Shattered Brain

 

  

My mind has been officially blown. 

In Donizetti's La Fille du Regiment (The Daughter of the Regiment) Marie is an orphan girl who was raised from infancy by a French army regiment.  She is what is known as a vivandière, a woman who is attached to the regiment doing such things as taking care of the mess.  Having been raised by soldiers, Marie is pretty rough around the edges.  She falls in love with the Tyrolian peasant Tonio, who joins the regiment in hopes of being with her.  But the Marquise de Berkenfield, claiming to be the girl's long-lost aunt, takes Maire away.  Of course everything is resolved with a comical plot twist worthy of Gilbert and Sullivan.  

 Why do I have two different sopranos pictured here?  Well, because Pretty Yende, the lady sang Marie in today's performance, is really giving Natalie Dessay a run for her money.  I don't know why, but Yende's Marie came off a bit more on the sassy side than Dessay did, though I can't quite put my finger on why.  Now there really is no comparing these two formidable women.  But I'm just going to say that Yende is probably the only woman who match Dessay in the role of Marie. 

REBECCA: A Surreal Story Of High Society And Dark Secrets

Someone gave me a copy of Daphne du Maurier's Gothic novel Rebecca many years ago, but I only just got around to reading it last week.  I finished it yesterday and boy, is it ever an intense read!  

The heroine is an unnamed woman in her early twenties who is working as a lady's companion for an overbearing woman when she meets the wealthy widower Maxim de Winter.  They marry after knowing each other only two weeks, but their marriage gets off to a very rough start to say the least.  Even before they get started, the second Mrs. de Winter finds herself in the shadow of Maxim's first wife, Rebecca, who was reported to have died the previous year in a boating accident.  Making things worse is the fact that the housekeeper, Mrs. Danvers, has turned the whole of Manderley into a shrine to Rebecca.  The young bride becomes determined to find out who her late predecessor was and what  secrets were kept from the public. The tension comes to a head at the annual ball and on the beach.

Rebecca can be described as a ghost story without the paranormal.  There may not be anything supernatural going on, but the lingering presence of the dead Rebecca qualifies Manderley as a haunted house.  This adds a level of surrealism to the story, with memories of Rebecca popping out of every nook and cranny.  The morning room and her bedroom have been kept the way she left them.  Mrs. Danvers not shuts up about Rebecca.  People make comments to the bride about how she is not like Rebecca, leading the shy and naive woman to think that she is being judged and can never live up to their expectations.  The very memory of Rebecca interferes with the bride's relationship with Maxim, causing the new Mrs. de Winter thinks her husband does not love her at all.  

I don't really have a quibble with the book, but it's not for the faint of heart.  The climactic scenes at the ball and the beach and are very shocking to say the least, and the suspense can be too much at times, especially if you're a sensitive type.  But I would still say give it a read.  In fact, I would highly recommend Rebecca to anyone who loves romance and suspense. 



   
      
 

THE MEG Can't Tell A Story Worth Beans

This film cannot make up its mind what it wants to be.  Is it a black comedy, is it a thriller, is it a horror movie, what in blazes is it? 

The plot is as follows: Scientists working at a remote research facility off the coast of China discover an unknown region below a gas cloud at a depth below that of the Mariana Trench, and soon get attacked by a mysterious creature Miocene and Pliocene Epochs.  Disgraced diver Jonas Taylor (Statham) comes out of hiding and goes down to rescue the team and finds out that the creature is Megalodon, a giant predatory shark that lived between 23 to 2.6 million years ago and died out before the last Ice Age.  Spoiler Alert, the shark begins attacking and eating people and racks up a fairly sizable body count before it is finally defeated.  

Now I have to give credit where it is due, the shark is shown at closer to its natural size than other films have done in the past (see here for more on that topic).  Even when one appears that's seventy five feet long rather than sixty, it still looks more natural and less like a photo-shopped Great White. The So-Bad-It's-Good movie Shark Attack 3: Megalodon had it so huge that it could swallow a good-sized life raft in one go.  Here, it's just large enough to tangle with a giant squid. 
   The fights with the shark itself are pretty thrilling and awesome--in a stupid kind of way.  The climatic scene, for example, features Taylor chasing the shark through through rocky tunnels before stabbing it in the eye.  That was very well done.  And it was unnerving seeing a diver in a shark cage get stuck in the animal's maw (yeesh!).  The humor is also good at times, with the best moments being references to Shark Week. 
        
