ANFSTD

Three teenagers are in Juvenile Court.  The judge asks the first boy what happened.  The boy replies, "All I did your Honor was break a window, steal a bike, and throw peanuts in the lake."  The second boy says, "All I did your Honor was break a window, steal a bike, and throw peanuts in the lake."  The third boy says, "And all I did your Honor was break a window and steal a bike."  "Did you throw peanuts in the lake?", asks the judge.  The boy replies, "I'm Peanuts."

Remembering a Beloved Singer

 

He was not the one who introduced me to opera, but he was the one through whom I became enamored of the genre.  In February of 2007 my mother and I were coming home from the Tack Sale in Arlington, Wisconsin.  She decided to turn on the opera, and the broadcast that day was Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin.  Dmitri Hvorostovsky sang the title role alongside soprano Renee Flemming as Tatyana.  It was the first time I had ever heard of a Russian opera, and the first time I'd heard of this baritone.  

I quickly became an avid fan of Dima and could not get enough of his suave seductive voice.  His white hair added to his appeal.  I started watching YouTube videos that featured his performances, and bought CDs and DVDs of  his pefromances

My first time seeing him live (sort of) was the Live in HD encore of Verdi's opera Ernani.  His performance of King Don Carlo was flawless.  His red brocade costume helped considerably.  A month later my sister and I saw him as M. Germont in the simulcasted performance on April 14th of La Traviata.  My sister does not like opera like I do, but she loved Dima's talent; she praised his breath control above everything else.
        I saw the simulcast of Un Ballo in Maschera twice (on the day and the encore).  I think Dima's performance of Renato Anckarström's Act 3 aria was the highlight of his performance there.  He communicated very well the grief of a betrayed husband who wonders why his wife would cheat on him with his best friend.  Although in that aria Renato  is more angry at his friend for breaking their bond of trust.  

And I always looked forward to hearing Dima over the radio.  My most favorite of all the radio broadcasts that the Met has ever done was the broadcast of Verdi's Don Carlo on my birthday in April of 2015.  Dima sang the role of Rodrigo in that performance.  Fun fact, he sang Rodrigo's Act 3 aria when he won at the Cardiff Singer of the World Competition in 1989. 

I loved his performance in October of 2015 of the role of Count di Luna in Il Trovatore.  That had to be the best operatic performance I had ever seen him in ever.  By then he had been diagnosed with the brain tumor.  I think most of the Met audience knew of it as well, because they gave him a massive ovation the minute he first stepped out onto the stage.  At the curtain call, the orchestra showered him with white roses.

When I heard he would doing a recital at the Lyric Opera of Chicago, my mother and I got tickets to go see him.  Seeing him live on the stage as opposed to just in simulcasts was a very unique experience for me. To heard broadcasts, recordings, or watch videos of a performer you like so much is one thing.  To see them live live as opposed to recordings is another thing.  I will never forget Dima singing the Russian folk song"Farewell happiness".  It was just him singing without accompaniment into the auditorium.  The memory of it still gives me goosebumps to this day.  


Dmitri Hvorostovksy will always be my most favorite singer of all time. 

Never Seen That One Before

I would normally go into a long spiel about the performance, but these bits stuck out the most to me, so I figuredI'd discuss them here. 

Has anyone else seen a performance of Carmen that showed the Act 1 Cat fight?  Or had Don Jose's superior officers rip the insignia off his shoulders after he lets Carmen go?  Or even had Carmen pull the knife in Act 4 halfway through climactic scene?  Neither did I until last night when I saw Madison Opera's production last night. 

I've seen Carmen a thousand times before, on video and on screen.  But seeing it live onstage is a whole new ballgame.  You're in the same room as the man who's angrily demanding that the harlot who seduced him come with him or else.  So the intensity is twice what it would be on video or in the cinema (It gave my poor boyfriend the shock of his life).  

Good performance all around (I could not find fault with the singers at all), but some of the choices the director made were a trifle odd.  Having Carmen pull the knife first changes the dynamics of the entire scene.  I think it meant Carmen was saying that she'd fight Don Jose if she had to, but it gives him an excuse for killing her other than jealousy.  Maybe it was for dramatic purposes that they showed Carmen and Manuelita beating each other up.  Still, there's already the chorus of factory girls giving the report to the soldiers, so it probably Coals to Newcastle to show the two women duking it out onstage.  
       Ripping the insignia off wasn't what I was expecting, but it made sense in context.  Don Jose let Carmen escape and has failed in his duties, and as a result gets a demotion (and a prison term to boot).  Of course why he would get an instant demotion is something that I would like to know.  

