'm just paying attention to what Mozart wrote.
I've noticed that your first instinct isn't to transfer the opera you're working on to another setting, or to present day.
I'll do it if it tells the story.
Like, I don't think we can do Agrippina in togas anymore. Yours isn't in togas either.
You could do Agrippina in togas. I, Claudius is in togas so it can still work. I think the sense of humour in Agrippina is so extraordinarily modern to us, though. The premise of it is, just imagine a world where the Roman Empire never came to an end. Which, in a way, it never did. And what would that world be like. And would it be a lot like contemporary America.
You also transposed Salome, to a sort of Pasolinian Salò setting.
Yes, Salò was a big influence. To understand Salome, you have to understand the world in which she lives. I wanted to correct a misapprehension about Salome that she's this monstrous virago – it's actually a story about a woman who's obsessed with virginity and with not being touch. It's very important to her. All the characters in Salome are lusting after each other and wanting something from the other person, but no one ever obtains what they want. The fascist era helps to tell the story but it's even more important that it's all set in this sterile kitchen/bathroom area with sinks and urinals and tiles everywhere. I wanted to find a very sterile place to tell the story; I didn't want to make it sensuous and lush, I wanted it quite brutal. It's a place where people are washing all the time.
From David McVicar-directed Marriage of Figaro (Royal Opera House)
But your ROH Figaro stays in its own time. What intrigued me about the production is that it full-on centres the servants. We can see their living quarters well, and their labour is out in the open, not hidden away.
Figaro is about servants! It's from their perspective. And that whole production is all about them. The aristocrats are almost interlopers into that world. That's the way I saw it. It would be like if you do Downton Abbey but only from the perspective of the servants. But Figaro was interesting… I've done Figaro quite a few times now. I actually did a different production of it in Australia, and the battle is always getting the cast to understand master-servant relationships, because it's something that they haven't experienced and don't understand. Getting the singers who sing Susanna to understand the sexual politics around her character. When she's trapped in that room with the Count, I always say to them, what are your options. Where are you going to go, what are you going to do, how are you going to manage this man who wants something from you. Your options are so limited. You can't walk out, you can't slap him, you can't say no. And that unlocks the scene.
That opera, like Don Giovanni, needs to be in a period where the female characters' options are more limited than they would be today because it makes their actions so much more understandable, and also dignifies them. Whenever I see a modern-dress Giovanni, and most of them today are, Zerlina makes no sense to me. I think it puts a misogynist gloss on her character. Whereas if she's in a feudal society and an aristocrat comes to her wedding, he has the authority to send the bridegroom away and say I want to marry you. What are her options?
Would you agree that Figaro and Don Giovanni kinda have different politics? In Figaro, we're all in this together against the tyrant; and in Don Giovanni, well: this newly emerging community will demand conformity for greater good.
There's no question in Don Giovanni that society is going to change. But you never feel that Masetto and Leporello and Zerlina are going to be besties at the end of Giovanni. The societal order re-establishes itself after this lord of misrule has been consigned to hell. I think the sexual politics in Don Giovani is as intense as in Figaro, but has a different aspect to it. The female characters are fascinating.
Isn't Don Giovanni the most interesting character of Don Giovanni?
Except that he doesn't exist as a character. He only exists by the effect he has on other people. He doesn't have a single moment of self-reflection. Which is interesting because that's what psychopaths and sociopaths are like. Not a moment of self reflection is an interesting thing to play. There are few baritones who can do it – who can actually anchor it to anything in their lives. The baritone has to think: I can do anything and I can get away with it. And I am always pushing the boundaries of what I can get away with. But what if. What if retribution is real. What if those things which we've decided are not real turn out to be real. That's why this opera bridges the Classical world and the Romantic world.
Goldoni's Don Giovanni for example is the ultimate rational eighteenth century version coz he's despatched by a bolt of lightening which may or may not be the judgment of God. And Mozart and Da Ponte explicitly gives us heavenly retribution, don't they.
Yes but the 'community' kills Don Giovanni.
Does it though? Does it?
He wouldn't conform. He would be free, and is punished for it.
When you say the community kills him, you mean the order that the others believe in that crushes him?
Yes, that's it.
It's the cosmic order that he subverts and that they want to cling to and that ultimately is the thing that crumbles Giovanni. It is a seminal Romantic piece.
Does it glamourize evil?
Of course it does.
That's one of my favourite operas and the uncomfortable truth is that, like another favourite, L'Incoronazione, it totally glams up evil.
Of course. But L'Incoronazione is about life. Shits get away with it, don't they.
Why do we cling to this – well, partly eighteenth-century – idea of what stage representation should be? That it should be morally enlightening, and that we should see evil punished, we should always get a happy end, when actually we don't.
You know there's a big fashion right now with productions of Carmen where she doesn't die at the end. But if she doesn't die, you've written politics out of it. We're not celebrating that she's dead; women are killed by their partners, and if she doesn't die and walks away, then you've ripped all the meaning and all the political power out of Carmen. So get over yourselves.
Yes. Every few days, anywhere in the world that we want to look, a woman is killed by either a male partner, an ex or a male family member. Why suddenly decide to hide this?
We shouldn't, and one of the great things about Carmen is the truthfulness of the depiction of that relationship. And how she fails to pick up the warning signals. From Flower Song even, after which she should be saying, 'Right, so nice knowing you', but she doesn't, she chooses the other course. She decides to pursue the relationships. And he's the biggest mistake of her life. I don't think Carmen is about a "tragically doomed romantic passion". It's a piece about a relationship which was fucked up from the very beginning and goes horribly wrong. And he has this unusual attachment to the mother…
He also has a criminal record I think?
He's a murderer.
Let's stay with Mozart for a moment longer, because I wanted to ask you about Die Entführung. You didn't update at all. You took it at face value, and made it work. Were you ever worried about a potential charge of 'Orientalism' and criticism of that kind?
Of course. But my version really wanted to bring out the Ottoman Empire side of the story. We really researched it. We were interested in that extraordinary clash of cultures, the Ottoman Empire beating at the doors of the Holy Roman Empire.
If you think that Entführung is an Arabian Nights-like fairly tale, which it too often can be, then I think that you are getting into a really tricky territory with cultural appropriation. If you say, no, this is set in a real political climate and a real place, these people's lives are being defined from this clash of two opposing worldviews – it's defining the story, the way these people behave towards each other – then it becomes a more serious piece.
We kept a lot of the dialogue. OK, it's not Shakespeare, but you've got a lot of really great information and a lot of acting opportunity. And certainly the relationship between Konstanze and Bassa has so many more colours.
You put the negotiation scene in the bedroom.
I put "Martern aller Arten" in the bedroom. What does that aria mean? What does the extremity of the coloratura writing mean? So I had to put her in a situation where every single line of that coloratura is imbued with meaning. It's a situation of so much danger but also in a situation of mutual attraction which can hardly be contained – my goodness, I'll never forget rehearsing that for the first time. Everyone in the room was alert. And it helped that the actor who played the Bassa had learned all her music. It was a duet, he knew everything that she was going to sing to him. He's as much part of the music as she is.
Then there's the tense scene between Blonde and Osmin. In the production, both Osmin and Bassa are honourable characters in that they don't force themselves on the women, but ask for consent and ultimately back off when they don't get it. Where were Blonde and Osmin having a fight, in the kitchen was it?
I thought, what is Blonde doing in a crisis? She bakes. It's a crisis because she's been given as a slave to this man who wants to have sex with her, and how will she keep him at bay? She's angry when Pedrillo questions her fidelity. That's their domestic situation: Osmin tries something, and she has to wreck things to get him off her. She has to work so hard and be assertive, and hurt his feelings to keep him at bay. It was important to show how she manipulates him – it's important for her character, and for Osmin's, to show how he's frustrated in his desire. There's nothing more interesting than watching a big scary macho man who finds himself in a relationship with a woman who treats him like a kid. And he accepts that.
Tobias Kehrer and Mari Eriksmoen in the Serail (2015). Photo by Richard Hubert Smith
Your Vienna Staatsoper debut was last year in Ariodante?
Ariodante for me is a piece about how easy it is for the forces of chaos to subvert society if we take our eyes off the ball. And how deceitful those forces will be and how someone like Polinesso can obtain so much power based on lies. He's becoming the de facto ruler of Scotland.
What was new about your Ariodante is how strong you made the character. Usually he's a hapless young man mindlessly following where other people's action takes him; somehow in this Vienna production he is assertive.
But his flaw is Othello's flaw. That's what sends him off deep end. He should learn how to trust. He should never have doubted Ginevra in the first place. And Dalinda is fascinating – what a dark little character. All of her crazy coloratura is there for a reason. Her realization that this man that she's obsessed with doesn't give a shit about her. And the revenge that she then takes. It's… They're all real to me. All the characters in all the operas – well, most of them; some of them, like Manrico, are a lost cause. But they're very real to me. In opera plots you find yourself in extraordinary situations; but then just think, if I was in that extraordinary situation, how would I behave, what would be my objective, how would I get out of it.
The Glyndebourne Cesare is today the best know and most popular Cesare that exists. So the directors pretty much save the operatic works with productions that strongly resonate in their own era. They carry the opera over, past our lifetimes, like a relay.
Oh but Cesare's been saved before. There have been productions… John Copley's now…
Productions with staying power, though?
John Copley's now looks very outdated, okay, but at the time it was extraordinary. Because he treated it seriously. He did it in a certain style, he drew on the paintings of Tiepolo for the visual world, and it's all very statuesque – it's a serious piece of work.
Then Peter Sellars comes along and does his version. With Cesar that's a Reagan-esque figure.
I've never seen that one. There have been some other ones lately, like the Salzburg one with Bartoli, but I'm not sure that we will treat them as reference pieces in 10 years.
Our version is about colonialism, and about the British Empire. It was my idea to do it. Gus Christie's dad George, who was running things at that point, told me [assumes posh British baritone] I've got to plan the season, David, what'd you want to do? I said, let's do Julius Cesar, please. And some time passes and next time we meet he says: I've spoken to Bill Christie about it and… yeah. Let's do it.
