Opera Cabal

EDGE Chicago review of operaSHOP

2012-01-28T15:05:00.000-08:00

Check out Christine Malcom's review of operaSHOP for Chicago EDGE! We also got a shout-out on Chicago NOW (both publications that make use of the distinguishing ALL CAPS feature...coincidence? I think not).

Salon: November 12, 2011

2011-12-01T12:44:00.000-08:00

Check below for video clips from the November salon! And, as always, for optimal viewing, you can link to YouTube directly.

Dominique Gagnon (flute) with Chika Kubota (piano). Watch this clip on YouTube.

Sam Hertz (electro-acoustic composition). Watch this clip on YouTube.

and David Lakein (theater and performance art). Watch this clip on YouTube.

operacabal.com

2011-11-16T19:06:00.000-08:00

Opera Cabal has a new home online! Check us out: operacabal.com.

Speaking of Awesome

2011-11-10T05:04:00.000-08:00

Phyllis Chen's UnCaged Toy Piano Roadshow is coming to New York. Opera Cabal is working with Chen and her husband, video artist, Rob Dietz, on a new operaSHOP (Opera Cabal's new residency series that commissions artists from outside the realm of opera) in the fall of 2012. You'll never hear a toy piano virtuoso quite like this. I strongly recommend you check it out.

check out this beautiful trailer of our recent operaSHOP!

2011-11-05T07:31:00.000-07:00

For optimal viewing, we encourage you to click on the fancy little sign in the bottom right corner of this video screen ... Enjoy!

September 24 2011 Salon

2011-11-03T15:54:00.000-07:00

Never mind the lack of correlation between the date of this (alleged) September 24 salon and the (much later) date of posting. This is, I promise, real & actual footage from the September salon. I'm just slow on the uptake.

But there's more. And it's more sorry news. Due to a malfunction no one is interested in owning up to, my camera shorted in the middle of Will Bouvel's beautiful performance, of which we have only the opening clip.

And, again due to my camera being a superlative piece of top-drawer 21st-century technology, please use your ears rather than your eyes with this next clip (Teddy Rankin-Parker, cello).

operaSHOP photos are up!

2011-10-08T17:02:00.000-07:00

Thanks to our photographer, the ultra-amazing Lara Kastner, photos from Opera Shop's inaugural operaSHOP are off the chain. Here are a few teasers. See the full batch on our Facebook page.

operaSHOP review by Mike Maizels

2011-09-30T14:47:00.000-07:00

Check out this on-point critical review of operaSHOP by Mike Maizels, scholar in residence at High Concept Laboratories! We love you, Mike.

///

As one of the only national performance troupes with what founder Majel Connery describes as a “scholarly imperative,” Opera Cabal is exploring the complex territory between musical, dramatic and choreographed performance in order to interrogate the future of opera. Responding to the growing demand for performative scholarship, Connery and Cabal have dedicated themselves to the notion of scholarly performance. They have placed new emphasis on the dramaturg who, typically relegated to an advisory role, attends every rehearsal in order to continually ground the work in pressing scholarly concerns. With the upcoming launch of the Cabal Quarterly, Opera Cabal is set to become the only opera company with its own performance studies journal. And earlier this fall, Opera Cabal introduced operaSHOP, a residency series for experimental artists from fields outside the purview of traditional opera. High Concept Laboratories is pleased to partner with Opera Cabal to host the inaugural recipients, cellist and dancer Teddy Rankin-Parker and video and mixed-media artist Alexander Overington.

Rankin-Parker and Overington collaborated to produce an inter-media performance known as Die Kunst ist Super! as well as by its alternate title, This is an Opera We Made. Layering a dizzying array of source material including a Michelle Kwan gold medal figure skating performance alongside stock screen-saver photography, Die Kunst pits the live Rankin-Parker and his partly-improvised performance against the array of recorded media wielded by Overington from his command station in the center of the space.

The work opens with Rankin-Parker battling for audience attention with what might be described as a video mash-up from Hell: the opening scene from Claudio Monteverdi's L'Orfeo laid over a 1960s infomercial touting the benefits of futuristic plexiglass, while a computer-generated voiceover attempts to read Gertrude Stein's Dr. Faustus Lights the Lights with subtitles derived from an admixture of Oscar Wilde's interpretation of Salome and text purely out of Overington's imagination.This visual-auditory-textual cacophony is only the opening salvo in an ongoing struggle between the live performer and the digital media; Rankin-Parker continually attempts to speak, dance, or play his cello in a way that can overcome, or at least attenuate, the deluge of sensory information and source material.

The overall thematic of the work is of two young artists struggling with the ponderous weight of operatic history. How, as the alternate title seems to ask, can one make an opera? How can opera be made vital and relevant in the 21^st century when its history is so oppressive and its immediacy so thoroughly supplanted by film, television and a panoply of personal entertainment? The gnawing fear that the work will fail to live up to the (crumbling) legacy of opera surfaces repeatedly in the performance; Rankin-Parker confesses to his fear that their use of digital video will be seen as “copping out,” while in a moment of dejection Overington suggests they simply make a work “talking about how we don't know what we are talking about.” This metastasized version of what literary critic Harold Bloom famously described as “the anxiety of influence” has informed a significant strand of the late 20^th century avant-garde, from the Conceptual art critique of originality to the ironic revival of history paintings in the 1980s. Further afield—though equally symptomatic— the sculptor and installation artist Bruce Nauman has made an entire career out of distilling the anxiety of the artist in his studio agonizing over the existential decision of what to make.

This proliferation of overbearing predecessors led art historian Craig Owens to formulate a theory of postmodernism based on the notion of allegory constructed as the opposite of representation. While in a representational situation an image refers to a thing out in the world, allegory forecloses the possibility of moving outside textual reference. Allegorical images, tropes or characters always refer only to other images, tropes or characters. Owens' closed world of postmodern allegory speaks to the condition of working under the crushing weight of history. As Rankin-Parker and Overington become acutely aware of their work as operatic, they are mired into thinking in terms of precursors with which they cannot hope to compete. These prior works turn into a nightmarish jumble in Overington's montages, crowding each other out as they combine to push Rankin-Parker off the stage.

Nevertheless, the struggle continues against both the noise and the silence of history. Like Lucky and Pozzo in Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot, Overington and Rankin-Parker grapple with the bleak chaos and the burden of their responsibility, and strain in search of meaning. It is this search that frames not only the performance Die Kunst but also the mission of Opera Cabal, to envision a theoretically engaged future for operatic performance.

///

This interpretive text comes courtesy of HCL's new scholar-in-residence, Mike Maizels. A PhD Candidate in the History of Art at the University of Virginia, Mike's research focuses on the emergence of postmodernity in the art and thought of the late 1960s and early 1970s. More of Mike's critical and curatorial projects are available on his website, www.mikemaizels.com.

operaSHOP opens tomorrow!

2011-09-29T08:12:00.000-07:00

Don't forget! Opera Cabal's new baby, operaSHOP opens tomorrow night! RSVP (before we run out of chairs) to p@operacabal.com. You're not going to see opera like this anywhere else in Chicago.

Edge Chicago previews the operaSHOP

2011-09-26T21:36:00.000-07:00

The operaSHOP gets some love from Edge Chicago, with this excellent preview by Christine Malcolm. Christine visited rehearsals of Opera Cabal's latest project at High Concept Laboratories and spoke with the team of artists and producers. Quote: "this project throws off gorgeous sparks."

Opera Shop kick-off

2011-09-07T06:42:00.000-07:00

Opera Cabal's Opera Shop started this past Monday (artists respect no holiday :) Check the Opera Shop blog for updates/video/pictures and more, coming soon!

Meanwhile, a snippet view of yesterday's viewing playlist:

David Marton's Die Heimkehr des Odysseus

Mariah Carey's highest notes

Renee Fleming's new rock album (this is no joke--what's up with the terrible production value, Renee? Yikes!)

More you never thought you'd see on an avant-guarde opera company blog on the way.

Upcoming Concert at Bond

2011-08-22T10:37:00.000-07:00

Some of you will recall a visit to a recent salon by the duo, Coppice -- an upcoming program of their work at Bond Chapel promises weird adventure! Check it out!

"Music Searching for a Body"

Tuesday, September 6 · 7:30pm

Doors 7:30 PM / Show 8:00 PM / $8

Bond Chapel (University of Chicago)

1050 East 59th Street

Chicago, IL

Music Searching for a Body: A concert gathering 4 sets of experimental musicians from the Chicago electro-acoustic music community: Soundbeast (Anita Chari & Carol Genetti), Coppice (Noé Cuéllar & Joseph Kramer), Jim Baker, and Joseph Clayton Mills.

Presenting a variety of instrumentation and styles, Music Searching for a Body will explore manifold dynamics between improvisation and composition, both through embodied and disembodied sound.

Soundbeast is a duo of two female voices, which explores the embodiment and physicality of singing, the interplay between different traditions of vocal production, as well as how the body interacts with thought in the process of singing. Coppice’s delicate compositions integrate variable bellowed instruments and custom electronics, adapted in ways responsive location and aural perspectives. Jim Baker will play a solo set on the pipe organ, comprising music likely to be mostly or entirely improvised. Finally, Haptic's Joseph Clayton Mills constructs semi-improvised performances that explore the timbral and tonal properties of everyday objects, repurposed electronics, and traditional instrumentation.

http://www.myspace.com/anitasridharchari

http://www.carolgenetti.net/

http://futurevessel.com/coppice

http://www.michaelzerang.com/text/bios/bakerbio.htm

http://www.josephcmills.com/

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=257100200981803

July 30 2011 Salon

2011-08-01T15:14:00.000-07:00

Wow. Another fascinating and totally pleasurable salon. Thanks so much to our performers & speakers, Marc Downie of the OpenEnded Group, to U of C Associate Professor of Music, Larry Zbikowski and to the Avalon Foundation Professor of Music and the Humanities Thomas Christensen and his wife, Clara Christensen. Videos from each of these performances are embedded below. And yes, embedding on blogger only half works (what can you do?) so I've also included links to YouTube where you can watch everything there, full size.

Here Marc Downie takes comments about the installation, After Ghostcatching, a collaboration with Bill T. Jones, which played upstairs in the ballroom. Sorry, blogger also doesn't reproduce stereoscopic ceiling installations, so you'll have to check out his website to find out what he's talking about. (See the conversation directly on YouTube in 4 segments: 1, 2, 3, 4.)

Next, Larry Zbikowski (acoustic guitar) played Three Studies by Fernando Sor (1780-1839), op. 35, no. 13, op. 6, no. 11 and op. 31, no. 19. Below is a clip of his rendition of "Reverie--Notturno per Chitarra," op. 19 by Guilio Regondi (1822-1872). (Or just visit the direct link.)

And finally, Thomas and Clara Christensen played the Allegro Brilliante from Felix Mendelssohn's opus 92. (Or link.)

-majel.

Naissance Inc.

2011-06-30T17:02:00.000-07:00

In case you hadn't noticed, Opera Cabal has a new logo (see above!), and we are oh so excited to be showing it off. So excited, in fact, that we decided to create a whole new website to go with it. (More on that soon.) But the brains behind this operation is a design firm called Naissance Inc. and we just wanna say: Naissance, what would we do without you? Please keep rocking our world.

Announcing The Opera Shop!

2011-06-28T12:51:00.000-07:00

Opera Cabal announces this fall the official debut of our most innovative and ambitious program to date! Following years of development, The Opera Shop is a new vehicle dedicated officially to exploring the intersection of opera and intelligent design. Over the period of a single month, The Opera Shop places two of the most daring and cutting-edge artists we know in partnership with a dramaturg. During this time each artist-scholar trio will have the rare opportunity to dedicate themselves exclusively to a work that inquires into the form and flexibility of opera, while working in the kind of spacious and comfortable environment necessary for the kind of eureka moments we hope to foster. The end goal of each residency will be to mount a single, evening-length new work that represents a radical critique of opera in the 21st century.

For our first project with The Opera Shop, the Cabal is thrilled to present video designer, producer, composer and all-around technical whiz Alexander Overington in collaboration with virtuoso cellist and singer, Teddy Rankin-Parker. Overington and Rankin-Parker first established a reputation when they toured as the opening act for Grammy Award-winning ensemble, eighth blackbird. If opera is premised on the meeting of complementary but different art forms, the differing interests & talents of these two artists is a confrontation of operatic proportions. Our challenge to them? To combine Overington’s process of controlled digitization and Rankin-Parker’s improvisatory freedom into a single work that dramatizes the difference between mediatization & liveness in contemporary performance practice. Overington & Rankin-Parker come together like worlds colliding to a spectacular soundtrack.

Opera Cabal is proud to partner on this endeavor with our long-time co-producing organization, High Concept Laboratories. HCL, a Chicago-based arts organization, will serve as The Opera Shop residency partner by hosting the artist incubation and private performance debut. Meanwhile, The Opera Shop Blog will allow us to share this creative process online, posting video and audio from the residency and performances and allowing the artists to reflect on their creative process. Opera Cabal director and dramaturg Amy Stebbins will moderate the online discussion, spending time with the artists during the residency and producing critical feedback on the blog.

Our goal at Opera Cabal is to create stage works that challenge the idea of the opera as a genre, and to create new opportunities for outstanding artists to work together. We hope you will join us for what promises to be an incredibly exciting process!

Gray Center for Arts & Inquiry

2011-06-20T08:13:00.000-07:00

Hats off to the University of Chicago on its official launch of the Richard and Mary L. Gray Center, the now-headquarters for incentivizing the development of arts-curious projects between U of C people, and not so U of C people (in the first year, notably, architect Jamie Carpenter & physicist Sidney Nagel; Tony Kushner & the Court Theater; and choreographer Claudia Lavista in a collaboration with composers Shulamit Ran, and Augusta Read Thomas, and musicologist, Martha Feldman).

May 21, 2011 Salon

2011-05-30T14:47:00.000-07:00

Thanks to all for a fantastic salon last weekend!

Roster & video clips below. And by the way, looking back at past clips from these salons that are posted on YouTube, I was starting to get excited seeing that such-and-such a clip had been viewed 74 times, and another one 90 times (whoopee, that's a lot of views!) and then, dear friends, I noticed that "Mitchell's Day Spa: How to Back-Comb Hair into a Low Bun" had 1,988 views...and I thought better of myself. What the h#$*.

