The Flatland Chronicles

Soundtracks of My Life: "Che Fiero Costume"

I always loved this impassioned complaint--by Giovanni Legrenzi---back when I was studying music.  It's a rebuke to Cupid for the pain and unhappiness he causes---though he's just a baby still on his mother's milk.   It's an exciting song. 

It reminds me of a young tenor on whom I had a crush at opera camp.  He was so, so gay----but he didn't know it, and neither did I.    He had a magnificent voice even though he was only 18 (about 10 years from the voice's prime).   

Looking through the various renditions on You Tube, this is the one I liked best.This guy is really good. 

My music teacher thought it was a "man's song," so wouldn't let me perform it.  So I have a version by a soprano just to show....too late, alas!

Soundtracks of My Life: "Intorno All'Idol Mio"

This song by baroque composer Antonio Cesti (from Orontea)  is performed here by the extremely lovely Cecilia Bartoli.  I used to perform it back when I was studying music (though it goes without saying---not like this.   I was really pleased to find it.  I always imagined I'd never hear any of these songs again.   

Ricky Gervais & Gordon Ramsay

Ricky Gervais shares marketing tips for a candy bar called 'Plopp,' a 'cock-flavoured bouillon,' and a vodka called 'Spunk.'

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Soundtracks of My Life: The Doll Song & Related Weirdness from 'The Tales of Hoffman'

I love Tales of Hoffman---one of the few operas I've actually performed (or participated in as a member of the chorus)---and so I've already posted about it twice:  the first time, about the sometimes-omitted 'Giulietta's Tale' (decadent Venetian courtesan); the second, about Hoffman's gender-bending Muse-disguised-as-man sidekick, Nicklaus[se].  Because I wasn't sure what I wanted to say, I decided to wait a bit before writing about the first act, or posting any videos.

The story begins with the writer  Hoffman---accompanied by his sidekick Nicklausse--- hanging out in a bar with a lot of German students, all bent on getting as drunk as possible.  After a drinking song, and one absurd story about a dwarf called Kleinzach, Hoffman begins ranting (he does that a lot) about the beautiful singer, Stella, with whom both he and his rival Count Lindorf are in love.  One of the students has the temerity to mention that after all, they have their loves too.  Hoffman responds by dissing the ladies:  one of them, Gretchen, as an inert puppet with a heart of ice.  It's part of the lead-in to the stories of his loves, the first of whom is---guess what---an inert doll with a heart of ice. 

Starving Elephant Artisans (Elephants that Can---and Do---Paint)

Here is a wonderful and very touching video of elephants painting.  Yes, painting.   Apparently they like to.  The organization that posted the video writes:

Can your elephant paint? Watch this elephant, rescued from abusive treatment in Burma, now paint an amazing self portrait. You'll be amazed at how his talent unfolds.

So touched by their horrific backgrounds and loving personalities, ExoticWorldGifts.com now supports, "Starving Elephant Artisans" by selling their paintings so they can continue to have a new life in Thailand.  (ExoticWorldGifts)

It isn't a hoax or anything.  There are a number of videos posted of these painting elephants.

Soundtracks of My Life: Operatic Gender-Benders: Nicklausse & Prince Orlofsky!

Some of the best rolls for mezzos and contraltos involve playing snide young men.  Prince Orlofsky in Die Fledermaus, for example; Nicklausse in Hoffman.  As a 16-18 year old, I naturally imagined myself playing only the really glamorous roles:  Carmen; or Giulietta.  Mezzo-sopranos can, and do, sing those roles.

But that doesn't mean I wasn't fascinated watching Hoffman's Muse appear as his wise-ass sidekick Nicklausse.  Or by the very special views which Prince Orlofsky expresses on the subject of hospitality.

Here are some stellar performances.

Soundtracks of My Death: From Mendelssohn's Elijah: "Then Shall the Righteous..."

This has always been one of my favorite arias from Mendelssohn's Elijah.  As a young aspiring singer some thirty years ago, I wanted to sing it myself and I often used to try.   Alas, I was a rather weak mezzo-soprano and couldn't nail the high notes.  I usually don't find I am drawn to this sort of religious theme or anthem, but it's Mendelssohn, and it really is uplifting, even if you don't (and, though a certified God-botherer, I do not) believe in a conventional heaven or heavenly realm.

If I were to die, as of course I someday will, I would want this song performed or played----a recording would be fine----at my memorial service, just to remind people that death is just a transition and that you might as well assume that it is a joyful one.  I don't see myself as 'righteous' especially, but I've got to believe based on the available evidence that God actually has fairly low standards.  I'm thinking the bar has got to be pretty low.

The Soundtracks of My Life---Mozart Requiem: "Domine Jesu"; The Messiah: "And He Shall Purify"; Elijah: "Lord, Bow Thine Ear to Our Prayer"

Back in my younger days, I performed both these oratorios---not as a principal of course; I didn't have that sort of talent.  But I did love singing in the chorus, even though my music reading skills were set at "illiterate" and I often had to just mouth the words.  My ear wasn't that reliable either.  Even so, I fondly imagined that it would all eventually come to me.  It didn't, which is just as well, as I only ever had a passable voice. 

I always seem to favor the songs that aren't quite so widely loved as the usual standards.  Hearing these really took me back.

Pictures from the Earth: Judy Malley--Nova Scotia | Used by Permission

I've never visited Nova Scotia, but it's one of the places I aspire to see before I die.  Photographer Judy Malley has provided me with such a comprehensive glimpse of its many beauties.

All her Nova Scotia photographs just pulled me right in---it took me forever to choose which ones to use because there were so many that moved me. 

The ones I picked are magnificent, but you can click on her Flickr photostream and see many more equally so.  .

 

Soundtracks of My Life: "Helas, mon coeur s'egare encore' (Les Contes d'Hoffman)

During my operatic phase (when I was in my mid to late teens), I attended a six-week opera workshop where we performed Hoffman.   It's an opera guaranteed to have tremendous appeal to any neurotic teen-aged girl such as I was:  the story of besotted writer whose angry and neglected muse takes revenge on him by afflicting him with jealousy against a rival and then---at the crucial moment---leaves him so drunk that the rival's triumph is assured.

His lover is a beautiful opera singer (Stella) who knows just how to mistreat an annoyingly impoverished romantic poet, with nothing to offer but his obsession.  The story opens at a tavern, where Hoffman gathers with a group of hard-drinking university students (that hasn't changed since Offenbach's day).  Urged by his posse to tell them the story of his past loves, he tells them three:  the first, a funny story of a man who falls in love with a mechanical doll (that's right: a mechanical doll); the second, a melodramatic story of man who falls in love with a jewelry-craving soul-stealing courtesan who is enslaved by a giant diamond and an vil magician; and the third, a dark and disturbing story of a man who falls in love with a good and virtuous but sickly (and doomed) singer.   (Offenbach had the last two scenes reversed, but I prefer to have the tragic story last.)

The first two women are heartless (the first literally; the second metaphorically); the third has heart problems in the more literal sense. 

In each story, the course of the hero's love is doomed from the start by, interfered with, and ultimately defeated by the evil machinations of a villain who is in each instance the doppelganger of his rival, Count Lindorf.  Naturally, the leading characters in each story are played by Hoffman, his Muse (who appears as his sidekick, Nicklausse), the beautiful object of his desire, and his rival.   Each story becomes darker and more somber and more heart-breaking than the one before.

The play ends with Hoffman dead drunk at his table.  The love interest cruises by on the arm of the successful rival and flings a rose at him.  Nobody's happy about this except the triumphant Muse.  Enough with the mooning around after looooooove; he's a poet; he should work it all out in poetry.