Two Operas

We were in Santa Fe for a few days last month to see the opera. Specifically, we saw two operas, Benjamin Britten's Billy Budd, and a 21st century opera called Adriana Matter. They were both well-staged, sung, and acted, of course. Santa Fe doesn't do anything half way.

I liked Billy Budd, but was not wowed by it. After seeing Paul Bunyan a few years ago at Central City, I was expecting more. Paul Bunyan was brilliant -- its American themes captured so perfectly (an accountant going to Hollywood to be an accountant there? Of course!). Billy Budd, not so much. Perhaps the two Britons who created the piece -- both incredible talents -- Britten himself and E.M. Forster (imagine my surprise) -- were just not ready for an American novel yet. There was much more emphasis on duty and honor than there was on the struggle between good and evil.

Adriana Matter was a masterpiece. I had chosen it because Peter Sellars was directing, and I felt I couldn't go through life without seeing one of his productions. Beyond Mr. Sellars' excellent staging, Adriana Matter had everything you could ever want in an opera: war, rape, deceit, the possibility of patricide, atonality.

But the best part of this opera was not anything that a human could engineer. The evening was typical for Santa Fe in July -- wet and cold. For this reason I really don't like the outdoor venue in Santa Fe. Indeed, I wouldn't attend the opera there if it didn't stage really good, new, and interesting stuff. But just after we were seated for the second act, when the singers came out into a set built to indicate a war-ravaged city, the fog began to roll in over the stage. The mood it created was both dark and thrilling. I have never experienced anything like it.

To Billy Budd I wore my gray, Grecian dress by Lanvin with Steve Madden open-toed booties in neutral suede. To Adriana Matter I wore my brown Rick Owens rocker dress with Tara Subkoff suede open-toed, wedge sandals with ankle ties, and a Stella McCartney oversized sweater coat. I carried my cobalt-blue Alexander Wang clutch both nights.

Peter Sellars wore a red kimono top over black pajama pants.

The Scottish Play

We saw the Colorado Shakespeare Festival's production of Macbeth on Saturday night. It was great. It was easily one of the top three productions I've seen at CSF in the past few years. I put it behind last year's perfect A Midsummer Night's Dream and ahead of The Tempest from about three years ago.

I wore skinny jeans, gladiator wedges, a gray, a-line, puff-sleeve top by Alldressedup, and a way oversized Stella McCartney sweater with buckles for when the temperature went down. I carried my black, Isabella Fiore frame bag.

The Colorado Shakespeare Festival is 50 years old. I have been going on and off since junior high school. It's a summer tradition. Round about February you start to think, what am I going to do this summer? And then you go online and see what's going to playing up in Boulder. It's a tradition along with Red Rocks and the Cherry Creek Arts Festival. At certain points I start to think, this is boring. I've been doing this same circuit my entire life. If I never had to shlep my parka up the hill to Red Rocks again, it would be fine. I would not miss the Mary Rippon Outdoor Theater if for some reason all of the roads between Denver and Boulder were closed. I think, there are other places in the world where people do other things in the summer. But if I were in another place I'd do the same things, just in different venues. In Chicago, there would be Jazz Fest and Blues Fest. There would be the dunes. If I lived in New York, I'd be in the Hamptons. Instead I'm here, where I belong.

More Music

Mark Knopfler on Tuesday. That guy knows how to play a guitar.

Four Shows

I saw four shows last week -- that's approaching JW and DR's average for a seven day period. Next week there are three more to come, which has to be some sort of record for me. It occurred to me only last night, when J mentioned that he goes to a lot of shows now that he's with me, that perhaps all of this watching may not be living. The exchange went like this: I said, "When you're with me, you live." He replied, "I at least spectate." I don't know if this was meant as a criticism. It was his life we were talking about. Plus, he seemed to be enjoying himself and had earlier assented enthusiastically to my buying him Counting Crows tickets for his birthday. But I'm not going to speculate about his life or even mine in this space. I'm just going to record what I saw and how I felt about it.

First: Nixon in China. This is my favorite opera of all time, and I have been looking forward to it since I bought season tickets to Opera Colorado last year at this time. I had seen it performed as a concert opera about six years ago, but this was the first time I have seen it staged live. (I first saw a PBS broadcast of the Houston Grand Opera production from the 80s -- but that was years ago and now I don't even have the technology at my house to watch the videotape I made of it). The opera company seemed particularly proud to be staging it -- they've had guys in Nixon masks running about at opera performances and even around town to publicize it.