First up, a guest appearance from bellows duo, Coppice (a.k.a. Joseph Kramer and Noé Cuéllar), who recently appeared at the Museum of Contemporary Art and the Green Mill in Chicago, and gave us an up close and personal performance of their work last Saturday. As I expect is a danger with all video taken at night in an attic, I must apologize in advance. These clips are a bit dark and a bit grainy--although, given Coppice's fascination for the obscure and accidental sounds at the edges of perception, here is a video that appropriately enough emphasizes the fringe benefits of less-than-perfect video recorders. Excerpts below are from "Scour:"

and "Seam," with guest vocalist, Carol Genetti (at this point my camera began to exhibit severe discomfort with the darkness -- in case you can't see her, Carol is seated on the floor, facing Noé and Joseph):

Second on the program, Benoît Roux, Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics at the University of Chicago. I'm not sure when he finds the time to practice Chopin, since my biochem is pretty dusty at this point.

And finally, David Bashwiner, all the way from Albuquerque (where he is currently Assistant Professor in Theory and Composition at the University of New Mexico), who netted 3 encores (depending on how late in the evening you stayed). I found it hard to choose only one clip.

"Sad Little Creature"

Salon, March 12, 2011

2011-03-28T13:28:00.001-07:00

Salon videos are finally up! Shame on me for taking two weeks to do this. A couple disclaimers. The room is dark. (What can you do?) Also, the Blogger format frequently cuts these videos short on the right-hand side, as many of you have pointed out to me. But wait, there's good news! Because if you want to look at the videos (in full view) on YouTube, I've included that possibility as direct links. Now eat cake.

First up, Maggie Mascal performing a version of Berio's Sequenza III as sociological experiment audience interruptions & verbal reactions are encouraged in Mascal's Shequenza). Have a look. Maggie Mascal 1.

Maggie Mascal (2)

Next up, Teddy Rankin-Parker (cello, voice and a variety of percussion) & Alexander Overington (all manner of technology) in a workshop performance of a commission from Opera Cabal for its new Opera Raw series. Alex & Teddy on YouTube.

And finally, performance artist David Lakein (on YouTube).

Check it Out!

2011-03-23T09:38:00.000-07:00

Founding director Majel Connery speaks tonight in New York City at "The Enterprising Opera Artist," sponsored by Opera America as part of their Making Connections series. Also featuring Beth Morrison of Beth Morrison Projects, Princeton composer David Little and mezzo-soprano Eve Gigliotti, the discussion will stream live tonight (EST) on the Opera America website. Tune in!

Wednesday, March 23, 2011
330 Seventh Avenue, 18th Floor
New York, NY
7:00 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.

Richardson in Lights

2011-02-12T13:16:00.000-08:00

Ah, reality! I visited Richardson this afternoon during a tech-through with the Princeton Symphony Orchestra (the same orchestra involved in Eugene Onegin one year from now) for their Saturday afternoon pops concert. There are 50 players here, rather than the forty we'll use, and a heck of a lot more percussion (you can't see it clearly, but there are four timpani in the back of that stage) but it's looking more and more like I'll be staging this thing inside a telephone booth. Well, a large one. Although I think it's safe to say our production will have a lot less Bernstein in it.

Eugene Onegin at Princeton University

2011-02-06T13:28:00.000-08:00

It's on.

Opera Cabal was hired this past fall by Princeton University to develop the staging for the premiere of the 1936 Krzhizhanovsky-Prokofiev Eugene Onegin collaboration. What? You didn't know Prokofiev had a Eugene Onegin? That's because it never happened. Krzhizhanovsky's playscript was censored out of music history. (For a fascinating scholarly account of its disappearance, which was no accident, see Caryl Emerson, "The Krzhizhanovsky-Prokofiev Collaboration on Eugene Onegin, 1936 (A Lesser-Known Casualty of the Pushkin Death Jubliee)" in Sergey Prokofiev and His World, ed. Simon Morrison [Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press], 2008). Prokofiev recycled most of the music he composed for the work (which is, generically speaking, an odd duck: spoken drama with incidental music, like a melodrama, or Singspiel without song) into War and Peace. Princeton scholars Caryl Emerson and Simon Morrison, the turbo engine behind this reconstruction project, already rocked Princeton campus with a reconstructed Boris Gudonov (also Prokofiev) back in 2007. This is their next enterprise, and we're very lucky to be along for the ride.

In the meantime, like all large-scale projects, we begin at the beginning. Exactly one year from now, the show will go up on the Princeton University campus in Richardson Auditorium, a space almost as strange and wonderful as EO itself, with white pillars, green velvet seats, and a Godzilla-sized Grecian tableau at the back. The first trick, however, is simply to create enough space on stage for the show to happen. Next to the set and the actors, we have to fit the entire Princeton Symphony Orchestra onto a relatively small platform, and this will require some expert fiddling. With the help of expert fiddler Chris Gorzelnik, we've begun working on a stage plan. A or B?

A

or B?

Salon moved to March

2011-01-19T05:20:00.001-08:00

Just in case anyone was still in the dark about this, the January salon (formerly the 22nd) has been moved to Saturday, March 12. My apologies to everyone for the inconvenience. It has nothing, nothing at all, to do with the Chicago weather :)

-majel.

Salon November 20, 2010

2010-11-22T19:42:00.000-08:00

Thanks to everyone who came out to an action-packed salonathan this past weekend. The unofficial Candy Connery count put us over the current record at -- get this -- 76 people in attendance. Wow.

Guests included Jonathan Eliot, who screened his recent Spamashed: Chicago with live soundtrack generated on site by Richard Whaling. This followed a screening at a salon last year of Spamashed: Paris. (I won't tell you where the third Spamashed movie is being filmed but it's kinda like Calcutta except not so far away.) Since it seems indecent (although it would be somewhat Baudrillardian) to include a video clip of a video clip of the film, I'm including instead a clip of Jon wooing the salon audience after the screening.

Also on the program, Paul Durica ("Tour Guide to Hell") presented on Chicago's late 19th-century hobos, tramps and bums. The mad video skillz in this clip, by the way, are all me. Apologies.

Thanks are also due to Emily Jones of the Department of Visual Arts at the University, who presented her MFA work-in-progress, and to Jessica Laser (all the way from the University of Iowa) who read most excellently from a collection of her recent poems.

And most important: Happy Birthday, Young-Kee!!

-majel.

check out VOXARE @ HCL (highly recommended!)

2010-10-20T05:43:00.000-07:00

Voxare meets MAN WITH A MOVIE CAMERA

"Played with precision and passion." -New York Times

7pm October 25th, 26th @ High Concept Laboratories

rsvp to info@highconceptlaboratories.org
Donations gladly accepted

Voxare String Quartet comes to HCL to play Soviet Modernist Music to accompany Dziga Vertov’s 1929 groundbreaking silent film, Man with a Movie Camera. Documenting urban life in Soviet cities, citizens are captured from dawn til dusk in all aspects of life- mundane, athletic, dangerous, breathtaking. Music to accompany the film, selected by Voxare, will include works by Shostakovich, Stravinsky, Mosolov, and Prokofiev.

About Voxare

“The Voxare Quartet is half Russian, half Chicagoan, 100 percent Juilliardian and 400 percent young, enthusiastic, blessed with individual great instrumental skills” (Concertonet). “Incisive and deeply moving” (Strad Magazine), the New York City based “excellent Voxare String Quartet” (The New Yorker) formed in 2008 and has since received critical praise for its inventive programming, technical prowess, attention to detail, and passionate performances. Praised as being one of the most brilliant and versatile quartets of its generation, The New York Times recently declared that Voxare “played with precision and passion,” and has on numerous occasions chosen Voxare as its Classical Pick of the Week. Voxare is a frequent performer at Bargemusic in New York City where the quartet has been quartet-in-residence. Voxare has been featured live on Soundcheck WNYC and its concerts broadcast on WQXR. Voxare performs works by living composers at its residency series, DIG IT! New Music, at Teachers College, Columbia University, and will be in residence at Dartmouth this coming season. Voxare has studied with the Juilliard String Quartet at its String Quartet Seminar and with the Kronos Quartet through Carnegie Hall. Future season highlights include the release of a Naxos recording of the quartets of Daron Hagen (including a new quartet written for Voxare), and a month-long tour of the UK.

Check out more at High Concept Laboratories. HCL collaborates with Chicago-area artists and performers to foster the creation and development of new works. By working as a producing partner, HCL provides space, resources, capacity-building, and administrative support to projects of merit – supporting every step of the creative process from creation and development to presentation and performance. HCL also curates classes, screenings, charlas, and other events for the community.

Salon October 2

2010-10-07T18:01:00.000-07:00

In spite of my having left Chicago for the year, and in spite of Sidney's last-minute panic that no one would come, we had yet another truly excellent (standing room only) salon.

Thanks so much to our performers, Louis Turcotte, of The Nesting Code; to Anthony Madrid for his excellent and truly performative poetry; and most especially to architect Jamie Carpenter for coming out all the way from New York to floor us with his inexplicably beautiful designs, and his very winning ways. One of Jamie's recent projects (i.e. the bridge that will soon run across the University of Chicago midway, connecting the Logan Arts Center with main campus) will be available for your viewing pleasure within the next year or so, should you have happened to miss the salon. Or if you're in New York City, you could check out his work on the gorgeous new 7 World Trade Center.

A few videos:

1. Vintage Louis.

2. a poetical enactment from Anthony Madrid.

3. Jamie Carpenter on the project he devised for the Olympics in Australia.

-majel.

Salon August 7, 2010

2010-08-08T06:30:00.000-07:00

A tremendous salon last night. Thanks to our performers, including

Harold Olivey (tenor) & Dent Davidson (keyboard)

playing selections from Carlisle Floyd's Susannah, Francis of Guernica, and here, "Lost in the Wilderness" from Stephen Schwartz's Children of Eden.

Michael Robbins (poet célèbre of the New Yorker magazine, and the New Yorker magazine)

reading from a selection of poems, including "Material Girl" here:

Larry Zbikowski (acoustic guitar)

selections from Irish harper Turlough O'Carolan, Brazilian guitarist Hector Villa Lobos and Hans Werner Henze, among others. Villa Lobos' Prelude 1, here:

Des Pickard (singer/songwriter/activist)
a selection of political songs.

Thanks to Jason Pettus for the lovely photos!

I'll see you all in October.

-majel.

Flox, at HCL

2010-07-20T21:05:00.000-07:00

FLOX

Premieres July 23rd 7-10pm
reprise showings July 24th and 25th 6-8pm

Head over to HCL for the World Premiere of 'Flox', created by HCL Artist-in-Residence, Jason Ponce.

Flox is an interactive sound installation that upsets the one-to-one relationship that often characterizes interactive artworks. Instead of putting the individual at the center of the experience, Flox centers around group coordination. As visitors step into a motion-captured space, each person's body is assigned one component of an active but disorganized soundscape, which must be reassembled by active listening and coordinated movement. Wireless luminescent pods carried by each visitor provide visual feedback about the state of the installation, and help guide the group towards a final resolution of the piece.

Complimentary wine and assorted edibles will be provided.

ABOUT THE ARTIST
Jason Ponce is a new media artist, musician, and interactive technology researcher. His sound and video installations have been produced internationally, and highlight the many intersections between art and science, especially interactivity, gesture and cognition. He is currently a researcher at the Center for Research in Computing and the Arts (CRCA), a recording engineer at Warren Studios in San Diego, and a PhD candidate in Computer Music at UC San Diego.

about HCL

We are High Concept Laboratories. We collaborate with Chicago-area artists and performers to foster the creation and development of new works. By working as a producing partner, we provide space, resources, capacity-building, and administrative support to projects of merit - supporting every step of the creative process from creation and development to presentation and performance. We also curate classes, screenings, charlas, and other events for the community. Visit our website to get involved or learn more: highconceptlaboratories.org, or visit us on facebook.

Salon July 10, 2010

2010-07-11T08:23:00.000-07:00

Thanks, everyone, for such a memorable evening. As part of the countdown to the four-year anniversary of the Hyde Park salons (next month!), I'm proud to announce that there will finally be short video clips from past salons available on this website, via You Tube. (It only took me four years to figure this out.) In the videos below, you can either check out the cropped version, or to view the full video on You Tube click the link directly below the video.

Saturday, July 10
7:30p
THE PROGRAM:

Luciano Ristori (prize-winning experimental particle physicist and ... magician)

You Tube link to Luciano's Magic Show.

Hwajung Yoo (voice) & Sunhye Shim (piano)
Brahms
Heimweh II, op. 63, no. 8
Spanisches Lied, op. 6, no. 1
Vergebliches Ständchen, op. 84, no. 4

Gaetano Donizetti
"Quel guardo, il cavaliere"
Don Pasquale (act I, scene 2)

Majel Connery (voice/crocodile piano)
"Ombra Mai Fu"
Xerxes (Handel)

"Goodnight My Someone"
The Music Man (1962)

Majel & Crocodile on You Tube.

And since David is leaving for Albuquerque today to take up a tenure-track position at the University of New Mexico, I'll include a few extra clips of him...

David Bashwiner (singer/songwriter)
"Sad Little Creature (I'm Right for You)"
"Hey Cute Girl"

You Tube link to Hey Cute Girl.

"Gonna Make You Mine"

You Tube link to "Gonna Make You Mine".

"Julie"

You Tube link to David Bashwiner "Julie" (possibly my current favorite song in the universe).

"Putting it Back Together"

-majel.

Vesalii Icones May 22, 2010 Pix

2010-06-14T12:45:00.000-07:00

A little photo montage from our Vesalii production back in May. Below: Jonathan Dummar & Sam Goodman, dancers, and Adrian Jevicki, choreographer. All photos are by Lara Kastner.

SALON XXXIII

2010-06-08T06:07:00.001-07:00

While slightly swampy upstairs in the ballroom, a terrific salon last Saturday included:

From the ballroom:

1. Louis Turcotte (dance). You can check out more of Louis's work at his website, The Nesting Code.

2. Gregory Freeman, a presentation on the paleolithic diet. To read more on the paleo regime, check out Greg's blog roll: Mark's Daily Apple, Leangains, Girl Gone Primal. Or see Gary Taubes' path-breaking Good Calories, Bad Calories.

Back downstairs in the livingroom:

3. Jon Ullyot, New Spleen selections (prose poetry). You can also read about Jon's film exploits here.

4. Josefien Stoppelenburg and Marguerite Williams, a performance of Damase's "Epigrammes & Madrigaux" (voice & harp)

-majel.