However, that's where my praise for this movie ends.  The movie's problems are as follows: The humor may be good, but the shark kills unintentionally fall into this category, being treated as a punchline rather than horrifying.  This is not helped by the fact that the film glosses the deaths over for the most part. 
        Making things worse is the surprising lack of gore.  This may seem strange coming from  someone who doesn't like gratuitous amounts of blood and guts in a movie, but I found that to be a disappointment.   I enjoyed Jaws despite all the blood and guts, but then again there's bound to be blood whenever a shark attacks someone.  Apparently it was originally planned to be an R-rated bloodbath of a movie, but there was some major executive meddling and it got demoted to PG-13.  If they had stuck with the original idea, I think they would have had something truly terrifying.  
       The Meg's biggest problem is the characters.  They are a huge part of the reason the movie seems to be unable to make up its mind about what it is.  With the possible exception of Statham, most of the actors don't seem to know what they're supposed to be doing exactly, and just walk around with wide-eyed expressions of confused nervousness.  But the worst offenders are Jonas ex-wife Lori (Jessica McNamee) and his girlfriend Suyin (Li Binging)  Lori has little to no facial expressions beyond Stone-Faced Zombie and Stepford Wife Smiling even when she takes a screwdriver to midriff; and Suyin goes around looking like she's scared of everything.
       And Neither Lori nor Suyin had any depth at all.  This movie is based off of a novel, and in the novel Jonas' ex-wife is a power-mad woman seeking publicity.  In the film, she's blandly amiable.  There's mention that Jonas and Lori were bad couple, but hwy is never explained.  The writers wasted a perfectly good opportunity for some good drama.  
       I saw this film with my boyfriend and he wanted Suyin to just die, for which I do not blame him.  Suyin is the worst love interest I have ever seen in a story.  There's no chemistry between her or Jonas; their love scenes are little more than shy glances with no real emotion behind them.  She's a terrible mother as well.  She lets her daughter Meiying (Sophie Cai) have free run of the research station, and doesn't seem to discipline her when she should (do you really want your eight-year-old to be saying the word "a-hole"?).  And she's just plain dumb, trying to shark dive with the Megalodon, in a cylindrical cage.  Sorry, but Nigel Marven's design was better. 

Overall rating: 4 1/2 out 10.  Fun action, bad characters.  Goofy humor, sloppy story. 

LA TRAVIATA Production

Yes, this is a few weeks late, but I must say this anyway because I have let this blog just sit forever and three days.  I won't do a usual review, but say whether or not the production works. 

The Met's new production of La Traviata uses the Four Seasons set up to tell the story.  Act 1 takes place in spring, Act 2 in summer, Act 3 in autumn, and Act 4 in winter.  Using musical cues in the prelude, Micheal Meyers decided to start with Violetta's death bed and have the action be a whirl of memories flashing before her very eyes.  

Does this work?  Yes, it does.  It has a slightly surreal quality to it.  There is a moment at the beginning of Act 4 when Alfredo's sister walks across the stage clad as a happy bride.  That little bit of action feels like a flash in Violetta's mind.  And it gives the feeling that this takes place over quite a long period of time.  
       The ballet sequence on Act 3 was the biggest highlight of the production.  The pary Violetta's friend Flora throws has a Spanish theme to it, and the ballet outfits have a Day of the Dead vibe to them.  Granted there needed to be a bit more Torero with the second half of it, but it's still awesome.

So yes, it works.  

DIE ZAUBERFLÖTE: When Incomprehensible Plot Meets Wonderful Music

Yes, I should have written about this when I went to encore last year with my boyfriend, but my parents went to another encore of it last night, and we had a decent conversation about it.  This isn't a review of the performance but an commentary on it. 

The Hero is a prince named Tamino who when we meet him is being chased by a giant serpent and is saved by Three Ladies of the Queen of the Night.  When Tamino comes to he meets a bird catcher, Papageno, who tells him that he killed the snake himself.  At this the three Ladies padlock Papageno's mouth to punish him for telling lies.  They then tell Tamino that they saved his life.
      Then the Queen of the Night herself enters, and she tells Tamino to rescue her daughter, Pamina, who has kidnapped by Sarastro.  Tamino agrees upon seeing a portrait of the princess and sets off to find her.  The Three ladies then give him a magic flute to protect himself on his journey, and to Papageno they give a set of magic bells.  But when the two men reach the Temple where Pamina is held, Tamino finds out that the queen is the one in the wrong and Sarastro is the good guy.  And before the prince and princess can be united he must first be initiated.  Confused yet?  
       It doesn't stop there.  While Tamino passes the trials with no trouble, poor Papageno can't seem to do anything right.  Wisdom and Enlightenment do not interest him in the least, especially since the priests insist that he must first pass the trials before he can get them.  Papageno wants the simple things in life; food, drink, and a family.  Of course he's told there's a pretty Papagena waiting for him, but he can't have her until he's past the trials.  This of course causes much stress for Papageno.  
      Then you have the Queen of the Night telling Pamina to kill Sarastro or be disowned, and everything becomes more and more convoluted until the final scene. 