The company should have been proud. The performance was incredibly successful. The acting was some of the best I've ever seen in opera (I've seen a lot of opera devolve into shtick -- the February performance of Don Pasquale was just that) and the voices didn't suffer for the acting. I think that this sort of performance, where the characters are all based on people from the not too distant past whom we all would recognize, must have great acting. Of course, an opera with a subject like this one could devolve easily into a Saturday Night Live performance -- the staging seems to call for the Nixon character to be just as uncoordinated on stage as he looked on television. But the libretto really liberates the characters from the second dimension and really rounds them out. Each one of them is resolutely in his or her own skin in this opera. Each one of them sees the events of the plot from this or her own point of view, making you wonder some times if any of them are really in the same moral universe. You could really make a case that they are not. Plus, none of them are really occupied with what is happening around them. They are all sort of going through this diplomatic ceremony without any interest in its meaning or any interest in their own role in it. They are merely players. Their inner voices are, paradoxically, what we hear, and they comprise a series of thoughts and memories and feeling that are entirely not about the ceremony in which all of them have gathered to put on. It is such a great opera. I wore a black, mirrored-waist flapper dress by Philosophy by Alberta Ferretti, black Cole Haan high-heeled sandals, and carried a Furla silver clutch.

I saw Blue Man Group in Vegas with my students. I am not sure what to say about it. My impression is that there is supposed to be something more going on than what I think was happening on stage, but it all seemed disjointed. During the performance, words are projected on screen on screen and across the stage. The words that were projected the night I went all seemed to be about communication, about technology, and the convergence of the two to create a world in which all knowledge can be accessed and shared. There were also vignettes about the alienation that technology can produce. One set featured a cafe in the desert, with "neon" signs that continually changed according to the changing character of the diner as it travelled through time. It started off offering gas and food, and ended offering expensive coffee and free Internet.

But what the actors were doing on stage appeared entirely "random," in the words of one of my students. The blue men did skits, made paintings by blowing "neon" paint onto canvas with their mouths, and invited an audience member to the stage, only to have him covered in blue paint, connected to a rope, turned upside down, and pushed into a canvas to create a blue image of his form. Quite a bit was required of the audience in terms of participation. Was this how they were trying to decrease modern alienation and bring us all together? At least four people were called on to stand and wave to the audience during the warm up. Two people, including the aforementioned man, were brought up on to the stage. The rest of us were put to work during the finale conducting five minutes-worth of crape paper pouring over the balcony over our heads and toward the front of the house. The result of all of this is that I remember everything, but have no idea what it all means. I wore my bubble-hem empire waist dress by Velvet, gladiator wedges, and carried my Kooba Olivia bag in lava.

Every time I see Cirque du Soleil, I think to my self that I have to work out more. My students and I saw Mystere in Vegas, as well. It was not as good as other Cirque du Soleil shows I've seen, but it still had everything that I love about that company's product -- a strong background in the European circus tradition, complete with its medieval props and costumes. Cirque du Soleil makes me feel like I've entered into a world created by Goya. Regardless of its title, Mystere was not entirely mysterious, nor was it dark -- which are two moods that I think Cirque du Soleil does so well. However, the movement was incredible, hence my feeling of physical inferiority to the players. Just watching these people, you see how skilled they are -- in dance, in gymnastics, in acrobatics -- all of them seemingly skilled in all types of movement. And all of it is real -- these are technicians. When you see a Cirque du Soleil performance, you don't see half-trained "dancers," you see dancers who have been trained in classical ballet. I wore a gray, silk, Miu Miu dress with empire waist, my gladiator wedges, and carried the Kooba Olivia bag in lava.

I made sure I got home from Vegas early enough to see Robert Plant and Allison Krauss at Red Rocks last night. It was probably the best concert I've ever seen. They performed songs from their album, of course, but they also performed solo songs -- Robert Plant did Led Zeppelin, of course, with Allison Krauss singing back up, and Allsion did bluegrass, including a song from the O Brother, Where art Thou? soundtrack. They had T-Bone Burnett with them, and he did about three of his own songs. I wore skinny jeans, a striped BCBG blouse that ties around the neck, a Stella McCartney canvas jacket, and my blue, sparkly Marc by Marc sandals. I carried the Kooba Olivia bag in lava.

Big Head Todd and the Monsters

Last night we saw Big Head Todd and the Monsters at Red Rocks. It was an excellent concert. The band apparently loves to perform, and they apparently love to preform for Red Rocks crowds, as they looked like they were having the time of their lives last night. Not only that, but it was a three hour-long concert, and nobody opened for them. Part of this, I am sure, is due to the fact that Todd and the Monsters are local boys who got their start at CU. (Really, they got their start in high school at my alma mater -- of which we Rebels are particularly proud). The audience at Red Rocks last night looked like the core of their fan base -- people who remembered them from back when, some of whom brought their children.

