Somehow the week slipped by...

...and neither Majel or I had managed to write about the jaw-dropping ICE performance of Xenakis's "Oresteia" at Miller Theater last week. And now, I don't even know what to say. You've probably heard about it, or saw it, or at least read a review or two. Suffice to say that

a.) while watching the dress rehearsal before it opened, having not read any synopses, I was overwhelmed and confused

b.) after going back a second time to see a "real" performance, having read a synopses, AND researched the myths involved, I was overwhelmed and confused

c.) it was one of the strangest things I've seen in recent memory, and

d.) I nearly started crying when the children's chorus began to sing. Maybe that makes me a sucker for cheap compositional tricks (can't you just see Xenakis standing there at the first performance with half of his face missing, casually smoking cigarettes in places he's forbidden to smoke cigarettes, then giving a twitch of the thumb to casually signal, "BRING OUT THE KIDS!" whilst the chorus shreaks away...), but I don't care.


***

The other great thing that happened last week (which, given the recent news of David Foster Wallace, really needed some great things to happen) was the Manhatten Sinfonietta performance of Matin Matalon's score to Fritz Lang's Metropolis. I think the next big Metropolis project should involve writing new subtitles for the whole thing. Ditch the "reconstructed" subtitles - or whatever that's supposed to mean - and invent a new story. The film is really about these bizzaro images and giant sets and ground-breaking camera techniques anyway. So why not go the way of the added voiceover to Bladerunner, only do it better and weirder?


***

I would write more on either of these things, but I'm under the gun on some projects. They were both great - in the best possible sense of the word.

(n.)