Tiny Doom's Opernpalais

How to scare the hell out of a writer

2012-01-27T06:43:00.000-08:00

Tell her that she has to pitch her 250-page novel in less than 300 words, and make it sound good enough to get an agent to represent it. And then tell her she can use that same pitch to enter the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Contest, and she may just panic a little bit. But, at the end of the day, she takes the pitch she's been working on for a month, tweeks it a bit, and thinks that it will be okay.

Seville 1788: Florestan Serrano, aide to the Minister of Justice, vanishes one dark night in the midst of a dangerous investigation. He awakes in hell, injured and without any knowledge of where he is or who has taken him. All he has is the terrible certainty that no one knows where he is. His captors’ sadism grows daily, forcing Florestan to fight for his life and his sanity, even while he questions his own deeply held beliefs. To give in is to die.

All the clues point to her husband’s gruesome murder, but Leonora refuses to believe it. Not without proof. Not without his body. Armed with only a hint of hope and the desire to avenge her husband, Leonora journeys to a terrible fortress, where, disguised as a turnkey, she learns secrets that will change everything she knows. As hope turns to despair, she learns of a starving, broken wraith locked deep underground. He will soon be murdered. But is he Florestan? And can she save a dying man from a monster?

Wish me luck, guys.

Great composers reimagined

2012-01-23T12:56:00.000-08:00

Continuing in the art vein I've been in lately, let's see how people are re-imagining the Great Composers (please note, the names are links to the artist's sites):

Beethoven:

Mozart:

Wagner:

Verdi:

I promise to make a real, substantial post soon (I've got one brewing on Don Carlo), but for now, enjoy!

Gratuitous repost

2012-01-22T07:39:00.000-08:00

I get a lot of hits daily for this post, so I'm going to repost the link now, and perhaps make it a little easier:

Kaufmann in Saarbrucken: Being my review of Margarete Joswig and Jonas Kaufmann defying triple digit weather and uncomfortable concert halls to sing Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde for their adoring public.

Would you read this?

2012-01-16T10:58:00.001-08:00

A basic fact of my life is that I am a writer. I have been since I was old enough to talk, driving my parents up the walls with my fairy tales and insistence that there really was a monster in my closet, who was actually a really good guy. I've been honing the craft for years, writing for university literary magazines (I actually won an award for one story) and my university newspaper (Fine Arts journalist=free opera tickets), with the publication of my first book in 2010. Those are my credentials.

Anyone who has been reading this blog or my Twitter feed for long will know that for over a year now, I've been working on a novelized version of "Fidelio". It started out as a dare to write it for National Novel Writing Month, after one of my best friends got a little sick of me theorizing about the before and after of the opera and told me to "just write it already; we both know you could". So I did.

Over one year and five drafts later, I am finished with the novel, and writing up my query letter to try to lure an agent. As with all writing, this takes time, effort, a lot of staring into space when I should be learning German, and no small amount of tenacity. And feedback. This is where you come in, my dear blog readers. Over the next week or two I will be posting various synopses of "Fidelio" here. I hope some of you will be so good as to tell me if you would read this story, whether you know the opera or not. I hope that you will tell me if the synopsis is boring, or exciting, or too long or short: basically, any feedback that you would like to offer, please do.

Please note that I worked very, very hard to keep it as close to the opera as humanly possible. Lucy of Opera Obsession, who has been reading the novel and offering her invaluable opinion, can attest to this.

And with that, my first possible synopsis:

"Seville 1788: Florestan Serrano, aide to the Minister of Justice, vanishes one dark night in the midst of a dangeorus investigation. He awakes in hell, injured and without any knowledge of where he is or who has taken him. All he has is the terrible certainty that no one knows where he is.

All the clues point to her husband’s gruesome murder, but Leonora refuses to believe it. Not without proof. Not without his body. With only a hint of hope and the desire to avenge her husband, Leonora follows the clues to a terrible fortress, where, disguised as a man, she learns secrets that will change everything she knows, and fights a tyrant for her husband’s life."

Wotan: Righteous Indignation or Supreme Wanker?

2012-01-14T04:44:00.000-08:00

I've been listening to recordings and watching productions of Die Walkuere since seeing the Met broadcast in May, and I frankly find myself stymied. Why on earth does Wotan feel the need to punish Brunnhilde so intensely? Rendering your beloved daughter mortal and stranding her, asleep, on a rock seems a little extreme a reaction for her asserting her own opinion. I just can't understand it.

Discuss.

La Vogue Boheme

2012-01-12T07:07:00.000-08:00

Artwork by Ruben Toledo

For Christmas 2010, my boss at the bookstore I used to work at, knowing my love of both art and fashion, gave me this hilarious book: Nina Garcia's Look Book: What to Wear For Every Occasion. It is literally an event by event guide to how to dress: what to wear to a wedding, or to work, or for gardening, or for a blind date...or the opera. I love this section, because Garcia is so flamboyant (she's a judge for Project Runway, and other fashionable things), and her advice is both informative and deeply hilarious. She is clearly one of those people who advocates both Being Seen and old school glamour. To whit:

"In our increasingly casual society, there is no longer a hard and fast dress code for the opera*. Audience attire runs the gamut from jeans and skirts to evening dresses and furs. Your options are limitless. But if you are going to a beautiful theatre to see a beautiful performance, why not dress for it? ... Semiformal dressing is always more fun than formal, so that's my recommendation for the evening. Opera is about romance and excess-excess emotion, ornate costumes, insanely talented singers, tragic love stories, and all things gilt and red and jewel-encrusted. Onstage there will be corseted bodices, voluminous velvet skirts, and gold braids. Offstage, take those theatrics down a few notches to create a look that's wearable and fierce.

Put a contemporary twist on old-school opera attire. Wear a gorgeous velvet (but not crushed-velvet!) dress; adorn yourself with a few bright baubles and with gold shoes that have just a hint of metallic sheen. Or try a brocade opera coat over a long, narrow, beautifully tailored silk dress. Or mix vintage with cutting edge to evoke your favorite operatic heroine, such as Mimi, Violetta, Carmen, Isolde; take your pick and roll your look in her direction.

Just like at the theatre and the art opening, people-watching at the opera can be as riveting as the actual performance, so arrive early to enjoy the spectacle. You'll get two costume dramas for the price of one. And remember, you're part of the pre-show cast. Make a regal entrance, look around with a Mona Lisa smile, and glide slowly to your seat as you carefully remove your gloves.

Make sure you're filthy rich enough not to make this posing hilarious when you end up in the balcony, or in standing room.

*She's clearly never been to Bayreuth. But then, neither have I.

Opera as Visual Art

2012-01-07T04:34:00.001-08:00

Carmen

Fidelio

Rigoletto

Mack the Knife (Three Penny Opera)

All images by Saturninus at DeviantArt

I've always loved portraits of opera characters, and these images are very evocative. I'd love to see him do some riffs on Tosca and La Boheme, among others.

In other news, the New Year has officially begun, and I have hit the ground running. So much to do in the next three months! Must finish up my German course and make the official test, do a one-month teaching intensive, and continue to search for an agent to represent "Fidelio".

Have a great weekend everyone, and Happy New Year!

Happy New Year!

2012-01-01T04:49:00.000-08:00

The Woman in Black

2011-12-30T14:51:00.000-08:00

All my life, I've loved ghost stories. As a child, I used to rent them from the library by the bagful and then read them for hours after bedtime, during which time I'd scare myself so silly that I would invariably end up in bed with a sibling or my parents, convinced that some vengeful spirit was going to get me. And still, I kept renting them. Because, you see, reading allows the imagination to paint a picture of the terror of ghost stories. The writer puts her words in such a way as to inspire terror, or humor, or sadness. And when you close the book, it's the memory of the story that haunts you, not the terrifying images of a movie.

All this is to say, I am going to see The Woman in Black when it comes out, and I will inevitably be sleeping with the lights on for days afterwards.

Die Zauberflote at Staatsoper im Schiller Theatre, etc.

2011-12-28T16:39:00.000-08:00

"Die Zauberfloete" is supposed to be a fabulous blend of whimsy, philosophy, and really cool music, right? Well, yes. It also happens to be one of my less-favorite operas, and one of my dad's favorites. I saw it the other day at the Schiller Theater, in what the program informed me is an eighteen year old production. It shows. Musically, it was impeccable, but overall the production seemed tired, like a tasty cake that's been left out for too long and grown stale. Pretty enough, but not palatable.

This "Flute" was a very traditional production: Papageno was in feathers, Sarastro and Company were all Egyptian, Monostatos was in blackface. Tamino was a goob. Really, I don't think that Mozart and Schikeneder intended for their tenorial hero to come across as a meathead, but they certainly succeeded in making him such. Is it just me, or do Mozartean tenors seem to have problems with characterization? Tamino is a goob, Tito is way too nice, Don Ottavio is a schmuck. Methinks the great man preferred baritones as the heroes.

There are a few things that I dislike about "The Magic Flute", the main being Sarastro's attitude towards women. "Women are a little crazy; they need men to show them what to do." I don't think I'd have such a problem with it if my dad didn't still subscribe to this theory, and if he hadn't been quoting it at me all week. But I digress.

There were a few things that I hadn't expected in this production: the Three Ladies popped out of the dragons' mouths (there were three dragons), thus leading to the idea that Tamino had been cornered for a reason; unfortunately, this was never explored any further. Papageno and Papagena managed to produce about fifteen feather-covered children in three minutes, who then proceeded to invade the stage and make everyone laugh. But my absolute favorite part was during Papageno's suicide attempt, when he gives three signals, calling Papagena.

"Eins!" he said, and blew his whistle. "Zwei!" and blew it again.
"DREI!" shrieked a little girl in the audience, and everyone lost it.

The singer playing Papageno, Gyula Orendt, looked out at the audience for a split second; the little girl, whose voice gave her age as about five, helpfully called out "Drei!" again.
"Drei!" he repeated, once everyone had stopped giggling.

Also funny was the little boy who spent the second act hanging over the back of my chair, right between my dad and I, wide-eyed and slack-jawed. He was four, his mom informed me, and had seen the children's version, but wanted to see the real thing. He was completely, totally glued. Adorable.

Musically, the production was impeccable. Sarastro was sung by Alexander Vinogradov, whom I saw as Basilio in "Barbier" here in October. He seems to be a fixture at the Staatsoper; he's very good, so I'm glad. Tamino, sung by Stephan Rugamer, was less good, but this is more character-related than anything, so I'll let it pass. Katherina Muller's Pamina was just fabulous, full-voiced and spunky. The Queen of the Night was sung by Iride Martinez, and she pwned everyone.

Bottom line: four out of five stars to the singers, and two out of five to the production. Dear Staatsoper: hire yourself a new director and get a new "Flute". You've earned it.

Petit Bateau

2011-12-21T14:01:00.000-08:00

This commercial is just too adorable and silly to not share. I love Petit Bateau, even though I can't get it here in Berlin, and I love silly-dancing. This lady, Garance Dore, dances about as well as I do. And she wears red lipstick, which is just fab.

Anyway, my family is here for the holidays (YAY!) so I won't be around as much. I'm sure I'll update before Christmas, but have a Merry pre-Christmas, just the same! :)

Weihnachtsmarkt, Gendarmmarkt

2011-12-16T13:14:00.000-08:00

How much do I love the Christmas Markets here in Berlin? Oh, so very, very much. The Romantic in me just dances in delight every time I go to one-but only if it's a very traditional, elegant market, not one of those made over into a carnival with rides and games and the obnoxious merchandise you see at county fairs. No, I love the good and proper old-time markets.

The Christmas Market at Gendarmmarkt is easily my favorite. Guards dressed in traditional livery guard the entrance, which is all lights and tinsel. It's the swankiest of them all, all crystal chandeliers, sparkling lights, handmade ornaments and lots of yummy food that is roasted right there in front of you.

There's also this fabulous open-air bakery that makes fresh Bavarian bread right there in a huge outdoor oven. You stand there and watch the bakers form round loaves out of huge, floury tureens of dough, thumping and rolling the dough until it's perfect enough to pop on a tray and stick into the wood-burning oven.

Besides food, you can wander the stalls, looking at a large variety of handcrafted objects, from traditional German Christmas ornaments to delicate glass balls to hand-knitted caps to Moravian stars:

Through it all comes the gentle sound of traditional carols, piped in over an invisible sound system. There's a stage in front of the Konzerthaus, too, set up for the evening festivities. The acts vary from children's choirs to quartets to silly people dressed as snowflakes. After dark, the whole place is a swarming hive of activity, but the daytime is a lot calmer. I actually prefer it then, despite the lights not being as bright. You can see more.

I had lots more pics, but the gods of technology intervened and I've lost most of the photos on my memory stick: these ones were taken only yesterday, when I realized that recovery was not going to happen. But there should be more coming: I still have to go to the markets and Schloss Charlottenburg and Sanssouci.