This Weekend, Vesalii Icones

2010-05-19T13:54:00.001-07:00

Opera Cabal's one-time showing of Peter Maxwell Davies' Vesalii Icones is this weekend only. In fact, it's Saturday only. But it's in the afternoon! So you have all the time in the world to catch the most insanely interesting dance piece Opera Cabal will ever produce (until we do it next year with the full orchestra: stay tuned).

The following poster for the Praxes of Theory Conference of which this is a part (you can tell the conference is happening at the U of C because of the substitution of an exciting, difficult word, Praxes, for a boring one, Practice) is illegible at this resolution, but the levitating guy at the bottom, he's in the show. So come :)

-majel.

The Buzz about Vesalii Icones

2010-05-11T09:23:00.000-07:00

Many of you will remember Opera Cabal's partial staging of Peter Maxwell Davies' Vesalii Icones which I directed last summer in a workshop version at High Concept Laboratories. Please join me for a single, preview showing of the full version Saturday, May 22 in Fulton Hall on the University of Chicago campus. The performance is part of a conference, "Praxes of Theory," organized by David J. Levin and sponsored by the Franke Institute.

VESALII ICONES
Directed by Majel Connery, with choreography by Adrian Jevicki (Movementpants Dance, NYC). Sam Goodman & John Rich, dancers. The show runs 45 minutes and is followed by a discussion with the audience moderated by David J. Levin.

Saturday, May 22
4:30p - 6p
Fulton Hall
4th fl., Goodspeed Hall
Dept of Music
University of Chicago
5845 S. Ellis Ave

Details on the show & the conference.

Map the venue.

About Vesalii Icones:

Conceived at the height of his career in experimental stage music, Peter Maxwell Davies’ Vesalii Icones (1969) is based on the unlikely superimposition of 16th-century anatomical diagrams (Andreas Vesalius's *De fabrica corporis humani* or *On the fabric of the human body*) with the fourteen Stations of the Cross. As one of Davies’ only choreographed works, Vesalii Icones permitted experimentation on a new level with two of the composer’s perennial preoccupations: excessive embodiment, and the slippery division between sacred and profane.

It is the task of the current production intelligibly to engage two systems of representation very much at odds with one another: art (religious iconography) and science (the medicalized representation of bodies in decay). As part of a conference that explores the intersection of practice & theory, the production foregrounds the interpretive and intellectual work that precedes the creation of a stage work, and the ways in which stage works can in turn reflect or reject intellectual craft.

Photo by Lara Kastner.

SALON XXXII

2010-05-02T07:02:00.000-07:00

Thanks to all for an extremely packed salon and a preview of summer humidity in Chicago. (Bring it on!) Last night marked the final salon for Roger Moseley: here's to the best pianist and sight-reader I ever met! We wish you well on your 53-acre homestead in Ithaca, Roger -- I hear you can get a barn there for the price of a MacBook Pro.

Last night's lineup included:

Clara Christensen (piano), Irene Claude (flute) & Meg Lauterbach (cello), who began with a piano trio Jean Françaix (d. 1997), a French neoclassical composer of the Boulanger clan.

Author of the new book, "The November Criminals," Sam Munson was in town for a reading of his work at the 57th street books cooperative and -- seeing how he was staying with Sidney Nagel, his uncle -- we snagged him for the salon.

On the second half of the program, Thomas Christensen, his wife Clara, and Roger Moseley brought the house down with a 6-hand reduction of the overture to Rossini's Barber of Seville. Thomas and Roger also played a number of other 4-hand reductions as part of a talk Thomas had given Wednesday of this week at the Franke Institute on 4-hand piano transcriptions.

And finally, Jon Ullyot read from a selection of prose poems based on Baudelaire's "Spleen," "a nasty bunch of things," as Ullyot described them. Jon is about to defend his dissertation on the Aesthetics of Failure (this got a laugh, for some reason) in the Department of Comparative Literature at the University.

I'll see you at the next salon, Saturday, June 5.

-m.

SALON XXXI

2010-04-11T06:33:00.000-07:00

Thanks to all who attended yesterday's (who can say crowded? hallo?!) April 10, 2010 salon. The lineup included:

"Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen"/"Songs of a Wayfarer" (Gustav Mahler)
Jonathan Green, baritone & Roger Moseley, piano

"Incisi" (Franco Donatoni, written to commemorate Boulez's 70th birthday)
Andrew Nogal, oboe

And finally, the salon has apparently become famed for the rare blend of its audience -- a perfect storm of smartypants humanities people and artistically-minded science nerds, a crowd that is otherwise not to be found at this fair University. Wanting to begin a conversation about the possibilities for fostering the art/science connection here in Hyde Park, Bill and Julie laid the following question at the feet of the salon audience: can the arts and sciences intersect?)

Bill Michel, Executive Director of the Logan Center for the Performing Arts & Julie-Marie Lemon, newly-appointed art & science tsar at the Center
a panel discussion on expanding the meeting point between art & science at the University of Chicago's Logan Performing Arts Center

As a closing note, Roger Moseley, our beloved do-it-all improvisational wiz kid, has just accepted a job at Cornell and will be leaving us this summer, along with his wife, to take up residence in Ithaca, NY. Roger will perform a 6-hand piano trio with Clara & Thomas Christensen at the May 1 salon. I'll see you there.

-majel.

On High Concepts

2010-03-23T10:08:00.000-07:00

Since August of 2009, Opera Cabal has been the Ensemble in Residence at High Concept Laboratories. Following the success of the USW performances and prior to Majel settling in at HCL again for her Vesalii rehearsals, I've been pondering the unique and invaluable relationship that exists between these two organizations.

By now, anybody reading this probably knows (generally) what Opera Cabal is up to. Unfortunately, because of the nature of their work and its inherent visibility, HCL is a bit less of a known entity. Their mission is to partner with Chicago-area artists and performers to foster the creation and development of new artistic works.

Sounds simple, right? But what happens when a wide eyed young composer / conductor / would-be-director / reluctant producer approaches you and says, "I have this idea for a piece...but at the moment all I can tell you is that there's a scrim in the beginning and it gets ripped down and used to strangle a comedia dell'arte character...the same character that was just...well...birthed from that scrim about 6 minutes earlier. And there's video. But of what, I don't know. It'll be great."

If somebody approached me with that kind of nonsense, I would probably just laugh and tell them to come back when they had a slightly more well formed vision. As it turns out, however, it was me feeding that line to Kevin Simmons, HCL's Artistic Director, who said, "Tell me more." and eventually, "So who and what do we need to do this?"

Three months later, we'd shown three brand new productions, all about 40 minutes, of some very complex and challenging repertoire. Six months after that, we'd assembled a budget three times as large as anything we'd previously assembled and executed a three-city tour, premiering a new chamber opera (Lewis Nielson's USW). Again, it all sounds so simple. (Of course, we who are sorting out the grit of the day sometimes forget to step back and recognize the simple beauty of the whole.)

What HCL provided was the ability to take the first step. In that horrific, endless cycle (a cycle that conductors and composers in particular know all too well) wherein one can only prove oneself via documented experience, and lacking the experience, can't gain experience to prove oneself because one's got no experience, HCL is there to stop the feedback loop.

It goes without saying (although we'll keep saying it) that we are enormously grateful to EVERYONE who has supported the company, particularly in the last year and a half (donors, volunteers, interns, and any number of artists willing to work for less than their talent is really worth), but without our relationship with HCL developing as it has, USW simply would not have happened in February. End of story. The work that Kevin, Molly, Joe, Bea and Co. are doing is an invaluable resource to the creative community in Chicago. Here's hoping that both we and many other young companies continue to grow from the thoughtfulness, sincerity and generosity of this amazing institution.

(n.)

USW featured in the Princeton Alumni Weekly

2010-03-18T16:45:00.000-07:00

Read the full story.

USW in Time Out New York

2010-02-25T07:17:00.000-08:00

The sweet smell of breaking onto the New York scene ... or would that be the sweet sight? The sweet taste?

Time Out New York calls USW "experimental, arty and progressive."

Galapagos/USW in pictures

2010-02-24T06:38:00.000-08:00

Our Fearless Orchestra, plus Habib Azar (director) and Alex Overington (video design) to his left (our right).

Above, Sarah Kozinn (actress) battles the descending sail.

The rest of the bunch are pretty much Sarah, and Majel Connery, i.e. Fearless Leader Number Two, i.e. me.

Here I am in Masters of the Universe.

Photography c/o the excellent Erik Kragh.

Galapagos: Roger That

2010-02-23T08:27:00.000-08:00

The Opera Cabal tour of USW that started in Oberlin and passed through Chicago last weekend concluded last night with a bang, selling out the new Galapagos Art Space in Brooklyn. If you thought the old Galapagos space was dope, you need to hit up their new DUMBO location. (Speaking of which: DUMBO stands for Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass -- who knew? How logical! I move to transplant the trend to Chicago. I will hereafter refer to Hyde Park as TPCPWEDLFM, i.e That Piece of Crap Place Where Everybody Drives Like A F@#$ing Moron.)

Last night was a terrific show complete with a few highlights such as ... a magical black dye that enabled us to project images off the water (the floor level in Galapagos rests on top of a large, shallow pool); the looming threat of a wet t-shirt contest (Sarah and I several times came very close to taking a nose dive over the railings into the pool); some last-minute expert pulley rigging by our enormously capable director, Habib Azar; and the death of one last high-backed Ikea chair. Oh, and the orchestra was amplified. Opera Cabal ... got plugged in. It was a massively satisfying end to a great couple of weeks.

New York, thank you for your enthusiastic reception. Even the Galapagos staff told us that what we did was cooler than anything they'd seen there recently. I'll take it!

Pictures soon to follow.

-m.

More Horn Tooting

2010-02-20T12:47:00.000-08:00

Another review of USW, this time from the Chicagoist: says blogger Alexander Hough,

"This is abstract art not for the faint of heart."

Chicago's Edgiest

2010-02-18T20:08:00.001-08:00

The poll is in. Not that this blog is specifically about posting press about US...BUT....Opera Cabal was recently named Chicago's "most daring, risk taking, avant garde opera company" by Chicago Magazine.

I mean - that's pretty cool.

Now let's go break some stuff.
(n.)

A Special Shout-Out

2010-02-18T07:32:00.001-08:00

Opera Cabal would like to take a moment in this brief period of calm before we -- excitedly! -- open our production of USW in Chicago & New York ... to offer an enormous thank you to High Concept Laboratories, where we were fortunate to be able to workshop & develop USW this past summer, and for the generosity of Kevin Simmons, director of HCL & co-producer of the USW shows. Without HCL and without Kevin, the current tour of the production would be a mere glimmer in the eye of the Cabal...

Our deepest gratitude & thanks, Kev!

Time Out Chicago on Opera Cabal

2010-02-17T07:06:00.000-08:00

Time Out Chicago on Opera Cabal

I just hope that Alex didn't take the birthing kittens and vintage porn out of the video, or things might get a little Rite of Spring on Friday.

(n.)

usw | in the words of the composer

2010-02-16T19:55:00.000-08:00

USW is a multi-layered work that is based abstractly around the life and social conditions of the Polish / German socialist Rosa Luxemburg in the context of the rise and fall of the German Social Democratic Movement between 1890 - 1919.

The musical textures and sound materials are reflective of both the cutting edge of new concepts in instrumental idiom and new ideas of musical-theatrical blending. Arranged in four scenes, the text for the work consists of fragmentary passages in multiple languages from works by Luxemburg (including scholarly work, speeches, and letters), from prominent socialists in the 19th century (including Marx, Engels, Jaurès, and others), and poets from around the turn of the 20th century (including Trakl, Freiligrath, and F. Scott Fitzgerald).

The stage action, however, is mutable and, while staging possibilities are indicated, engages the active collaboration of a stage director who can put together a dynamic progression of events that possess an identity compatible with and complementary to the musical shape; that is, there is a back story to the work but there is no necessity (nor desire on my part) to portray it in reality. Video images are also employed and, in the current production, complement the music and stage action but in a non-linear, non-specific manner, and in highly alienated form.

- Lewis Nielson

Immersion

2010-02-14T19:29:00.000-08:00

Blizzard schmlizzard.

Actually that’s not true - however, Majel's previous commentary is. It was only by the skin of our teeth that we all made it to Oberlin this week in time to actually give the world premiere of USW. All were supposed to arrive between Monday and Wednesday, which happened to coincide with Southwest and BWI going into the throes of some kind of complete air traffic-blizzard meltdown. By Wednesday, when we STILL had no reliable word on the arrival of Alejandro, Vicky and Chris, I was sure that Friday and Saturday’s performances we not going to happen. In fact, Habib gave up altogether on the notion of flying in the Eastern US, so to get to his next gig on Friday, he rented a car and DROVE across Pennsylvania. Lewis Nielson remained optimistic (he insists that he’s naturally optimistic), not doubting for a second that all would come through. And it did, but not without the “residency” part of the residency getting truncated to something more like rehearsal / performance marathon for some. BUT, Oberlin being what it is (an idyllic paradise of youthful learning and labor) the experience did not leave the group so rattled that we were unable to enjoy all of the wondrous benefits offered in downtown Oberlin: Late Night Feve, Feve Dinner, Feve Happy Hour, and oh yes, the new Feve Brunch (read: Lobster-bacon quiche). Ahh the Feve. And occasionally Black River Cafe.

USW Premiere - Phase 1 now complete (the ensemble having played the snot out of some fiendishly difficult pieces on remarkably short rehearsal time … ain't nothing like trial by fire), we are now ready to commence USW Premiere - Phase 2. Of course, Phase 2 doesn’t begin until Thursday and in the mean time we all go our separate ways to do our separate things. I, for example had to shirk my beloved Florilegium last Monday, so I’m back to New York to look in on our Victoria Requiem progress before returning to the Midwest (NOT via Southwest) to do it all again in Curtiss Hall ... but sadly without Kevin. We’ll miss you Kev.

***
In other “complete immersion in chamber opera” news, I was fortunate to catch dell’Arte Opera’s Anna Bolena immediately before departing for Oberlin. I should probably preface whatever follows by saying that I don’t go to much early 19th c. Italian Opera. Actually that’s an understatement - this was the first Donizetti I’ve heard live. And while I know it’s out there, there are some admittedly gaping holes in my intimacy with certain periods and regions of the repertoire. So I was interested because even though it seems lately like every ensemble and their artistic off-shoot is making a foray into chamber opera, here was another group dedicated specifically to intimate operatic chamber performance, focusing on a particular window of repertoire – a window comparatively unfamiliar to me, AND it turns out they’ve been working at it for about 10 years now.