I also had casting control over that one; Bill was quite happy for me to take care of it. And then the final thing was, at the last second, Dani (Ed: Danielle de Niese) came. We had somebody else but she had to drop out due to surgery and 10 days before we were due to start we got Dani. And I didn't know anything about her. Absolutely nothing, and was like, Fingers crossed.
And the rest, as they say, is history.
It's been revived various places, Chicago…
…and at the Met, which I wasn't very happy with. The place is just too big.
And a countertenor sang it, alas.
Yeah, he was good. [whispers] But Sarah was… magnificent.
OMFG where to start.
She is magnificent in it. It's a career-defining role for her. And you never question it – it's a thing of beauty, you absolutely accept that it doesn't matter that it is a woman playing a man.
Welllll… We know there's a female body there. (My ilk certainly does.)
Yes we know there's a female body there but it's the way she plays it. She believes that she is that man. And she carries it off.
I was passionate about Giulio Cesare from the word go, I just love it so much. And I've seen that our production has been imitated — for example in how far you can take the choreography in opera productions. And I've seen productions that are just aria after aria after aria. And productions where Cleopatra's scenes are just plain tacky. But somehow we found the right way, we pulled it off. We did it, somehow.
I know you have to go, so this will be my last question. What the everlasting tuck is happening with the UK?
I moved back from London to Scotland last year because I couldn't stand it anymore. Brexit ripped the lid off Pandora's Box and things have emerged that we'll never to be able to get back in there. One of the ugliest things was that English nationalism found a cause and a voice. And it's a very ugly thing. And what the Leavers understood, and us Remainers it took a while to understand, is that this was an existential vote about identity. It's now clear that that's what it was about. The country is so split and the atmosphere is so hostile… and now we have our very own pound store Trump in Boris Johnson, who is learning the lessons of his master well. Is that going to play well in Britain, we won't find out till the general election, but it's scary.
Is there going to be another independence vote for Scotland?
There'll have to be. What's also coming out loud and clear is the total disregard for other parts of the union from the English parliament. Ian Blackford, who's one of the SNP representatives at Westminster, every time he stands up to make what are actually intelligent speeches, the Tory backbenchers shout Go back home, Go back home. That's the rhetoric that Trump's using. They should be ashamed of themselves. They're the Conservative and Unionist party and they should be listening to our voices and the voices of Northern Ireland which is not just their devilish friends, the DUP. And this whole process has made it abundantly clear that in the thinking of Westminster Parliament, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales are colonies. I didn't live in Scotland when the last referendum happened so I didn't vote because I didn't feel I should. Now I do live there and would vote for independence. I moved back to Glasgow for some sanity. It's the best thing I ever did.
Rusalka opens at the COC on October 12th. Torontonians can watch several David McVicar productions, including Cesare, Troyens and the Meistersinger, on Medici.tv for free by logging on with a Toronto Public Library card via tpl.ca/medici.
By Definitely the Operain Baroque, dance, Handel, Mezzos with Sopranos, Mozart, Opera, politics in opera, Romantics, trousers, Verdi September 30, 2019 September 30, 2019 4,739 Words1 Comment
Dead Equal, a new opera about women in combat
If you happen to be anywhere near Scotland this summer, make sure you check out the Edinburgh Fringe, the probably globally best known r&d festival of theatrical expression which usually doesn't have much opera on offer. This year, however, one operatic indie, in part crowd-funded and entirely written, composed and directed by women, caught my eye: a chamber opera about Flora Sandes, the British volunteer combatant who donned the trouser and joined Serbian Army at the start of World War I, and her contemporary Emily Simmonds who travelled to the Balkan front as a nurse. In the second act, the story moves to our era and follows British female soldiers who come to Afghanistan as medics and tackles the questions around women's front-line participation (finally officially allowed by the British Army in 2016, but in effect present in some form or other since 1999), unit cohesion in heterosocial context, soldier attachment, why choose a life of professional warfare etc. There is a Canadian connection: soprano Teiya Kasahara sings the role of Flora Sandes in the Edinburgh production and is happily Instagramming about the experience, if you're on there (the odd tweet appears too).
I seriously hope that after Edinburgh this will be revived somewhere in the UK, which will increase the chance of my crossing its path. The Brits can catch it on August 13-15 and 20-25. Dead Equal is written by Lila Palmer, composed by Rose Miranda Hall and directed by Miranda Cromwell.
A brilliant BBC backgrounder on possible reasons why Sandes is still fairly unknown by the Britons is worth a read.
And the excellent Margaret MacMillan's Reith Lectures on the changing nature of war and the warrior are still up. Women war historians are pretty much as few as women warriors.
Flora Sandes with Serbian soldiers
By Definitely the Operain Mezzos with Sopranos, Opera, politics in opera, trousers, Twentieth Century, twenty-first century August 11, 2019 312 WordsLeave a comment
Pomegranate reviewed
Aaron Durand, Teiya Kasahara, Stephanie Tritchew, Camille Rogers and Rebecca Gray in Pomegranate. Photo by Dahlia Katz
First, the good news. Pomegranate, subtitled A lesbian chamber opera, composed by Kye Marshall, written by Amanda Hale, directed by Michael Mori and conducted by Jennifer Tung, which just closed its world premiere run at Buddies in Bad Theatre – works as a piece of art. It is alive and ticking – and that is the first and most important test a new opera must pass.
Kye Marshall has composed a distinct musical material for each of the two acts, though what unites them is a melancholy timbre of both eras, the Pompeii girlhood and 1980s Toronto youth. The three cellos, a keyboard, a harp, an oboe, and a flute for act one and saxophone in act two, are an unusual but perfectly sufficient mix of instrumental forces. There is a lot of harp in act one, and oboe gets good air time, but any quotations of the pastoral employment of harp and woodwinds are wrung through contemporary musical idiom, and come free of nostalgia for the melodic operatic tradition. Act One is almost consistently dissonant, with the only bit of lyrical arioso given to the representative of the brute force in the story, the Roman soldier who is about to capture one of the girls and marry her against her will. He seems genuinely in love (beware of beautiful music) and genuinely a brute, and a lot of the brutes in opera have been given pretty and memorable melodies over the centuries—and the composers have been manipulating opera lovers this way for some time.
This was something of a naughty wink in the score, and there were others.
The sex scene that builds to a climax in the vein of Der Rosenkavalier overture, for example, which was wittily directed as an interruption with one of the women stopping and sitting up and the other one trying to talk her out of dark thoughts while the music is doing its culminating. Or the unsentimental, almost unjazzy use of saxophone in Act Two – which is employed with great restraint in the bar scene that would have been in real life hopping with synth pop. There's more. The first interaction the two Pompeii girls have is through the percussion instrument that each is holding – they harmonize their rhythms before they even have their first conversation. Marshall has also avoided cliché by giving the mezzo tessitura to the more helpless character of the two (when it's usually the mezzos who have some agency in opera) while the soprano role in Pomegranate goes to the more self-assured and determined character. Last but not least, Marshall can write a mean vocal trio and quartet.
In short, there is much to be saluted in this score and how it works with the text.
And now, the less good news. The production itself had a host of issues. The text was frequently unintelligible, especially on high notes but not exclusively, and even I, who had read the libretto beforehand, occasionally missed what was being communicated. Surtitles were badly needed and it's a (Pompeiian) mystery why they weren't created as the text didn't require paying a translator and the sets were largely made up of video projections anyway. Singers being native English speakers never guarantees that they will be expert enunciators of operatic and song verses in English, and Pomegranate confirms this.
The two young principals, soprano Rebecca Gray and mezzo Camille Rogers, were vocally the weakest pillars in the edifice when they should have been the strongest (temple, pillars, see what I did there? OK, I'll stop now). Rogers was striking in the bel canto role of Isabella in an indie production of Rossini's L'Italiana in Algeri some years ago, but in contemporary musical idiom with an English language libretto containing a ton of Sprechgesang the mezzo seemed reserved, ill at ease, risk averse and resigned into using that impressive voice most unimpressively. Rebecca Gray had much more to do as the narrator for the opera and the character of Cassia/Cass. Her dramatic commitment was stronger—she can definitely act and did–but her beauty of voice tended to disappear in the upper register, and that's where the composer has her going quite frequently. The singer who has most singing to do and who effectively carries the opera should impress with her voice. That's not an unreasonable expectation. (Gray is also a composer. I'm looking forward to hearing her work and wonder if perhaps this is where the best of her musicianship is to emerge.)
Teiya Kasahara (Priestess/Bartender) and Aaron Durand (Centurion/Suzie's Uncle) were the two strongest voices on cast: voluminous, consistent throughout the register, with precisely controlled breath and strong grasp of the text. Stephanie Tritchew roles of the Handmaiden in the temple and Suzie's mother in Act Two were small – dramatically important but musically modest. She has an undeniable stage presence which I hope to see properly exercised in a larger role, and which here had to remain muted.
Set and costume designer Rachel Forbes took the straightforward Roman and stylized Roman route for the costumes for the first act (though Kasahara's Priestess had a touch of the Queen of the Night). The urge for the 1980s 'authenticity' in Act Two was however too keen: the deep-cut jeans, the large print blouses, the ill-fitting blazer and the red shoes were almost comic in the context and certainly distracting. A little less period costuming next time, please.
For there should be a next time: this opera should see a revival. There is a living, breathing work of operatic art under those tunics and plaid shirts.
Teiya Kasahara as the bar(wo)man in Fly-By-Night, based on an actual lesbian bar in 1980s Toronto. Photo by Dahlia Katz
Camille Rogers & Rebecca Gray in Pomegranate. Photo: Dahlia Katz
By Definitely the Operain Mezzo, Mezzos with Sopranos, Opera, politics in opera, Toronto town, très gay, twenty-first century June 11, 2019 1,015 WordsLeave a comment
Coming up: Pomegranate
Amanda Hale, novelist, poet and now the librettist for Pomegranate (June 5-9, Buddies in Bad Times), is a fascinating interlocutor. Watch this space for more about her work in the near future.
But first, the Summer Wholenote Art of Song – because Pomegranate started as a song cycle – HERE
She still travels to England to visit family. "It was a good thing, leaving England, because when you leave a place, you can see it." Her family's story has been far from ordinary: Hale's father was a supporter of Oswald Mosley's British Union of Fascists during the Second World War, and died by suicide some years after the war. "That legacy has hung over me all my life," says Hale, who has written about it in her latest novel, Mad Hatter (Guernica, Toronto), to be launched in September. "I feel absolutely liberated for having told that story. It's been a great shame and humiliation so it was good for me to leave England and be able to see all that. But it's taken my lifetime to process it."