Grant Couldn't Sing

As an opera lover and history buff, I sometimes wonder what it might be like to write an opera about the American Civil War.  Now this would be very tricky, and if any of you have read my previous post on the issue, you know that I have some very strong opinions about operas based of historical characters.  Still the concept is interesting, and if treated properly you could get something amazing.  


Now one of my most favorite figures in American History (and in all of history for that matter), is Union General Ulysses S. Grant.  I've recently started wondering what if you could write him into an opera.  Would he be a tenor role or a baritone role?  Would he be the main character or a minor one?  And what would his music sound like?  Would it be martial or simple?  
       The answer to that question lies in some of Grant's own personality traits.  He was a very quiet man whom one friend described ad being "plain as an old stove".  Another thing about Grant is that he was badly tone deaf.  He once boasted that he recognized only two tunes; "One was Yankee Doodle, and the other wasn't," as he said.  Obviously you can't do much with this guy.

So then what do you do?  You make Grant a speaking role.  It's not uncommon in opera to have a character that speaks instead of sings, Njegus from The Merry Widow is one such character.  The other thing you do is make his leitmotif Yankee Doodle.  It was the only tune that Grant recognized, so there's no point in making an original leitmotif for him.  

I think that about covers it.

Fast And Furious DUNKIRK Doesn't Let You Breathe

 Suddenly Downfall feels like a kids' movie.  

That sounds strange, but Downfall at least was a typical movie.  By that I mean that it paced itself in such a way that we could explore the characters and see where they're coming from.  

Well, Dunkirk is not that kind of movie. This is a very different kind of movie, one that is insanely difficult to pull off properly.  This is not a story about characters and how they tick.  The moment the film starts it cranks up the action to eleven until about the final six minutes.  It does not allow you to digest what is happening right in front of you.  
      Christopher Nolan wanted to capture the terror and desperation that was a feature of the evacuation at Dunkirk in 1940.  Does he succeed with this objective?  Yes, I would say he did.  You follow the British soldiers as they face enemy bombardment, choppy seas, and dwindling time while they await rescue from Navy-commandeered civilian boats.  You feel the terror that the men felt during those tense hours, whether it's escaping a sinking ship or dodging enemy bullets.  There is not much in the way of dialogue in this film, no speeches, or passing of photos, or anything of that nature.  It's all the soldiers trying to get out of France and get back home to regroup.  It's as if someone went back in time and installed cameras everywhere in order to capture the event in real time. 
      Unfortunately the biggest drawback to this method of storytelling is the sheer amount of nightmare fuel.  War films are going to have frightening images anyway considering the very nature of war itself.  But there are at least three instances of onscreen drownings, four cases of being killed by dive-bombers at point blank range, not to mention numerous deaths by explosions due to U-Boats and mines.  Obviously this is not a movie for the faint of heart, let alone children.  

Normally I would go on about how much of it was historically accurate, but I do not know very much about Dunkirk.  I will have to back and research it again before I can make any judgments in that regard.  

So how do I rate this film?  As a well-thought-out story depicting the frantic hours of the Rescue at Dunkirk, I'd give it a 10 out 10.  However, the sheer intensity of it means that you're at the edge of your seat virtually the whole time.  So this isn't a film that I would rent for a movie night.  In fact, I think this one is best appreciated seeing it once in the cinema.  Trying to see it over and over again will most likely diminish the potency of the story. 



 

 

H.M.S. PINAFORE: Sailors, Class, And Seafaring Shenannigans

H.M.S. PINAFORE is the satirical opera by Gilbert and Sullivan that pokes fun at the British social system of the day.  The timeless struggle between the classes is played out in the deck of the titular ship while she is in port.  This opera is one of the three most well-known of Gilbert and Sullivan's works, and like The Pirates of Penzance, the most famous tune is the baritone's patter song.  

This being a Gilbert and Sullivan farce, I can only give the most basic of plot summaries.  

Captain Corcoran of the H.M.S. Pinafore has arranged a marriage between his daughter Josephine and the prancing Lord of the Admiralty Sir Joseph Porter.  But Josephine is in love with the lowly sailor Ralph Rackstraw, and while the crew and Sir Joseph's numerous female relatives are all in favor of the match, naturally the captain and Sir Joseph are not.  Of course in the end everything is solved with a Gilbert and Sullivan plot twist.  