So Friday night we made the epic Inwood to Lower East Side journey and settled in for the nearly 3 hour show. My understanding of the group is that the primary focus for Christopher Fecteau (AD) is the cultivation of the singers – part of their work is running a summer institute that provides performance opportunities in the standard repertoire. They also don’t seem to have a fixed (or semi-fixed) roster of instrumentalists. This show was played by Hellgate Harmonie, a group specializing in wind arrangements of Classical (with a capital "C") favorites. I was admittedly quite surprised at how well a wind arrangement (plus keyboard) of the opera seemed to work (I hope I’m not betraying my trumpet-playing, marching band, and brass quintet origin). The score was downright charming, if perhaps a little befuddling. I have to admit that Donizetti’s notion of musical/dramatic combination is a bit foreign to me. At times the music seems almost arbitrarily related to the dramatic content/story. But then, or so I'm told, making a unified aesthetic statement was not so much the priority from Gaetano and Co. Certainly the most enjoyable part of the evening were the three leading ladies in the show - Jill Dewsnup as Anna Bolena, Cherry Duke as Giovanna Seymour, and Blythe Gaissert as Smeton. Each brought a satisfying blend of musicality and dramatic presence to their roles. Bravo to the group and Christopher Fecteau.

(n.)

USW rehearsals in Oberlin

2010-02-13T07:08:00.001-08:00

It's been an interesting week here in Oberlin. Monday through Wednesday the Cabal's creative team rehearsed in Warner Main Space, an enormous dance studio converted from an old-school wooden-paneled gym (complete with huge, high ceilings, good for hanging scrims and a balcony, good for making our video master, Alex Overington, run around and around), big enough to play a free-wheeling game of tag and to exhaust the distance I can throw a ball in (both things happen in the show).

And by the way, check out this photo of Alex:

Weather-related snafus prevented our musicians from getting into the Cleveland airport for their various scheduled arrivals Tuesday & Wednesday so there was a bit of nail biting for Nick and me as to whether the show would indeed go on. Almost everyone rolled into town late Thursday night ... for the Friday night premiere.

Below, are pre-production photos c/o the indefatigable Kevin Simmons (co-producer of the USW/Opera Cabal shows and owner of High Concept Laboratories, where USW was workshopped this past summer) who's been present at every rehearsal despite a raging cold.

Sarah Kozinn, our new actress, reading behind the scrim.

The beginning of the chair dance with Sarah and Majel (as Rosa Luxemburg).

Sarah and Majel dancing behind the scrims; video by Alex.

Sarah, dwarfed by a large-scale photo of Rosa (Majel).

From left to right: Molly Feingold, assistant director; Lewis Nielson, composer; Alex Overington, video design; Sarah and Majel.

From left: Nick DeMaison, conductor, at ease; Peter Weiss, lighting design; Mike Lighting Genius.

From left: Habib Azar, director; Sarah's back; Lewis's big idea; Majel (stretching?); Molly.

We love you, Kevin.

Silver Streetcar

2010-01-28T20:21:00.000-08:00

File this under me getting soft in my old age, but it occurred to me yesterday that if one persuades a friend who is not radically inclined toward the new music to attend a concert of the new music with hopes of increasing said friend's inclination toward the new music, one may consider avoiding those concerts that include Lucier's masterpiece (...Lucier's 20 min. + continuous forte roll masterpiece...) for triangle and electronics. I'm not saying *I* didn't enjoy the piece, or that I didn't enjoy the concert, and I most definitely did enjoyed the Feldman that followed, and frankly, I love the ai ensemble...I'm just saying that if you talked a friend OUT of hearing a concert of Beethoven piano trios, a concert that said friend would actually really truly enjoy - that is to say a friend with what you might call a more delicately constituted musical sensibility - and INTO coming to a concert of the new music ...Lucier may not be the best choice. I mean really. It makes Sam Pluta's music (a distinct highlight on tonight's Columbia Composer's concert at The Tank) seem downright melodic.

In other news, the long awaited dell'arte Opera Anna Bolena goes up this weekend.
Here're the vitals:

Anna Bolena
by Gaetano Donizetti
January 29 (8 pm) & January 31 (3 pm)
Theater 80 St. Marks.

I'm pretty sure Donizetti never wrote a 20-minute amplified triangle roll, so this is probably suitable for all ages and musical sensibilities.

(n.)

SALON XXX

2010-01-24T06:45:00.000-08:00

Quote of the evening: "If I could be a Salon Facebook fan, I would be."

Thanks to everyone for what by Sidney's counting was the second largest attendance at a salon (mid-60s). It packed a punch.

The evening began in the upstairs ballroom with a narrative storytelling on the trajectory of the Reva and David Logan Center for Creative and Performing Arts -- from its birth as the product of a distinctly University of Chicago architectural vibe (Gothic, remote, insular) to the present vision of the Center as a free-ranging, welcoming and distinctly south-side platform for artistic experimentation. Steve Wiesenthal, University Architect and Associate Vice President for Facilities Services (and long-time salon attendee!), provided voice-over for a carefully prepared series of images that illustrated the almost hilarious contrast between the austerity of the University of Chicago (gargoyles: time warp?), and the architectural playground that is downtown Chicago. Theaster Gates, the Logan's Director of Arts Program Development, sung and deejayed, and William Michel, former Assistant Vice President for Student Life and Associate Dean of the College and now first Executive Director of the Center, headed up the Q&A.

Back on the ground floor, Heather Wittels, a violinist with the Lyric Opera Orchestra, played a set of three short, unaccompanied pieces. And Nick DeMaison, my partner in crime and Music Director of Opera Cabal, lectured on the company's mission -- to redefine & expand the meaning of what opera is and can be. Question: Is that opera? Answer: Yes, definitely.

-majel.

New and not the Met

2010-01-15T06:31:00.000-08:00

American Opera Projects (NYC) presents a workshop production this weekend of "The Golden Gate" by Conrad Cummings. I would include more info about the show, but word on the street is that the two performances are sold out. Let's hear it for sold out contemporary opera! Having not procured tickets before the sell-out, I'm looking forward to the partially open dress tonight to see Opera Cabal's favorite / AOP regular Hai-Ting Chinn in action again.

Coming up on the radar for the operatic fringe of NYC is an Anna Bolena put on by dell'Arte Opera Ensemble. This one is in two weeks - Jan.29 and 31.

"But wait a minute, Nick, YOU don't like OLD music!" Not true, I say! I like old music as much as the next guy. Well....ok, maybe not quite as much as the next guy, BUT...as I've been expressing lately to anybody who will listen - I think groups like this - like us, like AOP - are the future. And the future is here. Right now. How do I know the future is here right now? Because last night I watched a bunch giant blue three-dimensional humanoid kitties flying around on three dimensional psychedelic dragon things to which they were fused by squirmy ganglia in their hair, laying waste to the most teched-out floating three-dimensional army ever conceived of (in three dimensions that is) and they won (sorry for the spoiler) (!), which can only mean that the future is here and it's here right now, and that the intimate operatic experience of all genres and historical bents, perhaps as exemplified by dell'Arte Opera and, perhaps, Opera Cabal, are here to stay.

Welcome to the future. Now let's go watch some Donizetti in 3-D. (Fortunately for me, I kept my Andy Warhol-meets-Groucho Marx-minus-the-nose-and-eyebrows 3-D glasses.)
(n.)

SALON XXIX

2009-12-10T15:08:00.001-08:00

I hope someone other than myself is keeping track of these Roman numerals ... I didn't just write 2, did I?

The line-up for the last salon of 2009 (Saturday, December 5) included:

Tim Munro (flute)
"Trembling Air," written by Benjamin Broening for solo flute

Charlie Williams (video/music .... er, music video?)
"Sorely Missed"
a video shot on Super 8mm (January 2009, Bath, UK)
with music by The Cedar
not to be confused with another UK band also called The Cedar

Tim Munro (flute) & Majel Connery (voice)
"Der kranke Mond" from Pierrot lunaire
performance & Sprechstimme vote-in!
with all but two votes going to Sprechstimme (go Schoenberg!)

Sidney Nagel
Physics with a Bang!
preliminary demo (involving grave danger to salon audience)

Matthew Hanessian (piano)
Piano sonata No. 17 in D minor, Opus 31 No. 2 (Beethoven)
1st movement

Jonathan Eliot
prose selections

second storie indie market!!

2009-11-27T11:54:00.000-08:00

second storie (aka the Rochester-based Opera Cabal of the artisan / craft...isan world, as it were) is holding their indie market 2009 this weekend in Rochester, NY.

Tonight they screen "Handmade Nation" (apparently made by Rachel) at 7pm at the Visual Art Studies Workshop (at Prince and University), and the rest of the weekend will be offering sundry handmade wonders for purchase.

Congrats Karen, Joann, Shanna, Cris and Rachel!

Can't wait to help you sling some tables around.
(n.)

"untitled"

2009-11-24T10:58:00.000-08:00

This film should be mandatory viewing for all art and composition students before they are allowed to graduate.

So good it hurts.

Great sound design too.
(n.)

University of Chicago Magazine article on Opera Cabal's "USW"

2009-11-20T06:19:00.000-08:00

http://www.uchicago.edu/features/20091116_opera.shtml

A Whole Lotta Benefit

2009-11-19T13:08:00.000-08:00

Now that the last chair, granita glass and salad tong has finally been returned to its proper resting place, the last bit of rib scrubbed off the last bit of plate and the last throat cold in the wake of the benefit gotten over ... now I can truly say, WOW. That was quite an event. Thank you so much to everyone who came (some from as far as Oberlin, Philadelphia and New York, and let's not forget Naperville), who donated, who ate, drank, and laughed with us. I think we're well on our way to Oberlin this coming February.

The evening began with pairings of appetizers & art on the ground floor. The theme for the event was pairings, so everything--right down to which art went with which appetizer--was planned in advance. We chitted ...

... and chatted ...

... perused the silent auction offerings (or smiled graciously at the camera :) ...

... and some of us wasted no time in kicking back ...

I didn't see this, but with the aid of photographic evidence, apparently someone was doing magic tricks on the side.

In general, one could say festivities ensued.

Then, a small, strange voice inside my head ...

Compelled me to perform the Berio Sequenza III for voice. In the middle of the ground hall stairwell ...

... after which we all headed upstairs to the ballroom ...

...where Alex Overington had spent hours laying the groundwork for a truly spectacular lightshow.

And we feasted.

Performers included Amelia Lukas (flute) ...

... Teddy Rankin-Parker (cello) ...

... a Wolf/Mörike quartet (Amelia, Teddy, Nick and myself on flute, cello, accordion and voice) and Nick DeMaison, who made a compelling speech involving an accordion, a large projection of his head on the ceiling above, and some complicated mathematics.

Thanks, of course, are due to Anna Viertel (right), our hard-working and totally excellent chef (I needed to use gang signs to convey our excitement about working with Anna).

Still more thanks are due to Alex Overington, who drove all the way from Oberlin on no sleep in order to make seriously amazing things happen on the ballroom ceiling ...

... and to David Levin, for a guest appearance and mini-lecture on culinary opera ...

... to the artists who donated to the auction: Sidney Nagel, Rose DiSalvo ...

... Danielle Klinenberg (seated left) ...

... to Anna, for a meal fit for a gang of avant-garde-opera-craving fiends ...

... to Anna's diligent kitchen staffers, Hallie Kushner, and Jessica Feldman (and also to our servers, Molly Feingold and Meghan, our amazing intern!!) ...

... and to Martin Kaster for contributing his installation, "Eight Minutes of Air," which, alas, was actually only 6 minutes of air when we ran out of time on Sunday.

But of course, the evening's photo tour just wouldn't make any sense without a very special acknowledgment of our hosts for the benefit, Sidney Nagel and Young-Kee Kim, who bent over backward to open their home to us, and without whom none of this would have been possible. (With apologies to Jedediah and Nobbie who spent the evening in the back bedroom. Sorry guys.)

IMPROMPTU rides again...

2009-11-11T05:50:00.001-08:00

The Mozartfragmentarypantomimereconstructionproject which I was recruited to direct for the Chicago Humanities Festival and which I've blogged about before appeared this past Monday at the University of Chicago Theater and Performance Studies Workshop . Minutes before the workshop kicked off we discovered 1. half the costumes were gone, including Jonathan DeSouza's entire costume and that 2. toenails (mine) react badly to being mowed over with pianos. Undeterred, this weekend we/the show travel/s to the American Musicological Society annual conference in Philadelphia to participate in its first year of experimental performance panels ... whoo hoo!

what better way to celebrate halloween

2009-10-30T09:11:00.000-07:00

than an opera about death - cum - trapped - in - a - room - with - your - least - favorite - humans - for - all - of - existential - eternity? Which begs the question, do you think Weird Al Yankovic was riffing on Sartre when he wrote his timeless classic "Stuck in a Closet with Vanna White?" Perhaps tonights Opera Vangaurd production will shed some light on the never ending rabbit hole of historical antecedents...or maybe I've just neatly squared away my dissertation topic.

Lutkin Hall here I come.
(n.)

SALON XXVIII

2009-10-28T06:55:00.000-07:00

Thanks to all for a fun (and extremely packed-in) salon on Saturday!

Emily Jones (Dept of Visual Arts, University of Chicago), video art
"The square became a circle but still was a square"

Sam Goodman, dance, and Jake Wise, clarinet
an improvisation

Jonny Thakkar, Jon Baskin & Etay Zwick
editorial staff of The Point Magazine (an introduction)

Larry Zbikowski, guitar
"Vals-Chôro" from the Suite populaire brésilienne (1912), Heitor Villa-Lobos
Impromptus (1968), Richard Rodney Bennett
La Catedral (1921), Augustin Barrios

Jon Ullyot & Ben Kolak, mockumentary
"SPAMASHED!"

Anne LeBaron @ U of C

2009-10-25T05:35:00.001-07:00

Anne LeBaron presented this past Friday to a (rather poorly -- yikes!) attended colloquium in Fulton Hall. The subject: her opera, Sucktion. LeBaron's work sounds immediately fascinating. Here's a random selection from her very impressive CV: she won a Guggenheim, studied with Ligeti (not in that order), has written a "dance opera" called Pope Joan, and Wet, another opera about the big business of water and the horrors of floods and she, I'm quoting, lectures at CalArts on the "concept of HyperOpera." (I don't know what this means but surely it is meant to address the hyper, erratic, overblown aspect of opera--aspect, or sine qua non--that is, the histrionic too-muchness of opera, perhaps in order to address what happens when the "Opera/Too-much" dial continues to be turned even further up, up, up?)