Hale's own politics are at the opposite end of the spectrum to her father's. She often travels to Cuba and has developed a lot of connections, personal and professional, over the last 15 years. "I went there first to paint a mural with Lynn Hutchinson in solidarity with the revolution and we made a connection with a gallery in Havana and did an installation there on colonialism and sugar, then another one about surveillance, which Cubans really understand." Latin America was always of great interest. "I've had a lot of connections with Guatemala, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Chile. A big change I saw here in Toronto in the 1980s was the refugees coming from those countries who'd experienced American interference, people who enriched Toronto tremendously during the 1970s and 1980s. There were Greeks coming here after the Junta and people emigrating to Canada after the Iranian Revolution. On Hornby Island we have an Iranian man who's taken refuge there, who is a wonderful potter."
Camille Rogers (l) and Rebecca Gray as Suzie and Cass in a Toronto lesbian bar in 1980s in Pomegranate. Music by Kye Marshall, libretto Amanda Hale. Stage director Michael Mori, music director Jennifer Tung. June 5-9, Buddies in Bad Times Theatre. Photo by Greg Wong.
By Definitely the Operain Mezzo, Mezzos with Sopranos, Opera, politics in opera, queer history, Toronto town, très gay, twenty-first century June 4, 2019 June 4, 2019 404 WordsLeave a comment
Still no news from Paris
As those who follow these things know, COC's decade-plus General Director (and recently appointed AD of the Opera Santa Fe) Alexander Neef is one of the four candidates shortlisted for the position of the director of the Paris Opera – where he used to be the casting director during the reign of Gerard Mortier, before his appointment at the COC. Paris is arguably the biggest, busiest, and most prestigious opera house in the world today – though not the nimblest or most adventurous or most independent from political power. A number of French and Belgian media have been reporting on this hiring process steadily at least since March, and since Dominique Meyer is in the running, I expect the Austrian media have been at it too. So here are the last four standing: Peter de Caluwe (current La Monnaie director), Meyer (Wien Staatsoper), Olivier Mantei of the Opera-Comique in Paris, and Neef.
In the March 7 paper, Ariane Bavelier of Le Figaro reported that the French culture minister Franck Riester had appointed an "audition committee" which will make recommendations to him after interviewing the long-listed candidates. There were many more at that point, including the sole woman, Christina Scheppelmann, who has since been hired as the Seattle Opera's General Director. According to the Figaro, the candidates will have presented their respective "projects" for the opera house on 9th and 10th March — I expect this was a sort of a general vision for the house and its future, with strategies how to get there — in 20 min presentations, followed by an hour of questions from the committee. The committee itself consists of people who, while experts in their respective fields, has neither run an opera house, as the Figaro points out with some pique. President of the board of directors of Paris Opera chairs the committee: Jean-Pierre Clamadieu, CEO of the Engie, the French multinational electric utility company and Macron's proche. Laurent Bayle, CEO of Paris Philharmonie is on the cttee (which the paper describes as homme fort du comité – perhaps the one whose voice will be decisive), as are the conductor James Conlon, choreographer Sasha Waltz, and Sylviane Tarsot-Gillery, who has the following untranslatable title: directrice générale de la création artistique du ministère de la Culture (a high civil servant or political appointee? I'm rusty on the ins and outs of French administration).
There's been a lot of punditizing, some of it quite good, in the Francophone media on what the new director should fix and what enhance, and the place of opera in contemporary French society. Macron's former chief speech-writer Sylvain Fort, who recently returned to his old profession of opera critic and arts journalist, wrote an editorial on the ONP hiring and argued that the plan is more important than the name, and that whoever ends up being appointed, he'll have to work with the staff to answer the question looming before opera as an art form today: how does opera fit in our modern times, what is its purpose and function today
N'importera que son projet, qui ne saurait être qu'un projet conçu pour renouer les fils défaits et inventer des fils nouveaux qui rendront à l'institution, et donc à l'art même qu'il porte, une place dans notre modernité.
It's been almost two months since that committee audition, and no decision has been announced. Is the Paris Opera going to have the 2021 season or not, the way things are going, asked the Figaro a couple of days ago. The paper says that Macron wants to meet the shortlisted personally, and that his schedule hasn't allowed it so far. Belgian paper L'Echo, rooting for the home candidate, is also wondering what's in the offing and affirming that de Caluwe is still in the running.
Now, who to bet on, that is the question…
By Definitely the Operain Opera, politics in opera, twenty-first century May 9, 2019 May 13, 2019 646 WordsLeave a comment
New COC Otello proves one thing
That Verdi should have kept the original title of the opera, Iago.
Review here.
By Definitely the Operain Opera, politics in opera, Romantics, Verdi May 4, 2019 14 WordsLeave a comment
Verbotenlieder, or women take over men's repertoire
Marcello & Rodolfo aka Vanessa Oude-Reimerink & Alexandra Beley
After an all-male, all-baritone and crowded Die Winterreise this summer, baritones Aaron Durand and Michael Nyby a.k.a. the Tongue-in-Cheek Productions decided in the interest of fairness and variety to throw an all-female do. Verbotenlieder, or the Forbidden Songs, came together as a program for the sopranos and mezzos who always wanted to sing certain arias, duos or songs that remained off limits because they were written for and exclusively performed by men.
It's a brilliant idea that was only half executed with the December concert at Lula Lounge. A wide mix of singers and songs followed one another with no introduction, and no reason offered why those choices and not others. The repertoire that is never sung by women or specific voice types is vast. Was the choice random, or did it always mean something special for the singer? Nyby and Durand and one or two singers did manage to say a few words here and there, but all this just made obvious one big lack in the programming: a cabaret style MC who can talk competently, succinctly and with humour about these songs and spin the show's red thread.
Another thing that was missing and that usually comes with real cabaret: naughtiness. Raunch. Some of the men-narrated songs in the program are love songs for women. There is a long and honourable tradition of women singing pants roles and pants Lieder and mélodies. As the societies of origin liberalized in the twentieth and twenty first centuries, so did cultural interpretations of these songs. There are now lively interpretive cultures of this rep for which, say, a male POV German Lied written for a mezzo is not a mezzo voicing a guy, but a mezzo voicing women-to-woman love of some sort, or in some cases explicitly lesbian desire.
This remained underexplored, but it did make an appearance.
For example in the transposed for soprano Lensky aria from Eugene Onegin, exquisitely rendered by Natalya Gennadi with Natasha Fransblow on piano. This Lensky's farewell to youth and life is brought about by the love of his life Olga flirting with Onegin at the ball. Gennadi additionally honoured the trouser role tradition by wearing an elegant pant suit and camouflaging her long hair into a modest bob.
Or in the tenor-baritone duo from The Pearl Fishers 'Au fond du temple saint', which got a lavish and genuinely new take by soprano Jennifer Taverner and mezzo Beste Kalender (Elina Kelebeeva on piano). In it, the two men reminisce on the moment they first saw the woman they both fell in love with, a veiled Brahmin priestess, but rush to give up the phantom in favour of their own mutual bond before the song is over. An intriguing twist, to see this ode to bro-hood sung by women and effectively turned into a song about bond between women who are resisting the lures of a fantasy.
Soprano Vanessa Oude-Reimerink and mezzo Alexandra Beley (Natasha Fransblow, piano) took on the Marcello-Rodolfo duo from La Bohème, in which they gossip and pine after Mimi and Musetta. There was some awkward stage movement at the beginning, and it appeared to me that the chuckles from the audience indicated that most of us weren't sure if the women were singing to each other. The surtitles cleared up some of the confusion, but again, a good intro, even by the singers themselves, would have made all the difference.
Lauren Margison
And then there's Lauren Margison. First, accompanied by Natasha Fransblow, she took on 'Addio, fiorito asil', unofficially known as the Bastard is Leaving, from Madama Butterfly. Puccini gives Pinkerton this manipulatively beautiful and highly emotional tenor aria while he is secretly running off and leaving Butterfly to face ignominy. Margison somehow managed to sing this aria in a pissed off manner and still gloriously—exactly the right formula. Her second one was 'Nessun dorma' and it too came with the right attitude and glorious top notes. The attitude was, If you think Pavarotti is the last word in this department, I have a soprano to show you. At one point she invited the audience to fill in a couple of verses of the aria, which we happily did. Already during the Pinkerton aria, people got engaged and rowdy almost immediately, and a loud Brava flew her way at the right place during the aria—something you rarely hear Toronto opera audiences do. But that's the virtuous circle that comes with a good performance: the more daring a singer is, the more reactive the audience.
On the other hand, there was stuff that didn't light the spark. It wasn't clear to me why 'O sole mio', Ravel's Don Quixote songs to Dulcinea and one of Vaughan Williams' Songs of Travel were in the program. They're all fine songs, but why should we hear women singing them? What do women add to them that's missing? I have my theories, but I was more interested in hearing the singers', and the performances themselves did not make strong enough case. Elsewhere in the program, the soprano version of the Count's aria from Marriage of Figaro, in which he plots the destruction of Susanna's announced wedding out of jealousy, was delivered in English and adapted—I am guessing, I could not hear everything clearly and there were no surtitles for songs in English—as Susanna's resistance song of sorts? The Great Inquisitor scene from Don Carlo with two mezzos taking their low notes for a wild ride is a great idea, but the performance was hampered by Leah Giselle Field's mocking and hammed-up take on the Inquisitor. Catherine Daniel sang King Philip in earnest—no panto and no distancing, she really played a king, and it was a pleasure to watch.
The evening ended with the ironic takeover of the men's chorus singing about the trickiness of women from The Merry Widow.
All in all: an excellent concept delivered as a disjointed hodgepodge of highs and huhs. But the gents of the TICP have my attention.
Review originally written for the Wholenote and published here.
By Definitely the Operain dance, Mezzo, Mezzos with Sopranos, Mozart, Opera, Piano, politics in opera, Romantics, trousers, twenty-first century, Verdi December 24, 2018 December 24, 2018 1,062 WordsLeave a comment
And Glyndebourne happened
To pay homage and celebrate the final Cesare sung by Sarah Connolly–possibly the final mezzo Cesare on a major stage, as the CTs have just about completely taken over the role–a few of us made the trip to that little opera house on private property in Lewes. National representation, l-r: UK, Finland, Canada, Australia.
Photo is a deft multi-head selfie taken by Monique C (far right)
Back to us on a picnic blanket, minus the UK, who took the photo
By Definitely the Operain Baroque, dance, Handel, Mezzo, Mezzos with Sopranos, Opera, perfection, politics in opera, queer history, trousers June 20, 2018 106 Words4 Comments

