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| Charlene Baldridge Photo by Ken Howard |
Guthrie.Mozart.Gabler
Classics all, plus my first Über experience
The Padres were in town Friday night, and I was scheduled to
see Woody Guthrie’s American Song at
the Horton Grand Theatre. California being “the garden of Eden if you got
money” (Guthrie), I decided that rather than fight for parking or indulge in
the hassle of parking in the structure across the street from the theatre, I
would have my first adventure with Über, the raison d’etre for my new iPhone.
As it happened, I was not the only one. After the performance there were
several other theatregoers waiting for the on-call car service. All very civilized, of course.
I went to the Gaslamp in a Mercedes and came home in a town
car. Both drivers helped me into and out of the vehicle and both were bright and
intelligent. No hassle. Way to go.
I went down at 5:30 for the 8pm show, thinking to visit a
little Thai restaurant I know at the end of 4th, only to find that it and a whole row of restaurants there had gone out of business. Another sadness: the
Old Spaghetti Factory is now a pool hall. How things change when you’re 82. A thousand pardons. I was on 4th. The Old Spaghetti Factory, as always is on 5th! A lot of things DO change when you're 82!
My
late husband and I used to take the kids there for spaghetti when they were
little. It was the only place to eat in the Gaslamp District (not sure what we
called it then) and the Horton Grand didn’t yet exist, at least not in the present
location. “Street People” (that’s what we called them) offered to guard one’s
car, for a fee, and a woman alone would never go to that part of town.
Things are changed now, though a longer walk than
anticipated ensued. I was sent on a wild goose chase to a closed restaurant
recommended by the door guard at World Market; then proceeded to a little
outdoor table at Rockin’ Baja Lobster in the 300 block of 5th Ave.
From there, I watched the world go by, many on their way to the Padres game,
others just enjoying the balmy evening and drinking beer and enormous
margaritas.
Intrepid's Woodie Guthrie
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| French, Storti and Yael-Cox Photoa by Daren Scott |
Back to the Horton Grand for (guest theatre in residence) Intrepid
Theatre’s production of American Song,
which was conceived and adapted by playwright Peter Glazer in 1988 and is directed
by Ruff Yeager with music direction by Jon Lorenz.
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| Leonard Patton |
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| Karen Anne Daniels |
The company of five includes Intrepid Artistic Director and
Co-founder Sean Yael-Cox (in his element) as Folksinger/Mid-life Woody. He
wields a mean vocal twang and some fine licks on guitar. Leonard Patton, a
wondrously rich singer, portrays Writer/Older Woody. Jack French, a handsome
youth who identifies as an opera singer (not) in his bio (!), portrays
Searcher/Young Woody.
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| Sean Yael-Cox |
Set in America in the ‘30s and ‘40s, the piece loosely follows Guthrie’s travels through the Dust Bowl and with the great westward migration that followed. It presents 26 songs (among them the hit for which Guthrie will always be remembered, “This Land Is Your Land”) interspersed with Guthrie’s amazingly timely writings about America, the life he lived, and the people he met.
The Women are played and sung by Karen Ann Daniels and
Megan M. Storti, whose voices blend magnificently and whose chemistry is
exceptional. Most all the performers grab a guitar at one point or another.
There is no story, and the road looms large.
Onstage backup is provided by Sean LaPerruque on fiddle,
Patrick Marion on bass, and Jim Mooney on guitar and other instruments.
Musically it doesn’t get better than this, especially if you’re a Guthrie fan.
Michael McKeon provides the multi-leveled set and projection design, Jeanne
Reith, the costumes, and Christopher Renda the lighting. Matt Lescault-Wood’s
sound design is impeccable.
The show plays Thursdays-Sundays through June 19 at the Horton
Grand, 444 4th Avenue. Tickets at Lamb’s Players Theatre www.lambsplayers.org or 619-437-6000.