In the beginning of her lecture Anne charmed us by revealing a years-long fascination with old vacuum cleaners and vacuum cleaner sounds. She played us early samples of her work, female vocalizations layered on top of recorded & processed vacuum sounds. At times the two seemed uncannily to merge, and at one point, LeBaron had the vocalist spit and buzz into the vacuum mouthpiece to produce a series of fun sounds that would probably make Kaija Saariaho jealous. LeBaron's collaborators on Sucktion include the poet Douglas Kearney, whose libretto is a clever homage to Marinetti typeface. This all seemed promising.

LeBaron saved the nugget of her presentation for last -- that is, the semi-finished, workshop staging of the opera in L.A. But this is where things started to go downhill. LeBaron later mentioned she feared that 40 minutes of vacuum sounds weren't in and of themselves interesting enough to justify the ticket prices (okay, I made that part up, but she did say she was worried the vacuuming lacked moxy) so she crafted a heavy-handed scenario to go along with them. (For the record, vacuum sounds are TOTALLY interesting. Maybe not for forty minutes, sure, but for at least 25. If John Cage can get away with Points in Space, I say go for it!)

Oppressed housewife cleans house, anticipating the arrival of her husband home from work. (The singer/actress in this case was Asian, and one grad student floated the thought that LeBaron intended the opera as a critique of interracial marriage. Or better, I thought, that the Mail Order Bride phenomenon in this country replicates/updates in the 21st century the phenomenon of the overbored, undersexed housewife of the 1950s? But LeBaron seemed uninterested; or else this was my private flight of fancy. Anyway.)

The husband arrives home (a recorded voice-over, "Honey, I'm Home"; i.e. there is no "husband"), finds the place a mess & retires for the night. Depressed, the housewife turns melancholy. A vacuum arrives. A present from her hubby. She falls in love (with the vacuum), sprawls on it orgasmically and thus the comedy endeth.

To put it simply, the problem? Too much scenario and too literal.

1. Put the husband in a locked closet stage left so that the "housewife" (or is she a dominatrix? an updated Alcina?) controls his exits and entrances.

2. Or make it Erwartung Appliance! Instead of losing her fiancé, this poor woman is in denial over the death of her beloved vacuum.

3. Or make the husband's cleanliness phobia the center of the (o_p)/e(r?)a and his hapless wife the Mrs. Haversham of the Ace Hardware Cleaning aisle.

A dash of the intellectual wit that has made LeBaron such a successful composer and a writer is needed. Instead, the staging we saw consisted of the soprano (who, by the way, is a musicologist and member of the group that commissioned the opera) putting on and taking off rubber gloves, stuffing them into her oversize apron pockets, dropping them, and putting them on again. LeBaron's score, and her ideas, play happily far off of the beaten path. But this opera needs a director so that the curiosity that motivated its inception gets taken up a notch. Staging, to honor its points of origin (the ideation of the opera, the wit and spirit of adventurousness that composers like LeBaron bring to the table), should amplify, qualify & problematize that origin; not bow to it.

-majel.

Forms of Flight @ HCL

2009-10-24T08:08:00.000-07:00

Saturday Oct 24 (TODAY!)
7:30 pm

Clarinetist Cory Tiffin and Alejandro Acierto will perform works by Elliott Carter, Olivier Messiaen, Francis Poulenc, Giacinto Scelsi, Augusta Read Thomas, George Flynn, Alejandro T. Acierto, and Jeffrey Young.

Space is limited, please RSVP to FormsOfFlight@gmail.com to get on the list.

(n.)

Ear Heart Music : Makers @ The Tank

2009-10-21T15:50:00.000-07:00

Thursday Oct. 22, 7:30pm

The Tank NYC
(354 w.45th St. between 8th and 9th Ave)

Nicholas DeMaison hosts a public conversation with composer Jason Eckardt about the fact that I have, for the last 5 years, visually misinterpreted the cover of Jay's CD, "Out of Chaos," understanding it not as Richard Serra's hotly controversial "Tilted Arc," placed in 26 Federal Plaza in New York in 1981 and removed on March 15 1989, but rather as a profile of a giant (and perhaps imaginary) stereo speaker pointing to the left, cutely photoshopped onto a picture of the same plaza. Silly me.

In addition to presenting some of Jay's music via high-fi wax cylinder, there will also be a live performance of "Equilibrium" by Kobe Van Cauewenberghe and Kjersti Kveli.

Following our discussion, Ear Heart Music (curated by Amelia Lukas) continues at 8:30 with a concert by Kjersti and Asami Tamura, entitled "Killing the Songbird with Toys."

See you there.
(n.)

Lucinda Childs at the MCA

2009-10-18T05:19:00.000-07:00

I fell for it. No, I TOTALLY fell for it.

The MCA press for its Lucinda Childs show last weekend advertised not "Lucinda Childs Dance" or "Lucinda Childs, Adapted, Updated" but "Lucinda Childs." Period. And the only accompanying photo on their website is a lithe Lucinda Childs doing something extremely cool with her arms that I can't reproduce. (I tried.) I don't mean to accuse the MCA of false advertising, but they really had me: I thought, despite her being 70 years old, Lucinda Childs herself was going to walk up on the stage and dance. And come on: I'm not insane. Dancers age better than the rest of us. Look at frigging Baryshnikov! But I should have known. There's an age at which respectable artists of all stripes stop publishing photographs of their current selves and use the same one indefinitely. Lucinda looks a little too gorgeous in the photo to be 70. But then, who knows? It seemed to me at least plausible that if she were 70, and that picture had been snapped when she was 60 (it's a stretch, but not totally ridiculous) it might be the case that the show was not just a showcase of her work, but that Lucinda would appear in the flesh. And in a way she did.

"Dance" is a reconstruction commissioned by the Richard E. Fisher Center at Bard. The original piece (1979) comprises three 20-minute pieces with music by Philip Glass. Rather than simply reenacting the piece and having done with it, the creative team last weekend thought it would be a good idea to project a live recording of the original, 1979 version on top of the live dancers. A very, very thin scrim divided the audience from the stage making this possible. The video was rarely in sync with what was going on onstage and the projected dancers were also very, very large by comparison so that they dwarfed the live performers.

Childs' choreography Mickey Mouses Glass's music. (Translation: it's repetitive.) 20 minutes kinda crawls. The problem wasn't that the dance was boring. In fact, the video projected dance was riveting. If the MCA had shown an hour of the video only (by Sol LeWitt) I would have left, a happily paying customer. The problem was the discrepancy between the live and the video-projected dancers. On the video (which included a breathtaking solo dance by Lucinda for Lucinda), Childs' choreography worked. It was repetitive, but in a good way, because the ingenuity of the movements bear repeating. The dancers are poised on a giant grid, 12X12 squares. They skip along the grid at breakneck speed as though it were propelling them along. LeWitt's camera follows the dancers, making it seem as if they're actually hopping up and down in place on a moving sidewalk. The effect is a bit like Irish dancing, to use a terrible comparison -- the torso stays totally upright; the feet do all the work. Childs' facial expression in her own dancing is also unusual--rather than looking out at an imagined audience, she looks inward. She's doing this dance for herself and we're incredibly lucky to catch her in the act. I almost felt voyeuristic watching the video. But the live dancers on Friday dispensed with everything that made the original dancers so unearthly. Theses were rule-bound, balletic, posed. Less skittish, more robust, more effortful. They looked like they were trying very, very hard.

In case you'd rather hear it from someone who actually knows something about dance, read the Laura Molzahn review in the Trib.

-majel.

Chicago Humanities Festival

2009-10-17T05:13:00.000-07:00

I'm directing a show at the Chicago Humanities Festival here on the University of Chicago campus this afternoon: come!

The show, which is improvised, is based on an incomplete fragment of a commedia dell'arte pantomime Mozart sketched out for himself and his pals to play in Vienna during carnival. Mozart reserved the role of Harlequin for himself and had his dad Fed-Ex his Harlequin outfit for the occasion. Unfortunately for us, only Mozart's violin line survived the centuries, along with an extremely spare, and often confusing scenario (including, for instance, that Harlequin goes from being alive in one scene to stone dead in the next for reasons that are not apparent, or the instruction that the "Doctor" is to exit and then that the Doctor then ... exits, again [from offstage?!])

Fortunately, the violin part alone is worthy of an Animaniacs appearance -- it does half the work of inventing action for us. Roger Moseley, who found the pantomime & engineered its musical reconstruction is jaw-droppingly good at revivifying 18th-century musical topics. He directs the ensemble from the piano bench.

I also decided to insert a couple other extraneous Mozarty bits into the score this time around: 1. Mozart's Turkish March for piano solo (which accompanies the otherwise totally unmotivated entrance of a "Turk" in Mozart's scenario, hence the appropriately out-of-place music) and 2. an aria for Columbine -- at Martha Feldman's request, Barbarina's aria from Figaro. The aria (accompanied by Pierrot) is a total red herring (no one has uttered a word thus far, let alone belted out opera), recalling, I hope, Christina Ricci's completely bizarre and wonderful tap dance in the middle of Buffalo 66, which has a similar effect.

As an additional layer, thinking the commedia relationships bear a striking resemblance to day-to-day academia (lecherous old professor, scheming post-doc, emo undergrad, innocent English major from Minnesota) the characters are dressed in U of C nerd wear.

There is a typo on the Chicago Humanities official webpage, which, alas, lists Roger Moseley as the sole director. Anyway, come, and while you're at it, try to pass yourself off as an "Educator" at the door so you can get in for free (think pocket protector, bedhead, fanny pack).

Feat.:

Harlequin: Jon Eliot
Pantalone: Greg Anderson
Pierrot: Peter Schultz
Columbine: Majel Connery
Doctor: Jonathan DeSouza
Violin: Emily Norton
Clarinet: Danny Gough
Piano: Roger Moseley
Cello: Emily M.

2p-3p

Mandel Hall

1131 E. 57th St.
Chicago, IL 60637
Adults: $10.00

Educators & Students: FREE

Monday, Oct 12 Workshop on Peter Maxwell Davies

2009-10-09T13:00:00.001-07:00

Oh, shameless plug!

My work on Peter Maxwell Davies (dissertation in embryo) is finally taking form. I'll be presenting next Monday, October 12 at a newly-constituted workshop in Theater & Performance Studies at the University of Chicago, run by David J. Levin & Christopher Wild. The paper is slated to appear later this winter (don't be deceived: it isn't actually winter outside, though it feels to be) in the Oxford University Press journal, The Opera Quarterly.

Come see me embarrass myself:

Monday, Oct 12
Germanic Studies Department
Wieboldt Hall, Rm #206
3-5:00p
there will be wine

-majel.

Strangely Glad to Live in America Today

2009-10-08T15:41:00.000-07:00

I'm not sure what's weirder: the guy who wrote the program to pull this voice-to-pixel-to-music-and-back-to-speech-again gizmo off, or the excitement on the part of the German speaking segment of the world for hyper-efficient technology. Gah!

Austrians Must Make Great Interrogators Since They Can Make Even Pianos Talk

Mario Diaz de León on Tzadik

2009-09-23T13:48:00.000-07:00

Not an Opera Cabal event....

Friday, September 25, 2009
8:30-10:30pm
Roulette
20 Greene St.
NYC

Mario Diaz de León's music focuses on acoustic/electronic hybrids that often fuse the two elements into unified meta-instruments. Often structured as walls and gestures of shimmering sound, his work is influenced by contemporary composers Scelsi, Ligeti, Dumitrescu and Radulescu as well as a wide range of electronic music, free improvisation, underground metal and American noise bands like Metalux and Sejayno. ICE is featured on his debut album for John Zorn's Tzadik label, and members will perform several of his pieces from the album live at this event. Also featured will be the Talea Ensemble, conducted by Nicholas DeMaison.

Prism Path for two alto flutes and percussion (2009) WORLD PREMIERE
Mansion for two alto flutes, percussion, and electronics (2009)
The Flesh Needs Fire for flute, clarinet, and electronics (2007)
Gated Eclipse for sextet and electronics (2006) NEW YORK PREMIERE
ii.23 for viola and electronics (2002)
2.20 for string trio and electronics (2003)

(n.)

SALON XXVII

2009-09-22T05:06:00.000-07:00

Thanks to everyone for a top salon this past Saturday. The lineup (which included some unannounced surprises):

Martina Bohacova & Petr Tobiska (international standard ballroom dance)
"Lovely standard," from the Lento dancing club in Prague

Roger Moseley & Thomas Christensen (piano four-hands)
Isolde's "Liebestod" (the love-death theme from Tristan und Isolde), transcribed by Franz Liszt for two hands, subsequently arranged for four
"Souvenirs de Munich," quadrille on themes from Tristan

Roger Moseley (piano)
Happy Birthday in the style of a Chopin mazurka

Thomas Christensen (piano)
Happy Birthday in the style of a Bach fugue

Sidney Nagel (piano) & Young-Kee Kim (movement)
a birthday dance inspired by Scriabin (Op. 11, no. 13), with choreography by Irene Hsiao
(via Skype!)

Jonathan Ullyot (reading)
from a collection of prose poems called "New Spleen"

Tim Munro (flute), Majel Connery (voice), Roger Moseley (piano)
"Deux poèmes de Ronsard," op. 26 nos. 1 & 2 (1924 Albert Roussel, 1869-1937)
"Fantaisie" in Em, Op. 79 (Gabriel Fauré)
"Une flûte invisible" (Camille Saint-Säens)

Aaron Curtis (academic reading)
"The Heathrow Jesuses"
a poetico-philosophico-theological essay on love, death, god, sacrifice, and public transit

Rohit Kukreti (guitar, voice)
classical Indian-influenced blues folk

Vesalii Rehearsals

2009-09-06T05:53:00.000-07:00

Let's call this ... the wall series.

We'll see you tomorrow ...

-majel.

Vesalii Icones and the Horizon of Expectation

2009-09-03T15:04:00.000-07:00

With only one show to go, I thought I'd post a taste of more to come.