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Join Peppa Pig and her brother George as they get ready for Christmas. First there's Santa's grotto, where Peppa and George tell Santa what they would like for Christmas. Then Granny Pig has an important festive job for them and Peppa gets to make a very special wish. Will her Christmas wish come true?
A brand-new festive Peppa story, based on the hit TV animation - airing on Five's Milkshake and Nick Jnr.


text:
Finnie Farms finish skate aides for Skating on the Crescent
Written by Randy Lilley Saturday, Jan 07 2023, 12:00 PM
Chase Finnie has been described by his parents as a "hard-working, farm kid".
Thanks to a 10-year-old Portager, people heading onto Crescent Lake learning to skate will have some help.
Chase Finnie, and his dad Jason, have created some skate aides that you can use.
"It all started when Jan from Tornado's asked my dad to build two of these," says Chase. "I was doing nothing when he was doing it, so I decided to build one while he built the other one."
Chase has been described by his parents as 'mechanically inclined'.
"To build it, you have to have a couple pieces of three quarter copper pipe, and one or two hours," says Chase.
His mom Rachelle says he'll need to make some time in the not too distant future as he has offered to fix the pipes under their camper. She says he's always been a hard-working farm kid and both of his parents are very proud.
Skating on the Crescent seeking community help
Connor's record-setting power-play goal leads Jets to 4-2 victory over Lightning
XS Black Women's Columbia Jacket
Small black women's Ripzone parka