I cannot name a single moment in this performance that was not pure gold.  The whole thing from the opening chorus of sailors to the triple wedding at the end.  The only complaint I do have is that the gun that Ralph tires to use on himself was given to him by the boatswain rather the obnoxious Dick Deadeye.  Then again, perhaps there were other reason for it.  

This is my shortest review because right now I cannot access YouTube on my machine.  

Met Summer Encores

The various Madison movie theaters have finally gotten around to doing the Met Live in HD Summer Encores. I'm not going tonight, but I may recommend that my parents do so.  It's The Pearl Fishers tonight, but as much as I love Diana Damrau and Mariusz Kwiecien, I need to take care of some stuff at home.

The Met Live in HD Summer Encores are for the benefit of people who either couldn't make it during the regular season, or else they loved a particular performance so much that they want to see it again.  I'm not too fond of Nabucco because I feel that Verdi wasted a perfectly good plot (although the Chorus of Hebrew Slaves is certainly joy and a delight to listen to).  I think I may go to either Macbeth or Carmen.  I tried to take my mother to Macbeth but there was a malfunction in the projector that meant it couldn't be shown.  Carmen I just happen to love to death, even though I have a bee in my bonnet about the amount of sex and feminist ideas people like to put in it.  

I am so glad that the Madison cinemas are doing this.  

ANFSTF

A Martian goes to a car dealership.  He says to the salesman, "I want the body green, the seats green, the steering wheel green, and the windows tinted green."  "Okay," says the salesman.  The Martian takes the car home and shows his wife.  "It's lovely," she says, "But what's with the color?".  "Flesh tones," says the Martian. 

Medieval Times Round 2

Last year I made a list of the pros and cons of the Medieval Times Dinner and Tournament just outside of Chicago.  I went there for the second time on Sunday and here is what I have to say on it.  

The tournament itself is a lot of fun.  I am a sucker for horse shows and unfortunately I do not go to them as much as I would like.  You have a group of six guys in roles of knights performing all sorts of crazy stunts on horseback, and then later duking it out on foot.  Now it's scripted in advance which knight is going to win because you're dealing with an animal that weighs two tons and has hooves that can break your skull.  Having ridden horses myself, I know precisely how dangerous working with these animals can be (I was bitten by the same horse twice).  I really have to admire the skill and nerve that these guys have, I mean I could never pull off a spear throw on horseback!  But these knights can nail it with seemingly no effort whatsoever.  
      Also, the guys playing the knights would've needed at least two decades of training in order to do the sorts of stunts they perform in the tournament.  I'm guessing that the men cannot be any younger than twenty eight nor any older than thirty seven.  And then the knights have to fight in hand-to-hand combat, so this is certainly not something for your average 10-year-old in 4-H.  But it is something worth seeing. 
          
Medieval Times has a fixed menu of tomato soup, Texas Toast, half a roast chicken, corn-on-the-cob, baked potatoes, and whatever the dessert of the day is.  The food is good, although it is a little inauthentic.  Potatoes, tomatoes, and corn did not come to Europe until the rediscovery of America at the end of the 15th Century.  But then again you'd be hard pressed to get the average 21th Century American to try things like Roseye* and Roast Fowl in Cameline Sauce, so a bit of a tough break there.  Texas Toast is also not quite authentic, but it could also be a reference to the bread trenchers common to that time period.  The size of the chicken is much more manageable than last time although I still couldn't finish it.  There is a minor bit of authenticity as there is no silverware, so you have to eat with your hands.  

I still have a few complaints, in particular the noise and the paper crowns.  The announcer's loud shouting makes it hard for me to hear myself and gives me sensory overload within the span of a few minutes.  Thankfully I had earplugs this time so the noise was relatively tolerable.  Still, I was so startled when the announcer abruptly said that there would be a "knighting ceremony" that I made a dash for the other side of the building.  
       And I still don't like the paper crowns.  The color of the crowns correspond to whichever knight you will be rooting for (Red, Black and White, Yellow, Blue, Red and Yellow, or Green).  I'm not worried about whether or not the crown matches my clothes; if I'm given enough notice I can find an outfit that will match it.  But I personally feel that paper crowns are more appropriate for children than adults.  I felt very uncomfortable wearing the crown because of this.  