Conceived at the height of his career in experimental music for the stage, Peter Maxwell Davies’ Vesalii Icones was originally scored for the Pierrot Players, a group started by Davies that would redefine the meaning of fringe, and push German expressionism to new extremes. Unlike Pierrot, Vesalii is written for a single dancer who interacts silently with a discordant ensemble. As Davies’ only choreographed work, Vesalii permitted experimentation on a new level with two of the composer’s perennial preoccupations: excessive embodiment, and the slippery division between sacred and profane. The piece begins with an unlikely superimposition of 16th-century anatomical diagrams with the fourteen Stations of the Cross. The above diagram corresponds with Davies' sixth station, Christ receives the Cross. It is the task of dancer and ensemble to intelligibly engage two systems of representation (religious iconography and the
medicalization of bodies in decay) very much at odds with one another -- or perhaps offering unexpected mutual illumination.

With direction by Majel Connery (Ph.D. candidate, University of Chicago), stage design by Rose DiSalvo (B.A., UCLA; MFA Art Institute of Chicago), choreography by Adrian Jevicki, and with dancers Brian Moore and Sam Goodman. Preview performance Monday, September 7th at High Concept Laboratories at 8p. Discussion with Luis-Manuel Garcia at 9p. Till then.

-majel.

Pierrot Tech photos

2009-08-26T13:46:00.000-07:00

SALON XXVI

2009-08-25T05:18:00.000-07:00

'Twas a smallish salon, but airtight. We spent the entire evening in Sidney and Young-Kee's perfect little ballroom.

Amelia Lukas, flute/alto flute
Syrinx (1913, Debussy)
Couleurs du Vent (Kaija Sarriaho)

Larry Zbikowski, guitar
J.S. Bach, Prelude from Prelude, Fugue, and Allegro (BWV 998)
Heitor Villa-Lobos, Prelude 2 and 1 from Cinq Preludes (1940)
Agustín Barrios Mangoré, Las Abejas (1921)

Nahee Park
slide presentation on
Experimental Astrophysics
in Antarctica

and finally

"The Story of Scrivener and His Aislyn"
a short stop-motion animation film by
Evan Curtis

Rehearsals aplenty

2009-08-25T05:08:00.000-07:00

Everybody's multitasking these days. Vicky, doing what Vicky does best -- reducing a piano to total helplessness.

And Fearless Leader Number One setting up the recording equipment for a rehearsal tape of usw.

Kevin, our protector, is back in town. We have air filters humming in the performance space. I just spent an entire day shopping for costumes (bootlessly -- there were none to be found) and am about to begin another. We're one day away from the Pierrot premiere, four days from usw, and thirteen from Vesalii Icones. Come and get it, Chicago!

- majel.

USW rehearsal

2009-08-21T05:45:00.000-07:00

Some pictures from yesterday's rehearsal. Below, the ensemble with Nick DeMaison, conductor. Note the enormous super hub cap dangling perilously from PVC pipe scaffolding (far left). This thing is hella loud when you bang on it with a hammer.

And a consultation with the composer, Lewis Nielson.

-majel.

And away we go ...

2009-08-20T06:13:00.000-07:00

After an unofficial kick-off party at the warehouse last night (er, very early this morning ...) the cast, crew and production teams for Pierrot Lunaire and Lewis Nielson's USW are in Chicago, and officially off and running. Apart from one minor snafu (the employees at Laguardia apparently played a fateful game of toss-and-drop with Emily Dufour's cello so that it arrived at Midway not only devalued but essentially unusable; thus, three days after her marriage to our violinist, Christopher Otto, Emily found herself devising the best way to sue the New York Laguardia airport) everyone is well and feeling fine. We even stumbled through (a version of) Pierrot before the party -- the other Pierrot, the one Schoenberg scribbled down during a week of indigestion and insomnia, then buried in the back of his desk drawer.

In a moment of calm-before-the-storm, Nick DeMaison, Music Director of Opera Cabal:

And yours truly in what I suppose one would call a head-slapping moment?

Photos by Kevin Simmons. Stay tuned for more.

-majel.

SALON XXV

2009-08-10T07:23:00.000-07:00

Bringing up the rear as far as this post is concerned since, holy cow, this salon was weeks ago...

A quick highlights-only version (dare I say, twitter-friendly version ... shudder). July 25 we were graced with an unexpected visit from two recent Obie grads, Sam Goodman, and Teddy Rankin-Parker, two of the more interesting boyz I've crossed paths with this summer. Sam and Teddy live with a few other young folks in a former Lithuanian community center out on Archer (very west Bridgeport & très, très cool) and specialize in performance that falls squarely outside the box.

For his brief set at the salon, Teddy grabbed his cello and chatted easily with the audience while tuning up (so easily, so tunefully ... had the performance already begun?) that we hardly noticed he'd been picking the strings the whole time like a guitar. Did this cello have a bow? And then, of all unforeseen things, this Teddy tilts back his head and starts crooning (what, a cellist bursting into song? but yes!) something à la Adam Sandler. Then suddenly it's all over and we're listening to a Bach cello suite. But then this too breaks down into repeated phrases, an improvisation on Bach's already very improvisatory little tune, and then, in a sudden fit of inspiration, Teddy turns to his pal, Sam (who's sitting in the front row wearing what I can only describe as an old-school wrestling singlet get-up) and says, "Sam, come play the piano." Sam without hesitation tip-toes over to the piano and starts playing, and he and Teddy finish off with some piano-cello joint improv. It was a sight to behold.

I also want to mention that I -- proudly, yes -- debuted my Little Tikes Crocodile Piano and sang a little ditty from Gilbert & Sullivan's Ruddigore. My partner in crime, Nick DeMaison, performed Orwellian oratory on his trusty accordion.

More to come August 22nd (the next salon).

-majel

SALON XXIV

2009-06-21T17:11:00.000-07:00

June 20th marked the first in the summer salon series. Helluva salon, if I may say so. Oldies but goodies in the lineup included:

Thomas & Clara Christensen (piano four-hands)
"Fantasy in F minor for Four Hands," Franz Schubert

Larry Zbikowski (acoustic guitar)
"Rosita (polka)," Francisco Tárrega
"Suite No. 2 in popular style," James McGuire
"Five Pieces from Venezuela," harmonization by Vincente Sojo

David Bashwiner (guitar & voice)
three adorable new songs:
"Meat Hooks," "Sad Little Creature," and "Hey, Cute Girl"

On the second half of the program, we saw a demonstration of a work in progress by Nicholas DeMaison, my fellow collaborator in all things Opera Cabal and currently hailing from New York, and Jason Ponce, all the way from the University of California at San Diego (both are working toward composition Ph.D.s there). Nick and Jason shared a June residency at High Concept Laboratories in Chicago. (A.k.a. the giant, cool-looking warehouse-cum-performance space across from the Hideout -- it's so new it doesn't have a website. Yet!]) The planned work is a trio for piano, percussionist, and live computer processing. I'll do my best to describe their preview performance. Nick, as pianist, sat and played at the piano keyboard in the traditional sense while Jason, as percussionist, played with a variety of mallets on the inside strings of the instrument (manipulating or to some degree interfering with what Nick was playing). At the same time, a video camera mounted vertically over top of the piano tracked Jason's movements in order to then translate those movements into electronic sound (this is the part where I get lost). The total result (an extremely cool-sounding blend of Bach & what I can only call truly "High Concept" technological noise) was pumped through four speakers placed evenly around the room. Those at the center of the room sat in the sweet spot.

We were also graced with a surprise visit and performance from distinguished Korean p'ansori artist, Chan E. Park, who gave a full concert in the ballroom during the second half of the program. This is possibly the coolest, most emotionally transparent music in the world and while it can involve a number of musicians at once, for this salon there were only two performers in the ballroom: Chan's husky, soulful voice (a cross between Johnny Cash and Freddie Mercury in the body of a woman) and her trusty drum.

-majel

SALON XXIII

2009-05-19T07:51:00.000-07:00

It has come to my attention that my salon tally is hotly contested by two parties, Sidney Nagel and Young-Kee Kim, who allege that certain off-road salons (at the Experimental Station last year, and the Zhou B. Art Center the year before) may or may not in fact be actual salons. If they are proved to be non-salons, I may be forced to reduce the tally. If not, I will not. But given that Sidney and Young-Kee are physicists (remember, these are dangerous people who allege the existence of anti-matter and other such ridiculous stuff possibly responsible for the election of Barak Obama) so I will continue proclaiming twenty-three until actual evidence of negation comes to light.

Be that as it may, we slowly approach the undisputed third anniversary salon this July. Get your horses ready.

Last Saturday's salon (no. 23 and/or ?!@#$) found the company upstairs in Sid and Young-Kee's sultry ballroom for 2 separate presentations: one by Sem Sutter, bibliographer at Regenstein Library, and a second by Michael Schmidt, who debunked dubious claims that the golden ratio governs the architecture of the Parthenon and the pyramids in Gaza. Downstairs marked the final installment in a series of solo drum recitals (Dan Siakel), as well as the first, I hope, of performances by Jonathan Katz (pianist/composer, Northwestern University) and Jonathan Green, who has possibly the finest baritone voice within the borders of the state of Illinois.

The next salon is June 20th, feat. a mostly musical line up, and other bits and nibbles. In other news, we bid farewell to Giordano's pizza, which faithfully provided pizza for salon attendees for nearly three years. Bring on the Eduardo's.

-majel

Talea Ensemble @ Players Theatre

2009-04-26T08:03:00.000-07:00

How many concerts are happening this week?
Count the stars in the sky.
Measure the waters of the ocean with a teaspoon.
Number the grains of sand on the seashore.
Impossible you say?
Yes and it is just as impossible for me
to say how many concerts are happening this week.

So if you're not going to see Die Walküre (Don't do it!! Half of it is just a long slow boring retelling of Rheingold by Wotan accompanied by cellos and trombones!! It's NOT all riding here and hoy-a-hoy-a-hoy there all the time!) at the Met, then consider coming down to The Players Theatre in the West Village to hear some boot-stompin' new music from Europe, including two US premieres (Billone & Romitelli). The ensemble is awesome, and it's been a total joy to work with them. The music is unbelievably cool. How could you even think about Brunhilde on a night like this?

Talea Ensemble
Tuesday, April 28
The Players Theatre, NYC
115 MacDougal St. (in the West Village)
8pm
Works by Hurel, Ferneyhough, Billone, Rands, and the US Premier of Domeniche alla periferia dell'impero by the late Fausto Romitelli.

(n.)

Threepenny Retrospective

2009-04-15T12:29:00.001-07:00

Plans are being laid for the next big thing (Nick's residency at High Concept Laboratories in June and July / Opera Cabal's residency at the same in August), but before too much time passes, I thought I'd throw up some pictures and thoughts from our recent Threepenny run at Riverside Theatre.

First the pics, then some thoughts.

All pics by Carol Rosegg, courtesy of Columbia Stages.

Daryl Brown (Balladeer)

Linn Maxwell (Mrs. Peachum) and cast

Rebecca Comerford (Lucy), Neal Moeller (Macheath), Caroline Kaplan (Polly)

Oliver Burns (Tiger Brown) and R.Paul Hamilton (Mr. Peachum)

Alyssa Ciccarello (Jenny) and Neal Moeller (Macheath)

Caroline Kaplan (Polly) and Linn Maxwell (Mrs. Peachum)

the cast

Opera Cabal
Kevin Sims, Chris Coletti, Steve Menotti, Eric Huebner, Amy Schumacher, Justin Kujawski, Amelia Lukas, Alejandro Acierto, Geoff Landman (Kobe van Cauwenbergh behind me), Nicholas DeMaison

Most of those photos and a bunch more are also floating around on Facebook.

Some of you may know that Anthony Tommasini of the New York Times was kind enough to review both our production of the Weill/Brecht and the Manhattan School of Music production of Britten's Beggar's Opera, which, coincidentally, was performed at the exact same time ... right across the street. A nice coincidence to get the attention of the Times, that. His full review can be read here:

The Sly and the Shady on Two Opera Stages

I think we all (those members of the production with whom I've discussed this) had (predictably) mixed feelings about the review. We were happy to get the attention, and perhaps a little TOO aware of being reviewed on opening night, particularly in a show locked in by such unique constraints (a mini-budget, academic production crammed into a creation process designed to showcase a "standard" 70-minute thesis show with a 7-person creative team). It probably goes without saying, but I'll say it anyway, that by Friday night it was an alarmingly different show (and really now, I'm not just saying this out of a sense of self-preservation ... authorities as unbiased as my Mom can vouch for that truth since she sat through all of the first three performances!), and if the review had come on Saturday night instead of Wednesday night, I have strong suspicions that much of the underhanded-style complimenting would have been unnecessary. When I read the piece Thursday night, I thought, "Well, he's being honest. We WERE shaky last night." But mostly I found it to be an interesting wake-up call -- a realization of the danger and the glory that accompany the possibility, perhaps unique to NYC, that even an M.F.A. production could be graced with a glance from the likes of the Times.

In the end, it may be enough that Opera Cabal is on the radar ... and next time we'll be ready, particularly on opening night.

Before going away again, I thought I might also add some more photos from the December show at the AV-aerie that have also recently surfaced. I think these are all by Andy Gricevich of The Nonsense Company, and are all taken at rehearsals in High Concept Laboratories.

Rick Burkhardt

Corey Bertelsen

Nicholas DeMaison (apparently trying to fly)

And some ensemble shots

(n.)

SALON XXII

2009-04-06T17:41:00.000-07:00

Hats off to the rough & tumble crowd who trekked through something between sleet and Armageddon to come out for last night's salon. Presentations ranged from the propagandistic to Gotan Project-esque (the world premiere of Charlie Williams' group, Truco, to my great mirth featured an instrument that mimics a Bandoneón but has no bellows and is operated by blowing into a tube that connects to a weird piano-looking thing, making the player of this contraption look like a brain in a vat). David Bashwiner completed his lecture series "3 Interesting Pop Songs" with a brief look at "All By Myself," which, in an odd twist of fate, is owned by the Rachmaninoff estate. Finally, a guest appearance from Alberta's Emma Hooper, a wonderful reader of her own writings.

Stay tuned for May.

-m.

SALON XXI

2009-03-20T06:31:00.000-07:00

Dear, dear salon:

It's been a long time. Things (dissertation proposal) came between us. But we press on. And what a salon. By my counting, which is impressionistic, there were approximately ... A LOT of people out last Saturday, March 14.* They broke down the doors with a battering ram, set fire to the the piano, threatened the cats, swung drunkenly from the balcony and ran off with the pizza. From now on, I'm carrying a big stick and making loud noises. I ... really mean it ... now.