The Horror of the German Kinderlieder tape

2011-12-14T08:11:00.000-08:00

Back in the fall of 1995, when I was nine years old, my family decamped from the recession-ridden backwaters of San Diego to the hippy-strewn wilds of the San Francisco Bay Area. My dad, a professional piano technician, had gotten a job with a new company up north, and so we packed everything we owned up and off we went.

That winter and spring were spent getting used to the newness of our surroundings (easy version: San Diego=desert, NorCal=forest). The following summer, my parents decided that it would be a good idea for us to learn even more about our new neck of the woods, and to that end, arranged a vacation for us. It was simple, elegant, and destined for disaster from the word go: a week-long family road trip up to the Redwood National Forest, and back again, staying in hotels and seeing historical sites (forts, mining camps, thousand year old trees) along the way.

We set out on a warm summer's day, crammed into the car with enough books, snack food, and music to last us at least a month. One of the tapes we had was a cassette of German Kinderlieder that my aunt had sent us, that we had occasionally listened to because, well, we're German. It was actually a really cool cassette: a large children's choir singing all the German standards. My little brother and I would put on our fake German accents and sing along, sending our baby sister into gales of laughter. We set out on our adventure with this cassette playing merrily along. It was still in the player when we stopped for lunch.

It was the hottest part of the day. Our car had a malfunctioning air conditioner. The cassette melted into the player.

Now, such an occurrence would render the tape unplayable, right? Wrong. That tape lived in the tape player, merrily singing away, for six months.*

To be honest, most of what I remember about that trip is learning every single song on that tape by heart, and trying to sing it in a variety of accents, or with farting noises (the glories of being ten, right?). By the time we got the tape player replaced, we could ALL sing the songs. All of them. To this day, there are certain songs that I simply cannot hear without going into gales of semi-hysterical laughter. My brother and I were out and about in Berlin the other day and heard one of them (I don't know the names, just how they go) and nearly died.

"Do you remember that tape?" he asked me.
"Dude, I will never forget it," I replied.

Never, ever. :)

*Somewhat to my horror, all of these songs are on YouTube.

Love in a Chem Lab

2011-12-11T05:29:00.001-08:00

That sounds awfully like the title of a mid-seventies rock song, doesn't it? Anyway.

I went into the Faust broadcast last night with such low expectations that I was pleasantly surprised. I had read all of the reviews and the blogs discussing how ridiculous the set was, how strange it all was, and you know? They're right. But it was still a really interesting production.

Do I think that setting it in a chem lab worked? Yes and no. Yes, because Faust IS a scientist, a chagrined one, and if you're going to update the action to the 20th century, then why not? And no, because after the Elixer of Life, nothing Faust said or did had anything to do with either science in general or the atom bomb in particular. It was an interesting concept, but Faust is such a straight-forward story that I can only admit that it didn't quite fit. But then, much of the action was elsewhere, which worked out all right, I thought. Bottom line is, I didn't mind the set as much as I thought I would.

Let's move on to characters. What in the HELL (excuse me) is Valentin's problem? That kind of attitude- "You were defiled; TO HELL WITH YOU!"-is not only reprehensible, but morally wrong. I think the secondary characters did a good job with reacting in horror to his words. And frankly, blaming your sister for your death in a duel that was YOUR idea in the first place?* Idiot. That said, I really enjoyed Russell Braun: his voice is lovely.

(*I did like the duel, quite a lot. Yay for handsome men with swords!)

Faust: Oh, you stupid man. I think Shallow Pleasure Seeker is an apt description. But I liked what Kaufmann did with the role: he didn't play him sympathetically. I liked how he acted the old!Faust at the beginning, with hesitant steps and a cane. The way he layered the costumes must have been excruciating under all those lights (I interned in an opera costume shop; there was no other way for him to make that 15 second costume change without wearing two suits under that enormous coat). The wig? Eh. I'm pretty sure that curly-haired young men are curly-haired old men, too. The moustache? OH GOSH WHY?

Mephistofeles: Oh Rene Pape, you can do no wrong in my heart. And you did no wrong. I found his Mephisto charming, ironic, suave, evil, and downright creepy. I loved the use of comic movements, too: the dancing, the high-kicks before "Veau d'Or", everything. "Oh me, nothing's wrong; I'm totally on the floor because I like it here." And his voice is perfect. Brilliant performance.

Marguerite: Oooh, this character rankles me, purely because she is both spineless and completely unreal. Here is a mid-Victorian Angel in the House if I've ever seen one. I found Poplavskaya's voice to be strong and interesting, but her acting seemed very wooden. Shame, but there's not a whole lot for her to do, besides spend half her time running from Faust and the other half woefully killing infants. So...

Of all the broadcast, I have to say that the interviews in the breaks were my favorite: I love Joyce DiDonato, and her straight-up fangirl moment with Kaufmann was hilarious. ("That was the most incredible diminuendo; you are a GOD, man!") I hope someone posts it on YouTube. I also loved that Rene Pape straight up "Hi Mom'd" at the camera: "Hello to all my friends and fans in Dresden, including my mother who is watching this in kino!" I lol'd, as did half the audience.

You know, the Germans are very proud of their singers. Both Kaufmann and Pape got loud cheers from my audience during their interviews, and a tiny little old lady I talked with afterward called JK a "beautiful young man, and doing us so proud with his beautiful voice". Amen, sister.

All in all, it was an enjoyable night, I had fun, the music was lovely, and it was a good performance. Shall we chat about it in the comments?

Faust

2011-12-10T07:29:00.000-08:00

I must say, for a production that has been widely panned by the critics, I'm really looking forward to the Met broadcast tonight. I can't wait to see for myself if it's completely ridiculous. I listened to a very interesting radio interview with Jonas Kaufmann just the other day, where he basically said, "Yeah, it's an interesting concept, it just doesn't work at all" (interview here). I've never seen this opera before, so I'm going to it with an open mind. I must also admit that I'm looking forward to seeing Curls here dressed as a fugly old man.

I'm sure I'll get a review up tomorrow (and who knows, I'll probably love it. Especially if it's crazy), but I'm sure I'll be on Twitter during the intermission. I'm also looking forward to seeing Joyce DiDonato host, because she is fabulous.

Ciao darlings!

Cantique de Noel

2011-12-07T12:06:00.001-08:00

I've loved this carol since childhood, when I would beg for us to sing it in church-in July. I love it in English, I love it in French, I love it in German. And needless to say, I love this arrangement of it. :)

What are your favorite carols?

O Christmas tree, O Christmas tree...!

2011-12-05T12:05:00.001-08:00

Before:

After:

That's all I've got up so far: I'm not sure I like the candle-lights, so I'm going to sleep on it, and then decide if I want to go buy proper fairy lights tomorrow. This year, all of my decorations come from my cousin, who is going with her family up to the mountains for Christmas (they have another house there, and another set of ornaments. Sheesh!) I'm just glad I have a tree now: it's not Christmas without one! In Germany, trees don't go up until Christmas Eve (occasionally a day or two earlier), but I'm staying American for this one. I like to keep my tree up until January.

Happy December! I'm stoked. :)

Christmas songs that pass as lullabies

2011-12-02T13:20:00.000-08:00

Sometimes I have the surreal experience of learning that my dad's German lullabies are, in fact, beloved cultural institutions. This is the case for this traditional German lied, "Kling, Glöckchen, klingelingeling". I heard this lullaby probably ever single night for the vast majority of my childhood. It was one of my favorites. I can still sing most of it by myself. Of course, as a kid I had no idea what the words meant, but my dad told me they were about bells and snow and coming in from the cold, so I was happy about that.

Imagine my surprise then, when a few days before Christmas 2006, I find myself sitting in one of the big churches in Salzburg, listening to a girl's choir sing that very song. The look on my face was something like this: o_0. Afterwards I yelped, "That's a CHRISTMAS CAROL?!" To which my parents just laughed and nodded. Technically, it's a winter song-there's nothing particularly Christmasy about it. I, however, say that it's appropriate all year round, and that it does in fact make an excellent lullaby.

Silent Night

2011-12-01T14:03:00.001-08:00

When I was a child, my parents used to show me a movie about how a mouse named Nonny helped save the song that would become the Christmas carol "Silent Night". To this day, I have not been able to find it, but the story made a huge impact on me (not least because it contained a musician singing, "Christmas Eve brings Christmas Cheer/Kiss me quick and pass the beer", which I thought was hilarious). The above clip is the closest I've come to finding anything to do with the story.

The origins of "Silent Night" lie in Austria, where in 1818 a small-town priest, Joseph Mohr, wrote the lyrics and asked his friend, Franz Xaver Gruber, to write music for a guitar. Apparently the original tune was quite danceable, and only later slowed down into the lullaby version that we all know today. In any case, I grew up hearing it sung in German, and that was the only language I knew it in for a couple of years as a small child. (I will say this for my German abilities: due to singing German and listening to Kinderlieder 24/7* as a child, I have a damn good accent.)

"Silent Night" was not one of my favorite carols until fairly recently, when I finally woke up to how lush and sweet the melody actually is. Perhaps it was hearing all of those awful pop versions that the radio plays that made me hate the carol so much. And then my brother played the following video for me, and I was sold.

*Remind me someday to tell the story of the Horror of the German Lieder Cassette. It's a scream.

German lessons

2011-11-29T05:25:00.000-08:00

Guys, Deutsch class is hard on me. I dislike the teacher-he picks on me because I have a German father and therefore SHOULD know the language already-and the grammar confuses the hell out of me. And still I plug away, because I'm stubborn, and because the only thing I've ever allowed to defeat me is math. And so then you have situations like thit in class today:

Teacher: "And you, Christiane, what is your method for learning German?" (Other than the obvious.)
Me: "I listen to German opera and lieder and try to understand what they're saying."
Teacher: "..."
Me: "Have you ever tried running for the train to Wagner? You move twice as fast."

A statement guaranteed not to make you the most popular person in class. :)

You also have strange moments when you're defending Beethoven to a roomful of people who either don't know who Beethoven is, or could care less. Or both. But that's another story.

Bad Things to Hear in the Opera

2011-11-25T09:50:00.001-08:00

1. "I hear Grimes is looking for an apprentice again."

2. "Grab your shovel, we have a man to bury."

3. "Good news: I invited my long-lost brother to spend the night. I'm sure you'll get along great."

4. "I pissed off Dad; you've gotta back me up on this one."

5. "I think my cough is getting worse."

6. "If you hate me, I'll love you, but if you love me, well, them's the breaks."

7. "Uh, sir, I-I think that statue just moved."

8. "No, no, do the honorable thing. That won't possibly affect any of us badly."

9. "Hey, man, I need a favor."

10. "So, how're things between you and what's-his-name?"

Got any others, people?

Soup (and music) to die for

2011-11-22T06:27:00.000-08:00

Do you all like French Onion Soup? I do. I didn't until last week, though, and now I am a hardcore convert to the church of French Onion Soup. How did this revolution come about? Funny story.

My brother's heating blew out completely a few weeks ago, rendering his apartment an ice cave, so he moved back in with me until they fixed it. However, he continued to do things like paint the walls, assemble furniture, and play his bass in his own place, which meant that he contracted the inevitable death blargh known as the Common Cold. So on top of having a grown man sharing my one-room apartment, I also had a sick and pathetic grown man on my hands. So I did what I do when I'M the sick one: I made soup.

I found the recipe on Epicurious.com under the heading "Easy Dinners". We were low on food, so when I saw that all I would have to buy was a slab of Gruyere, I caved and made the French Onion Soup.

It was a revelation. An epiphany. A small miracle of onions and beef stock and cheese. I ate all of mine and finished my brother's (typically, he didn't like it).

Yesterday I bought a magnificent three-year-old Gruyere from a cheese vendor at the Gendarmmarkt's Christmas Market. He told me to eat it with crackers, and I did. Half of it. With the other half, I made soup. Today is a bleak, tired kind of day: cold outside, but not cold enough for snow, and I had a tough German class on top of that. On the train I realized that I desperately needed hot soup and comforting Mozart. So I came home, pulled up a Mozart playlist on YouTube and found this:

Play it while you eat the soup: it makes it even more delicious.

Simple French Onion Soup:

2 medium onions, finely chopped
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
1 tablespoon Calvados, Applejack, or other brandy (I don't have brandy, so I used apple juice)
4 cups low-salt beef stock
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
4–8 1/2"-thick slices baguette (I use German multigrain bread, and always will)
1 cup grated Gruyère or raclette cheese

Special equipment: Four 10-ounces ramekins (I used regular bowls; they work fine)

Preheat oven to 450°F. Cook onions in a 12" nonstick skillet over high heat, stirring constantly, until soft and caramelized, about 15 minutes. Add butter and toss onions to coat. Remove pan from heat and stir in Calvados. Return pan to heat and continue cooking until Calvados is absorbed, about 30 seconds. Add stock and bring to a simmer. Simmer until soup is reduced to 4 cups, about 5 minutes. Season soup to taste with salt and pepper.
Place ramekins on a rimmed baking sheet. Divide soup among ramekins. Top each ramekin with 1-2 slices of bread. Sprinkle 1/4 cup cheese over each. Transfer baking sheet with ramekins to oven and bake until cheese is bubbly and browned in spots, about 4 minutes.

