NAME THE OPERA COMPETITION

Let's be honest. "Ursula" is a lame-ass title for an opera. We need a new title.

Opera Cabal hereby announces our first annual (...annual?)
NAME THE OPERA COMPETITION.

If you want to know what the opera is about, take a gander at the rest of this blog; most of the posts are peripherally related...mostly. If you still can't figure it out (which is probably understandable) just ask. Probably it doesn't matter if you can figure it out or not. In fact, if you think you've figured it out, include that bit with your title submission.

Submissions may be made in the form of comments to this blog or emailed to operacabal@gmail.com.

The winner will receive a cheesecake.

No, I mean it. A whole cheesecake. The cheesecake pictured above was delicious and homemade. The one you get will be even better.

Your choice of topping on the cheesecake (from this list) if you can name it by Dec. 8th (9 days from now).

(n.)

Failed Vision

ps. 10 days and counting.

pps. go hear the prism quartet play on friday and saturday

(n.)

If you're in NYC or Philly this weekend, go hear these guys play! They're super awsome (and not just because they're premering my work on a concert called "Young Guns")!!

(n.)

PREMIERES: YOUNG GUNS
PRISM unveils new saxophone quartets by Renee Favand, Ross Feller, Michael Rosen, and Nick De Maison, and New York Premieres by Shawn Crouch and Loretta Notareschi.

New York:

December 1, 2006, 8:30pm
Symphony Space
95th Street & Broadway, NYC
212-864-5400

Philadelphia:

December 2, 2006, 8pm
PNC Bank/Presser Recital Hall
Settlement Music School
416 Queen Street, Philadelphia
For reservations, call (215) 438-5282

11 days and counting

11 is a magic number, and not just because it is both the first double-digit prime number AND palindromic. Take my last post, for example. My last post was 22 days before impending academic deadline. 22 is a multiple of 11. Today is 11 days before aforementioned deadline. Coincidentally, my birthday is 11-22, which was 5 days ago. 5 is also prime. (Oddly enough, somebody who contributed a solid 50%, or 10 [which is almost 11] x 5, of my accumulated DNA has the numerical anagram/rotation [depending on how you toss your cookies] birthday 12-21). Not convinced? Consider the fact that my car turned 100,000 on 11-22. Or better still, consider 11,000 virgins: put 11,000 virgins on 11 boats that have just clocked 100,000 nautical miles (boats that are hopefully larger than the boats pictured above...unless the virgins are VERY VERY small) and sail them around the known world. Despite the accepted subtitle and apparent historic generation, some scholars debate that this was the actual origin of Shostakovich's 11th symphony, which was written the morning after a dream wherein Shostakovich was at once and simultaneously all 11,000 of those virgins on all 11 of those boats. In the dream, Shostakovich (or the 11,000 virgin instantiation of Shostakovich, that is) went ashore in Cologne, Deutschland (before the wall came down...or was even built), which was actually Centralia, PA and listened to a performance of Schoenberg's opus 11, the Three Piano Pieces. In the middle of the Second Piano Piece, Christopher Columbus entered the room wearing soggy boots and smelling of sea salt and pesto, and was so taken with the post-tonal music (which he mistakenly attributed to the 11,000 Virgin-Shostakovich sitting there listening to it), that he proclaimed the date to be Oct.21, and further proclaimed that the island on which the room was sitting, and all of the surrounding islands shall henceforth be known as "The Virgin Islands."

Yes, the number 11 is truly a magic number.

(n.)

Meet Ursula:

...I may be a genius. I believe that I am a genius, but I admit I may not be. In any case, I admit openly that I do not behave like a genius, produce things like a genius, or strike anyone else as being one. So then, one of two things is possible. One, I am not a genius, but my belief that I am a genius makes me like one of those people who think they’re clever when they’re not. Two, I am a genius but I have, through years of harsh self-critique, self-doubt and concern that believing oneself to be a genius is asinine, beaten myself into feeling that I am one of those people who think they’re clever when they’re not. Actually, there are more categories. For instance, I could not be a genius and know full well that I’m really not a genius. I could also be a genius and know it full well. In any case, it’s a great failing. If I am a genius, I’ve failed to be one. If I’m not, I’m at least operating under the suspicion that I’m smart, which is always unattractive.

