Philosophers In The Coffee Shop

I still don't get some of the jokes in this one.  Just because I took Intro to Philosophy last year doesn't mean I know much about these guys.  But I do get some of the others.  I wonder if the instructor for that class has seen this at all. 

Leonard Nimoy Is Dead?

*sigh* Yes, one of the world's greatest actors passed away today from a nasty lung disease, and I was quite shocked when I found out.  I didn't grow up a Trekky, but I watched quite a number of the original Star Trek episodes, my favorites being I, Mudd and The Trouble with Tribbles.  He was an icon for millions of nerds.  But would you believe that he actually made a cameo appearance in the third season of the 1950s Dragnet as a young hoodlum being arrested by Joe Friday? 

I'm not a huge fan of him, but I like Spock.  So farewell, intrepid explorer. 

It's About Time!

Finally!  Yonghoon Lee is making his Live in HD debut this fall!  I have never seen him perform live before and now he's going to do it.  He will be singing the role of Manrico alongside Anna Neterebko as Leanora (is she always going to kick-start the season?), Dolora Zajickas as Azucena (she owns the role, I swear) and Dmitri Hvorostovsky as the Count de Luna.  This isn't the first time two of my Favorite Male Opera Singers appeared in the same production (see my 2013 review of Eugene Onegin).  But Yonghoon Lee has never had a performance filmed, at least not in this country.  I'm so psyched!  
His performance of Don Carlo will be broadcast over the radio on April 11th. 

 *fangirl squee*

Anyone Remember This Particular Style Of Poetry?

NOTICE: Some accuracy has been sacrificed in order to fit the poem.  

I made this one up as part an assignment for the home-school writing group.  

Higgelty Piggelty 
Antoine Lavoisier
Discovered oxygen
Boron and lead
Until one day
Came the French Revolution
They took him away and then
Cut off his head.  

Moses On The Silver Screen

         

I have seen Cecil B. DeMille's epic drama The Ten Commandments and the DreamWorks animated feature The Prince of Egypt. Both are cinematic adaptation of the book of Exodus in the Bible, and both are incredibly epic. I have decided to compare and contrast the two. I wanted to compare them with The Greatest Adventure: Stories from the Bible: Moses, but then decided that a) that would be one thing too many here, and b) Sunday School videos are designed for teaching purposes and not so much for entertainment (although I happen to be one of those freaks who watches educational films for fun). But I'm getting off topic here so let's look at the two feature films about Moses. 

 

I will be looking at four major components in this piece: Moses, Rameses, story, and the portrayal of God.

                                     

1. Moses

Moses in DeMille's classic is a heroic character, complete with huge biceps and good looks. He is brother to Rameses in this film. He exudes charisma and is the kind of guy you want to follow. He's portrayed at the beginning as a great prince, almost the heir to the throne (more like a rip-off of Radamès in my own not-so-humble opinion). He has it all; status, leadership, respect, and the love of the princess Nefertari. Of course all of that gets taken away when a) he finds out that his mother is Yocheved and not Pharoah's daughter (named Bithiah in this film), and b) when he kills an Egyptian overseer when the latter beats up Joshua (of the Battle of Jericho fame). He is left to die in the desert and ends up in the land of Midian where he meets Jethro the high priest, and marries the man's eldest daughter Tziporah. He lives as a shepherd for many years until God appears to him in the form of a burning bush. 

 

In the DreamWorks film, Moses is the everyman. He's still a handsome young prince at the beginning of the story, but he's not a heroic character. He's close with his adopted brother Rameses, and the two of them get each other into all sorts of mischief. However, after Moses finds out about his true origins (and accidentally kills an Egyptian overseer who was beating an old man), he flees into the desert. He finds himself in Midian where he meets Tziporah and her sisters, the daughters of Jethro. Moses marries Tziporah and lives as a shepherd until God meets him in the form of a burning bush.  