As for me, I went to university in another state, so I didn't get to follow their ascendancy in Boulder, but learned about them when I moved back to Colorado in 1993. By the time I first saw them in concert, they were playing venues as large as the old McNichols -- a place suitable for the really famous (Bob Dylan and Paul Simon played there, among others). I like their music, but what I really liked about the concert last night was when they got bluesy. They had a great horn section and started off with some selections deeply rooted in traditional blues. They sent the horns off when they played old Todd, but brought them back later to finish off the concert. Big Head Todd has for a long time collaborated with Hazel Miller, who also performed last night, so her blues background really contributed to what was going on on stage.

At intermission some guys came out to present a giant check to Crocs, the shoe manufacturer, for some charitable work it is doing in the developing world. That's when J looked at the stage and said, "Hey, I think that's T-- from R---." One of the presenters was one of J's business associates. We found out later that T has had a twenty year relationship with the band, and was lately asked to manage it temporarily, while they search for some one to manage them full time. J texted T, "Was that you on stage with the giant check?" and we promptly received a reply saying yes, and would we come back stage? We watched the rest of the concert from the VIP section, just thirty feet behind the drum set.

Improv

Last night we had a late dinner at the Wynkoop and then proceeded downstairs to catch our friend JW performing with Impulse Theater. I had never before been to Impulse Theater, which is a wonder, since I have been friends with various Impulse cast members for at least thirteen years. BW introduced me to JW when we were working together at the Scientific and Cultural Facilities District. She called him the funniest man in the world. JW introduced me to opera and to KA, who introduced me to my Beloved J. (These initials are making my blog read like a bad roman a clef, or, similarly weird in a different way, a story by Kafka. I need to do something about this).

JW recently returned to Impulse Theater. He left it years ago, probably around the time I met him, or maybe earlier. His first tenure was during the time when the improv was called Comedy Sports. He is indeed one of the funniest men in the world (I am lucky to know a few guys who qualify for this honor). He is also wicked smart. Last night's MC accepted my suggestion that the cast do a scene in the tradition of magical realism, and when JW came out wearing a sombrero and proceeded to do the scene entirely in Spanish, I knew I was watching brilliance. Besides the costuming and the linguistic nod to Gabriel Garcia Marquez, the scene included a toothbrush that turned into a bird and flew away and an apparition of the Virgin of Guadalupe, in the bathroom.

Afterward we joined JW and his lovely girlfriend, D, at the Wazee Supper Club, where we talked until they closed the place. They were stacking chairs on tables all around us, but we kept talking. It felt like years ago when we used to go to Damascus every Friday and stay so long after closing arguing and conversing that we became friends with the waitstaff and wound up having to overtip all the time.

We left finally, but we were only the second to last party to leave. On our way out we passed a couple on an early date. They were in that awkward place where they had fallen enough in love to not want to say goodnight, but the romance is too young to suggest something so gauche as to spend the night in bed together.

I wore my See by Chloe, dark gray, drop waist dress with my L.A.M.B. gladiator sandals in gold (four-inch stiletto). I carried my black, Isabella Fiore bag, and tiny, black, silk, no-consequence-designer sweater.

We finally slept at three.

Flight of The Conchords

We saw The Flight of the Conchords in concert last night at the Ellie. We were late getting there for a variety of reasons, mostly that the DCPA parking structure was full -- something that I am usually too paranoid about being late to avoid. We had to park at the convention center, with its endless, winding ramp. None of that matters, of course, at a comedy show. It's just that I am so programmed to be on time at the Ellie because of the opera tradition that prohibits you from being seated after the doors have closed. (Once, when we were at Central City, we saw our friend, JW, slip in through the side door on house right just as the orchestra was beginning the overture. The main doors had been closed. We didn't realize it at the time, but JW had just pushed his way passed an usher who was standing there to prevent his last-second arrival). But there we stood, ten minutes after curtain and the lines for the bar were twice as long as they are at the opera. Another miracle: you could take your drink in to the theater with you. Not so at the opera where we are downing our wine as if it were a frat party just as the doors are closing.

The clientele was decidedly younger than when we usually go to the Elie by an average of about thirty years.

Last night we were seated in the parterre section, farther back and house left of our opera tickets. J was just happy to be away from "Norman," the old money, fifty-year old, bachelor patron who apparently accompanies "Mother" to the opera when he's not sitting in the seat next to ours. He once suggested that J might prefer to be watching football than opera. J nearly got into the second fight I've seen almost break out at the opera.

The seats were good, though, the wine made me warm, and the boys obliged me with a Turandot joke -- I might have been the only person in the theater to get it. I am really a nerd.