I saw Carmen recently–not, alas, with Elena Garanca, the sexy Slav who made a sensation at the premiere of this exceedingly intelligent new production directed by Richard Eyre. But Olga Borodina–the sexy Slav du jour about 15 years ago–remains a fine singer and a decent actress; physically she’s getting a bit matronly for the part, but this is opera, after all. Brandon Jovanovich, making his Met debut as Done Jose, was terrific: sounded great in some of the loveliest tenor arias ever written, and acted even better. I’ve always considered Don Jose a fairly wimpy role, always whining about his mother and his honor, but Jovanovich really mailed it and let you understand his conflict: a perfectly ordinary, conventional guy from the sticks, devoted to Mom, ready to marry the nice girl she chose, just the kind of rule-follower the army wants–until he’s swept away on a tide of sex by this gypsy free spirit he doesn’t understand for one moment (and that sure is mutual; she hasn’t got a clue about him either), so destroyed by the void she leaves him in when she abandons him that death for them both is all that remains. Hot stuff, and Eyre backed it up with every detail, in particular the Spanish Civil War background, used to suggest the perennial conflict between conformity and liberty. I disliked the set, which kept revolving more massive semi-circular scenery onstage, but it worked effectively enough. I’d forgotten, because I don’t listen to opera at home much anymore, just how sublime the music is and how great the libretto: “Libre elle vivait, libre elle mourra”; “nous nous reverrons”–spat out by Jovanovich like a curse, which it is. Carmen was the first opera I really fell in love with (along with Tosca), and it remains a favorite. “It’s really just a musical, isn’t it?” said one of my snootier opera-loving friends once–well, if you mean that it hurtles along with the pace and passion of Gypsy (so to speak) or West Side Story, then I suppose it is. But don’t tell Bizet–or Verdi, for that matter–that opera shouldn’t be popular entertainment!
As part of my reluctant exploration of the 21st century, in February I joined Facebook, Linked In and (God help me) Twitter–the latter the most egregious display of trivial chatter yet to be invented. And I have yet to see that Linked In lives up to its rep as a source of professional contacts. I do see the appeal of Facebook, as virtually everyone I went to high school with seems to belong, and it is fun to see people’s photos, random thoughts, etc. Soon we won’t even have to meet anyone; we’ll merely check out their Facebook “status” to see how they’re doing.
Saw the Philip Pearlstein/Al Held show at the Betty Cuningham Gallery on West 25th Street. I love gallery shows, because they’re small enough to be fully absorbed in one visit. This one had perhaps 20 paintings, and the affinities it subtly revealed between Pearlstein’s nudes and Held’s abstractions were really interesting. They both like deep space, with layered canvases containing lots of important content in the background as well as the foreground. They both favor bright, harsh light and a sense of air, coupled with strong, occasionally lurid colors (eld especially), coupled in Pearlstein’s case with that livid, mottled flesh (sags, stretch marks a specialty–no airbrushed perfection for him!). I could have gone on to other shows–25th Street is packed with galleries–but instead I walked to the High Line and enjoyed seeing its vistas (and its landscape) buried in snow. What a wonderful addition to urban promenading it is; there were quite a few people there even in the dead of winter.
A hasty wrap-up of recent movie viewing. Cold Souls had an intriguing first half, weirdly compelling as it showed people having their souls extracted, but it became a bit plot-bound with some stuff about Russian traffickers that didn’t make a whole lot of sense. Big Fan was a fascinating look at obsession so intense the protagonist can’t even be angry at the football star who beats him up–sharp, morosely funny, oddly compassionate. Shakespeare in Love was even fluffier than I remembered, but so witty and packed with in-jokes (the creepy kid killing rats who turns out to be John Webster, the way Marlowe constantly overshadows the fledgling Shakespeare). Luca enjoyed it, as I thought he would, and it certainly was appropriate to our Bard-heavy theatergoing season.He was less enthralled, though polite, about Waiting for Guffmann, which I think was a little too dry and deadpan for a 14-year-old. Joe and I, however, loved seeing it again; Christopher Guest’s mercilessly accurate yet somehow tender comedies never get old for me.
Tags: Al Held, Big Fan, Carmen, Cold Souls, Philip Pearlstein, Shakespeare in Love, social networks, Waiting for Guffmann