Snowflakes, stories and ballerinas

2011-11-21T12:21:00.000-08:00

Every little girl goes through a phase where she wants to be a ballerina. The tutus, the floaty tulle skirts, the satin ballet slippers...as children we are born into a world of imagination and High Romance. I was one of those little girls who had twice weekly ballet classes, the highlight of whose week was donning leotard, tights, and ballet shoes to go swoosh around the studio, pretending I was a snowflake, or Cinderella, or Clara. And I absolutely lived for The Nutcracker. Even after class, even in the middle of summer, I could put on the music and dance around, and I was a part of that story. That was a special talent I had, to read myself into a story and exist there for hours at a time. It made it hard for me to be bored. "Go play in a story," my mom would say, and I'd go to my room, put on the music, and off I would go.

Given that classical music was involved, my parents aided and abetted my obsession with ballet in general and The Nutcracker in particular. I remember that we had Baryshnikov's amazing version, and later George Balanchine's. And believe me when I say that I knew both of those performances backwards and forwards, inside and out.

I eventually moved away from ballet (an extremely strict teacher killed the joy in dancing for me). I found out early on that if the music didn't have words, it didn't interest me as much. I still love The Nutcracker, though, and watch it every year. And I am telling you all this because the Weinachtsmarks, or German Christmas Markets, opened today, onto a bright, snowless Berlin (I adore snow), and I am listening to "The Waltz of the Snowflakes" in my own version of a snow dance.

An excerpt

2011-11-19T08:11:00.000-08:00

From my "Fidelio" novel:

Florestan lay in total darkness. The lamp outside his cell door had burnt itself low, so low that it would soon snuff itself out, and he would be in darkness forever more. But Florestan could not bring himself to care. It was so cold, and he was so hungry. He hunched himself over, wanting to fade back into sleep again, but nothing came. Florestan was awake, and still alive.
“Oh God,” Florestan whispered, “Give me the strength to endure this. I am ready to die.”
He was dying: Florestan knew that as surely as he knew the reason for his incarceration. It did not matter who was behind his imprisonment: one of his enemies had disposed of him, and in the two years that he had inhabited this cell, Florestan had not once convinced the jailer to tell him who the prison’s governor was. It did not matter anymore.
Before, when he had still had the strength, Florestan had sometimes raged at God, wondering why this was happening. As time passed and the suffering increased, he stopped murmuring and began to pray in earnest, begging to be comforted in his trials. God would not forsake him, even as he lay dying. Even now, starving to death, Florestan stubbornly clung to the hope that he would not be forsaken. He wrapped his ragged coat tighter around himself and leaned back against the wall. There was nothing alive down here, not even rats. No one but himself, and the jailer would not come. The light would soon be gone. This time, there would be no one to come light it again. They had abandoned him to death.
Florestan no longer cared that he was dying. The hunger rode him mercilessly; thirst clawed at his throat since he had finished the water that the jailer had given him days before. All he wanted was for it to end. He was finished with life. Death was coming for him, but Florestan did not fear it. He only wondered how much time he had left in this hell. There were things in this darkness. Since the jailer had stopped bringing him food, creatures had begun to appear in the dungeon. Many-legged creatures skittered in the corners where before there had been nothing. Nothing was alive here but Florestan himself. But even while his reason knew that, the hallucinations continued. It was so dark! He curled into himself, praying for peace, for comfort. The chains around his wrists were so heavy that he could barely lift his arms. They cut into his skin. Florestan ran his fingers over them, wishing that they were, at least, looser. Chains were the reward for his integrity. Florestan forced himself to remember.
I am here because I fought for the truth, and for justice. I did the right thing, and this is my reward. But I am innocent. And now I will die, and God will judge my enemies for their crimes. I did my duty, and I am comforted.
“Florestan.”
He opened his eyes and gasped. An angel stood nearby, her white dress shining so pure and bright that it hurt his eyes. A rosy light surrounded her. She smiled at him, holding her hands out; there was a soft scent of roses about her. Leonora.
“Leonora! Careña!” Florestan gasped. “Leonora!”
He reached for her, frantic, desperate to fall into her arms and be born away to Heaven. The angel smiled so beautifully, her rosy light falling upon the filthy, miserable man before her. Florestan gaped at her. Leonora! His own Leonora! She would take him away from here; take him to Heaven where he could rest, where he could finally find peace. Florestan struggled to his knees, reaching, reaching… And then the angel was gone, and all that remained was darkness. No! No, please, no. Come back, come back... But the angel was gone. Florestan, heartbroken, collapsed.

Cavaradossi

2011-11-16T06:11:00.000-08:00

Everyone's favorite doomed revolutionary artist. I say we have a jolly good chat about the one and only Mario Cavardossi, and how he's the most tragic son on a gun in opera.

Discuss.

Berlin: Tiergarten

2011-11-14T10:38:00.000-08:00

I went exploring in Tiergarten, Berlin's answer to Central and Golden Gate Parks, this past weekend. It was beautiful, all fall foliage and black-water lakes (not a little creepy, but atmospheric). I only got through half the park, walking for about an hour, but I stumbled upon this lovely memorial to three great German composers: Haydn, Mozart, and my own dear Beethoven:

The memorial, a discreet sign explained in four languages, was constructed sometime in the 1850s. It was damaged during the First and Second World Wars (Mozart bears a few bullet holes, as does Haydn's pedestal), and parts of it went missing. But, in true German spirit, the whole thing was restored in the decades following the cease-fire. They replaced the gilding and the missing swan's necks, made a new pedestal out of marble from the original quarry, and made an elegant little garden out of the area. It looks like it would be a nice place to have summer concerts.

If you look closely, you can see what looks like little black spots all over Herr von Beethoven's face. They're actually some sort of insect. Of the three composers honored, Beethoven was the least spotty.

A Cinderella Story

2011-11-13T10:06:00.001-08:00

No, I have not been forced into servitude to my obnoxious relatives (although it can be argued that the Big Sister is always Cinderella), nor have I been whisked away to a ball by anyone fabulous, fairy godmother or otherwise. No, today I have only scored the major coup of moving all my furniture and deep-cleaning my apartment. Everything is all lemony-fresh and sparkling clean. If that isn't a good feeling, I don't know what is.

In celebration, I give you a video of my preferred La Cenerentola, starring the ever-fabulous Elina Garanca:

Thoughts to live by

2011-11-09T12:05:00.000-08:00

(Source unknown)

Or, as my mom says it, the worst mistake you'll ever make is getting to be one hundred and realizing that you haven't lived a life.

Night terrors

2011-11-08T13:21:00.000-08:00

Sometimes I watch stupid tv shows that creep me out. This is what I've been listening to to calm down.

Siegfried: Thoughts of a Novice Wagnerian

2011-11-06T09:01:00.000-08:00

First of all, do you have any idea how hard it is to get from one side of Berlin to Potsdamer Platz? I was sprinting by the time I got there, hurtling across streets teeming with traffic, but so help me, I was not going to miss this because the public transportation sucked.

I am not by any stretch of the imagination a music scholar, nor is there anything I can't say that hasn't been said better by other bloggers here. So this review is that of one girl who was introduced to Wagner only in May and is completely bowled over.

It was amazing.

There, I said it. I thought the entire production, from beginning to end, questionable baby-snatching and recaltricent Machine aside, was simply unbelievable. Jay Hunter Morris was flat-out adorable as Siegfried. I'd never heard of Morris before, but I was impressed. He's a tall, huge, adorable Texan (that accent! It was so nice to hear someone twanging; you have no idea), and I found his Siegfried was the perfect mix of eagerness, ambition, crassness, loneliness, and youth. He was immature but full of bravado. He bounced and ran and flopped and grumbled, and was altogether a teenage boy on a mission. When he hid under the blanket, plugging his ears against Mime's lecture in Act One, I grinned. I chuckled when he sat on the table like a child, swinging his legs, right after threatening to kill Mime if he didn't surrender information on his parents. When he ran off after the bird at the end of Act Two and had to come back onstage for Nothung, I laughed out loud. Siegfried is not an easy character to like ("He's very young and he's very handsome and he's very strong, and he's very brave, and he's very stupid..."), but Morris won me over. His Siegfried is like that adorable meat head that we all knew and loved in high school. The one you want to punch half the time.

Bryn Terfel can do no wrong in my mind, so I'm probably not a reliable witness here. But I found his Wanderer to be wise, jaded, a little dangerous, even funny. I liked how he took his shoes off and stretched a little in Mime's forge, and how he conjured Erda in Act Three. His scene with Siegfried was also interesting, especially when you consider that he's the kid's grandfather. There's a weariness to the character that I find touching: He knows that he's given into the Ring's curse. He forsook love when he abandoned Siegmund and Brunnhilde, and he knows it. Now he wants it to be over. I found the spear-shattering scene very poignant. His wig was, admittedly, rather Saruman-esque, but I liked the black contact and eye make-up they gave him. It was also fun to read Bryn Terfel's Tweets during the intermissions: Time for a cup of t. R Flemming looking for interviews., and so on.

Hans Peter Koenig! I love you Hans Peter Koenig!

And now, I bring you to the scene that left me weak in the knees and stumbling like a drunk out of that theater: the great love duet. One of the interviewees described it as a "fight to the death", and I have to agree. A really, really gorgeous fight to the death. Siegfried was, again, adorable in his wide-eyed contemplation of Bruennhilde, and how he scampered away to the back of the stage when she began to wake up. I'll admit that my first thought, when Brunnhilde opened her eyes, stretched, and flopped over, was "Ooh, nap hangover! I hate those". And then I forgot all about it, because she was just so sweet and awed and happy to be awake, and thrilled that Siegfried was there, and feeling strange because she woke up human. Her music morphed into the duet, and her caution to treat her "carefully, I was once immortal and am not quite sure how to handle this". I found her uncertainty very touching. Deborah Voigt really played it well; I find her Brunnhilde very accessible and believable. The whole thing just got louder and louder and more and more passionate, until the only thing that could possibly happen was for it to end. And as I was at the end of Act One of Die Walkuere, I was weak in the knees and totally verklempt. This was exactly the kind of evening I needed after a long week.

Bottom line? I cannot freaking wait for Goettedaemerung. If I had the money, too, I would go see the complete cycle in the spring.

How to do You Laundry in German

2011-11-02T13:18:00.000-07:00

My friends, doing the laundry has never been so harrowing.

Imagine, if you will, that you live in a fairly tiny apartment, which is possessed of a giant main room, a fairly tiny kitchen, and a decent bathroom. Now imagine that you are gifted with a thirty-year-old Siemens washer, which the friend of a cousin did not quite have the heart to get rid of. Now imagine this good-sized washer in your decently-sized bathroom, and you see the problem.

Yes. My washer is almost the same size as my bathroom.

Here are the steps to doing the laundry with this machine.

1. Disactivate the wheel lock and push the washing machine into the center of the bathroom (during off times, it can act as a clothes horse and general catch-all).
2. Take the two pipes and the electric cord and bring them to the sink. Unscrew one of the bolts on the sink and put the first pipe onto it. Please make sure that you put it on securely. Next, screw the second pipe onto the valve beneath the incongruous-looking water handle. Pray that it actually takes to the valve and won't slip off when you turn the water on.
3. Turn the water on. If you've put the pipes on right, neither will burst off and spray the bathroom with a deluge of cold water. If you're not lucky, it will take a lot of screaming before you can turn the water off and get hold of the flailing pipes. Also, you will be soaked.
4. Plug in the electric cord. Try not to electrocute yourself.
Congratulations! You are now ready to actually put the laundry into the machine!
5. Load the washer. Shut the little metal doors that close the barrel and pray that they open again (if not, a spatula may be used to pop them open).
6. Put the soap in the indicated spots and close the main lid. Turn on the machine.
7. You have about nine different types of washing to choose from, all with different lengths of time. If you are doing your whites and simply have to wash them hot, your laundry will be ready in three hours. If you choose to wash them cold, you have a further three options: 90 minutes, 85 minutes, and 66 minutes. Select your cycle and pray your laundry turns out well.
8. Press "Start". Walk away contemplating that when your laundry is done, you have to dismantle the whole apparatus and put it back how it was before.

31 Days of Halloween: Day 31

2011-10-31T08:28:00.000-07:00

By the fabulous Pika la Cynique.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN EVERYBODY!!!!