The fair outside the dining area/arena is so-so.  I love shopping and buying souvenirs, but unfortunately most of the stuff being sold tends to be either thirty-dollar knick knacks that I have no place to put, expensive-yet-obligatory T-Shirts, shot glasses that no one ever really uses, or stuff aimed at children under the age of ten.  That's not to say I can't find something I like.  Snow-globes are fun every now and then.  Last year the shopping stalls were selling peacock feather fans (a perfect addition to my diva outfit).  And there is always some kind of jewelry that I can get for my sister.  
    And then there is a booth for getting swords and daggers.  This is the most expensive souvenir anyone can get and you would outright have to plan months in advance to get one of these.  And you also have to have a place to put such a thing.  Considering that these are weapons we're talking about, it is certainly an adults-only booth.  Not that I'm complaining or anything, if I had some place in my house to put one of those swords or daggers, I'd get one.  I remember when I was thirteen I wanted a replica of Legolas' longbow from the film adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings novels.  I just want to be able to get one of those swords without busting my bank.

Other things worth noting are as follows:

1. There is a falconer who lets a Peregrine Falcon fly over the heads of the audience.  This is something that would appeal to my ornithology-loving older brother.  

2. The king character looks like he could be either Ar-Pharazôn from Tolkien's The Silmarillion or else Denethor.  While not necessarily bad, I still can't help noting the similarity in appearance. 

3. You get called either "my lord" if you're a man or "my lady" if you're a woman.  This can either be cute, amusing, or irritating depending on your perspective.  I personally found it annoying.   

4. There is a story in the tournament involving the herald of a northern king.  This particular rider looks like the offspring of an Uruk and an Easterling and is about as scrupulous.  

5. The knights' colors are all based off of real-life heraldry symbols.  For example, the Blue Knight gets his colors from the Fench Fleur de Lis.  The Red and Yellow Knight is inspired by old Germanic symbols.  And the Red Knight is modeled off of what appears to be a combination of the heraldry symbols of Castilla and León.  

On a scale of 1 to 10, I'm giving Medieval Times Dinner and Tournament a 7.  The tournament is the best part on account of being a superbly executed display of agility and guts.  And the food is good even if it is on the inauthentic side.  But the noise levels are way too overpowering for my liking and require earplugs in order to be tolerable.  And I still find the paper crowns very kiddish.  The fair is okay depending on what you're looking for, although I still have a difficult time finding something that I like amidst the collectables and kids' toys.  The place is still fun, but it's not going to be on my own personal destinations list.  Although if my boyfriend asks me to come with him again, then I'll do so.  

Oh, and for anyone reading this who was at the 4:30 performance on Sunday, June 4th, if you heard some weirdo shouting "Fredericksburg!" and "Chickamauga!", that was me.  Don't ask me why I did that.  
__________________________________________________________________________
*Fried Fish with Roses and Almonds.  You can find the recipe in the cookbook Fabulous Feasts: Medieval Cookery and Ceremony.

High Society, Marriage, And Mayhem In Vienna

 If you've never heard of Richard Strauss' opera Der Rosenkavalier, where have you been?  This opera could be considered the early 20th Century counterpart to Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro.  And it's not hard to see why; you've got a lonely noblewoman, a teenage boy with the hots for said noblewoman, you have the pretty teenage girl whom the boy ends up with in the end, and you've got the lascivious baritone character.  And there are all sorts of crazy deceptions and shenanigans before it gets cleared at the end.  
    Despite their parallels Rosenkavalier and Fiagro are two entirely different pieces.  Besides the obvious musical differences, Figaro is a wacky and lighthearted rom com with the lascivious Count recognizing that he messed up and reconciling with his wife.  Rosenkavalier by contrast is a more sophisticated piece with a lot of bittersweet elements relating to the Marschallin and the passing of time.  

Today's performance of Der Rosenkavalier featured soprano Renee Flemming and mezzo-soprano Elīna Garanča in their final performances of their signature roles or the
Marschallin and her teenage lover the Count Octavian.  Soprano Erin Morley was the Fraulein Sophie von Faninal, the sixteen-year-old girl who falls in love with Octavian.  And baritone Günther Groissböck was licentious and overbearing Baron Ochs (with a name like that, what do you expect?).

The plot has many twists and turns so I'm going to give a very basic synopsis.  The thirty two-year-old Marschallin has been carrying on an affair with the seventeen-year-old Count Octavian for some time.  However, the Marschallin knows the affair will not last much longer because she is already married and fifteen years older than Octavian.  When the boorish Baron Ochs comes to talk about his engagement to the young and pretty Sophie von Faninal, the Marschallin sends Octavian to deliver the traditional gift of a silver rose to the bride-to-be.  Octavian does this willingly, but when he sees Sophie for the first time, he falls instantly in love with her.  Horrified at the prospect of Sophie marrying a creep like Ochs, Octavian becomes determined to protect her at all costs.  And a lot of wild and crazy hijinks ensue before the final trio.  