In both films, Moses finds out about his heritage many years after Yocheved sets him adrift in the basket. In reality, his older sister Miriam asked the princess if she could find a nurse for him. The princess said yes, and Miriam brought Yocheved. Moses would have gone to the palace after he had been weaned (around age six in those days), so he knew who he really was.  The main difference between Moses as done by Charlton Heston and Moses as done by Val Kilmer is that in The Prince of Egypt, Moses grows into his role as a leader.  In The Ten Commandments, he's a born leader.  In real life, he had a stutter which is why his brother Aaron did most of the talking at first. 

2. Rameses

Rameses II is portrayed as the pharaoh of the Exodus in both films. Today, however, he is considered by many scholars to be the least likely candidate. It doesn't help the Pharaohs were considered gods, and so their failures were never recorded by their own people. So we don't really know the identity of the Pharaoh to whom Moses said "Let my People Go!".

       In the 1956 film, Rameses is shown as cold and completely non-caring about anyone but himself. He is cruelty and harshness incarnate. In fact, before Plague No. 10, Moses says to him, “out of your own lips shall come the judgment.” Rameses doesn't stop and think at all and says after Moses has left the room, “Tonight, all the firstborn male Hebrews shall die.” Guess what actually ends up happening?

In the 1998 film, Rameses is a much more tragic figure.  And he has a very close relationship with Moses in the first half of the movie.  He is much more complex in his cruelty, which stems not from being cold-hearted, but from a desire to live up to his overbearing father's expectations. Seti says early on “One weak link can break the chain of a mighty dynasty.” And this frightens Rameses, who does not want to be that weak link that breaks the dynastic chain. He becomes obsessed with this fear, which not only makes him oppress the Israelites even worse than before, but also inevitably leads to his downfall.

3. Story and characters

The Ten Commandments is a four-hour epic drama. The story opens with the massacre of the Hebrews' male infants, moves on to Moses' life in Pharaoh's court, his exile and marriage to Tziporah, and then the details of the Exodus, including the bit with the Golden Calf. I've already made references to it twice, but the bulk of the first half felt like a massive rip-off of Verdi's operas Aïda and Nabucco (not that Nabucco is any more faithful to the Book of Daniel). The second half is more faithful to the historical account, although given the limited technology of the time, the plagues sequence is limited to the Nile turning to blood, hail raining down, and the Angel of Death smiting the firstborn.  We get the Exodus itself, the crossing of the Red Sea, the reception of the Ten Commandments, the Golden Calf, and Moses farewell at the end of his life. 

        The story is very complex, filled with many subplots and a whole bunch of composite and Original Characters. Sometimes this works and other times it doesn't.  An example of an original/composite character that works is Lilia. She is an original character written to be a love interest for Joshua. She is a young a beautiful woman who is captured and made a slave by Dathan. (In real life, Dathan was a dissenter who led a rebellion against Moses during the journey to the Promised Land. In the film, he's a Hebrew turncoat). Lilia endures so much for Joshua's sake and the Golden Calf scene is nearly made a human sacrifice.  She is saved, however, by the timely intervention of Moses and Joshua.  

  Joshua deserves mentioning here. Of all the characters in The Ten Commandments, his was the best done. He has such unshakable faith in the LORD, just like in real life. He will not let Lilia die in the tenth plague (both are firstborn), and despite Dathan's protests, he paints the Blood of the Lamb on the door posts of the turncoat’s house.

An example of a character that didn't quite work was Nefertari. It's not that she was a badly done character; she's a fascinating character. She has to choose between the man she loves (Moses) and the man she marries (Rameses). The problem is that the character seemed like a better fit for an Aïda spin-off than for a Bible retelling (she had Amneris written all over her). It also doesn't help that we don't really know what Nefertari's relationship was Rameses really was. This leaves the door open for some ridiculously dramatic speculation.  

The Prince of Egypt is also an epic but it is a much more intimate drama. The story centers around Moses and his relationship with his adopted brother Rameses. The story opens with Pharaoh's army slaughtering the Hebrew boy babies, and Yochevod setting her infant son adrift in the basket. The basket is retrieved by the bathing Queen Tuya who adopts the child and names him Moses. She already has a little boy names Rameses. Moses and Rameses grow up close, and naturally wreak havoc together. But as the events transpire, the two are separated. When Moses returns after years in the desert, Rameses is Pharaoh, but Moses has been called by God to lead the Israelites out of slavery and into the Promised Land. This puts them at odds.