31 Days of Halloween: Day 30

2011-10-30T12:01:00.000-07:00

As a small child, I was terrified of the Bogeyman. Convinced as I was that one wrong move could strand me in a world of cabinet-dwelling dolls, this should come as no surprise. Don't get me wrong, I loved me a good scary story. I just couldn't handle it once the lights were out.

When I was around six, I saw an absolutely terrifying animated version of "The Nutcracker" in which the Mouse King's minions were children who stayed up too late and so were turned into mice by a 30-foot tall magician who dragged them kicking and screaming out of their windows and then threw them into the gutter. I didn't sleep for months after that one. Instead, I would lie curled up in bed, unable to sleep, convinced that if I looked out the window, I would see this evil bad man coming to steal me away and turn me into a mouse. And yet for some reason, this movie never put me off of Tchaikovsky's music, which was a staple to my childhood experience.

Thanks to Google, I now know that this film of horror is Nutcracker Fantasy, made by the Japanese, and that I was not the only child to have been traumatized by it. Seriously, who starts a kid's movie like this?!

31 Days of Halloween: Day 29

2011-10-29T14:10:00.000-07:00

JONAS KAUFMANN RÉPÉTITIONS FIDELIO

ESTI | Myspace Video

This is scary, and by scary, I mean heartbreaking. And can anyone tell me what it is he's saying when the aria ends? My German isn't quite at the point where I can understand when they speak so fast.

31 Days of Halloween: Day 28

2011-10-28T14:24:00.000-07:00

When I was very little, I often spent the night at my grandad's house. My grandmother, who died when I was four, had collected a whole slew of dolls, a passion that runs in the family (don't get me started on dolls; if I had the money, I'd have a ton of them). The dolls lived in a huge glass-fronted cabinet in the main living room, a small army of porcelain figurines decked out as Cinderella, Red Riding Hood, Scarlett O'Hara, and every other fairy tale and fictional heroine you can imagine. I wasn't allowed to play with these dolls, being limited to the American Girl dolls that she had gotten for us grandkids. But I used to stand and stare at the dolls, making up stories for them in which they came alive at night and had all sorts of wonderful adventures. I was a hopelessly romantic child, as you can see.

One night, as I recall (and maybe this is a warped memory), I was staying at Grandad's and sleeping over in the guest bedroom. Or maybe I was at home; I really don't remember. Suffice it to say, it was late, I was very small, and I wanted a bedtime story. My big brother was there, and he is a masterful storyteller. And so he tucked me in, made sure I had my bear, turned the lights off, and proceeded to scare the hell out of me.

The story as I remember it went something like this:

"You know Grandmommy's dolls, the ones you're not allowed to play with? Well, there's a very good reason that you can't play with them."
"What is it?"
"Have you ever seen anyone open that cabinet?" (I shook my head.) "There's a reason for that, too. But I promised I would never tell you."
"Why?"
"Because it might scare you so bad that you won't ever go back to Grandad's. No, I really can't tell you."
"Oh please! I won't tell Mom!"
"No, no, it's a bad idea. Forget I brought it up. I've got a story about a pony; you want that instead?"

By this time, naturally, I was frantic to know what it was I was not supposed to know. So I begged and pleaded for a long time, and finally, he relented.

"Okay, but don't say I didn't warn you. So, you know Grandmommy's dolls?" (I nodded.) "Well, those aren't really dolls. They're actually people."
"No way!"
"Way. You see, they were once girls just like you: bright, curious, full of adventure...but they all did something wrong."
"What was it?"
"The Evil Witch caught them all, and as punishment for being naughty, she turned them into dolls. Which is why you must never, ever open that cabinet. Oh, you might hear them say, late at night when you get up to pee, that if you open the cabinet, you can save them. That they can turn back into girls and live happily ever after. But you must never, ever listen to them!"
"Why not?"
"Because if you open that cabinet, you'll turn into a DOLL." (I gasped.) "A beautiful, cold, porcelain doll with a pretty dress and curly hair. And you'll have to live in the cabinet, and you won't be able to play with your friends, or get Christmas presents, or snuggle with Mom EVER AGAIN. We'll all wonder where you went, and what happened to Christie, and you'll be right there, unable to tell us that you're stuck in the cabinet. Because each of those other girls didn't listen to their brothers, and they opened the forbidden cabinet, and now they can never, ever go home!"

As you can probably imagine, six-year-old me was scared right out of my pants. For months after this story I couldn't actually walk past the doll cabinet, but had to navigate all the way around the house to avoid it. The dolls' cold glass eyes seemed to follow me, daring me to open the cabinet and join them, in a sort of reverse-Narnia. It took me years to get that my brother had been epically messing with me.

When I first heard this particular recording of Offenbach's Doll Song, I could only think that it would have been the perfect background music for that singularly creepy story.

31 Days of Halloween: Day 25

2011-10-25T14:05:00.000-07:00

They may not celebrate Halloween, but guys, I am here to tell you that German Octobers are fierce. Cold, blustery, smelling of woodsmoke and bonfires...it's the perfect weather to curl up in front of the fire with a spooky book. I like The Vanishing of Katharina Linden, by Helen Grant, for this purpose. The story is set in Germany and focuses around the mysterious vanishings of multiple people, set against a backdrop of folklore, history, and local legend. Five stars, and I couldn't put it down when I read it.

Are you all reading anything interesting?

31 Days of Halloween: Day 24

2011-10-24T11:01:00.000-07:00

Seriously, I want to be married to the man who came up with this. When I have my own house, I will absolutely do something like this. If, you know, I ever again live in a country that celebrates Halloween.

31 Days of Halloween: Day 23

2011-10-23T07:42:00.000-07:00

Let's talk Halloween costumes.

I don't get to dress up this year, which is a tragedy. Normally I go all out at Halloween: this is me last year, just come from work (where we were required to dress up) with pink hair and funky tights. Spraying my hair pink was the funnest thing ever, although I was scrubbing the bathroom walls for weeks afterward, and they still retain a pale pink tint. Such is the sacrifice we make to look cool on Halloween.

This year, due to Germany's lack of Halloween Spirit, I won't be dressing up, but that hasn't stopped me from thinking about it. So here are my top costume pics:

Mata Hari-Actually, I could only do this one at home, because here I'd freeze to death in a matter of minutes.

Tosca, post-jump-The really morbid side to me thinks that it would be a pretty easy costume, actually: early Napoleonic dress, dark wig, copious amounts of fake blood, and zombie make-up. Possibly also a knife and a letter. If you wanted to be really creepy, have Cavaradossi right there with her. Copious amounts of fake blood, zombie make-up...Nobody would get the actual characters, but the idea would be very clear.

Wonder Woman-again, this was would be a California-only costume, lest I catch some horrific death blargh or die of hypothermia.

Turandot-this would be along the Mata Hari theme, although a lot warmer. Really cool head jewelry, heavy Chinese-style dress, appropriate bitchface...I think I could handle being Turandot for one night.

But I have to say that my favorite idea is Undead Tosca and Cavaradossi. That would be the best couples' costume ever.

What are you going to be for Halloween? Or what would you LIKE to be?

31 Days of Halloween: Day 22

2011-10-22T06:15:00.001-07:00

Editing. What you see is something like twenty-five pages of my Fidelio novel, which needed to be re-arranged into a more coherent order. I am pleased to say that that order has been found. Now I just need to edit the Word document. And continue with my line-by-line editing of the actual prose, not just the structure.

Yes, this is what I do for fun, and no, I don't get paid for it.

31 Days of Halloween: Day 21

2011-10-21T04:56:00.000-07:00

Why do I have the feeling that I will be trekking all over Berlin to find this. Unless someone wants to send it to me. HEY GUYS! Anyone want to go to Barnes and Noble on a mission of mercy?

31 Days of Halloween: Day 19

2011-10-19T08:06:00.001-07:00

Today: the German Grocery Store

Being from America, I am used to having all of my foodstuffs in one place, neatly wrapped and presented for the happy and healthy wholefoods eating hippy that my university colleagues assumed me to be. Shopping in my local grocery store, I could find everything I wanted, plus a multitude of ingredients for cuisines from other cultures, namely pan-Asian, Mexican, and Indian. I knew that European supermarkets were different. My French teacher used to tell us of holidays in France where she would go from butcher to baker to fromagerie. I used to sit and listen to these stories, dreaming about the romance of it all. I would be one of those chic European girls with her cute market basket, tripping merrily from store to store to make my purchases: a roasting chicken here, a sprig of herbs there, bread from the bakery. And then, I imagined, I would go home and cook it all up into a delightful meal fit for the sophisticated and intelligent woman my fifteen-year-old self dreamed I would be.

Well, fifteen-year-old self would be proud in every way of twenty-five-year-old self, but she would, admittedly, grimace in chagrin at the non-romance of navigating the markets.

This is a typical day at the shops:
1. I set out with my cute market basket (yes, I bought one of those. I have an Inner Romantic to answer to, after all) for the market. I have my list in one hand. I'm getting ingredients for chicken soup and minestrone soup, because it is Soup Season.
2. I enter the first supermarket. It is crowded with moms and dads and babies, and elderly people happily stink-eyeing the younger generations out of the way. First, none of the vegetables I need for soup are in stock. Celery? What's that? says the bewildered clerk. Bravely, I make my way to the meat section, only to find that the only available chicken breasts look like they came from a one-hundred-year-old chicken, and the ground beef from a mad cow. Sighing, I get the basics-milk, butter, cream, pasta, etc-and make my way to the casse. A palatial exhibit of gluhwein stands next to the counter, supposedly to ease the trauma of being nearly killed by strollers multiple times.
3. Drop purchases off at home and head to the next, slightly more expensive supermarket. There I find chicken, beef and the vegetables, but they do not carry cheese. Also, their bread section is pitiful and unworthy of the name. Better to go to the proper bakery. My basket is very heavy by the time I am done.
4. Third stop: bakery. Service is prompt and they slice the bread for you.
5. Fourth stop: cheese shop. Or rather, cheese stand, because this lovely little place is located in the local mall, of all places (as are two doctors, a lawyer, and a fitness center). They only take cash, so I heft my basket and march to the ATM. Then the woman on duty asks how old I'd like my Gruyere: one year or two. I opt for the one year; she wraps it up and tells me I have a pretty accent. "From Holland?" I always get Northern Europe, for some reason.
6. I realize I'm out of face wash and duck into the drogerie to buy some. There is only one clerk on duty and the line is a mile long. But I wait, because if I don't I'll regret it.
7. And home, where I collapse in my chair and reflect that multiple-market shopping isn't nearly as glamorous as it sounds.

Wish me luck, I'm about to go out and do exactly this.

31 Days of Halloween: Day 18

2011-10-18T06:46:00.000-07:00

Illustration by the fabulous Katy Betz.