This new production updated the setting from the mid-18th Century to the year 1910 (the year the opera first premiered).  The idea behind the production was the theme of time passing.  In 1910 the Austro-Hungarian Empire was in its final days, and political tensions throughout Europe were sowing the seeds of World War I.  It's as if the production is saying that the world of Marschallin and Octavian is going to get blown away by bloody carnage in four short years (yikes!). 
    Act 1 is in the Marschallin's spacious bedchamber with it's various antechambers and mid-19th Century architecture.  Footmen open and close each of the double doors in almost perfect unison whenever someone enters or leaves.  At one point the Marschallin recieves guests in the room, including an Italian tenor (performed in this production by Matthew Polenzani channeling Enrico Caruso). 
     Act 2 takes place in Herr von Faninal's much more spartan house with grey walls and an ancient Greek battle scene adorning the upper wall.  And von Faninal somehow has enough money and egotism to have two massive anti-aircraft guns in his living room.  Patient servants struggle to put the finishing touches on Sophie's wedding dress while she's fidgeting excitedly waiting for her bridegroom.  The baron's soldiers drink and brawl while von Faninal's majordomo tired to stop their rowdy behavior. 
     And then Act 3 is set in an overly decorated brothel, complete with slightly dim lighting and borderline nauseating 19th Century erotic pictures.  Prostitutes in little more than bodices and stockings revel with soldiers in full uniform.  A proprietor who looks like the great-grandfather of Dr. Frank N. Furter from The Rocky Horror Picture Show (and is just as creepy I might add), assists Octavian who wants to teach Ochs a lesson.  "Apparitions" in the form of half naked men randomly walking in and out of the room and nightmare fuel/brain bleach images of dancing harlots frighten the Baron (and me). 

Renee Flemming fits the role of the Marschallin like a glove.  This is the only time I will ever see her perform the role, but she was superb.  And while the Marschallin doesn't appear much (she dominates Act 1, but is absent in Act 2 and only appears toward the end of Act 3), her character is very rich and layered.  And Flemming knows how to bring out the range of emotions very well.  In Act 1 in particular, the Marschallin's mood shifts between happy, sad, annoyed, nervous,amused, delighted, it's no wonder that Flemming calls the role demanding.  The Marschallin is married, but her husband is away at war much of the time, and so she's desperately lonely.  This may explain her consuming obsession with time and fear of growing old.  But she also knows that Octavian will leave her for a girl closer in age to him, and that it will be better for both of them if their love affair ends.  And it does in a glorious trio. 
    This is the third time I have seen Elīna Garanča Live in HD.  This is also her last performance as Octavian.  This role is a very demanding role for mezzo because there is a lot of music, and Richard Strauss' music isn't the easiest to sing.  But Garanča nailed this role.  She is very convincing as a boy, although it was easier to believe she was a boy playing a girl in Act 1 than in act 3.  While Octavian has frequently been compared to the page boy Cherubino in Le Nozze di Figaro, his character is vastly different.  Unlike Cherubino, Octavian is a nobleman.  While he is a hormonal seventeen-year-old boy who wants to live in the now, he now has more responsibilities and needs to grow up.  From the looks of it, Octavian's father must have died because otherwise he wouldn't have the title of Count already.  
     Erin Morley is a relatively new performer whom I have only just heard recently.  She was very good as Sophie, although I am getting tired of the popular trope of making heroines feisty.  But that minor annoyance didn't mean that I hated Morley's performance.  In fact, she was splendid.  Even if Sophie is not as big a role as Octavian, it's still demanding and requires someone like Morley to handle the music and acting.  Sophie sticks up for herself when she says that she won't marry a man who doesn't love her.  It should be worth noting that Sophie is initially enthusiastic about the marriage until Ochs himself shows up.  And when he starts examining her like a prize mare instead of properly kissing her hand when he meets her, that's when she protests.  
      And now we come to Günther Groissböck as the Baron Ochs.  Along with Octavian, this role is a very demanding one.  Not only does the baron have a huge range (low E flat to high G sharp), but this production really amped up the physical action.  Ochs is a boor, a creep, and treats everyone around him like dirt, even those he considers his equals.  Devoid of empathy and  tenderness, he brags about his engagement to the Marschallin while harassing the disguised Octavian, only wants Sophie because of her father's bank account, and acts like he's been mortally injured when he receives a very minor flesh wound.  And Groissböck nailed this role.  