text:
Q: Jquery aciTree Reload I want to reload aciTree based on dropdown change item. how can I do that. i tried below options but not succeed.
 $('#treeCustomers').aciTree('option', '/Customers/GetCustomersTree', '?areaId=' + $(this).val());

let me know how to achieve this

A: finally I found solution at https://gist.github.com/Abijeet/9406315 may be this link use full to some one

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
Lifestyle · Manchester · Musings
Working on the ITV Leader's Debate for the General Election 2015
April 19, 2015 April 19, 2015 chelseadickenson
When I heard that ITV were doing the leader's debate, I wanted in straightaway. After plenty of vocal declarations ('POLITICS IS DEAD GOOD, YEAH') in the office, I was told they were looking for some volunteers to look after the leaders and their 'crew'.
Each party was assigned a VIP runner, a leader runner and an entourage runner. I was to look after the Lib Dem entourage (or the Nicky C Massif as I liked to call them) and we all met at 9:30am for their familiarisation session in studio. An efficient bunch, they were in and out in their allocated 20 minutes with Mr. Clegg only asking for one item on his rider – bananas. It wasn't until I saw them in his dressing room that it clicked – YELLOW! Maybe he only eats yellow foods before big public appearances?! Should I get separating some egg yolks? Does quinoa count? Has the Prime Minister's runner been sent out for a multipack of Blue Ribands?
DON'T EAT THE LABOUR CHERRIES, NICK.
Dietary requirements aside, the rest of the day was spent helping out the production team and trying to sort out the air conditioning which was threatening to turn the Green's dressing room into a Bikram Yoga studio.
Nick Clegg arrived back at the studio at 6:45pm to a blaze of press cameras – it was starting to get exciting. As make up attended to all the leaders, the corridor outside their dressing rooms was lined with suited security, their lapels each brandishing a fancy brooch. I thought this was very 'on trend' until I found out it meant that they were all holding firearms. Ah. Right. Cup of tea anyone? Whimper.
This picture does not reflect my political allegiances… At all…
At 7:40pm, the call came. The doors opened one by one like the most impressive domino show you've ever seen. Now, I've worked with a lot of celebrities and have never been affected by their presence but watching some of the most powerful people in our country stride past was really surreal.
I stayed behind to look after Clegg's entourage, who left soon after to go to the media centre to 'spin' – disappointingly this is not a huge game of dizzy dinosaurs but where a collection of party members and journalists were, ready to 'spin' stories from the debate to splatter across the headlines the next day.
Archive image of Cleggert going for a 'spin'. Liking the yellow bike, Nick. YOU'RE SO ON BRAND.
I was fortunate enough to catch most of the debate from the hospitality suite and was really proud of all the hard work my colleagues had put into pulling off such a polished show. Hecklers aside (which I secretly loved), it felt brilliant to be part of something that would hopefully make more people get out and use their vote.
We bid adieu to the deputy prime minister who left straightaway and made our way to the front of the studios where the ITV News at 10 were broadcasting live. I could lie and say we were just eager for more political discourse but in reality, we were just desperately trying to get in the back of shot. Ah, you wouldn't think we worked in TV, would you?
Remember, April 20th is the last day you can register to vote. If you haven't done it yet, please do so NOW here! It only takes 5 minutes but you will need your National Insurance number.
If, like me, you're a bit confused about who to vote for, I found the Vote For Policies website helpful.
GE2015 General Election ITV ITV Leaders Debate Leaders Debate Liberal Democrats Nick Clegg Politics Work
Previous Post Top Tips for Eating Healthy on Holiday
Next Post Chester Half Marathon: Mile by Mile Musings
One thought on "Working on the ITV Leader's Debate for the General Election 2015"
agogo22 says:
Reblogged this on msamba.


Spring time is coming and The Villas are ready!
Spring is quickly approaching and we at The Villas are very excited. The gardens are greening and we will be getting beautiful new flowers in soon. Come and book a stay with us, sit out under the stars with a glass of wine and enjoy the gardens. We are looking forward to seeing you!
This entry was posted on Thursday, February 23rd, 2017 at 4:05 pm	and is filed under Promo. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.


I'm going to talk a little bit about just the big changes in the way that we make healthcare policy at the state and local level. The daily barrage of political information, the shutdown scandals, the tweets and tantrums on Cable News, make it difficult to see what I think have been some pretty big shifts in the water that makes up the way that we actually make healthcare policy and maybe lots of other policy. And if we're going to continue on this pathway, where not only do we have an expansion/non-expansion divergence, then we have a work requirement/non-work requirement divergence.
Yarbro, Jeff (2019) "All Health Care Is Local: Exploring the Roles of Cities and States in Health Care Delivery and Reform Keynote #2," Belmont Health Law Journal: Vol. 2 , Article 3.