       Given the advanced technology, this film was able to show a full plagues sequence (yes, I will admit it, that part is my favorite). We also get the Exodus, but only up the Red Sea. And the film with only a brief shot of Moses with the Ten Commandments.

This film sacrificed a lot of historical accuracy, but in the process, it also brought out another important Biblical Truth: The cost of being a disciple.  Moses loses his relationship with Rameses when he decides that God should take precedence in his life.  But he also gains so much more than he left when he leads Israel out of Egypt. 

The only actually OC's in The Prince of Egypt were the high priests of Ra Hotep and Huy (in real life Jannes and Jambres), and these two primarily functioned as comic relief.  Sometimes the antics came off in a way that probably didn't fit the story in some places. That didn't prevent them from being intimidating in their Villain Song “Playing with the Big Boys, Now”, however; good thing Moses snake ate theirs.  Hotep and Huy work well in the film.

Both films expanded the role of Tziporah; The Prince of Egypt especially gave her a prominent role. She's the one who accompanies into Egypt when he goes to confronts Pharaoh. While The Ten Commandments sticks to Aaron accompanying Moses like in real life, Tziporah is seen coming with Moses and staying with him in Goshen. She is also at Sinai when the Israelites sin with the Golden Calf (they used her Greek name in the film for some strange reason). But she stayed in Midian in real life.

       Aaron's role in both films is rather interesting. While The Ten Commandments stuck to what happned, in The Prince of Egypt, his role is reduced and he has lost his faith in God. But both were well done. John Carradine or Jeff Goldblum; I'll take either one.  Miriam does not get much screen time in DeMille's feature, but in the DreamWorks version, is shown as a woman who will not let go of her faith. She sees in Moses who he is and what he is to be, even when he does not at first recognize her.

Both films did beautifully with the plagues sequence.  The 1956 film skims over the bulk of them due to the technical limitations of the day, but the ones it does show are terrifying.  The 1998 film shows all ten, although it telescopes nine months into several days, and shows plagues two through nine all combined into one major disaster.  And they both culminate in the Death of the Firstborn, the most important plague of them all (not only was it the one that convinced Pharaoh to release the Hebrews, it pointed forward to Jesus dying in our place on the cross).  And both films show the Angel of Death as a silent moving cloud.  There is no music in that scene at all.  

                                           

4. Portrayal of God

This is the most important component of the bunch. I care very much about whether or not the director is reverent in their depiction.

     The Ten Commandments features God with the stereotypical booming basso profundo.  I cannot be too hard on the special effects; at the time they were considered cutting edge.  Still, the Burning Bush still merely looks like just a bush with a light placed inside.  But while I found the Pillar of Fire utterly cartoony, I still thought the scene where God writes the Ten Commandments was amazing (maybe it was the words being written out in fiery bursts on rocks that I liked).  
                                                              

In The Prince of Egypt, Val Kilmer's own voice was used for the voice of God.  It makes sense because God often speaks in a still small voice.  The Burning Bush was given a very supernatural feel to it.  In this film, God's presence is very palpable.  He embraces Moses through the fire of the Burning Bush.  And in the Red Sea sequence, the Pillar of Fire actually shoots up out of the water to block the Egyptian army. 

Which of the two do I prefer?  The faith element in The Prince of Egypt feels much more alive and reverent than in The Ten Commandments.  One of biggest themes in the DreamWorks picture is keeping faith even in tough times, whereas DeMille's tale is meant to be an epic.  So with that said, The Prince of Egypt is the one I prefer (certainly it's the one I've seen most often).  That doesn't mean I don't like Cecil B. DeMille's classic; I quite enjoyed it.  But the business with Nefertari was a huge distraction for me and the faith element didn't feel as real.  

To be fair, DeMille and DreamWorks were writing for different audiences.  DeMille was writing for an audience who knew the story inside and out to some degree or another, and was going all out for Verdi-esque spectacle.  The directors of The Prince of Egypt were writing for an audience that wasn't as scripturally literate, and made personal drama the focus of them film.  