This performance was a success, and a good way for two of opera's greatest stars to say good bye to signature roles. 

HOLY MOSES!

Here I am wondering if my favorite Russian baritone will come back to the stage, and wouldn't you know it, he does a surprise performance at the Met's 50th Annniversay-At-Lincoln-Center Gala!  Either Dima is made of iron, or else he's got Rainbow Dash's determination. 

Addendum on Documentaries Post

As I've been binging on the Space Race (and right in the middle of finishing a Titanic/Eastland project no less!), I have made a couple of further observations about documentaries.  I did not mention these in my main post on the topic and so I will speak of them here.  

The first thing I talked about was listening to how writers use the language in the documentary.  A good writer will be precise in his language and back up his assertions with facts. 
    Sometimes you will get a piece about something in history or science that isn't very well-known.  This is to be expected as history and science are always on the move.  But beware of titles that say "The Untold Story", "The True/Real Story", "The Forgotten Story", or anything like that.  Titles like these sound dramatic and may get the viewer interested, but they make an assertion that may or may not be true.  
        I have read and reread a book called The Sinking of the EASTLAND: America's Forgotten Tragedy.  This is one of the few cases in which the "forgotten" label is justified.  The capsizing has become largely obscure despite happening right in the middle of the Chicago Harbor.  So when the book says that it's a forgotten tragedy, I can believe it.  
        Last week I saw a documentary called "Apollo 13: The Real Story".  How are the makers sure that it's the "real story"?  Most people in the U.S. know about the incident and so to try to claim that there is a real story is foolish at best. 

Which brings me to my second point.  Take note of the documentary's tone.  Every now and then you will get a documentary written by someone with an axe to grind be it political, social, or whatever.  When that happens you sometimes get conspiracy theories.  And conspiracy theories will be heavy handed and unpleasant.  Last week I tried watching a documentary called Secret Space: The Soyuz 1 Coverup.  I wanted to know about the Soyuz 1 disaster that killed Russian cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov.  The documentary indulged in the Ilyushin myth and even claimed that Yuri Gagarin's death in a plane crash was engineered by Brezhnev.  And the narration throughout the documentary was harsh and unsubtle.  
     It is true that the Soviet government tried to cover up a lot of things.  But the conspiracy theories and overall harsh tone of the documentary made it unwatchable.  

I like documentaries that are objective with their language.  If you want to say that something is the "Untold/Real/Forgotten Story" or whatever, you have to be able to back up your assertion.  While something may be genuinely obscure like in the case of the Eastland, others may seem obscure but turn out to be little more than fringe activities that had been part of an ongoing issue.  Or it may turn out be a conspiracy theory, which means someone is telling a lie.  Use language precisely.  

What?

Can someone please explain why a very good documentary on the Soviet Space Program is produced by a company with the name UFOTV? 

ONEGIN

I am listening to Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin right now.  Peter Mattei is a good singer, and no doubt he's a good Onegin, but it still hurts somewhat to think that Dmitri Hvorostovsky had to cancel his performance in this same role in this same production due to cancer.  I wish good luck for Mattei and a swift recovery and a speeedy return to the stage for Dima. 

Morgado's Misstep

Two years ago I wrote a rather scathing review of the movie Son of God, and one of negative points I listed was having and attractive actor play Jesus as though having Christ look attractive was bad thing.  In retrospect this was unfairly harsh as Christ has been portrayed as beautiful for centuries.  
      I now recognize that this has more to do with reverence for His deity more than anything else.  Even if Isaiah did prophesy that Christ would "have no beauty that we should desire Him", we still want to be reverent in how we depict Him.  And portraying Him as looking rather plain just wouldn't fit.  Also, Isaiah's prophesy refers more to a flash-and-bang style of charisma than physical appearance.

I guess what bothered me about Diogo Morgado's portrayal of Christ in Son of God was the fact that he looked too handsome.  This wasn't the reverent beauty so often found in art, this was the Hollywood-It-Guy variety.  And having Jesus look like the hottest male celebrity distracts the audience and takes away from our LORD's deity.  
     And the performance was too soft.  There was no righteous fury evident in the Cleansing of the Temple scene, nor did Morgado seem to show any real emotion other than hippie-style tranquility, the only major exception of course being the crucifixion.  Heck, he even smiled after turning the tables over, whatever happened to, "IT IS WRITTEN, 'MY HOUSE IS TO BE A HOUSE OF PRAYER', AND YOU HAVE TURNED INTO A DEN OF THIEVES!"?  Yes, Jesus would have roared those words at the top of His lungs.  The veins in His forehead would have been popping.  He was literally flipping over tables and driving the thieving merchants off the premises!  He was releasing animals out of their cages and out of the temple.  He. was. furious.  And to not see that present was a major misstep. 