Mainly Mozart Festival
Saturday around 6pm I
drove to Broadway Circle, where I scored a yellow, arriving at the Balboa
Theatre in time for Music Director Michael Francis and opera director Cynthia
Stokes pre-concert chit-chat, which was informal, warm and amusing as they
talked about the prodigy of Mozart (1756-1791) and the opera singspiel that he wrote at age 12, titled
Bastien und Bastienne. By then a “seasoned”
opera composer (he wrote his first opera at age 8!) the opera, which lasts less than
an hour, contains the seeds of much he later wrote and shows his early
understanding of the voice and vocal writing.
It’s interesting to note that the overture to Bastien und Bastienne takes as its theme
a melody from Beethoven’s (1770-1827) “Eroica” symphony. Wags assume
the explanation is that each of the composers lifted the melody from something
else. Also interesting to note, each prodigy had his father to contend with, fathers
eager to perpetuate the money stream generated by showcasing their prodigies.
According to Maestro Francis, Beethoven’s father was always pushing him to be
as talented and popular as Mozart – quite a burden to bear. Logically, then,
Francis programmed Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 2 in B-flat Major, which was
beautifully, almost magically played by 15-year-old Umi Garrett, also a prodigy
who began with a splash on Ellen de Generes’ TV show when she was only 8.
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| Umi Garrett |
Ms. Garrett, Mo. Francis and the Festival Orchestra
established a fine rapport early in the concerto. She has youth, enthusiasm and
grand facility on her side. The magic occurred late in the Adagio
movement, when the pianissimo achieved by the orchestra and Ms. Garrett was so
extreme that it caused an extraordinary hush in the concert hall. No one moved
or breathed.
Clad in layers and layers of tiered ecru tulle, which she took
great care to tuck under the piano, Ms. Garrett played an encore, Russian
pianist Arcady Volodos’ notoriously difficult and showy concert paraphrase of
Mozart’s Rondo Alla Turca.
To begin the program Mo. Francis programmed Mozart’s Galimathias musicum (Musical Gibberish) in
D Major, a showcase of colors and styles in 16 movements, devised by Mozart
father and son and written in honor of the inauguration of Holland’s Prince
William V when Mozart was 10. It’s truly tongue-in-cheek and sadly no one told
the audience it was okay to laugh, though it was in the program note insert that the title translates ""musical gibberish."
Performed by Juilliard singers Christine Taylor Price, Yujoong
Kim, and Daniel Miroslaw, Bastien und Bastienne (supertitled
arias in German, dialogue in English) is truly a cause for laughter. It’s a
parody of the then-contemporary “pure nymphs and shepherds” style comically identified
and performed by opera comedienne Anna Russell. Such librettos concern the
simple romantic affairs of country folk as opposed to operas composed about
royalty and war.
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| Christine Taylor Price |
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| Daniel Miroslaw |
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| Yujoong Kim |
The action was performed in front of the orchestra by the costumed
singers directed by Stokes. All three are career-ready with the ripest of them
being bass Miroslaw, as the prototype of Cosi
fan tutte’s Dr. Mesmer character (Don Alfonso in disguise), the town’s
would-be magician who makes everything right. Miroslaw’s vocal technique is
near perfect and he has the lanky swagger of a doubtful older man not to be
trusted. Definitely a candidate for Mozartean types like Despina, Fiordiligi,
and later Strauss’s Countess, Price has the goods. Sadly, she was hampered in
her attempt to convey ingénue-like naiveté by a very bad hat and an
unflattering costume. As Bastien, tenor Kim, who sings quite well, did not need
to be any goofier. But he was. Also sadly, the spoken English dialogue was not
decipherable, and one found oneself searching the supertitle spot (for spoken
English, blank) for translation. Sigh. Otherwise, a good time was had by all.
The Mainly Mozart Festival continues through June 18, offering
four more orchestra concerts and a variety of other fascinating events, some of
them free. Check out mainlymozart.org
North Coast’s Fierce ‘Gabler’
Sunday I escaped the Rock and Roll Marathon blockades successfully,
achieving I-5 north in time to make North Coast Repertory’s 2 pm curtain of Henrik
Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler.