Both are worth watching, but as that great sage Brother Juniper once said, "It can't compare withe the Book."                                                                        

LES CONTES d'HOFFMANN: Offenbach's Surreal Masterpiece

The Met recently simulcasted Jaques Offenbach's Les Contes d'Hoffmann, a tale of love thrice sought and thrice thwarted (actually that happens four times).  Italian tenor Vittorio Grigolo sang the title role of Hoffmann, a poet who has a hard time with relationships.  Baritone Thomas Hampson played all four official villains.  Playing the roles of Hoffmann's love interests were coloratura soprano Erin Morley as the doll Olympia, lyric soprano Hibla Gerzmava as the frail Antonia, and mezzo-soprano Christine Rice as the voluptuous Giulietta.   Kate Lindsey was the Muse of Poetry/Nicklausse.  

The plot-line is a little tricky to describe, so I will try my best given that each act is devoted to a different woman.  It opens with a prologue where Hoffmann is in a bar below a theater where the prima donna Stella has been performing in Mozart's Don Giovanni.  He is in love with Stella and wants to see her after the show.  He begins to tell of three disastrous love affairs as he is drinking.  
       Act 1 talks about Olympia, a woman too perfect to be real (translated into ordinary language, she's a life-sized wind-up toy).  She is the invention of the eccentric scientist Spalanzani.  Hoffmann falls in love with Olympia believing her to be the scientist's daughter (it doesn't help that Spalanzani himself views her as such). Coppélius, Spalanzani's partner, asks him for his share of the profits, and the latter gives him a bad check.  Coppélius also gives Hoffmann a pair of magic glasses so that he may perceive Olympia as a real woman.  Spalanzani throws a party, during which his introduces Olympia.  The doll sings for the guests (and has to be rewound every time her mechanism runs out of power).  Hoffmann dances with her, and in the process his glasses break.  Coppélius rushes in, furious at being cheated and destroys the doll, while the guests mock Hoffmann for falling in love with a toy.  
       Act 2 is devoted to Antonia, a frail young singer.  She is the daughter of Crespel and a famous diva.  But while she has her late mother's talent, she is also very sickly and the effort involved in singing will no doubt kill her*.  Antonia loves Hoffmann and longs to see him again.  He comes and the two rejoice.  But Crespel disaproves, and to make matters worse there is an insidious quack who calls himself Dr. Miracle.  He was the one who killed Antonia's mother, and thus he is a threat to Antonia herself.  Hoffmann and Antonia make plans to run away, and though it's a great sacrifice, Antonia agrees to give up singing.  However, Miracle intervenes and makes Antonia sing.  The effort kills her and she dies in Hoffmann's arms.  
       Act 3 focuses on Giulietta, a notorious courtesan.  She has already stolen the shadow of a man named Schlémil, and the sleazy Dapertutto bribes her with a large diamond, asking her to steal Hoffmann's reflection.  Giulietta proceeds to seduce Hoffmann and succeeds in stealing his reflection.  Schlémil, Giulietta's previous lover, challenges Hoffmann to  a duel, which to which the latter agrees.  They fight and Schlémil is killed.  Hoffmann goes to claim Giulietta as his own, but she has already left laughing in the arms of another man.  
      In the epilogue Hoffmann is totally smashed and wants to forget.  Apparently (at least according to Hoffmann's friend Nicklausse), all three women are different aspects of Stella.  Stella comes in and Hoffmann says "Are you Olympia?....Shattered.  Are you Antonia?....Dead.  Are you Giulietta?....Damned."  That last one puts Stella off and she leaves on the arm of another man (the fourth "villain" Lindorf).  

While I will not argue that Kate Lindsey did an amazing job with the role, I will say that the Muse of Poetry is the real villain of the piece, the four official villains are merely pawns that she uses.  She  looks like she is deliberately setting Hoffmann up for failure.  And even at the very end when she tells Hoffmann to take comfort in his creative genius, I still want to see her banished to Hell.  I swear she kept Antonia within Dr. Miracle's reach on purpose.  She came off as more of a controlling jerk trying to keep Hoffmann in her power.  