To make a long story short, irreverent Hollywood good looks and a Nice-Guy portrayal of Jesus Christ derailed the film Son of God. 

Weather

Many years ago my maternal grandfather boasted that he was old enough to remember when the weatherman was right.  Well, considering the mild inaccuracies I'm seeing in tonight's forecast, I think he may have had a point.

Organ Arrangments, Sometime They Work, And Sometimes They Don't.

Yesterday saw another organ concert at the Overture Center in Madison.  A little history behind these: At the turn of the 20th Century many cities were competing to build bigger auditoriums with bigger pipe organs.  Because people in smaller towns could not get access to big orchestra performances, many people started arranging various orchestral and operatic works for pipe organ.  These arrangements would be performed in the auditoriums for people in these small cities.  

At yesterday's concert the program was divided into two parts, one Oratorio section and one Opera section.  Sun Prairie's own resident opera singer Kyle Ketelsen and tenor Andrew Bidlack performed alongside Madison Symphony Orchestra Principal Organist Samuel Hutchinson.  I have no complaints about their performances at all, they were pure gold (although seriously, do you really expect me to have any criticism of Mr. Ketelsen at all?).  The program included works from Handel's famous oratorio The Messiah (known mostly by the "Hallelujah" chorus taken from The Book of Revelation) Mendelssohn's Elijah (which I've hardly heard in twenty years), and excerpts from Rossini's Stabat Mater.  These pieces fit perfectly with organ.  

       The opera section was more hit or miss.  Not that the men's performances were hit or miss—quite the contrary, they knocked it out of the park!—but unfortunately some of the tunes just didn't have the same oomph that the regular orchestral pieces did.  The excerpts featured in this section included the Intermezzo from Mascagni's Cavalleria Rusticana (best known for being double-billed with Leoncavallo's I Pagliacci), themes and the Toreador song from Bizet's Carmen (one the Big Four), the Polonaise and Lensky's Lament from Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin (perhaps the most famous Russian opera in the world), and the Waltz and Act 1 duet from Gounod's Faust (one of only two of his works that's still regularly performed in our day).  

The trouble is that the organ seems to work better for sacred works and oratorio pieces than it does for opera.  Operas may have music for the organ, but transcriptions are another species entirely.  The Polonaise and Intermezzo worked well with the organ, but many of the themes from Carmen are just too jaunty and brassy to work well on the organ.  It was Mr. Ketelsen's talented singing and acting that made this arrangement of the Toreador Song enjoyable.  And the Waltz from Faust also came off as less of a dance piece and more like a carousel ride.  But there was no issue with the duet and the organ.  

This was a good concert, but I think that there are limits as to which pieces sound good when transcribed for organ and some that don't.  

How To Tell A Good Documentary From A Bad One

We've all seen documentaries at some point or another.  They are all over movies, television, and the internet, and they cover everything from dinosaurs to Operation Desert Storm.  Some are less than half and hour in length while others can go on for two hours.  And often they are part of a long series with a particular theme, like disasters, mummies, scandals, etc..  I have watched numerous documentaries over the course of twenty three years and have recently started to learn how to tell the difference between a good documentary and a bad one.  Now this can be tricky, so the way to vet your sources is to actively research the topic on your own.

How can you tell a good documentary from a bad one?  Well, here are a few things to look for.
     
1) How is the language being used?  Are the people being precise?  Are they repeating themselves?  Are they going out their way to be dramatic?  Being precise is very important because you want the audience to understand what you are saying.  No one is going to understand you if you are being vague and unclear with what you are trying to get across.  And persistent repetition is a sure sign that you are just trying to fill in the spaces and hoping that if you repeat yourself over and over again, people will believe what you are saying.  It is very tempting to be dramatic in order to hold the audience's attention, but many of these topics are dramatic already, so trying to make them even more so is Coals to Newcastle. 