Maui Zipline! 7 Zipline Adventure on Maui's North Shore!
On this Maui zipline tour, you will soar high through the canopy of giant eucalyptus trees on 7 different ziplines, while overlooking Maui's verdant North Shore. Imagine your thrill as you reach heights of 70′ and speeds to 40 mph, with ziplines up to 900′ long! Fast, fun, and exhilarating, the NorthShore Zipline Co's "Camp Maui Zipline Tour" was designed to thrill first time zippers, as well as the most experienced zipline enthusiasts.
Only 25 minutes from the Kahului airport in beautiful Haiku, Maui, you'll find a freestyle eco-adventure the whole family can enjoy. Children age 5 and up are welcome to participate when accompanied by an adult and we offer Maui's only money back guarantee for a Maui zipline adventure. Book your tour direct.
Now featuring the "Camp Maui Museum – Maui's WWII Museum." See more at campmauimuseum.org.


Welcome to For Snyder Cut Web Site. Our mission is to share what we love about the vision we've seen and bring to light the vision of Zack Snyder's version of Justice League that we didn't see.
Hold The Line is part movement, part community and part resource. iHold.tv is a definitive platform for families to join forces and be empowered to impact the world we live in.
The Paladin Knight - Home Page - Good Always Wins Over Evil, But Not Without a Sacrifice!
A not for profit organization dedicated to helping Native Americans in keeping their culture intact, and in assisting in any way we can.
Welcome to the LawSchools.com directory of law programs, law schools, and law-related programs. Check out our directory of Law-related Schools and our directory of Criminal Justice Schools.


text:
The Higher Education (Northern Ireland) Order 2005
Northern Ireland Orders in Council
2005 No. 1116 (N.I. 5)
Explanatory Memorandum
Previous: Part
Next: Signature
Open whole Order
Open Order without Schedules
Changes over time for: PART IV
S.R. 2020/295
There are currently no known outstanding effects for the The Higher Education (Northern Ireland) Order 2005, PART IV .
Revised legislation carried on this site may not be fully up to date. At the current time any known changes or effects made by subsequent legislation have been applied to the text of the legislation you are viewing by the editorial team. Please see 'Frequently Asked Questions' for details regarding the timescales for which new effects are identified and recorded on this site.
PART IV N.I.SUPPLEMENTARY
Orders and regulationsN.I.
14.—(1) Subject to paragraph (2), regulations under any provision of this Order shall be subject to negative resolution.
(2) Paragraph (1) does not apply to—
(a)regulations to which Article 4(10) or (11)(a)(ii) or (b)(ii) applies, or
(b)regulations to which paragraph (3) applies.
(3) Regulations which contain (whether alone or with other provisions) provision made by virtue of Article 6(2) or 7 may not be made unless a draft of the regulations has been laid before, and approved by resolution of, the Assembly.
(4) Any order or regulations under this Order may contain such incidental, supplemental, saving or transitional provisions as the Department thinks fit.
(5) Nothing in this Order is to be regarded as affecting the generality of paragraph (4).
RepealsN.I.
15. The statutory provisions specified in the Schedule are hereby repealed to the extent specified there.
PrintThe Whole Order
PDF The Whole Order
Web page The Whole Order
PrintThis Part only
PDF This Part only
Web page This Part only
Explanatory Memorandum sets out a brief statement of the purpose of a Northern Ireland Order in Council and provides information about its policy objective and policy implications. They aim to make the Order accessible to readers who are not legally qualified and accompany any Northern Ireland Order in Council made since 2002.


text:
Норт Перт () је општина у Канади у покрајини Онтарио. Према резултатима пописа 2011. у општини је живело 12.631 становника.

Становништво

Према резултатима пописа становништва из 2011. у граду је живело 12.631 становника, што је за 3,1% више у односу на попис из 2006. када је регистровано 12.254 житеља.

Референце

Спољашње везе

Општине у Онтарију

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


So while you two keep feeding your ego and calling people who actually want to put effort into roleplay, 'jokes'. Buppy will be running Asgarnia juuuuuuust fine.
Effectively immediately, I pass the official guide thread to RiDaku. He has my permission to make a replacement at his leisure. He has hope and still cares. He is one of the best people I've had the honor of playing with and is an exceptional writer. I can think of no one else better for the monumental task of helping and representing the community. I doubt anyone can help this place...but the person who most deserves a proper shot at it is him.
What happened to the hope and care? Quickly learn how to Roleplay on RuneScape!
If I know Buppy, he works off spite. Nothing jumpstarts laziness like fresh motivation.
! "Good maps make good plans."


Today, we're in the throes of another changing environment, one where businesses rapidly embrace digitalization. I know, I know, we all have heard all about AI before and there have been countless encounters of all of us about the subject. But what is a cognitive supply chain model and where does it fit into all this?
Simply, a cognitive supply chain model utilizes machine learning, which is a type of artificial intelligence that has been merged with advanced analytics. It helps quickly process and make sense of the vast amount of data coming from countless sources. This allows businesses to receive real-time insights from the entire integrated network, from digital data that has been captured, stored, processed, and shared from every single supply chain partner.
The benefit of a cognitive supply chain for businesses is that it eliminates noise, which in turn promotes insights and can lead to improvement. This is essential in directing decision-making for businesses and industries, and is known as "digital nudging." The more accurate and reliable the data, the better impact it will have on leading businesses to make effective decisions for each and every component of the supply chain.
The most optimal supply chain systems will make decisions automatically, making the need for human intervention limited, which in turn increases efficiency by saving time and money. Many companies are now turning to cognitive computing and machine learning to solve challenges that come up in supply chain processes.
Real-time Insights: Allows quick responses to risks and opportunities. Planners will have access to key information, such as stock-out tolerance limits, safety stock gaps, lost sales, and audit compliance. Accordingly, there can be prompt changes made regarding short-term forecasts, marketing campaigns, and production schedules.
Long-term visibility on excess or unproductive inventory: This will enable forecast accuracy improvements over time.
Seamless collaboration and increased productivity between supply chain partners: Suppliers, customers, third-party manufacturers, and logistics providers work together in real-time to quickly make business decisions on the same platform. This increases the quality of interaction reduces lag time and communication.
Increased customer satisfaction: Customers are getting more and more demanding, requiring billions of personalized services and they want it rapidly. The supply chains of tomorrow need to be highly responsive, agile and flexible to meet growing customer demands.
Traditional supply chain models are unable to deliver any of all this in an efficient and effective way without compromising profit. Companies do not have a solution for analyzing the enormous data scattered across various processes, sources, and system. Cognitive supply chain model overcomes these transparency and visibility hurdles by utilizing AI. Cognitive learning is now widely seen as the solution to the greatest challenges facing retail businesses, not only for the supply chain sector. It has been estimated that by 2020, 50% of all business analytics software will incorporate cognitive computing functionality in order to deliver business growth and remain competitive in today's world.
Supply chains are complex because of their hybrid nature, but cognitive learning thrives on complexity. Large volume and multi-channel data means more accuracy and better cognition for the system to learn the dynamics. Hence, this makes supply chains with its multi-channel stakeholders a perfect environment to apply cognitive learning.
The drift towards smart, optimized, and automated world today is so strong that not integrating some form of AI – perhaps machine learning –means that systems have become obsolete. According to Pew Research Center, by 2025, artificial intelligence will be built into the algorithmic architecture of countless functions of business and communication, increasing relevance, reducing noise, increasing efficiency and reducing risk across everything from finding information to making transactions.