Vittorio Girgolo as Hoffmann?  *squee* I love him.  I cannot find fault with his performance.  And he is so hot.  
     It's a little hard to describe the performances of the women in the roles of the love interests, except to say that they were awesome.  And I had never seen Thomas Hampson do anything as hard as the four official villains.  That is a real tour de force.  In fact, him and Grigolo both had the hardest parts of the opera.  The two of them are onstage much of the time. 

The production was done by Bartlett Sher, who also did Le Comte Ory, The Barber of Seville, L'Elisir d'Amore, and will next season be doing Otello.  The opera was updated to a surreal 1920's location.  The surrealism itself was done beautifully, but some of the costumes that a few chorus members were wearing in Acts 1 and 3 screamed NSFW.  

Lovely performance, but some of the costumes need work.  
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*If someone has a really bad cerebral hemorrhage, any really serious effort can make the blood pressure rise to dangerous levels.   

Top 12 Favorite Male Opera Singers

Yes, I know I said I leave it at Top 11, but I could not resist adding one more.  I'd better not make a habit of this, so I'll leave it at twelve. 

Here we go.  

Number 12: Vittorio Grigolo
A ravishing Italian tenor who has been a mainstay at the Met for quite some time now, he recently made a splash portraying some of the most famous roles in the French repertoire.  I don't remember when exactly I first heard (and heard of) him.  I do know that he has performed the Duke of Mantua in Rigoletto and the title role in Mozart's little-known gem La Clemenza di Tito at the Met.  And I have heard him sing the roles of Rodolfo in La Boheme and in the title role in Les Contes d'Hoffmann (which I saw in a simulcast). 

Number 11: Ildar Abdrazakov
This handsome Russian bass has performed numerous times for the Met in recent years.  I saw him live for the first time in the encore simulcast of Borodin's Prince Igor, even though I had seen him on YouTube and heard him over the radio before then (I forgot precisely when I first heard of him).  His most recent Met performances that I can remember off the top of my head are Raimondo in Lucia di Lammermoor, Henry VIII in Anna Bolena (what possessed him to do a story that clearly kriffs up the history something awful?), and the title roles of Mozart's Don Giovanni and Prince Igor.  He has also performed the role of the demon Mephistopheles in various versions of the Faust story.  

Number 10: Rachid Ben Abdeslam 
He's a rarity in more ways than one.  First off he's a countertenor, and second off he's from Morocco which is in Africa, and there are very few African opera singers.  He is a handsome and amazingly talented singer whom I have only heard of within the past year.  The only role that I have seen him perform is Nirenus in the Met's newest production of Handel's Giulio Cesare which was simulcasted two seasons ago.  Heck, that's the only role I know of that he has performed.  

Number 9: Yonghoon Lee
He's a sexy Korean tenor who has taken the world by storm with his amazing voice.  For some reason he always gets this tormented look on his face when he sings.  He is most famous for performing the title role of Verdi's Don Carlo and Don Jose in Bizet's Carmen, both of which he's performed at the Met (Don Carlo was his debut role for the Met back 2010).  He is also known for singer Cavaradossi in Tosca and Calaf in Turandot.  He comes back to the Met this season in Don Carlo, and next season will finally make his Live in HD debut in the role of Manrico in Il Trovatore.  I first heard of him while browsing YouTube. 

Number 8: Hyung Yun
I have seen this hot Korean baritone live thrice.  He has performed for Met in the role of Manon's cousin in Massenet's Manon at the Met.  But he has performed for Madison Opera as well.  He debuted in '09 in the role Valentin, Marguerite's brother in Gounod's Faust (which I saw on a school field trip), Escamillo the bullfighter in Carmen (that one I didn't see), the title role in Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin (view the November 2011 post for more info), and as Renato Ankarstrom in Verdi's Un Ballo in Maschera (see the Verdi Weekend post).  


                                  

Number 7: Jonas Kaufmann
A versatile singer who has sung everything from the lyrical title role of Faust to the Wagnerian role of  Siegmund in Die Walkure, there is little this dreamboat of a German tenor can't take on.  I first heard of him while browsing YouTube.  I have heard him over the radio in the title role of Wagner's Parsifal.  And I have seen live as Faust and as Siegmund.  For some reason he also performed the title role of Massenet's Werther, which has the most annoying romantic hero in all of nineteenth-century literature.  At least he was trying to do something with the character.  