On Falstaff’s second expedition into Paris with Benedick, Plum tied her hair back and went to work in the distillery to keep from fretting. Grinding herbs into teas and mixing tinctures was soothing, and the younger people were minding the children. When Christian wandered in to watch her, Plum nodded in greeting, but did not try to engage him in conversation. If Christian wanted to speak, he would make the overtures. She had learned that much in the past few months.
“Do you know the story of the evil at the University?” he asked eventually. Plum stopped mixing herbs and stared at him. Christian met her eyes with a startling frankness. There was no madness there, only curiosity. When she did not reply, he continued.
“There was a prisoner in the Grimoire, some poor soul who had broken into the University and lost his mind. He screamed for days about it.”
“What happened to him?”
“He died.” Christian studied his hands. “But not before I had learned enough from him to know what it is that haunts the place.”
It was an invitation. Plum laid her mortar and pestle aside and settled herself onto the bench beside her father in law.
“What did you learn from him?”
“It would be better if I could show you.”
Plum frowned, wondering how he could show her anything, here in the distillery in Versailles. The line between past and present was thin, but even Plum’s magical abilities could not break it, and the ghosts were far from the palace today. Then Christian took her hands in his, and Plum Saw.
Screams in the dark. Someone in the next cell was screaming, and the sound of it reverberated against the stones. Most people, when they scream, cannot breathe after a time, but these screams went on and one until Christian clutched his head and moaned, wanting to scream himself. Amontillado wine, he thought inanely, and a walled up clown…
When the screams finally stopped he could still feel the prisoner in the cell beyond, huddled up. This was new, it was different, being able to sense a person like this, and yet Christian was not surprised. Down here everything was different. The person on the other side of the wall was a madman. Whatever had happened to him to warrant his incarceration down here, his mind was gone. His silence didn’t last for long. Christian was jolted from an uneasy sleep by the renewed screams.
“Shut up, shut up! They will come if you don’t shut up! Amontillado wine, walled up beneath the earth-”
“What is coming? Who is coming? It cannot come, She cannot come; she has been contained! Pater noster qui es in caelis-”
The voice was in his head. He saw the madman opposite the wall kneeling on the ground, muttering in Latin. Praying. This could not be happening.
“Who are you?”
“They all died and she came for me! Sanctificeteur nomen tuum-’
“Who came? What are you talking about?”
The vision changed from the madman to a beautifully desolate courtyard. There were trees and fountains and a riot of scarlet flowers against the façade of white stone, but something was wrong, terribly wrong. Dreadful quiet filled the air. No wind rustled the trees, no water moved in the fountains. It was completely still here. A pall hung over it. The great clock on the face of the building was forever frozen at five minutes to four o’clock. The walls went up and up and up-the University. And then they were inside.
A watchful darkness surrounded them. Waiting. Even the ghosts did not come here; this was the domain of something Other. Something wicked. Whatever it was came quickly, as they were exploring the upper floors. Something rustled in a far corner, and a dark cloud arose out of nowhere to rush at them. In it’s midst was a shrieking, howling banshee, flying at them in a rage. She surrounded them in darkness, flying straight for the madman. Rage, horror and despair crashed down on them like a wave, and with it came madness so vast that there was no way to escape it. And with the madness came terrible knowledge.
The screaming, raging banshee was a little girl. She had the ash blond hair of her mother and the pale blue eyes of her father. But she was different, she was wrong, something was very wrong-
Christian broke the connection. Plum opened her eyes and stared at him.
“That was-it couldn’t be…was it?” she ended lamely.
Christian nodded. “It was. Marie-Therese-Charlotte, the little daughter supposedly exiled to Austria after her family died. I did not show you what she poured into that man’s mind, but it was terrible.”
“But what happened to her?”
“When she was left alone, after Le Roi and La Pauvre had met their fates and her brother had disappeared, They took her away from the Tower to the University. They knew she had some of her mother’s powers and They wanted to take it from her. The University was famous for its library of occult works. I don’t know what they did to her, but whatever it was, it resulted in the entire University complex being sealed off to protect the Capitol from the evil-or perhaps to protect the evil from the people. She is still in there, that twisted creeping thing that isn’t quite human anymore.” Christian sighed.
Plum folded her arms, shivering. That little girl, transformed into an evil thing. Terrifying.
“You said they didn’t get all of her powers. Why not?”
Christian smiled, and reached for her hands. “Look again.”
He took her back through the memory, and stopped at the dark corner that the banshee had occupied before attacking the madman. The girl crouched there, her dark clothes tattered around her, faded fine garb. Her eyes smoldered. Strung on a ribbon around her neck was a fine pearl fleur de lis, glowing in the dark. Plum gasped. Christian took his hands away.
“That is why,” was all he said.
*

From Lost Ones: Ghosts of Paris, my first published book.

31 Days of Halloween: Day 15

2011-10-15T09:27:00.001-07:00

Geeze, you'd think that I'd have more to say these days. Unfortunately, that's not the case. I've been frantically trying to get my book ready to start pitching to agents, and so have been basically sitting on my butt, staring at the computer screen, willing words of genius to come to me. It's...not going as well as I hoped. But I shall persevere. I am nothing if not stubborn.

Part of the problem is that there is no Halloween spirit here: Germany doesn't celebrate Halloween. It's seen as a novelty holiday, much as the U.S. looks the Day of the Dead: cool but not really necessary. So there are no decorations, no haunted houses and, perhaps saddest, no pumpkin patches or bonfires to make one think of ghosts and spooks and things that go bump in the night. And so, in the mood of spooks and creepiness, I am listening to Lizst's Faust Symphony and looking at pictures of jack o'lanterns on Google.

31 Days of Halloween: Day 13

2011-10-13T08:19:00.000-07:00

So, I saw Jonas Kaufmann last night. It was a brilliant concert, with the Staatskapelle Orchester and Choir, performing Liszt's Psalm 13 and Faust Symphony. The venue was the Berlin Philharmonie, the inside of which would make a very good spaceship, like something out of Firefly.

I'm still trying to take in the whole experience. I've almost certainly heard the Faust before, as I sat in my seat going, "This! I know this!" quite a bit, but Psalm 13 was entirely new. Now, I don't much like Franz Liszt as a person-reading the biography of his daughter, Cosima, and the things he put her through as a child just made me lose all respect for the man himself. But there is no denying that his music is fantastic. Not as technically light and savvy as Mozart nor as passionate as Beethoven, but it was brilliant nonetheless. The best word I can come up with to describe it is sumptuous. There was a lot of it, like a really yummy cake that you could get sick eating too much of. But I digress.

Kaufmann sang in both pieces and was his usual highly-polished self, all pressed tails and extremely shiny shoes. And he seemed at pains to make this concert into a team effort-a They came for the music, not for ME kind of deal. Of course, the audience was having none of it, and everyone onstage new it. After the Psalm, they bowed as an ensemble-Kaufmann, Barenboim, the choir conductor. Roars from the audience; one bow, two bows, three. Then Barenboim put his hand on Kaufmann's back and all but shoved him forward for a solo bow, and we members of the audience (well, not me. I'm opposed to shrieking) howled out our approval. He acknowledged it with a grin, and turned to applaud the orchestra and choir, which I thought was sweet.

During intermission, the Australian gentleman seated next to me lectured me about the technical difficulty of Liszt and complained that the first half of the evening was "not very good". I replied that I had no basis of comparison, not being a Liszt afficianado, and he grumbled some about mad tenors and asked if I was a "Kaufmann fangirl". "I come for the music," I replied evenly, "although Kaufmann IS my current go-to tenor. Him and Juan Diego Florez." He nodded at that, and we talked for a bit about opera. Then the lights went down again.

The Faust Symphony began to a stage devoid of singers, which gave me some consternation, as I was pretty certain that the piece called for choir and tenor. The gentleman next to me fidgeted. "Where's the choir?" he muttered, and I shrugged. But they came out for the third movement, Mephistopheles, all the men. Kaufmann followed them out, moving hesitantly, as though either uncertain of where he was supposed to stand, or as though his leg hurt. He sang very confidently, though, from behind the orchestra, and there was no problem at all hearing him. And then the organ started, and since the pipes were just above and to the right of my seat, it was definitely a bombastic experience.

I was one of the crowd that waited around afterwards for an autograph, but nothing came of it, I am sorry to say. A man eventually came out to say "Herr Kaufmann something German that I couldn't translate", but which was clearly, "He's not coming out, guys, sorry." Everyone groaned. I suspect that the man went out into a different part of the Philharmonie to do signings and couldn't make it across to where we all were. That's what I gathered from general conversation, in any case.It certainly is a labyrinthine building. I was sad, but also proud of myself for waiting. In Saarbrucken, I just booked it out of there.

I had a hairy experience this afternoon, when on my rambles to and from my class, I walked straight into the Staatskapelle Orchester going into the Konzerthaus for a rehearsal of tonight's concert. No Kaufmann, though, although I did wait around to see if he would appear. To be honest, I'm not sure that I'd have gone up to him even if he had shown up. I have issues with approaching people on the street.

All in all, it was a great evening, and if I had the money, I'd go again tonight.

31 Days of Halloween: Day 10

2011-10-10T07:36:00.000-07:00

This is just about the scariest aria I've ever heard in my life. It's also one of the most gorgeous. Something about the pure evil mixed with the religious devotion just scares the hell out of me.

I should probably just throw in the towel and admit that I need to see Tosca, even though it will undoubtedly reduce me to a quivering heap of uncontrolled sobbing. Seriously. I can hardly listen to the music without losing it. Luckily I hear that Covent Garden is putting out a dvd of the Terfel/Kaufmann/Georghiu lineup they had this summer, so that'll probably be the one I buy and watch. And sob hysterically over. I'm listening to Kaufmann's E Lucevan le stelle now and man, is it heartbreaking.

Speaking of Kaufmann, guess who I get to see perform on Wednesday? ;) I will try to overcome my shyness and dislike of irritating people and ask for a picture and an autograph. I might never forgive myself if I don't. But you can bet your bottom dollar that I'll blog the entire concert to death.

31 Days of Halloween: Day 9

2011-10-09T11:31:00.000-07:00

In the spirit of discussing music both new and old, I present one of my favorite modern composers. Danny Elfman is, in my humble view, a modern musical genius. Yes, he does movie soundtracks, but they're always spot-on for the movie they're in. Whenever I see a movie and hear that Elfman did the soundtrack, I know that we're in good hands-musically, at least.

I first discovered Elfman back in late high school, when a friend realized I'd never seen The Nightmare Before Christmas and made me watch the whole thing. The story was okay, but I loved the music. It was funny and quirky and eerie, and I bought the soundtrack. It's lived on my iPod for years now.

My next Elfman foray was Edward Scissorhands, which I can't listen to too much, as it makes me sad. From there, it was Sleepy Hollow, which my friend, Ella, made me watch ("It's totally your kind of movie, so be quiet!") at Halloween a few years ago. I ended up using that film's soundtrack as the soundtrack I used while writing my first book.

There are many other soundtracks by Elfman that I like, including Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Corpse Bride and Alice in Wonderland. If I'm in the mood for something eerie, Elfman is my go-to composer.

In the spirit of October, This is Halloween. So much love.

31 Days of Halloween: Day 8

2011-10-08T08:13:00.000-07:00

So, it's not very Halloween, but on Sunday I got to see The Barber of Seville at the Staatsoper im Schiller Theater.

Guilty admission: I had never before seen The Barber of Seville. I know the story and the music-largely due to the awesome CD of duets put out by Bryn Terfel and Cecelia Bartoli-and so I felt prepared. I was really excited: the Staatsoper had arranged the evening to benefit those under 35, and so the tickets were seven euros each. My friend and I were sitting in the sixth row, center. No need for opera glasses.

The Schiller Theater is actually kind of small for an opera house. I think that even sitting in the balcony there wouldn't have been any need for opera glasses. It's very modernist on the outside (with a big red neon sign blinking "HIER" over it, no less), but the inside is very properly decked out in red velvet. The pit is tiny (my dad: "Wait, they put a pit in the Schiller Theater?") and the stage decently sized. A very nice, comfortable place all around.

I was a little skeptical about the sets at first: they were white sheets painted with very minimalist designs of first a street, then the inside of a house. Not very inspired or inspiring. It reminded me, in fact, of a cartoon. But luckily, the entire production was cute, silly, and all around adorable.

Daniel Barenboim conducted his first Rossini opera that night. The orchestra was the Staatskappelle Orchester, and they were spot on fabulous: lush and energetic in tone, but never once overwhelming the singers. The singers themselves were excellent. The singer who played Rosina was Rachel Frenkel, a very expressive and lovely woman, perfect for the role. Her Rosina was smart and cheeky, and her voice was light and mischievous.

Figaro was played by Christopher Maltman, an English baritone with a full-throated roar. He was fabulous. His Figaro was loud, smart, brash, and absolutely uncaring for social boundaries. He delivered his Largo al factotume with unabashed glee, and it was incredible. He stole the show, as a good Figaro should. Much love.

Two really great Russian singers played the Count (Dmitri Korchak) and Basilio (Alexander Vinogradov). Korchak's Count was snobbish and arrogant, and only reluctantly admitted that he needed Figaro's help. Basilio was freaking hilarious. He was dressed as a sort of zombie-priest, and could've gotten a grant from the Ministry of Silly Walks. He was absolutely, unutterably hilarious. Big eyes, big features, tall and skinny with sharp cheekbones, and a hilarious fright wig. He rivaled Figaro for comedic effect. Vinogradov's bass-baritone was silky and warm, and I want to hear more from him.

Barenboim seemed to have a ball conducting this production. He got a roar from the audience when he came out for his bow, and in a cool gesture, made the orchestra come up onstage with him. I liked that. I feel that sometimes the orchestra gets overlooked, so it was nice to see this one recognized so well. It was definitely a great night at the opera.

31 Days of Halloween: Day 7

2011-10-07T11:45:00.000-07:00

Today was a good and proper October day, with clouds scudding across the sky, a chill in the air, and leaves swirling around the trees. The kind of day, if you can get out of bed at all, you want to spend doing absolutely nothing but walking around, listening to spooky music. Or maybe it's just me, and this is my favorite time of the year, and spooky music is never so appropriate as it is in October.

Here is one of the creepiest pieces I know: Night on Bald Mountain, by Mussorsky. I first saw it as a child in Fantasia. I managed one viewing before running out of the room howling; the music and the cartoon it accompanied were too much for me. Luckily it eventually found its way into my heart. It will forever in my mind go down as awesome Halloween music.

31 Days of Halloween: Day 6

2011-10-06T10:25:00.000-07:00

Due to having company over and having Too Much Fun, blogging had to take the backburner for a few days. BUT I'm back now and let's resume our normal schedule.

I just finished reading Henry James's The Turn of the Screw. It both scared the hell out of me and really, really irritated me. The complete irrationality of the governess and the lack of any real semblance of evil at Bly House made me sit down at my computer and write a grumpy email to my big brother, who has a PhD in Gothic Literature. It went something along the lines of "Just finished "Turn of the Screw"; please enlighten me because it's going to be with me for a loooooong time."