text:
Mon, 29 July 2013
The Game Fart Episode 38: Die Harderer
This week Joe and Tyler are joined by long-time listener Jose Bulls to talk about Tearaway, Fez II, Ps4 & Xbox One, as well as new gigantic bluray discs. We also cover Ubisoft's The Crew, Nintendo trademarks, and new releases for the week. Tyler leaves early and Joe and Jose talk about what they've been playing and what they are looking forward to most this year, including: The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing, Velocity Ultra, Assassin's Creed IV, and of course Tearaway. Please to Enjoy!
The Game Fart Episode 37: Superman Batman
This week on The Game Fart, Joe and Joe talk about the recently announced Superman/Batman movie coming in 2015. Other topics covered include Rockstar's Agent, The Last of Us topping the sales charts, the 850 page script for South Park: The Stick of Truth, and the black 3DS XL finally coming to North America.
Thu, 18 July 2013
The Game Fart Episode 36: Cat Food
This week on The Game Fart: Joe, Tyler, and Sandeep discuss abandoned podcasts, octopus chips, igloos, being in fights, Die Hard, and Craigslist hookups. Tyler gets ripped off by Newegg and we talk about everything else from Ultra Street Fighter IV to Martian Manhunter to the 30th Birthday of Famicom and magic! Join the billions of people that download this every day.
Direct download: The_Game_Fart_Episode_036.mp3
Thu, 4 July 2013
The Game Fart Episode 35: The Best Video Games Ever
It's a crowded week on the show. Join Joe, Dan, Sandeep, and Horatiu for the weekly news and new releases, and Horatiu tells us all about his new comic 51 Serif St. Tyler joins in on the fun in the second half of the podcast as we discuss our personal favorite games of all time. It's a whirlwind of nostalgia, laughter, and yelling as we each countdown our top five video games in history. We also talk about what makes a game special to each of us and discuss naked Kinect.
thegamefart.com


9 out of 10 based on 400 ratings. 3,757 user reviews.
wwwrepairmanual›REPAIR ManualOriginal Factory TGB Blade 250 ATV Workshop Service Repair Manual is a Complete Informational Book. This ServiceManual has easy-to-read text sections with top quality diagrams andinstructions.
TGB ATV Blade 250 Factory Service Repair Manual Download Pdf This is the same type of service manual your local dealer.. Download. 16 USD Tgb Blade 250 Atv Service Repair Manual Download . Full & Complete Service Repair Workshop Manual Supplied In Easy To Read PDF Format.
This service manual contains the technical data of each component inspection and repair for the BLADE 250/300 ATV. The manual is shown with illustrations and focused on "Service Procedures", "Operation Key Points", and "Inspection Adjustment" so that provides technician with service guidelines.
wwwalslib››TGB Manuals›Offroad Vehicle›BLADE 250Page 1 BLADE 250 SERVICE MANUAL..; Page 2 "Service Procedures", "Operation Key Points", and "Inspection Adjustment" so that provides technician with service guidelines. If the style and construction of the ATV, BLADE 250, are different from that of the photos, pictures shown in this manual, the actual vehicle shall prevail.
TGB Blade 250 Factory Service Repair Manual covers all the repair procedures you will ever need service manual is also used by the mechanics from you local service. This is the official complete service repair manual for the TGB Blade 250. This manual is digitally delivered, there is not shipping cost.


text:
Michael Cook (14 February 1933 – 1 July 1994) was a Canadian playwright known for his plays set in Newfoundland.

Early life
Cook was born in Fulham, London, England. He attended boarding schools until age fifteen. He served five years in the British Army, mostly in Asia including Japan where he saw the Ama (Japanese female free-divers) harvesting shellfish, sea urchins, pearls, etc, from the ocean, and later attended the University of Nottingham, earning teaching qualifications.  He then settled in Newfoundland in 1965.

Career
Soon after arriving in Newfoundland, Cook wrote scripts for several radio dramas which were produced in St. John's; Cook taught theatre arts at Memorial University of Newfoundland; he reviewed plays and wrote articles about the importance of theatre in the St. John's Evening Telegram and in the Canadian Theatrical Review. In the Fall and Spring semesters of 1974/75, he taught a first year English course at Memorial University of Newfoundland.

Cook wrote a number of plays set in Newfoundland, beginning with was Tiln, written in 1971.  His best-known works were Jacob's Wake and The Head, Guts and Soundbone Dance, in which Newfoundland provides a sometimes realistic and sometimes symbolic backdrop for his poetic rendering of lives in continual conflict with natural elements.

Many of Cook's plays include dialogue written in the Newfoundland dialect; in spite of this, The Head, Guts and Soundbone Dance was restaged as far away as Regina, Saskatchewan in 1980.

Personal life
Cook married three times, and fathered twelve children, including actor Sebastian Spence by his wife, Janis.
Cook retained a residence in Stratford, Ontario. While passing through St Johns on a trip to his summer home on Random Island, Cook became ill and died.

Plays
 Tiln, 1971.
 Colour The Flesh the Colour of Dust, 1972.
 The Head, Guts and Sound Bone Dance, 1973.
 Jacob's Wake, 1974.
 Quiller, 1975.
 Therese's Creed, 1976.
 The Fisherman's Revenge, 1976. (children's play)
 On The Rim of the Curve, 1977.
 The Gayden Chronicles, 1980.

Works about Michael Cook
 Craig Walker, "Michael Cook: Elegy, Allegory and Eschatology," The Buried Astrolabe: Canadian Dramatic Imagination and Western Tradition.  Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2001.

References

External links
 Biography at Newfoundland and Labrador Heritage

1933 births
1994 deaths
English dramatists and playwrights
20th-century Canadian dramatists and playwrights
English emigrants to Canada
Writers from St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador
People from Fulham
Canadian male dramatists and playwrights
English male dramatists and playwrights
20th-century Canadian male writers
20th-century English male writers