The work is performed in
a new translation by Anne-Charlotte Hanes Harvey, whose own play, Dinner With Marlene, was recently
premiered by Lamb’s Players Theatre. Also worthy of note, it’s Artistic Director David Ellenstein’s 100th
directorial assignment since he joined NCRT in 2003.
Ellenstein writes in his program note that the concept of
translation/language he and his Ghosts company
so successfully accomplished informed his and Harvey’s work on Hedda Gabler; that is to say, all had
input into their character’s utterance, together effecting the achievement of
and hope for something illuminated, something vital and immediate and vibrant,
to borrow a few of Ellenstein’s words.
To do this, as he said, required sublimely intelligent and
creative professionals. These he assembled in Cristina Soria (Aunt Julie),
Rhona Gold (Berte), Bruce Turk (Jörgen Tesman), Mhari Sandoval (Hedda Gabler),
Mel House (Thea Elvsted), Ray Chambers (Judge Brack) and Richard Baird (Eilert
Lövborg).
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| Mhari Sandoval and Bruce Turk Photo Aaron Rumley |
The result is the most terrifying, ferocious and overt Hedda in my experience. One knows from
her first entrance that Sandoval’s Hedda abhors everything in the comfortable
life she systematically constructed and planned for herself — it was to be
satisfying, luxurious and a kind of retribution for everything unfair that
preceded it, especially the loss of the brilliant but dissolute writer,
Lövborg, whom she could not control, and her beauty, which is no longer
youthful. The bloom is off the rose and her inner machinations have begun to
show. As for Tesman, if she can learn to tolerate his mild manner, he would
provide stability and luxury through his upcoming literary work and an
appointment as professor at the university in Christiania (Oslo).
Hedda and Tesman return from an extended wedding trip abroad,
during which he studied much, accumulated books, and achieved his doctorate.
He’s ready to settle down and write his magnum opus now, the one that will
guarantee his university appointment.
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| Ray Chambers. Bruce Turk, Richard Baird Mhari Sandoval and Mel House Photo by Aaron Rumley |
Early on, the newlyweds are informed by the lascivious Judge
Brack, who obtained and furnished a lavish villa for them while they were gone,
that their finances are precarious, especially if the returned Lövborg, who’s
just come out with a highly praised historical book (along the lines of the one
Tesman plans) gets the university post instead of Tesman.
Theatregoers may see the undermining and destruction of all
Hedda’s plans written in Sandoval’s face and body. This Hedda is not insane,
she is livid. When she learns that Lövborg has completed work on a sequel to
his best-seller, written in collaboration with Tesman’s former lover, Thea, and
that Thea has rescued Lövborg from his demon, alcoholism, she is incensed. She
sets out to destroy Lövborg and Thea, and the Judge, who absolutely sees her for
what she is, suggesting she can help herself by letting him help himself (to
her).
What ensues is the terrifying part, the overt demonstration
of what means wrath may employ to make right all that has gone amiss. Hedda is
the ultimate control freak, until she isn’t. As a woman remarked afterwards,
“How’s THAT for a surprise ending?”
That anyone 60 or over (as she) could have got through life
thus far not knowing Hedda Gabler is unimaginable (Chalk up my amazement to my
rarefied existence). Ellenstein & Company seek to remedy that for everyone. Hedda in all
her terrific beauty, is one of the world’s great literary characters, and her
play, premiered in 1891, is an example of classical modernism.
Marty Burnett’s set, Matt Novotny’s lighting and Elisa
Benzoni’s elegant costumes for both the ladies and the gentlemen are decided
assets. Melanie Chen’s thoughtful sound design (with little snippets of Edvard
Grieg, who achieved lasting fame though his writing for Ibsen’s Per Gynt) is an inspiration bound to set
someone off in pursuit of the muse.
I’m not saying that this Hedda
is perfect, only that it is important and must be seen. With few exceptions,
no one writes characters like Ibsen’s anymore, and few directors care so much about
assembling such a company.
Hedda Gabler continues
Wednesdays-Sundays through June 26 at North Coast Repertory Theatre, 987-D
Lomas Santa Fe Drive, Solana Beach. 858-481-1055 or www.northcoastrep.org
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