My current basic opinion is that the Governess was simply crazy and hallucinated the whole haunting. I want literary theory to back me up. Or the Britten opera, which I've never seen or heard before, but which currently fascinates me.

31 Days of Halloween: Day 3

2011-10-03T11:36:00.000-07:00

It's not opera, but one of the funniest pieces of "creepy" music (and by "creepy" I mean "awesome") I associate with the season is from Disney's Hocus Pocus. This was one of my favorite movies as a child, and I still give it a watch every October. The story is completely ridiculous, but the music always thrilled me, from the opening titles to the grand finale. I love it so much that two or three years ago, I went on a weekend-long online search for the soundtrack, and succeeded in downloading a copy that someone, somewhere, had managed to get their hands on. As far as I know, a soundtrack for this movie was never released.

Here is Better Midler being Awesome.

31 days of Halloween: Days 1 and 2

2011-10-02T06:47:00.000-07:00

In honor of it being October, my favorite month of the year and my favorite season, I'm going to do a daily Halloween challenge: music and opera that are scary. There's so much of it that I'm really looking forward to finding more.

Since I have a guest this week, this weekend's offerings are going to be a little typical of the season. Today I give you something silly, to set the mood:

Don Carlo in Berlin

2011-09-30T13:36:00.000-07:00

The Berlin underground is currently full of posters of the season premiers at Deutsch Oper. They're all a little bizarre: Don Carlo in a wife beater; Elsa looking thoroughly disheveled, Jenufa actually looking fairly normal. My camera is being weird, so the pictures aren't great, but it makes me smile to see the opera advertised so exceptionally well.

Still, there's a large part of me that's surprised at the premiers: Deutsche Oper has seriously never produced Lohengrin before? Really? And Don Carlo? Color me surprised. Still, I'm looking forward to it all. Not Lohengrin. My inner feminist wants to murder everyone at the end of that opera.

The battle commences...

2011-09-29T11:40:00.001-07:00

My brother and I are on opposing sides of the musical spectrum.

He is a professional musician, a jazz bassist, living with me while he gets set up in Berlin. I am an opera fan with cursory musical training and a vocation in novel writing.

Little Brother doesn't like opera. I don't like jazz.

To say that life is musically schizophrenic right now would be putting things nicely. :)

"Fidelio" plot tweets

2011-09-27T10:13:00.000-07:00

Playing around with using a tweet-length summary of my novelized version of Fidelio. Which, if any, of these would make you want to pick the book up and read more?

1. Savvy woman defies 18thC standards; infiltrates prison to find political dissident husband.
2. Political prisoner kidnapped and tortured; woman risks all to save him.
3. 896 days in prison for a crime he didn't commit.
4. Savvy woman defies 18thC standards; works to overthrow the system from inside to avenge her missing husband.
5. Husband & wife fight crime with Enlightenment ideals; risk death and madness to find each other.
6. Husband & wife fight crime with Enlightenment ideals, pitted against an enemy bent on destroying them both.
7. Savvy woman defies 18thC standards; works to avenge her husband by infiltrating the system.
8. Defying all odds, she infiltrates a notorious prison to find the man everyone claims is dead.
9. Is her husband is dead, why do all the clues point to his being alive?
10. Her man was kidnapped, beaten, and starved for his politics. She will bring about his enemy's downfall.
11. If you had the power to stop it, would you let them torture and kill the one you loved?
12. Two years missing. One year in disguise. Torment, love, tyranny, joy. "Fidelio".
13. A political prisoner. His tenacious wife. Torment, love, tyranny, joy. "Fidelio".
14. A political prisoner. His tenacious wife. Kidnapping, torment, love, tyranny, joy. "Fidelio". (I'm leaning on this one.)

And a really good one from Lucy at Opera Obsession: "Seville, 1790s: a dissident disappears. His wife won’t believe he’s dead. To search for the man she loves, she leaves everything she knows."

Dinner with friends

2011-09-25T09:07:00.000-07:00

For some reason I've been on a real mood-swing bender this week, so today's dinner with old family friends (actually, my dad's best friend for the last fifty-odd years) was really a blessing in disguise. We talked in a mixture of German and English, telling them about my activities in Berlin, my brother's activities in Berlin, my former job in Belgium and all that jazz. We were stuffed full of chicken, couscous, roasted vegetables, ice cream, fruit, and coffee, for over three hours. In the course of the conversation it became clear that I don't have a tv, and since that Will Not Do, one was dug out of their storage and presented to me as a house-warming gift. So I now have a tv. :)

And this fabulous couple, whom I love and adore, had this to say to me: "If you're stressed out and homesick and sad, just go to a concert. You can afford it. No sense in staying home and grumping if you can go out to a concert in Berlin." They're absolutely right. I'm getting unemployment right now, and I always stress out about money, but surely I can budget in a concert or three a month. Right?

Tomorrow I start my integration course, which should be funny. From here on out, my German should improve by leaps and bounds. Fingers crossed, anyway!

The Berlin Philharmonic

2011-09-24T08:31:00.000-07:00

Let's talk about architecture for a few minutes.

According to Wikipedia, the Berlin Philharmonie was designed in the 1960s to reflect modernist designs, and has a pentagon shape with spiked roofs. It "is highly regarded for the quality of its acoustics". Frankly, it looks like something out of Star Trek.

I made the quest up to the Philharmonie today, largely because I wanted to see how long it took and which route was the best. I have a ticket to see Jonas Kaufmann perform there next month, and since I'll be going alone, I wanted to case the joint, as it were. I got to the building after inadvertently walking into a marathon. It's located just off Potsdamer Platz, one of those unfortunate areas of Berlin that was built to be modern, streamlined, and ugly as sin. I walked around the Philharmonie, looked inside (it was closed, alas), and took a few pictures. I have to say, based on today's viewing of the place, I was incredibly disappointed.

"Chill out, dumbass," said my brother, who's been to the Philharmonie multiple times. "Wait until you get inside and hear the orchestra play. It's amazing."

That may be true, but I'm old-fashioned: I like my concert halls to be historic buildings with graceful architecture, not modernist monstrosities. So the simple fact of the matter is that I prefer the Konzerthaus, painstakingly and lovingly restored after the War, to the modernism of the newer halls.

Small children loving Mozart

2011-09-22T14:13:00.000-07:00

Tonight was hilarious.

I had dinner with some friends tonight; one couple brought their three small children, ages seven, five and two, along for the ride. This particular family just came from the States a few weeks ago, and are adjusting accordingly. For some reason I am good with kids, so I found myself adopted ("MOM! I'M GONNA EAT WITH THIS LADY CAUSE SHE'S COOL!") and the recipient of all kinds of questions: "What's your favorite color?" "Who's your favorite princess?" "Which castle in Germany is your favorite?"

"Neuschwanstein," I said.
"Oh, I like that one," the oldest girl said. "We went and saw it. We went to Austria, too, to that place where Mozart lived. Do you know who he is?"
"Yes, he's one of my friends," I said, perfectly shameless.
"He can't be your friend 'cause he's dead. But he can be your imaginary friend," she replied.
"How do you know about Mozart?" I asked, curious.
"Oh, I read a book all about him," she told me. "It's called Moonlight on the Magic Flute. They help Mozart write an opera. Do you know what opera is?"
By this time I was just cracking up. "Tell me."
She drew herself up. "It's where they sing really loud, and there's this Queen of the Night lady, and she sings like this." And she proceeded to sing Die Holle Rache, loudly and off-key.
"I like that one a lot," I said.
"I have the book if you want to borrow it," she said kindly.

Homecoming

2011-09-21T12:43:00.000-07:00

I saw this painting the other day at the Altes Nationalgalerie. It's called "Homecoming of the Smugglers", by Eduard Magnus, a German painter from the Romantic period (this particular painting dates from 1836). It really struck me, as I stood looking at it, that this kind of family dynamic is shown too little in the art of the period. Look at how the children cling on to their father, and how he cuddles them. I really like that. I've been thinking a lot about family dynamics lately, because in my version of Fidelio the main couple has small children that they are reunited with at the end of the novel. And just how, I wondered when I began writing, do they react? Surely relations between a loving father and his children were just as common then are they are now.

I did what I've been doing with every single aspect of this story: I started doing research. Lots and lots of research. I read a lot of books from the period, and letters, and essays, and looked around for paintings of families. And you know what I found? The more normal a family-that is to say, those families who were not royalty or very powerful nobility-often had perfectly normal relationships. And I think that's fabulous.

Kaufmann lives!

2011-09-20T03:15:00.000-07:00

The Unofficial Site states that Jonas Kaufmann was seen out and about in Munich with his family, in traditional lederhosen, jacket and hat, enjoying the opening of Oktoberfest. So it appears that all went well with his surgery and he is healing up nicely.

Part of me wishes we got to see the lederhosen; the other part knows I need to get work done today and that an imploded brain would not be ideal. ;)

Briar Rose

2011-09-19T03:26:00.000-07:00

I've always been interested in the story of Sleeping Beauty, although even as a small child I thought the whole thing was improbable. Two completely different clauses there, huh? ;) Anyway, I was raised on Disney's Sleeping Beauty, largely because the music is all Tchaikovsky, and my parents never missed an opportunity to teach us about classical music. Of course, this left me with the tendency to burst into song every time I hear the Sleeping Beauty waltz (and to picture flying horses when I hear Beethoven's Sixth, but I digress), but the basic experiment worked.

When I saw this gorgeous sculpture of Sleeping Beauty at the Altes Nationalgalerie the other day, I just had to sneak a picture. I love sculpture, and I think this one really captures the Romanticism of the story well. And because I can't resist, I leave you with the Sleeping Beauty Waltz. :)

Lazy Sunday Afternoon

2011-09-18T07:44:00.001-07:00

Hey guys, did you know that you can get a vintage fur coat in Berlin for fifteen euros? The perfect thing to go with my 1920s beaded dress. ;)

Today it is pouring down rain, so I am holed up in my comfortable, warm apartment. We've been having some trouble with the hot water heater dying, but the repairman came, and it is all fixed now! So I haven't been as cold at night. I'm very happy about that.

I'm chilling at my computer, watching The Big Bang Theory Season 4 and doing occasional hack jobs at Fidelio. (Seriously, I feel like I'm not so much editing as going at this thing with a seam ripper and a threaded needle). Yesterday I wrote in a scene that was just so sad that I took it out again. I may post it here, if anyone's interested. Then you can all tell me if it really is too sad to include. Even those of you who haven't read the actual narrative yet.

I will leave you with a photo I took of a cool cafe in Kreutzberg:

Hey guys, I wrote a book!

2011-09-16T12:39:00.000-07:00

Back in university, I wrote a children's book for my niece. It was originally a serial between her and I: she was bored and wanted me to tell her a story, and I needed creative respite from the daily grind of history-major essays. She liked it so much that she never stopped talking about it, at which my brother, who runs an indie publishing company, asked if he could publish it. Naturally, I said yes.

The story itself is an alternate-universe retelling of the aftermath of the French Revolution, replete with ghosts, ghouls, undead dictators, demons, haunted mansions, and lots of gun-toting rebels. Like I said, it's a children's book. I could have been a lot more explicit had I not been writing for a twelve-year-old (actually, I doubt she'd have minded...). I'm posting this here because I'm gearing up to start pitching my next big project, a novel adaptation of Fidelio, and I like to remind myself that I've published one book, so the next one shouldn't be quite as tough. Right? Right.

If you're interested, there is more info here.

Words to Live By

2011-09-15T02:58:00.000-07:00

Berliner Konzerthaus

2011-09-14T10:07:00.000-07:00

Today I took the train up to Mitte, the cultural and political center of Berlin, and took refuge in the Temple of the Arts known as Unter den Linden. Well, in reality I headed up there to take care of my integration course (so as to be a Good and Proper German Citizen), but in walking back to the bahnhof, I found the Gendarmemarkt and the adjoining Konzerthaus. And, my friends, it was like getting a hug: there's something about the ornately guilded cupcakery of old school concert halls that soothes me. There's the beauty of the architecture, and the sublimity of the music that goes on inside, and both just fill me with peace and comfort. A little weird for a writer to get her jollies from opera houses and concert halls, but whatever.

Actually, in walking around the building I realized that I'd been there before, five years ago on my family's last German tour. We came for Christmas, and somewhere between the airport and the Alps I picked up bronchitis (and the cure for it is a post unto itself). By the time we reached Berlin, I was doing better enough to not snarfle my way through the five frillion performances we went to: Le Nozze di Figaro and the Deutsche Oper, some other concerts that I don't remember, and the most miraculous performance of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. It was performed by the Berlin Radio Orchestra, and in the Konzerthaus. I remember the gilded luxury of the hall, the way the acoustics picked up every single ringing note, and the way the music felt: like a warm hug from an old friend. Today, walking around, I remembered that night, and decided that it's high time I go to another concert there. Because, in my brother's words, "Hearing the Ninth put on by the B.R.O kinda ruins every other concert in every other hall." I wouldn't say he's 100% right, but he has a point. The Konzerthaus is magic.