Here's the main problem with the opera: Tamino isn't given much of a character at all beyond his wanting Pamina and Enlightenment.  He passes the trials no issue and doesn't face that much adversity.  Pamina is characterized as strong in our day, but she still has nothing beyond being in love with Tamino, though she does try to escape the Temple.  The Queen of the Night has two amazing arias (which I love to death), but her total stage time is less than twelve minutes.  She also suffers from rather stilted characterization.  Sarastro is probably the flattest character of the bunch, being nothing more than a blandly benevolent platitude-spewer who doesn't do much.  And then there's Monostatos, Sarastro's slave who is Always Chaotic Evil and wants nothing more than to rape Pamina.  He does have a few comic moments, such as when he and Papageno scare each other, but he's not interesting at all.
        Papageno is probably the only character in the opera with anything resembling characterization.  He is a simple man who wants a quiet life.  He is also a very good joker to Tamino's straight man.  In fact, both Tamino and Pamina's best scenes are with Papageno.  He has a harder time than Tamino because he cannot handle the trials, even when he'll be rewarded with Papagena.  It doesn't help that she gets getting taken away from him.  So we're all happy when he gets his Papagena in the end. 

So why is this complicated mish-mash of a story so popular?  Because Mozart was so good at composing music, he could make even the weirdest of plots riveting.  No one goes to the see Die Zauberflöte for the story, they go to hear the Queen of the Night sing about Hell's vengeance and watch Papageno and Papagena making out before the grand finale.  If anyone else had tried to write this opera it would have faded into oblivion.  But Mozart was a musical genius and that is why The Magic Flute still survives.

ALBION'S SEED: Four English Folkways In America

This thick, massive tome by Professor David Hackett Fischer is about the four main English groups who settled America in the 17th and 18th Centuries.  The book explores their impact on America's socio-political landscape and how it still affects our society even today.  These four groups are the Puritans, Cavaliers, Quakers, and Scots-Irish.  Each group settled in a different region and brought their own customs and folkways with them.  
      Fischer defines "folkways" not as something primitive dating from way back when, but as a complex system of beliefs and customs that remain the same even as a culture goes through change.  These are often found in the way people talk, their architecture, family structure, marriage rituals, death rituals, food, etc..  And we can still see the impact of these customs today.  

The Puritans were the first wave of English to come to the New World.  These are the famous "Pilgrims" who landed at Plymouth Rock and celebrated the first Thanksgiving with their Indigenous neighbors.  Staunch Calvinists, they believed that Christ only died for the elect and looked for signs of God's favor.  They are infamous for their obsessive fear of witchcraft.  It was the Puritans founded the Ivy League schools in Massachusetts and Connecticut, and are the ancestors of today's Liberal elite.

The Cavaliers were the second group to cross over the Atlantic.  In fact, a certain governor of Virginia intended to bring over second sons of the nobility in order to recreate the old Feudal system.  These became the planter class that dominated Southern society.  Cavaliers tended to be Anglican and held loyalty to the king.  Among them were the ancestors of Robert E. Lee and George Washington. 

The Quakers were the third set to come to America, settling in places like Delaware.  Called the Society of Friends, they focused on what they called the "Inner Light" and the work of the Holy Spirit.  They were very strict in areas such as sex and marriage to the point of asceticism.  This led to one group breaking away and becoming the now-extinct Shaker sect.  The Quakers would later become leading players in the Abolition Movement of the 19th Century.  

The Scots-Irish were the last group to arrive in the U.S., settling in the border areas and the Appalachian Mountains.  They have long held a reputation for being fierce and vicious fighters, in fact, many were brought over to be the barrier between the Europeans and the Indigenous tribes.  The Scots-Irish were a very clannish group and feuds were a way of life.  The most famous of these was the feud between the Hatfields and McCoys, which started as a quarrel over livestock and resulted in the deaths of nearly twenty people.  Surprisingly, a majority of American Presidents were Scot-Irish, including Andrew Jackson, Ulysses S. Grant, and Ronald Reagan. 
           
Albion's Seed is a demanding read, but a good read nonetheless.  It does a good job of explaining who settled where and when, what customs they brought with them, and how it has shaped our society and continues to do so. 

One Year Later

 It's been a full year since Dmitri Hvorostovsky died, but it still hurts a little bit.  I never knew the man but I admired him very much.  So his death was still painful for me.  

I've talked before about when I first heard him and the various performances he was in that I went to see.  But I want to focus on just one of them right now, the last one I saw him in.  Ironically it was also the first time I had seen him live on the stage instead of in simulcasts.  Hearing Dima sing in a live auditorium is something that I will always remember, especially his final encore, Proshchay, radost (Farewell, happiness).  This simple folk song, sung without accompaniment, is a sentimental piece about a man saying good bye to his beloved.  Considering that Dima had terminal cancer at the time he did the recital at the Lyric, it was more than fitting that his last song that night was a farewell song.  I still remember that night every time I hear the song. 


When I heard he was going to do a recital at the Lyric, I knew I wouldn't get another chance to see Dmitri Hvorostovsky again, so I grabbed the opportunity to buy tickets and go see him.  I'm very glad I did, because that was the very last time I ever saw Dima perform.  And even though I never met him, I will still miss him very much.