Number 6: Mariusz Kwiecien  
This Polish barihunk is the opera world's bad boy.  He is most famous for his portrayal of the notorious seducer in Don Giovanni, which he has performed at the Met several times.  He (surprise, surprise), is also famous for doing productions that have him go shirtless.  In addition to Don Juan, I have heard him in the role of Enrico in Lucia di Lammermoor (the role in which I first heard of him), Belcore in L'Elisir d'Amore, and the title role in Eugene Onegin.  In February of 2010, I had the privilege of seeing him live at Lyric Opera of Chicago as Count Almaviva in Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro.  

Number 5: Piotr Beczala
He's the operatic boyfriend type.  This Polish tenor's boy-next-door good looks and lyrical voice make him one of opera's most sought-after artists.  I have heard him over the radio in such roles as Rodolfo in Puccini's La Boheme.  I saw him Live in HD as des Grieux in Massenet's Manon, the lascivious Duke of Mantua in Verdi's Rigoletto (I first heard him do that role over the radio back in '09), and most recently as the doomed poet Vladimir Lensky in Eugene Onegin.  He has also performed the role of Faust.  

Number 4: David Daniels
This American countertenor is the sexy Baroque specialist.  I first heard him when I was sixteen.  He was singing the role of Orfeo in Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice.  I saw him Live in HD when he sang the role of Prospero in the Met's Baroque pastiche The Enchanted Island.  I have since seen him as the title role in Handel's Giulio Cesare.  Seriously, he should come to Madison and perform.  

Number 3: Kyle Ketelsen
The local guy.  Yes, this fantabulous bass-baritone lives in my own hometown of Sun Prairie Wisconsin.  I first saw him back in '08 when performed the role of Raimondo in Lucia di Lammermoor at the Overture center.  The following year (my senior year), he came to my high school to do a master class.  Then the year after that, I saw him live at Lyric Opera as the title character in Le Nozze di Figaro.  The icing on the cake?  Because my mom had won the tickets as a prize, part of that included a backstage tour of the Lyric Opera, including getting to meet Mr. Ketelsen in person!  

Number 2: Dmitri Hvorostovsky 
 A Russian baritone with huge female following, this guy is opera's silver fox.  I first heard him over the radio when I was fifteen.  It was my first exposure to not only Eugene Onegin, but also my first exposure to Russian opera period.  I have since heard him in the roles of King don Carlo in Ernani, M. Germont in La Traviata, Renato Ankarstrom in Un Ballo in Maschera, Rodrigo de Posa in Don Carlo, and as the title role in Rigoletto.  I would love to have him come and perform for Madison.  

 

Number 1: Juan Diego Florez
The bel-canto specialist.  This hot Peruvian tenor not only contributed to my love of opera, he also sparked my Peru obsession.  Unlike the others on this list, I first heard of this singer while watching a biographical documentary on the life of Luciano Pavarotti.  This guy was talking about singing the nine High C's in Donizetti's La Fille du Regiment, which I later saw simulcasted in '08 (he sang the male lead).  I have since heard him as Nemorino in L'Elisir d"Amore, and I have a copy of his performance as Ernesto in Don Pasqaule.  I have also had the immense pleasure of seeing him live in HD again as the lady-killing Count in Rossini's Le Comte Ory.  He sang Don Ramiro in La Cenerentola at the end of last season.  

Vittorio Grigolo

I can't say when I first heard of this sexy Italian tenor; and it has been a few years since I first heard him sing.  Vittorio Grigolo has long been a favorite at the Met where he has performed Rodolfo in La Boheme, the title roles in La Clameza di Tito and Les Contes d'Hoffmann, and the Duke of Mantua in Rigoletto.  I saw him as Hoffmann just this past weekend. 

I love this guy.  If you haven't heard him, you need to rectify that right now.  He is too sexy to not go see.  And his voice can turn on four hundred women at once.