2) How are the makers supporting their claims?  What evidence are they using to back up their arguments?  And are they exploring other possibilities in case they are wrong?  Sometimes the evidence being examined is good, but sometimes it is less than insufficient.     
       For example, a story that sounds juicy might have some good insight into a situation, but then again it could be the exception rather than the rule.  You may decide you want to use it to support your claim, but the use of juicy stories when doing documentaries is dubious at best and dishonest at worst.  And there may be other possible reasons for something, so give some time to those possibilities as well.  Biased sampling tends to skew results.
        
3) How is the documentary presented?  Be mindful of the use of visuals.  There are two ways to do this.  One is to use either Live Actors or CGI, the other is to use pictures, artifacts, and location shots.  Let's look at these two methods.
          Using live actors and/or Computer Generated Imagery isn't a bad thing in and of itself, but it is all too easy for them to upstage everything else.  A good director knows how to use live actors and CGI to illustrate the point and not overpower the audience's retinas. 
        Live actors have been used in documentaries for years.  There are some advantages to this.  Being able to present a historical event with real people acting out the parts can make history look more alive and real.  And it means that someone can get into another person's mind in order to try to understand them.  However, one problem with this method is that the audience just sees one person's interpretation of a historical person, and so that's the one that sticks with them, which could skew someone's perception of history.  Also, people tend to cast actors whose are photogenic, so the audience may not realize that King Tutankhamen was actually club-footed and had an overbite.  
       CGI has its uses as well.  Aside from bringing dinosaurs, mammoths, and other prehistoric creatures back to life, it has been used in live-action documentaries when working with such things historic volcanic eruptions and major battles.  It can digitally restore ruined buildings and illustrate the incredible world of microorganisms.  All in all, CGI has been a great tool for demonstration in documentaries.  That being said, CGI has to be used very carefully.  Spectacular special effects can distract very easily from the main point, resulting in a visual feast that doesn't really serve any purpose.  
  
The second option involves panning the camera over photographs, paintings, statues, etc. if live footage cannot be used*.  Often music and sound effects will be used to help evoke particular scene. This particular style is known as the Ken Burns effect, named after a filmmaker who made much use of this technique is his documentaries.  
    The advantages to using static images is that is much less expensive than hiring actors and spending money on complex animation programs.  You can evoke the scene just by panning over a lithograph of the Battle of Antietam and adding in prerecording sound effects of gunshots and cannon fire.  And it also means that typically you'll be looking at a picture from that era rather than animation where you'd just be making up the scene.  
    The disadvantages of just panning over static images is that it doesn't represent fully what you're trying to accomplish.  A painting of Colonel Chamberlain's Charge at Little Round Top may look lifelike, but it cannot accomplish the same thing that a group of Civil War reenactors can.  And unlike photographs which are taken with cameras at the scene, paintings, lithographs, and engravings are more likely to be stylized, and thus not fully representative of the event.  

 4) What sources are being used?  This is absolutely critical.  People who are active in science, history, etc., will know the ins and outs of the subject matter.  They will ask questions and seek the answers to them, and usually they will find them even if it isn't the answer they may have originally had in mind.  For example, an archeologist trying to understand how the people of Herculaneum lived before the 79 A.D. eruption of Mt. Vesuvius might examine the contents of the sewer in order to ascertain the diet of the average person.  Further information can be obtained be chemical analysis of the bones found in the boathouses.  And the resulting information gives not just the archeologist but the audience watching the documentary a new insight into the lives of a group of people who lived 2,000 years ago.   
      The danger in this case is putting the emphasis on speculation and mystery.  While mystery may be part of the appeal of dinosaurs, most of us actually want to solve the mystery and see how these creatures really lived.  As C.S. Lewis once said, "Inquiry was made for truth,".  And we ask questions because we want to know the answers even if we cannot fully know them because the dinosaurs all died 65 million years before humans came along.  If the people making the documentary go out of their way to be all about speculation without any real answers, then they have not done anything to benefit the audience. 
       And then there are speculative documentaries about things like aliens, ghosts, and that sort of claptrap.  Neither of those things are real and while it's fun to write all sorts of amazing stories about them, it's a waste of time trying to figure out if they even exist.  So don't even bother with that sort of thing.   

I myself do not claim to be an expert on history and science, but I do love learning about both, and I want to know that when I'm watching a documentary that the people who made tried to teach me something.  I once had to sit through a very biased documentary on the American Justice System, and I tried to watch one that spent ten minutes saying how bad the devastation of Carthage was.  I like documentaries that teach me something new as the one on Life and Death in Herculaneum did.  

Of course even the best documentaries cannot compare with books. 


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*Thank you Wikipedia.  

Updated 3-6-17 at 6:14 pm.