The program was spectacular. Really.

Irene Claude, flute; Clara Christensen, piano; Meg Lauterbach, cello

[Trio for flute, cello and piano, H. 300, c. 1944 (Bohuslav Martinu, 1890-1959)]

Charlie Williams, piano

[transcription of principal theme from The Diving Bell and the Butterfly,

Music for Scientists (i.e. what Charlie's been up to)]

Larry Zbikowski, guitar

[Fantaisie Elégiaque à la mort de Madame Beslay, op. 59, c. 1836

(Fernando Sor, 1778-1839)]**

Laure Dutirou-Mason, speaker

[presentation & tasting, on & of Armagnac]

Joshua Adams, poetry

[poetry reading]

Roger Moseley, ne'er do well, piano
[death-defying improvisation in the style of Imaginary Composer X {1750-1815}]

*My third-grade classroom held a competition at Easter [secular = schmecular] to guess the number of jelly beans in a jar. There were probably 250, and since the average third-grader is open to wild speculation our submissions ranged between 4 and 2,000. I guessed that there were 2,000 jelly beans. I'm thinking there were a million people at the salon. Just to be on the safe side.

**excerpted from Larry's performance note and subsequent written communication: "This work was written in memory of Charlotte Beslay, who was Sor's student ... a pianist who had come to the attention of Rossini; perhaps because of this the fantasy is written in a compositional register that is by turns operatic and pianistic ... [I]n the concluding section of the piece the compositional register changes significantly away from the operatic/pianistic tropes Sor uses and toward something much more contemplative. From this contemplative music there emerge a couple of brief fragments of melody. [Editor's note: I urge the faint of heart to stop reading beyond this point.] In the published score (from c. 1836) there is written above these fragments, 'Charlotte! Adieu,' and one can clearly hear the melody setting these unspoken words."

-m.

Threepenny Opera @ Riverside Theatre

2009-03-13T09:53:00.000-07:00

www.3penny.org
www.columbiastages.com for tickets or 212-854-3408

April 1-3; 8pm
April 4; 2pm & 8pm
Riverside Theatre
91 Claremont Ave.
Directed by Henning Hegland
Music Direction by Nicholas DeMaison

After working with The Nonsense Company in December, we thought perhaps this newfangled idea of "collaboration" was something we should pursue more actively. Hence, the raw production POWER of Columbia University and the Norwegian flair of Henning Hegland, infused with Opera Cabal's...well...let's just call it "unique"....all infused with Opera Cabal's "unique."

(Yes. I did use it as a noun.)
(n.)

High Rise Chamber Music Benefit Concert

2009-03-13T09:43:00.000-07:00

Thursday March 19th, 2009
7PM

Join the musicians of Opera Cabal for an evening of new chamber music, live electronic sound installation, wine, appetizers, and a silent auction, all in a beautiful midtown Manhattan high-rise apartment.

Featured performers include Amelia Lukas, Vicky Chow, Kobe Van Cauwenbergh, Steve Menotti, Nicholas DeMaison and Amanda DeBoer playing music by Webern, Kurtag, Carter, Takemitsu, Cage and Schwitters. Sound installation by Jason Ponce.

This event will be held at
111 West 67th St.
NYC
(between Broadway and Columbus)

To be placed on the guest list, you
MUST RSVP to operacabal@gmail.com

Once arriving at the building, the doorman will show you the way to the party.

Suggested donation: $20/$10 students

Checks payable to Fractured Atlas are also acceptable.
All proceeds benefit Opera Cabal's 2009-2010 season.

Ursularia (photos by David Stewart)

2008-12-28T21:10:00.000-08:00

As a postscript to Majel's last post, here are a few more pictures of (most of) the people who made this show happen.

All photos in this post were taken by David Stewart.

4/5ths of the Ursularia cast
(Ryan Higgins, Majel Connery, Rick Burkhardt-also director, Andy Gricevich)
***

Amanda DeBoer
***

(body cast by Rose DiSalvo)
**

David Medine (viola)
**

Amelia Lukas (flute)
**

The hands of Mark Holley
**

Karen Schultz-Harmon
**

Nicholas DeMaison
**

I find this photo strangely...err....telling...
***

And let us not forget our illustrious parachute.

(n.)

Ursularia 2008

2008-12-25T09:31:00.001-08:00

To prove this happened, since, given our record you never know (no, we didn't get shut down by the Chicago police this time, but we did get shut down by the AV-aerie's power supply on opening night, after plugging in the 102nd power strip), here's a quick narration of events. All photos here were taken by our excellent stage designer, Rose DiSalvo.

Presenting ... Ursularia @ AV-aerie, 2008 ...

First of all, how cool is this space? Apart from the 75 white wedding chairs which, however unintentional (the white, not the chairs), probably added to the overall weird emphasis on whiteness established earlier on by the giant, hovering parachute. Marshall Preheim, who runs the AV-aerie, just happened to have one sitting in a giant parachute box at the back of the space. Good thing. (Thanks, by the way, to Fred Grier for his help hanging the parachute.)

As a frame for the stage space it worked, quite simply, awfully well. Here are views from stage right, center and left, respectively (you can pick out conductor Nick DeMaison [also composer of Ursularia, also Music Director of Opera Cabal] in the first photo, center; you'll know him by his side-burns):

But as a backdrop, it was,

I think it's fair to say,

cooler ...

than ...

... cool. As before in 2007, the opera featured soprano Amanda DeBoer as Ursula's immortal soul. Here, darlingly, she gurgles and screams her last.

as Nonsense Company actors Andy Gricevich and Ryan Higgins look icily on. Rick "the professor" Burkhardt manned the overhead projector.

One does have to talk about oneself, but one does so obliquely and in passing. Here she is, Ursula (me/Majel Connery), framed by Rose DiSalvo yarn art (+ Rose's neon lights in the second photo.)

Needless to say, but saying so anyway, we're terribly grateful to everyone for coming out (some from states and states away). Any audience is a friend of Opera Cabal. And by the way, yes, I'm blogging on Christmas and no, I'm not avoiding my family.

-m.

Call for Auditions: Threepenny Opera

2008-11-23T12:22:00.001-08:00

The Columbia University Thesis Production of Threepenny Opera by Brecht and Weill and translated by Michael Feingold is having an initial round of auditions Monday December 1st and Tuesday December 2nd at Columbia University. The equity showcase code production will be at The Theatre at Riverside Church and run April 1st till April 4th. The director is Henning Hegland and musical director is Nicholas De Maison. We are looking for experienced actors/singers for the roles of:

macheath (mac the knife) a gang leader and thief planning on becoming a banker (male mid 20's to mid 30's a charmer with a dangerous side) - tenor (or high baritone): B2 - Aflat4

polly peachum: the daughter of peachum wanting true love and passion (female 18 - 25 an innocent girl look with a hidden foxy side) - soprano (or mezzo): C4 - Gflat5

mr. peachum: a businessman and the beggar king (male 40-50's shrewd, cynical, and very very clever) - tenor (or baritone): C3 - F4

mrs peachum: an alcoholic wife and sexually frustrated woman (female late 30's to mid 50's) - mezzo (or alto): D4 - E5

tiger brown: the police commissioner and spineless bureaucrat (male mid 30's) - baritone (or tenor): C3 - Eflat4

jenny: a whore who loves Macheath (female 20 - 30) - soprano (or mezzo): B3 - F5

lucy: the danger-courting, affection-needing daughter of Tiger (18 - 20's) - soprano: E4 - Gflat5

Please email your headshot and resume, as well as any vocal file/link to:

auditions@3penny.org

We would like to see an a capella song and a monologue for the audition.

Flashback

2008-11-23T11:38:00.000-08:00

Some photos collected from the Opera Cabal benefit at High Concept Laboratories last week. I don't have names for everybody below, perhaps some viewers could help with labeling. In case we forgot to say this earlier, Kevin: we love you. Big time.

Irene Hsaio prepares to welcome guests.

Master pie-baker, Candy Connery.

Some of the 37 pies that were baked in 2 hours and 6 minutes by Candy earlier in the day.

mmmmm....pie.

Sommelier, David Bashwinner, with his lovely assistant, Myra.

Dasha Polzik introduces the presenters for the evening.

Yup. That's a big bucket of worms.

A presentation from Fresh Picks Organic farms (correct me if I got that wrong)

A presentation by PETA.

The pies were going like hotcakes....or....like really good apple pies.

Asylum rocks it again.
(Brennan Connors, Dan Siakel)

Ben Kolak, Ben's collaborator Eric Mika, and DJ Adam Weg on the lower level in front of part of Ben and Eric's video installation.

Ahhhh...Chicago (seen from the roof of High Concept Laboratories)

Mr. President Elect looked on with approval. Obama likes pie too.

(n.)

THANK YOU!!!

2008-11-17T19:16:00.000-08:00

An enormous thank you to everybody who came out to the event this weekend. The benefit was a great success, and we look forward to a long and fruitful collaboration developing with High Concept Laboratories.

Special thanks go to anybody and everybody who hosted, donated, baked, spoke, played, chatted, drank, bought flowers, bought cookies, bought pie, gaurded the door, fed Majel and I while we toiled, danced, set up multi-floor/multi-channel live video feeds, shared a room and let me pet their cat, and especially big thanks to everybody who didn't bring along their 37 live chickens to the party.

There will be more visually stimulating posts coming shortly.

Don't forget the shows on Dec. 11,12,13 at the AVaerie. Tell your friends.
(n.)

Dear Mr. Bush,

2008-11-05T07:41:00.000-08:00

hen in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

Sincerely yours,

The enlightened 62,774,339 of us
(...not yet counting Indiana and South Carolina)

Screw the Financial Crisis...let's make big beautiful things

2008-10-20T22:01:00.000-07:00

Opera Cabal is growing and expanding. At an organizational meeting at the Hungarian Pastry Shop on 111 & Amsterdam, the New York faction of Opera Cabal officially took shape tonight.

It's all terribly exciting.

There may be some new authors to the blog in coming days, namely the new core of directors: Vicky Chow, Amelia Lukas, & Steve Menotti.

Huzzah and huzzah. More to follow, I'm sure.
(n.)

Opera Cabal: too crazy? Definitely. Yes.

2008-10-10T10:48:00.000-07:00

As proof positive of Nick's theories detailed below as points A. and B., I hereby submit my director's summary of the aborted New York production, upon receipt of which I received notice of having been fired from the production.

"In rendering this Cantata what we need is an account in which Apollo and his cohort constitute a social scene that is young and libidinally transparent, à la Hollywood glamour..."

[Notice here, my use of the British spelling, "glamour," which meets very criteria of pretentious game-talk according to section XIX.a.ii. in the Chicago Manual of Style under the heading "Talking the Talk: More Pretentious Than Thou in Scholastic Writing."]

"The message at stake is of youth, youth culture, and the manufacturing and management of desire."

[Ah-ha! That was so smart, I bet you thought I stole it--I did, from a working dramaturg. So there.]

"Paradoxically..."

[The very essence fast academic talk: the ability to cut quickly to the paradox.]

"while we (the audience) recognize that such a scene thrives in a tabloid/popular/vulgar register we nevertheless experience Apollo's upper-crust in-crowd..."

[N.B.: a hyphenated noun and its modifying adjective in the very same sentence? Get out!!]

"...as elite, inaccessible, hence enviable. In a self-preserving gesture..."

[Hyphenated adjectives, need I remind you = awesome.]

"...this social echelon's own aesthetic inclinations are (predictably) characterized by a hypocritical aversion to anything arising from an egregiously popular/smut/mass-commercial world (hence Pan's music is experienced as devoid of content; Midas is framed as envoy to the aesthetically deaf). My argument will be for the basic transparency and recognizability of this hypocrisy while making no claims either for the coherence or defensibility of this posture, or for Pan's/Midas's."

[Need I say more? "Echelon," "smut," "envoy to the aesthetically deaf"?! Come, on: this is brilliant stuff.]

Too cool for New York? I believe I rest my case.

-m.

Fractured Atlas / Opera Cabal gets FIRED!

2008-10-09T11:44:00.000-07:00

Nick is this week's featured artist on the Fractured Atlas blog.

***

Some of the more astute among you may have noticed that a couple of weeks ago we were advertising an upcoming show at Columbia University, namely a staging of Bach's Cantata 201, and the still more astute among you may have further noticed that said announcement is no longer up on the blog.

As it turns out, Opera Cabal got fired!

We had been in dialogue with the powers that be over at Columbia for some months about the project. In September, things started to ramp up in preparation; meetings were held, budgets were drafted, burned, and redrawn, new orchestrations were tossed about, Majel even met with a couple of professional drag queens to consult on the role of Apollo.

Then suddenly, and very unceremoniously, I found out by way of Majel one afternoon that at a meeting earlier in the day (at which neither Majel nor I was present), my involvement with the project had been terminated. A couple of days later, Majel got the axe.

We have some theories, which we will propagate here:

1.) Opera Cabal's work is just too cutting edge for hardcore Bach lovers.

2.) I'm terrible at the esoteric/nonsensical dropping of unfounded citation of obscure sources of legend chit-chat game favored by contemporary academics, and my general confusion in the midst of things, combined with my desire to discuss actual logistics (apparently interpreted as humorlessness, and perhaps even hostility) was unnerving for the academics involved.

3.) Majel drank un-sparkling water at our first meeting with the powers that be.

Win some, lose some.
(n.)

Lipstick on a Pig

2008-10-02T08:26:00.000-07:00

Sarah Palin needs to run back to her ice floes and Iron Dog races. Let's just enjoy the thought of that...

"Lipstick on a Pig"

Written & directed by David Bashwiner, performed by David Bashwiner, Majel Connery, Richard Whaling and an unknown party; video and editing by Ben Kolak.

September Salon

2008-09-26T07:54:00.001-07:00

I'm looking for help. The number 19 in Roman numerals ... anybody?

Tomorrow night's salon (September 27, 2008) celebrates $%&* years in the life of Sidney "Bobby" Nagel, esteemed physicist, (actually "physics expert") at the University of Chicago. For a change of pace, the salon takes place at the Experimental Station at 61st and Blackstone in Hyde Park, start time: 8:30p.