Here is how ideas happen to me. First, the idea happens. Second, I vomit a pile of doubt onto it. The idea no longer looks like anything interesting, it only looks terrible. This is how I know that probably I am in fact not a genius...

¿Cómo opera Cabal?

Check out our first international review!

http://www.rebagliatteflores.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=14&Itemid=25

22 days and counting

Does anybody in Chicago have a clavichord we could borrow for a few days in April?






In other news, out of the 11 sections that seem to be comprising my half of the opera, I've fully drafted 4 of them, another 3 have been preliminarily sketched, 2 have been wholly avoided, and another 2 that won't be included in the January jury performance have been flat out ignored. Some might say I'm trying to pretend those last two sections don't exist. If anybody wants to make an estimate on a "percent completed" based solely on the sketchy information above, I'd love to hear it.


Tonight's creative output is sponsored by Kathleen's leftover mashed potatoes from Sunday's "Bangers, Mash, and Pattycake Work-Break."
(n.)

on second thought...

...maybe there should at least be eggnog.

6 Large eggs
3/4 c Sugar
1 1/2 c Brandy
1/2 c Rum
4 c Milk
4 c Cream
1/2 c Icing sugar
Nutmeg to sprinkle

Separate the yolks from the whites. Beat the yolks slowly while adding the sugar until the mix is pale and golden. Slowly add the brandy and rum, then beat in the milk and half of the cream.

Set aside until serving. Just before serving, whisk the egg whites until stiff and fold into the mixture. Whip the remaining cream and icing sugar until thick. Top each glass of eggnog with whipped cream and a shake of nutmeg. Eight servings.

23 days and counting

One of the feature pieces of the Chicago Collusions festival is a new chamber opera that is in the collaborative works between Jon, Majel, and myself. The situation of the creation of the opera has been totally bizarre all along, but strikes me as particularly odd for the following 2 reasons: (perhaps more of the oddities will be revealed as things progress)

1. Jon and I are doing the bulk of the creative work. We have effectually not communicated about the work each of us is doing (except for the basics...Ursula, virgins, visions, failure) since each of us started doing it. The presupposition is that eventually his work will become Act I and my work will become Act II....or at least, this is the assumption I'm operating under. I don't honestly know that he's operating under the same assumption.

2. I'm using the opera as a "jury piece" here in sunny San Diego to fulfill "jump-through-fiery-academic-hoop-# 1" of my PhD coursework. I have a preliminary deadline of Dec. 8 for the draft of the piece (Act II)...which is 23 days from now. Not so odd, except that the Gods That Be pointed their all-powerful staves at me and decreed that I "shall arrange the piece for piano and percussion" for the sake of the jury. So in the next 23 days, I am compelled to finish a draft of half of a work and rearrange it from 7 players to 2 players so that I can meet an arbitrary and irrelevant deadline, so that I can have this re-arranged half-work prepared in far-less-than-adequate-rehearsal-time for a 1st-impression-based-academic-critique by the resident Gods That Be. Bizarre.

So in honor of this second primary oddity, Opera Cabal presents:
Chamber Opera 2006 - The Countdown

It'll be just like counting down to the new year...but without the eggnog and public urination in Times Square.

(...hopefully....this time.)
(n.)

the ETERNAL lament

I just noticed tonight that the Glimmerglass Summer Opera Festival is planning an All-Orpheus-All-the-Time theme for summer 2007. I'm now delighted that we long abandoned one of our earlier ideas for a Euridice-based show.

And don't be fooled, not all Orpheuses were created equal. Gluck's Orpheus, for example = three hours of pure suck.

(n.)

snailbear

Meet snailbear. I always pictured him leaping from right to left. Perhaps this is inconsequential.

Handywork of Lisa.

= contemporary music.