I Will Survive

2011-09-13T10:18:00.000-07:00

This being an exceptionally difficult month, this song is one of my mantras. I found this video back in university, and tried unsuccessfully to get some of my performer friends to do the same performance at the school's talent show. I put it on my iPod and dial it up when I need a good laugh. Like tonight.

What's Opera, Arnold?

2011-09-11T10:06:00.000-07:00

When I was a kid, one of my favorite tv shows was Nickelodeon's Hey Arnold! I watched it almost every night, and loved it to bits. The sarcasm, the metaphor, the outrageous storylines! Okay, when I was nine I didn't necessarily get all that, but I still loved the show.

One night, to my immense glee, they did an episode on opera. In it, Arnold's class is taken to see Carmen, and several key members fall asleep and dream up their own versions of it. And it is hilarious. There's so much music involved: Leoncavallo, Mozart, Wagner, Rossini, and of course, Bizet. I remember my parents watching it with us, crying with laughter, and not getting quite why it was so funny, beyond the antics of the characters. Now I know they were laughing at the way the music was used (this show is also to be blamed for the fact that whenever I hear the Carmen overture, I think, "Fight! Fight! Fight!"). As I grew up and studied more music, I'd occasionally come across pieces and recognize them from the show. The same is true for my little sister. We were chilling in my room last year, listening to Kaufmann on YouTube, and Vesti la giubba came on. "Hey," she said, interested, "that was in Hey Arnold!"

Just doing my part for the menswear trend.

2011-09-10T04:43:00.000-07:00

What do you call these? Loafers? Brogues? All I know is that they are Adorable and Everyone Is Wearing Them. And since I needed shoes that weren't ballerinas, they are Now Mine.

Viva Berlin.

sob

2011-09-08T23:43:00.000-07:00

The Staatsoper is undergoing refurbishment, which means that all of its operas are taking place at the smaller Schiller Theatre. Such a beautiful building! I know that the restoration is very important, but I want to see an opera in the actual Staatsoper! *wails*

On the candy-colored boards surrounding the construction site are lots of adds for the upcoming shows. I like this one best (it makes me laugh):

Just a thought

2011-09-08T06:12:00.000-07:00

All my best wishes go out to Jonas Kaufmann and his family while he undergoes surgery. I know just how stressful it can be. Here's hoping he gets a good long rest and recuperation, and will be back singing for us all for years to come.

Don Giovanni: Commendatore

2011-09-06T06:32:00.000-07:00

I have always loved that when the Commendatore's statue walks onstage, Don Giovanni's initial reaction is, "Well, damn. I didn't see that coming".

I was raised with Don Giovanni in much the same way I was raised with Figaro. Driving to the orthodontist, my dad would put on his favorite recording of the opera and play all the highlights: the overture, Leporello's intro through the Don's entrance, the Champagne Aria, the Finale. And I would sit there, glued, listening to Samuel Ramey and Ferruccio Furlanetto be amazing. Those two basses will always be MY Don Giovanni and Leporello.

For some reason, we never really listened to the Act One finale, which I discovered on my own in university, and which is frankly my favorite part of the entire opera.

Here I give you this AMAZING Commendatore scene, from Franco Zeffirelli's 1990 production for the Met. It's amazing that the stage didn't explode from so much awesome.

Dussmann's classical music store

2011-09-05T14:03:00.000-07:00

I love Dussmann's on Friedrichstrasse: it's four stories of books, music, and dvds. The entire basement is devoted to classical and opera, and has this wonderful stage for people who wish to sit down and play something. I like to take the programs for upcoming concerts and read them, just sitting there surrounded by all that music.

Bliss

2011-09-04T11:53:00.000-07:00

Program notes for the upcoming concert season, decorating my coffee table.

Carmen: Part One

2011-09-03T05:00:00.000-07:00

So, yesterday I watched the first two acts of Bizet's Carmen, before my brother came in and reclaimed his computer (mine doesn't play dvds, much to my chagrin). I live tweeted it, something I do probably too often. So here, for your reading and viewing pleasure, are the tweets for the first two acts, with clips from the Royal Opera House production that I was watching.

Don Jose: Jonas Kaufmann
Carmen: Anna Caterina Antonacci

*Given that he's sleeping on my floor and eating my food, I feel no qualms about using Little Bro's Mac to watch 'Carmen'. THAT Carmen.

*Nothing like opening the opera with your favorite tenor being dragged off to the executioner.
*This kid's choir is having the time of its life.

*And Carmen makes her grand entrance, having left her shirt at home.

*I think probably half a ton of hair gel was sacrificed to make Kaufmann's curls lie down like that. Nice work.

"I'll sleep with you if you let me go." And he capitulates! Just like that! Typical man.

*I think it says a lot about their relationship that Carmen seduced Don Jose after tying him to a chair.

Let there be flamenco!

*And here's Ildebrando D'Arcangelo on a horse! I love it. Toreador, en garde! Toreador, Toreador!

*"You gotta come, you're our sexiest vamp! But Carmeeeeeeeeen! WE CAN'T SMUGGLE WITHOUT YOU!"
*"FINE, BRING YOUR BOYFRIEND! It's not like he'll go crazy and shank you if you mess with him anymore!"

*Kaufmann's bitchface is so awesome, he should give lessons.

Carmen, you bitch. I'm sorry, my sympathies lie solely with Don Jose here.

More to follow shortly. After I, you know, finish the dvd.

September

2011-09-02T03:02:00.000-07:00

Now that the Opera Challenge is over, I'm looking around for something interesting to do on this blog in the month of September. To that end, I will be posting daily pictures of Berlin, with a little description. They won't all be music related, although many of them will be, but the idea is to share my adopted city with the world in a way that isn't like a guidebook. They will be pics of buildings, street musicians, people, stores...basically anything that catches my interest.

And so, today, I give you soup.

I bought this utterly delicious lentil soup (lensilsuppe auf Deutsch) for three euros at a restaurant called Knofi on the Bergmannstrasse in Kreutzberg. The Kreutz, as it is affectionately known, is the closest thing Berlin has to a Latin Quarter. It reminds me of downtown Santa Cruz in that it is filled with ethnic shops, vintage stores, funky fusion restaurants, and artsy-types. There's a general air of excitement there: it's slightly grubby but very colorful and alive. The air smells like incense and cigarettes-not an unattractive mixture. I bought some really nice bowls and dish towels for my apartment there, and spent a fun time collecting business cards from local stores (I really like business cards; they're a kind of pop art that I use to decorate mirrors). It's definitely a place I'll visit again.

Opera Challenge: Day Thirty-one

2011-08-31T10:01:00.000-07:00

Today is the last day! I'm sad; I've really enjoyed this challenge. Anyway, for the Grand Finale, we are going to discuss finales.

Best Finale: Fidelio Finale

Why? Because in terms of sheer joy and jubilation, Fidelio's finale cannot be beat. Musically, it's the sister of the Ninth Symphony and the Messa Solemnis, with its shift from jubilation to quiet contemplation and back to jubilation. From the beginning, when the newly freed prisoners sing their joy and praise; to the middle, when Rocco explains Florestan's plight; to Pizarro's rapid fall; to the final hymn of praise and love, this finale is so intensely emotional as to pale all the others by comparison. Florestan is so immensely proud of his wife and what she did for him that he simply cannot contain himself, crying out, "Deine Treu’ erhielt mein Leben...Wer ein holdes Weib errungen, stimm’ in unsern Jubel ein!": "Your love saved my life...Who holds a lovely wife join in [my] song of praise!" And Leonore, who has been to hell and back emotionally, sings an utterly ecstatic, "Florestan ist wieder mein!": "Florestan is mine again!" And although these two characters face a difficult future (Florestan, at least, is thisclose to death from starvation), you know that they are certain of each other, and that everything will be all right.

Opera Challenge: Days Twenty-nine and Thirty

2011-08-30T10:26:00.001-07:00

Day Twenty-nine: Most Attractive Artist Ever

Do I really have to say why? ;)

Seriously, I do feel a little sorry for Kaufmann, waging an eternal war against the people who look only at his face (and hair) and don't focus on his singing. Because frankly, I'd love his voice even if he didn't look the way he does. But only a little sorry: if he really didn't want to be a sex symbol, he could cut his hair differently.

Actually, at the concert in Saarbrucken in June, he didn't actually look all that fantastic-The Curls were wilted and he looked miserably brave in full concert dress. But then, it WAS about a thousand degrees in that "hall", so I can't hold it against him. It was nice to see him looking human. Indeed, that's what I like about Kaufmann: he seems so down to earth about himself and everything around him.

Day Thirty: Opera I'd sell a kidney to see

Fidelio with Jonas Kaufmann as Florestan, hands down. Preferably in a really fierce production, one that was all blood and guts emotion and brutality. The second act is so agonizing, with Leonore's being forced to dig her husband's grave, the threatened murder, the dramatic rescue, and then, finally, the reunion between the separated lovers. I'd have loved to see the Johan Simmons' production in Paris, as it looked suitably dangerous. Weird dialogue (and what is the problem with the original singspiel, I ask you?), and strange sets, but powerful in how it deals with Florestan. And he needs to be dealt with powerfully.

Opera Challenge: Day Twenty-eight

2011-08-28T11:43:00.000-07:00

Today: Take your favorite opera and make your dream cast.

Ooh, easy-peasy! This is fun; my friend Lindsay and I do this sometimes and call it the opera game.

I'm going to go with Fidelio, because I have strong opinions on it and love it to death.

Cast List:
Leonore: Margarete Joswig
Florestan: Jonas Kaufmann
Rocco: Rene Pape
Pizarro: Bryn Terfel
Marzelline: Not entirely sure
Jacquino: Encore
Don Fernando: Peter Mattai

I'll freely admit that I would cast Margarete Joswig as Leonore because 1) I like her voice and think that she would make a fierce Leonore and 2) I'd dearly love to see her and Kaufmann being adorable onstage together. She may not be a soprano, but MJ has such an interesting, rich voice that I think she could handle the role.

I don't think I have to say why I'd cast Kaufmann as Florestan.

Bryn Terfel would make a suitably villainous Pizarro, I think. Pizarro's brand of evil can be very banal, but I think in Terfel's hands he would be very scary and brutal-which is what the character needs. Terfel could inject a little Scarpia into Pizarro, which would be nice and terrifying. We need to see just what kind of a monster Pizarro is, shattering a man's life so effectively, and I think that Bryn would do an admirable job.

I put Pape and Mattai in their respective roles purely because I've heard them both as Rocco and Fernando already, and think they do a good job. I need to listen to them both more; I don't know much about them.

What are your favorite operas, and who would your ideal cast be?

Opera Challenge: Day Twenty-seven

2011-08-27T12:39:00.000-07:00

Today: If you could play any one role, what would it be?

For pure fantasy?
Male role: Figaro
Female Role: Sieglinde

Figaro: He's such a fun character! And he's real: he goes through so many emotions, from good humor to bad mood to devious to amused to hurt to joyous. He doesn't stick to any one mood; he's full of himself, but realistic about it, and he truly loves his woman. That, and he has fabulous music. From the Largo al factotum that Rossini gave him to his wonderful Non piu andrai, Figaro is a character whose music expresses his personality. He's loveable because he is so very human.

Sieglinde: She's an interesting character. I think of all the characters in the Ring cycle, Sieglinde is the one who suffers the most. She's kidnapped, forced to marry against her will, ends up having a brief one-night affair with her brother and then watches him die, has his child, and promptly dies herself. And can anyone really blame her? This is perhaps the most sympathetic character in the entire Ring, as I said, and her music is so beautiful and tragic. We learn from it that although she is afraid of Hunding, he hasn't completely dampened her spirit. It takes courage to drug your husband and run off with your brother. And she has that wonderful duet in which we learn all about her fears and hopes and traumas, not to mention the Act 2 scene in which her nightmare tells us exactly what she's suffered. That's a lot for one single singer to credibly act out. It's such a tragic, beautiful role that if I were a soprano, I'd love to sing it.

Opera Challenge: Day Twenty-six

2011-08-26T13:20:00.000-07:00

Today: First Favorite Opera

Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro

You must understand, I was raised on Figaro. It's my dad's favorite opera (he's seen it something like twenty eight times), and so I was hearing the music when I was still a baby. Later, when we drove places, I was allowed to make requests, and it was always, "That one with the dun dun dun-dun DUN DUUUUUN!" I didn't know the names of the arias. I just sang them at him, and he put them into the cd player.