The lineup features (but is not limited to):

an account of embodied musical perception: 19th-c. waltz, according to
Larry Zbikowski (David Bashwiner & Majel Connery, hot teaching aides)

magic by esteemed physicist
Luciano Ristori

recent thoughts about mural painting in Chicago
Rose DiSalvo

a misreading of the Messiah, in honor of Sid-ney
Thomas Christensen, David Bashwiner, Greg Freeman, Majel and Candace "Mom" Connery

a dry ice installation from
Shawn Lani

and finally, free jazz with
Dan Siakel, Brennan Conners, Todd Hill, and there are possibly other musicians I'm missing which comprise the group otherwise known as
Asylum

Somehow the week slipped by...

2008-09-24T12:00:00.000-07:00

...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.)

Salon XVIII

2008-08-24T12:58:00.000-07:00

Thanks to everybody for -- yet again -- a pretty wild salon last Friday evening. Here's a quick list of the events. (And a final Happy Birthday to Tom!)

presentation on the building of Beijing's Olympic Stadium (otherwise known as this fine piece of architecture pictured below)

by Fred Grier

introduction to breath and 20th-century dance lead by

Irene Hsaio

introduction to mind/body relaxation and the 8 Pillars of Yoga with

Yvonne Bruner

chansons sung by

Rebecca Wilson; with Roger Mosley, piano

rhythmic complexity in Radiohead and The Shins by none other than

because who else could possibly present something like this beside

David Bashwiner

with cello & electric bass by

Kimberly Sutton and John Hirsch

Stay tuned for infos on the upcoming September salon.

(m.)

"And now we all go listen to the English version of Nena's '99 Red Balloons'" or maybe "The Army of Theorbos Returns"

2008-08-20T21:41:00.000-07:00

I caught the demo-reel of Opera Omnia's "Coronation of Poppea" tonight at Le Poisson Rouge, so now I'm going to pretend that I review shows all the time, like Majel, or Alex Ross.

For some time I think I may have been weakly masquerading as some kind of performance-purist, demanding opera in the original language or not at all, but this group's English-language rendition completely won me over (ie: it's the opposite of listening to the English version of Nena's "99 Red Balloons"). There was no cognitive lapse between hearing/reading/understanding, no frantic up and down of the eyes, watching action and titles, no getting lazy and letting a title or two pass by unread. In fact, I'm now tempted to go rent "The Lives of Others" in some kind of un-subtitled voice-over version and watch it while I eat a big box of Freedom Fries. Maybe this will be Opera Cabal's next project. And who am I kidding, anyway? As though I know Italian well enough to appreciate Monteverdi's exquisite musical parsing of syllables in real-time? Right.

The Red Fish (as long as we're throwing foreign languages out the window tonight) is a bit on the dead/flat/non-resonant side of the acoustic spectrum, but as it turns out, while not being "kind to voices" in any traditional big-resonant-hall notion of the idea, is ideal for actually being able to understand the text...except when singers turned upstage. Again with the English language performance version thing. Handy coincidence, that.

(The bar IN the performance space)

***

(The stage, from my first-row-behind-the-cabaret-tables seat. Sit close, there's a loud air-conditioner that keeps clicking on from the back left of the house.)

But let's get down to details. I previously accused Monteverdi of homo-erotic misogyny. After seeing Poppea (and all of you who know better, please reel me back in after I go off the speculative deep end / my run-on sentences get too runny), it occurs to me that Monteverdi, while writing L'Orfeo, was just plain young. He didn't leave out the women because he hated them, he left them out because he didn't have the chops to handle multiple complex characters. Maybe he thought that giving us the "first-person" account of Orpheus's adventures was the strongest way to do it -- certainly it's the most direct. And then he wrote a bunch more operas, and in the process (judging by the almost Shakespearian/Mozartian complexity of dramatic intrigue in Poppea) learned the joy of creating the plucky sidekick, the three varieties of scorned lover, and the wise-fool of a matronly nurse who gives us the one truly Shakespearian aside when she says that in this life she was born a servant and will die a Lady, but in the next life would prefer to be born a Lady and die a servant because servants are happier when death comes. His handling of multiple characters in Poppea, all of whom are endowed with multi-dimensionality, is simply more mature than the one-dimensional portrayal of Orpheus and his cameo-esque cohorts. I'm sure somebody somewhere has discussed Mozart's operas in the same terms (his name might be Joseph Kerman...but I forget.)

The Omnia players do a great job of bringing out the complexity of their characters, but one thing really troubles me about the piece. If we view the characters as complex, motivated by multiple forces in a dynamic world (and are at times even brutally ironic) then the final love-duet between Poppea and Nero, both of whom we mostly hate, is bizarrely out of place. It's awkwardly sincere. How can we possibly be privy, for example, to the complexity of Drusilla's situation (as she stoically walks off stage singing "My heart rejoices" because of Ottone's fervent insistence that he "wants her"), and yet see nothing but a happy couple at the end? One would think that we should have a sense of hanging dread, or woeful resignation, or maybe just a little queasiness in the belly at the thought of the couple's joy having been wrought from the murder of Rome's great philosopher/statesman/dramatist, the barely rationalized exile of the queen, etc....or am I too hung up on Berg? The final duet is, as I said, awkwardly straightforward, as though Monteverdi thought we'd been cheering for these two to live happily ever after all along. I don't get it. Music Director, Avi Stein, comments in his notes that this duet may not even have been Monteverdi's...and indeed, had the opera ended with the drawn-out instrumental coronation music, there might be something unsettling about the final "silent" (as in, unsung) image of tyrannical king and new young, ambitious queen together.

Speaking of Avi Stein, here's the band and the one-armed throne. No theorbos in sight.

Perhaps the really great thing about this performance is that we don't see Poppea as simply another ambitious young woman who will stop at nothing blah blah blah. Hai-Ting Chinn brings out incredible subtlety in the character, at times caught up in sexual fervor for Nero, at times an unsure young girl who might be getting in over her head trying to become queen to a man who commands, without hesitation, the murder of his closest adviser and exile of his former wife. I can't say that I cared either way about Poppea's fate, which is good...I like ambiguity...but I imagined that I could understand all of the bizarre ups and downs of being Poppea, which struck me as even better than either simply cheering for or against.

Hai-Ting Chinn (Poppea) and Cherry Duke (Nero)
(photo by Matthew Hensrud)

As I said, the cast, is, across the board quite convincing, but a couple of other stand-outs include Marie Mascari as Fortune and Valletto, the previously mentioned plucky sidekick character with no shortage of pluck...

Melissa Fogarty (Ottavia), Marie Mascari (Valetto), Steven Hrycelak (Seneca...prior to,
well...y'know.)

(photo by Matthew Hensrud)

...John Young's matronly nurse Arnalta -- one could almost believe that he had actual experience as a matronly nurse...

Poppea and Arnalta (John Young)

(photo by Matthew Hensrud)

...and Cherry Duke's Nero was as hot and cold and impetuous and disgustingly regal as we'd expect a young Nero to be.

Cherry Duke (Nero), Richard Lippold (Littore)
(photo by Mathew Hensrud)

The set consists of 5 chairs, a one-armed throne, a curtain, a step ladder and a fainting-couch, which begs the question, has anybody EVER actually SEEN a fainting-couch EXCEPT as theatrical prop or in the halls of kitschy old hotels? Crystal Manich's stage direction is at times great -- ALL of the constantly varied seduction scenes...

Poppea and Nero go at it...WHILE singing...
(photo by Matthew Hensrud)

...and particularly between Nero and his man-servant (but you'll have to show up to see both that scene as well as the borderline scandalous use of an over-sized Russian doll) -- but at other times was surprisingly uninspired -- the death of Seneca. Still, for anyone still reading, I highly recommend. Bravo on a first production, y'all.

Oh yeah, on my way to the show, I saw this:

Yup...piano busking. He was playing one of the waltzes from Amelie.

(n.)

Darmstadt 2008 Retrospective

2008-08-20T13:10:00.000-07:00

(Nick outside the Orangerie. Photos in this post are by Nick or Aubrey. Thanks Aubrey.)

Sure, Usain Bolt crushed the perceived limits of human capability AGAIN yesterday....but I'd rather wax poetic on month-old news that is only interesting to a small and obscure group of cultural outsiders.

Ahhhh...Darmstadt.

Actually, I'm not entirely sure what to say about it. The famed organization of the Germans (so organized, in fact, they number the trees in the parks...)

does not carry over to the festival. And despite all of the hype, the level of disorganization is even more shocking than I could have imagined...and yet...somehow...some pretty amazing stuff goes down. I don't understand how. It took nearly the entire first week before ANYBODY (faculty, performers, administrators...ANYBODY) could project a rehearsal schedule for more than a few hours in advance. Not only that, but this is the hostel we were staying in:

Next time I'm staying in the hotel, perhaps with scholarship-winning composer, Clinton McCallum. Why, here's scholarship-winning composer Clinton McCallum and me now, having a beer on the first night. We look so peaceful, so naive...neither of us had any idea of what was about to happen.

Did you know that the whole shebang...a world famous new music festival wherein 300 composers and 70 performers coagulate every other year....is run out of elementary schools? Yup. Here's the percussion studio:

I'm not kidding. The guy in the background with the hoodie resembling a patriotic quilt is Dennis Sullivan. He also won a scholarship for 2010. Congratulations, Dennis.

The best part about the percussion group at Darmstadt was the truck they used to move the equipment.

Are YOU going to steal a roto-tom out of THAT truck? Doubtful. It took two of these to move everything necessary for the performance of Liza Lim's "City of Fallen Angels" 12-tet (aka, percussion-porn.)

And speaking of percussionists, here's the sextet and me after our Sunday afternoon performance of Rihm's 45-minute long percussion sextet, "Tutuguri VI."

(Thorsten Gellings, Dennis Sullivan, Hakon Stene, Nicholas DeMaison, Louisa Marxen, Russel Greenberg, Alex Lipowski)

Yup, it's another gymnasium, which, for the primal thumping of Tutuguri, sounded pretty freakin' awesome. For the SWR Orchestra, however, it was not exactly what I would call an ideal acoustic, but apparently IMD performances have been going on in the Sporthalle for time immemorial. Imagine the elementary school you went to. Imagine the gym you go to for your spinning class. Imagine the gym locker rooms being used as orchestral dressing rooms. Imagine an international music festival being held in these locations. This would NEVER happen in the U. S. But maybe that's EXACTLY our problem. Anyway, I was sitting close to the stage on the violin side for the SWR show, and could barely hear the far side of the orchestra. As it turns out, I'm a pretty big fan of Rihm's music, despite him getting a lot of shit from a lot of the composers at Darmstadt (too many notes, too long, not enough substance, not enough po-mo angst, etc. etc.) . The orchestra played his single mvt. / 55 minute IN-SCHRIFT on the final concert. I LOVED it. Although, admittedly, I did leave during intermission directly after the piece.

This guy did not love it.

As you can imagine, getting a lesson with Ferneyhough was not unlike breaking the world record in the 100m dash AND the 200m dash in the same Olympics...unless you're Usain Bolt....which none of us was.

(Sign-up sheet for lessons with Ferneyhough)

Fortunately, I wasn't in a position to be interested in face time with Ferneyhough, because Nick Deyoe and I were busy getting our asses handed to us by the Dutch zen-master of conducting himself, Lucas Vis.

Ech. That's a terrible picture. Here's a better one of the Nicks (yes...Nick Deyoe and Nick DeMaison, the two conductor/composers from San Diego...uncanny...we know) celebrating after our final performances on the 2-day marathon studio concert fiascos. Without getting too graphic, things had gotten a bit hairy for both of us in the preparation for these famed studio concerts. We earned our 2pm celebration.

In summation, Darmstadt is, in many ways, like a bunch of children building a shantytown. I won't go into details, I think you know what I mean.

I didn't so much mind the shantytowniness aspect of things.

So until 2010...

(n.)

Let the bloggery resume...

2008-08-16T16:28:00.000-07:00

I would apologize for my lengthy absence...but I'm not exactly sure who that apology would be directed at. In any case, I'm back now...so I'll write some more.

The taller half of Opera Cabal has now landed in NYC, and I'm thinking that this blog might, in addition to senseless chatter about our own work, turn out to be a good venue for "reviewing" stuff I'm interested in, particularly other opera start-up projects like our own.

For example, Opera Omnia (which I'm pretty sure is NOT a reference to the British "Plasma Rock" band by the same name that "disappeared off the face of the earth 13 years ago") is presenting a production of Monteverdi's Coronation of Poppea that I'm looking forward to next week.

The group is run by Wesley Chinn, Crystal Manich and the very same Avi Stein who was rocking the continuo keyboard in Norfolk's L'Orfeo. Small world. Here's their postcard (I hope you guys don't mind that I stole your image):

The show is on the days listed, 7:30 pm, Le Poisson Rouge (158 Bleeker). Check out their site for all the details. So far as I can tell this is Opera Omnia's first gig. Let's all wish them well and go to the show.

Also, has everybody seen ads for this Xenakis/ICE/Miller Theater insanity? Holy shit that looks cool.

And yes, I AM going to post about Darmstadt. Soon.

(n.)

Salon XVII

2008-08-14T08:39:00.000-07:00

Did anyone spend more than 12 cumulative minutes in grade school learning how to interpret Roman numerals? Did I write "seventeen" correctly, there? Or, isn't the real question, should I even have to ask that question? I often wonder about the under-apportioning of time to certain areas of elementary school learning and feel like rendering a long and angry critique on the subject. For example, alphabetization. How would you rate yourself as an alphabetizer? Do you have to walk through "L, M, N, O, P" to remember if "P" comes before or after "O"? Can you remember learning to alphabetize? I do, because we spent a grand total of 30 minutes on it in the 1st grade and in consequence I can never remember the ordering of N & M (or is it M & N?)

Anyway, we were talking about salon no. 17. There is no getting around it: people, thank you. This was hands-on the best salon of all time, except from the perspective that there was no leftover pizza (Sid, we're sorry). A quick list of the evening's wonders:

bach's cantata 201--initial fumblings toward a full staging of
Irene Hsaio, dancer & choreographer; Majel Connery, voice & direction; Roger Mosley, piano
(Thanks to Ben Kolak for this totally excellent video.)

Dance from Ben Kolak on Vimeo.

presentation on abstraction in late 19th-c painting by
Danielle Klinenberg

tea presentation and tasting by
Gregory Freeman

short film by
David Bashwiner

and finally...
generalized high-minded intellectual harassment provided by
your loving University of Chicago audience-at-large

The next salon is August 22nd, a Friday. Come bearing wine and you will find yourself welcomed warmly.

And now, something you can't see at the salons. My completely useless attempt at playing the shakuhachi (care of Gregory Freeman).