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January 30, 2004

:: culture vulture ::

A little word to those of you who have been reading me for some time: I know what you've been saying these past months. "This is crap!" It's OK. I know it, and you're right. Please accept my apologies. It's been a weird couple of months. Still, who knew I'd be such a weakling that a single winter of sunshine and warm weather would render me unable to cope with the subzero midwest - what's the opposite of nitrogen narcosis? Nitrogen lucidity? I must have been suffering from that.

However. Onward, on hopefully a less shitty note than has become the norm of late.

It has been a very good week. Culturally, it has been even better. Wednesday I was at Chicago Lyric Opera seeing Lucia di Lammermoor; Thursday I was at the Vic seeing Gomez. One at a time:

The first thing to note about Lucia di Lammermoor is the dichotomy between its language, its music, and its setting. See, the opera was written by Gaetano Donizetti, who was obviously Italian - not only written in Italian, but moreover in a particularly flamboyantly Italian style (bel canto). The story, however, is an old Scottish tale. The main characters come from the clans of Ravenswood and Ashton. Never mind that Donizetti's changed their first names to Edgardo, Lucia and Enrico. So the tricky part is, once you've sat through the lovely and, again, overwhelmingly Italian overture and the curtain goes up, all of a sudden there's people wandering across the stage in kilts. And plaid. And for just a few minutes, it all seems terribly, terribly wrong. Especially the first time you hear someone sing 'Ravenswood' in the middle of an aria. Trust me, you'll get over it.

The thing about bel canto is, much as it's been called the zenith of "park and bark" opera, these days singers are taking it on as a challenge - more than just vocally, as an acting challenge. What do you do when you've got 10 minutes of music on 3 lines of lyrics? Make it physical, is what these singers did.

Along those lines, another thing that's important to note about Lucia is that it's the operatic equivalent of Giselle. OK, that helped nobody but me. What I'm trying to say is that it's one of the most technically difficult, most demanding roles ever written for a woman, with a massive and exhausting mad scene that ends in death. In the case of Lucia, I'd gotten used to seeing (or hearing) women along the lines of Dame Joan Sutherland take on this role. Now, don't get me wrong: Dame Joan was spectacular, but she was a little large to do much more than stride about and plant and gesture - textbook "park and bark". Our soprano this season at the Lyric is another story entirely.

Natalie Dessay is French. She's done highly regarded CDs of arias from famous works. She's got reviews that say things like:

"The singer who stole the show was Natalie Dessay…She tossed off everything she sang with darting, gleaming ease."

- Chicago Tribune

Obviously, the woman's no slouch. But I never would have expected what I saw. First off, she can't possibly be a hair over 5'2" tall, and she probably weighs about 46 pounds soaking wet. But she throws her whole body, her entire self, into this role like I've never seen anyone do in the opera world. And I mean that as the highest praise. It's only recently that it's become somewhat common to see opera singers sit while delivering a particularly tricky passage: this woman was lying on her stomach, face to the ground and still managed to produce the richest sounds I think I've ever heard a soprano deliver live and in person. Coloratura is the most challenging of styles to begin with; to deliver coloratura trills and passages while supine on the stage is several orders of magnitude better than anything I'd hoped to see at the Lyric this season, or any.

Did I mention that Marcelo Álvarez as Edgardo was awesome too? A lot was made of lyric tenors about 15 years ago when the Three Tenors madness struck, but I still don't think people realize how rare it is to see a tenor with both the range and the fullness of voice to make this sort of role really come alive. This man was up to the challenge, and up to his co-star. I realize that I'm not doing him justice in this piece, but he didn't have a 20 minute (more or less) solo mad scene, either. Just sayin'. Besides, once upon a time I was a soprano too (no, really), so who do you think I'm going to pay more attention to? I have never pretended, thankfully, to be an objective reviewer.

Anyway. I could probably go on for a good deal longer, but I'll shut up while I'm ahead. Lucia de Lammermoor at the Lyric Opera. Catch it, seriously, if in any way you're able.

That was Wednesday.

Then there was Thursday.

Thursday went off like my nights often do: I had plans earlier in the week. A few days ago, due to a vicious cold, they were cancelled. Then I had other plans. Those caved too. Something about working (work? what's that?) late. And then another set, gone more or less the same way. Embarking on plan number four, I decided to call my dear friend Travis, who's always good for a little boozing and banter. Being in an excellent mood despite the cold, I thought that might be just the ticket. Trav answered on the second ring. I asked him what he was up to.

"Have you heard of the band, Gomez?" he asked.

I know a band called Gomez, but I hadn't heard anything from them in 5 years. Apparently I missed one. A little bit Manchester bluster, a little bit rock & roll, a whole lot of jazz rhythms thrown in for good measure, they were fondly remembered. Kate and Travis were on the guest list, and did I want to come along? Hell, yes. Let's hear it for the unexpected - the show was outstanding. If I said that it felt for a moment or ten like I might be getting into a taxi after the show and going home to the house in Bristol, would that sound bad? Well, that's how it felt. And that felt really, really good.

I remembered enough about Gomez to be grinning like an idiot and singing along when they did their hits, and little enough about them to be impressed all over again when they did their fabulous obscure-rhythm-shifting thing. Seriously, it's always a bit of an adventure when the instruments outnumber the musicians by a factor of 2, and nothing goes unplayed.

After the show, it was off to my favorite non-local local for some beers and friends and excellent story-swapping. Where was that? Darlings, if I told you that, you could potentially all be there next week, and bless you, but I do like to keep some things to myself.

Now it's Friday, and I just feel I should probably mention that it is really. Motherfucking. Cold.