text:
Browse by Movement
( 1885	- 1920	)
POPULAR ARTISTS: BOUGUEREAU, GéRôME, WEEKS, LEIGHTON, ALMA-TADEMA
The Art Academies, also known as Academic Classicism, was created in Italy in the XVI century and controlled the Europe's art world for over two centuries. As it takes the place of the medieval learning system, the Academic way of teaching spread all throughout Europe. Studying in these institutions turned into a secure path for professional artists to follow, for this gave them more opportunities to participate in contests and art exhibitions.
Students would have to pass an admission test to prove they are qualified to get in an Art Academy. After being admitted, the apprentice spent years studying and copying works of Classic artists, as to absorb their techniques. The teaching methods emphasized the intellectual side of the artistic production, for they aimed to elevate artists from mere craftsmen or artisans, which were considered to do only manual labor and not art.
At the beginning of their studies, pupils must start drawing using etching prints as a reference. Later, they pass to models in gesso sculptures and lastly, to live models. The artists working under this regime had to obey to a hierarchy of acceptable topics, being that historical subjects, like Biblical and Classical stories, where the most valued, followed by portraits and landscapes, and lastly, still-life paintings. The most successful students earned the title of Academic Artist.
In 1816, begins the most renowned art academy in Europe, the Académie des Beaux-Arts, or the Academy of Fine Arts. This institution is a result of the junction of Paris' Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture, along with two other art schools. The Academy of Fine Arts would have an annual exhibition in the Paris Salon, where only the most outstanding sculptures and paintings would be accepted, not to mention, they had to follow the conventional style of the Academic Art. To be considered successful, an artist would not only have to be approved into the Paris Salon but would also be expected to win many contests. The most prestigious award was the Prix de Rome, and the winner would have the chance to study art in Rome for up to five years.
The Academic Artists followed theories from the Neo-Classicists, as they would systematize the classic qualities, like shapes and composition, to create new work with a new interpretation. Even though students would study by copying works of art to learn the methods of Classic artists, the intention was not to produce replicas or imitations but to take the Neo-classical essence to create new art. The artists also valued some concepts of the Romanticism as well. They looked at the need for each artist to have an individualized and subjective imagination, so they were able to express their own emotions on their work. The most prominent artists of this period that elevated the Academic art to its finest were William-Adolphe Bouguereau, Jean-Léon Gérôme, Alexandre Cabanel, and Thomas Couture.
Bouguereau realized some of the most influential works following the standards of Academic Art, like the Birth of Venus. This painting shows Venus, Roman goddess of love and beauty, emerging from a shell and surrounded by Tritons, sea nymphs, and cherubs – who were usually represented as chubby male babies with wings, as a sign of respect for the Italian Renaissance art. Bouguereau was able to beautifully reproduce the technique of academic painting with a carefully satin-like finish, intense color, and non-visible brush strokes. He was able to make flawless skin that looks almost like porcelain. This work pays homage to Botticelli's Venus, as well as Raphael's Triumph of Galatea, and Venus Anadyomène, by Ingres. Like many artists at the time, Bouguereau used a Classic mythological theme as a pretext to portray a beautifully voluptuous and idealized female nude. He was praised by his fellow traditional artists, but loathed by the newer generations.
Cabanel also followed a mythological narrative in Phaedra, where the central figure is illuminated and featured with radiant skin, compared to the other two figures. He portrays the story of Phaedra after she declares her love for Hippolyte. Gérôme has a different approach to the mythological theme in Pygmalion and Galatea, as he depicts Pygmalions' wish coming true, that is, having a wife as beautiful as his art.
In 1848, because of the revolutions and industrialization taking place in Europe, many changes were appearing in social conditions and artists start to question the authority of the Academic Art. This began with the British Pre-Raphaelites that were against the conservatism and unbendable structure of the academies and their control over the consumers of art. Even though the Art Academy was criticized, there is no denying of its substantial impact on Western art.
Most Popular Academic Classicism Paintings
Song of the Angels
Lady Godiva
Battle of Trafalgar 1805
Flaming June
Showing 29 of 6289 results found in movement Academic Classicism Most Popular By Name: A to Z By Name: Z to A Relevance
Black Art (56)
Fantasy, Mythology, Sci-Fi (151)
Floral Still Life (981)
Food, Beverages, Kitchen (97)
Historical Figures (32)
Paintings of paintings (31)
Portraits (797)
Religion & Philosophy (57)
Sport and Games (47)
Still Life (385)
Yes No Doesn't Matter
Request an aged painting
See our POP ART collection
Shipping within 24 hours!
We can paint anything!
Showing 29 of 6289 results found in movement Academic Classicism
Most Popular By Name: A to Z By Name: Z to A Relevance
from $286.99 Song of the Angels by
from $286.99 Lady Godiva by
John Maler Collier
from $286.99 Battle of Trafalgar 1805 by
Louis Philippe Crepin
from $286.99 The Storm by
Pierre Auguste Cot
from $286.99 Flaming June by
Lord Frederick Leighton
from $286.99 A Soul Brought to Heaven 1878 by
from $286.99 Springtime by
from $286.99 Jeune femme denudée sur canape (Young woman naked on a settee) by
Guillaume Seignac
from $286.99 Nymphes et Satyre (Nymphs and Satyr) by
from $286.99 Pollice Verso (Thumbs Down) by
from $286.99 Death of Julius Caesar (100-44 BC) by
Vincenzo Camuccini
from $286.99 Young Girl Defending Herself against Eros 1880 by
from $286.99 Sketch Two Nautch Girls by
Edwin Lord Weeks
from $286.99 The Painter's Honeymoon by
from $286.99 The Golden Temple Amritsar by
from $286.99 Charity 1878 by
from $286.99 The Lion Hunt by
from $286.99 The Abduction of Psyche 1895 by
from $286.99 Great Mogul And His Court Returning From The Great Mosque At Delhi India by
from $286.99 The Birth of Venus 1863 by
from $286.99 Still-Life 1810 by
Jean-Joseph-Xavier Bidauld
from $286.99 Lilith, 1887 by
from $286.99 Self Portrait c.1818 by
Léon Cogniet
from $286.99 Slave Auction by
from $286.99 Charity or The Indigent Family', 1865 by
from $286.99 Chloe by
Jules Joseph Lefebvre
from $286.99 The Elder Sister 1869 by
from $286.99 A Court In The Alhambra In The Time Of The Moors by
from $286.99 Mary Magdalene In The Cave by


Currently, the demand for Garmin bands is gaining popularity significantly. Besides, individuals are now sorted out with the latest Garmin bands as they are very appealing. One thing worth noting is that the current market has a variety of designs and models regarding Garmin bands for clients to make selections. It is vital for one to consider picking Garmin bands that are fitting and have the best models. With the current technological advancements, Garmin bands have been designed with attractive and colorful models suitable for watch lovers. One needs to note that there are multiple choices of Garmin bands dealers available in the current market that clients can engage.
Engaging, reliable Garmin bands dealers assure clients that the kind of Garmin accessories to get is the best. For more info on Garmin Bands click here to read more now. You need to consider using reliable sources to get in touch with reputable and best Garmin bands dealers. The internet is currently proved to be the best and reliable when one is finding the best Garmin accessories dealer to engage. With the online research, a client can access a list of Garmin bands dealers that are reputable and registered to trade with the accessories. You need to prioritize on Garmin bands dealers that have a long experience and excellent reputation for selling with the best bands.
The excellent reputation of Garmin dealers matters a lot. This is because it helps in building the client's trust and confidence that the Garmin bands to buy are legit. On the same note, reliable Garmin bands dealers ensure their clients get only the best and advanced accessories. Online shopping provides clients with access to a variety of Garmin bands. It is essential as it helps clients to choose one that best that suits them. Click learn to read more about Garmin Bands. The internet change has resulted in many dealers owns a website where clients can review the past reviews. Similarly, viewing the previous responses help the clients to choose the best and well-designed Garmin bands.
Also, such reviews help the clients to believe that the dealers are dealing with Garmin bands that are customized. It is through the Garmin bands website that customers can access a variety of accessories with various styles and colors. Moreover, Garmin bands are so advanced in that users can customize them in diverse ways. You can be able to access these accessories and shop online stores. One thing worth noting is that users of Garmin bands can have a chance to program the clock for essential matters such as stock market returns, weather reports as well as calendar events. Learn more from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garmin_Forerunner.


Bankruptcy Lawyer in New York | How Much Does Bankruptcy Cost in NY?
What will my New York bankruptcy cost me?
Traditionally, bankruptcy is not a simple or easy process. Often times, when an individual tries to put his or her debt under control alone, an even bigger financial mess is the result. Bankruptcy is a complicated legal process that can involve the timely eradication of an individual's debt or a payment plan struck up between creditors and a debtor.
Chapter 7 bankruptcy, described as the timely cancellation of a bulk of an individual's debt, initially will cost $306. The initial fee is designated to pay the U.S. bankruptcy court filing fee before you begin your path to a debt free future. Chapter 13 bankruptcy, also known as the bankruptcy comprised of a payment plan to repay most of your debt to creditors, has an initial filing fee of $281.
Due to the fact that no two bankruptcy cases will be alike, it is absolutely imperative that you seek the legal guidance of a compassionate New York bankruptcy attorney at Price Law Group. The legal team at our firm has dedicated their professional careers to helping other individuals find relief in a time of worry. If you or your family is in excessive debt or fears that you may find yourself in debt in the near future, do not hesitate to speak with a trustworthy bankruptcy and debt relief lawyer in New York.
For all of your debt relief questions and concerns, please contact a New York bankruptcy attorney at Price Law Group today.