Later, when I was old enough to think for myself and really becoming interested in opera as more than just the music we listened to on the way to the orthodontist (a loooong drive from my home town), I stole my dad's preferred Figaro album (the 1993 Theatre de Chatelait recording, starring Bryn Terfel* and Alison Hagley) and gave the whole opera a listen. Then I bought the dvd of the same performance. The music was bright and energetic and fun. With the libretto, I could finally understand the story as it unfolded; the arias and ensembles became part of a cohesive tapestry, and not just fun music I listened to on occasion. These were interesting, very real people experiencing interesting, very real problems: problems that were both dangerous and hilarious. I still can't get over the Act Two finale: every time I hear it and its mix of voices, from two to three to four to six, I am thrilled that such music was created.

I kept stealing dad's album long enough that he bought me my own. It lived in my car radio for three years.

Figaro is no longer my favorite opera, but it remains close to my heart. It got me through a very rough time in my life, providing the emotional relief where I wasn't getting it from anywhere else. And I still love going to see it at the opera. I've seen it three times myself now (one time while interning in the local opera company's costume shop), and every time, it is still funny and endearing and beautiful. So while my tastes are growing and evolving, I will always love Figaro.

This is a clip of the performance that I grew up listening to, and that is still on my iPod:

Opera Challenge: Days Twenty-four and Twenty-five

2011-08-25T11:38:00.000-07:00

Day Twenty five (today): Least Favorite Misconception About Opera

That it's boring and inaccessible. This one really irritates me, because all it takes is one or two opera plots, and people are going, "What movie is that? I'd totally see that! Wait, it's an opera?!"

Opera, as I like to tell people, is brilliant because you can change the setting/costume/whatever to get at the story you want to tell, and yet the music never changes. And it can be utterly hilarious. "It's about a barber who helps this wealthy couple hook up despite all these problems!" or "He's a randy count who dresses up as a hermit and a nun to get to the woman he wants, and he still doesn't succeed!" or "And then she goes crazy and knifes her husband" or "And then he sleeps with his sister." Seriously, I do not understand how people can perceive opera as boring.

Actually, that may be untrue. I think people see it as boring because it's an old art form, and a very high class one at that. The common man looks at opera and thinks, "Oh, that's for boring rich people". They look at the singing as being terrible. I was really insulted, for one, that the author of the popular Percy Jackson series continually has the main character refer to torture as "being forced to listen to opera music for eternity". Way to alienate an entire generation of kids, you idiot.

Basically, I think we need to combat this attitude with wider dispersion of the operatic art form. And not as Broadway. I really don't like it when people confuse opera with Broadway. >_<

Day Twenty four: Best Opera to See Alone

All of them. Maybe I'm being cynical, but since I can count on one hand the amount of people I know who actually like going to the opera, I usually just go by myself. When you go with someone, you spend the entire time angsting about whether or not they're enjoying themselves, and that's just not fun. Some of the best times I've had this year is sitting down for the Met broadcasts, knowing that I don't have to deal with anyone whining about the music, or the set, or the costumes. True, this makes it difficult to discuss the opera with, but generally, I don't mind.

OFF TOPIC: Let's talk about how Jonas Kaufmann has canceled his trip to Japan because he has to get emergency surgery to remove some sort of "node from my thoracic area" (scroll down; it's in Japanese first, then English). I had to look that up: it's a second (fourth?) language way of saying "my chest". DISCUSS.

Opera Challenge: Day Twenty-three

2011-08-23T11:34:00.000-07:00

Today: Best Opera to see with a Lover

Historically, I have not had much success taking men to the opera. Most men stop at the "I like opera" statement and stare at me, fascinated, like I'm some sort of exotic creature that is lovely until provoked, when it will suddenly turn and rip you to shreds. The one guy I did manage to bring to the opera (which was Don Giovanni) spent the entire time trying to snuggle me. I do not want to be snuggled during Don Giovanni. Obviously, that did not work out. And the one guy I DID successfully go to the opera with was most definitely NOT my date: he was actually dating a mutual friend, who was out of town but gave her approval to the "Hey, Christie has free tickets to see Cinderella, can I go?" statement.

So, all this is to say, I haven't the foggiest idea which opera to see with a lover. I'm going to go with the lame and boring "Any Opera". Although I'm sure it would be a comedy. I just can't bring myself to take a date to a tragic opera-unless, of course, we had been together for a long enough time that seeing something like La Boheme or Tosca wouldn't be a bad idea. Although I wouldn't take a date to see Tosca. Somehow I don't think that would be a bright idea.

For the purposes of this post, though, I'll say this:

1. for a first-timer date to the opera, I'd pick something light, like Le Nozze di Figaro or La Cenerentola.
2. for a well-established and opera-filled relationship, I'd pick something a little heavier. Iphigenie en Tauride, perhaps.

And there you go.

Opera Challenge Day Twenty-two

2011-08-22T13:34:00.001-07:00

Today: Best Opera to see with a friend.

Rossini's Le Comte Ory

That is Juan Diego Florez in a dress. And Diana Damrau masquerading as a cupcake. Say what you want about the lightness and fluff of Italian opera; Le Comte Ory had me howling in my seat. I wish I could have seen the Met broadcast with a friend; none of my colleagues would be suckered into it after I got them to see Lucia. But this opera is so fun, so silly and bright and simply frou-frou that I just know that MY set of friends would have been on the floor crying with glee more than once. JDF wasn't at his best that night, but I can forgive him for that: his wife had their first baby an hour before he went onstage.

In terms of taste, I am moving away from Rossini and more towards the heavier operas (I've always tended to prefer dramatic to comic anyway), but Le Comte Ory was like the cake you get after a really healthy meal: sweet, light, totally worth every bite. The music is superb: sparkly and sophisticated, and funny. I think even without the words or the acting, this music would make me grin. But luckily we DO get the words, and we get the following fun scenes:

*A randy count dressed as a hermit
*A countess dressed as a cupcake (I'm sorry, I can't get over the costumes in the Met production)
*A chorus of men masquerading as nuns, happily boozing,
*An operatic menage a trois that is really more funny than racy.

And that is why I would go see this with a friend. Or six.

I leave you with the boozing, male, "nuns":

Opera Challenge: Day Twenty-one

2011-08-21T12:02:00.000-07:00

Today: Opera I listen to the most.

Beethoven, Fidelio, with Wagner's Die Walkure being a close second.

I listen to Fidelio a lot because, 1) I love the music, and 2) because I'm novelizing it and want to get as much of the music as possible into the prose. The story itself fascinates me (hence my prose version: I'm on Draft Five and taking this process of turning opera into fiction extremely seriously), and the music is simply sublime. The way it traverses frivolity, domesticity, fear, hope, pain, ecstasy, rage and finally unbelievable joy just gets me every time. I don't think that any composer but Beethoven could have pulled off the masterpiece that is Fidelio.

And Die Walkuere? Believe me, it's easier to roar around Berlin when you have a bombastic soundtrack playing on your iPod. That, and I love Act 1 so much that I listen to it just to kill time and get my blood up.

Opera Challenge: Day Twenty

2011-08-20T09:21:00.000-07:00

Today: Most Powerful Aria

It's impossible for me to say that only one aria is the most powerful. Since last night I've been mulling over my choices, and have come to the conclusion that there are at least three, off the top of my head, that have the power to reduce me to a quivering heap. And so here are my Top Three Most Powerful Arias, in no order of importance.

Puccini, E lucevan le stelle:
I cannot get through this one without wailing. It kicks me right in the heart. The music is so beautiful, so filled with regret and longing, that I can't listen to it often. Of course, different singers inject different levels of pain and sadness into it, so I can listen to some (say, Joseph Calleja) without being knocked sideways, while other interpreters (let's say a certain Bavarian Tenor) just knock me right on the floor.

Massenet, Pourquoi me reveiller
This one, too, is full of longing. The difference between it and the Puccini, though, is that Werther's death is his decision: he doesn't yet know that he is going to die. This aria is full of longing for a love he cannot have, not a love that was lost. Again, different interpreters, etc. etc. You all know whom I'm about to post here, don't you?

And last, but certainly not least:
Beethoven, Gott! Welch dunkel hier
The beginning of this aria gives me chills every time: it's a musical scream, rising from the depths to overtake the orchestra and show just how badly off this character is. We get a full biographical background here, which is tricky to pull off, and then we get this ecstatic vision in which Florestan sees the woman he loves coming to save him-but to save him by granting him death and so rest. Powerful stuff. This is the one character in this post who, I would argue, actually wants to die. He's done. Florestan is a sort of weird Cavaradossi doppelganger: both stood up for their politics and both had something go horribly wrong, only Florestan is ready to die for his beliefs, whereas Cavaradossi didn't think he would have to. And that's what I love about this aria.

I'm really interested to hear what you all think of all this.

Opera Challenge: Days Eighteen and Nineteen

2011-08-19T08:31:00.000-07:00

Today: Happiest Romance (Day Eighteen) and Most Visually Entertaining Opera (Day Nineteen).

Happiest Romance:

I have this feeling that if I keep bringing up Fidelio, people are going to start coming after me with sticks. So. While Leonore and Florestan are my first pics, for this post I am going to have to go with Tamino and Pamina from Mozart's Die Zauberflote.

They're young, they're idealistic, they're feisty. They do a lot of growing throughout their opera, and acquire eternal wisdom in the end. And I think that after all they go through together, they live happily ever after.

And then there's Papageno. I love him because he's hilarious, simple, and honest. All he wants is a good woman to marry and live happily ever after. Who needs enlightenment, he argues. I like that all of the couples in Zauberflote get what they want and deserve.

In terms of sheer musical silliness, this duet cannot be beat:

And that brings me to today's theme: Most Visually Entertaining Opera

Again, I'm going to go with Die Zauberflote. It's pure fantasy, so anything goes with it. Consequently there have been some very entertaining versions of it. I like the 2003 Covent Garden production (see video above), but in terms of sheer visual awesome, I have to go with Julie Taymor's production for the Met(even though it's in English. I do have issues with that):

Opera Challenge: Day Seventeen

2011-08-17T11:29:00.000-07:00

Today: Most Tragic Romance

Die Walkuere's Siegmund and Sieglinde.

Let's face it: they're doomed from the word go. Twins? Okay. Lovers? That's less good. And yet of course they fall for each other: they've been separated for years, aren't entirely sure who the other is, and are both stuck in deeply traumatic situations. Sieglinde sees this man, her brother, as her salvation; Siegmund sees Sieglinde as the embodiment of (I believe) the life he can't have: beautiful and secure. And yet she's in dire straits. We already know that he likes to help people in dire straits. And neither of them has experienced any tenderness in who knows how long. They need that, and I love that for one night, at least, they were able to experience happiness.

Still, incest is incest, which makes this a hopeless, tragic romance. But leave it to Wagner to make it sound really, really gorgeous.

Seriously, I saw the Met broadcast and couldn't even talk after the first act. It was like being hit over the head with a board. I still can't get over the intensity of their music.

Opera Challenge: Day Sixteen

2011-08-16T06:47:00.001-07:00

Today: Favorite Couple

Easy-peasy: Leonore and Florestan.

Do I even have to say why? Their loyalty to each other is unsurpassed in opera; separated for two years before the opera begins and then for almost half of the action, these two go through hell to find each other. Whether they are played by a youngish couple or an older couple, you just know that Leonore and Florestan have weathered all of their trials, and that they will live Happily Ever After.

I talk in more depth about them here, so I'll let you all go read (or re-read) that post. But I'll give my good friend, Kristina, a shout-out here. Back when I first discovered Fidelio, I did what I always do to my friends: made them watch the dvd with me. So we were all chilling and watching this opera (the Zurich production), and somehow the conversation rolled around to appropriate uses of "you stole my man". Kristina pointed at the tv.

"THIS is REALLY, Bitch, you stole my man!" she said. Indeed.

Opera Challenge: Day Fifteen

2011-08-15T13:30:00.000-07:00

Today: Favorite Tragic Role

That's a tough one. There are so many tragedies out there in the opera world; I sometimes wonder if they outnumber the comedies. But for our purposes, I'm going to go with Mario Cavaradossi.

Frankly, it is simply not fair what happens to this poor man. Okay, so he shouldn't have helped out a political dissident. And he should have told Tosca what he was up to-I think if he had, the whole fiasco in Scarpia's office might not have happened. But really, to be arrested, interrogated, tortured and then shot...it's too much. Especially since he's given that glimmer of hope right at the end, when Tosca announced their great "escape plan". I am firmly in the camp that believes Cavaradossi knew that Scarpia would never let them go, but geeze. If you look up "tragedy" in the dictionary you'll find a picture of Mario Cavaradossi.

Opera Challenge: Day Fourteen and a Half

2011-08-14T12:44:00.001-07:00

Because what's life without a little silliness?

This ornament will definitely be on my Christmas tree this year. :P

And I totally want this top:

Opera Challenge: Days Thirteen and Fourteen

2011-08-14T12:02:00.000-07:00

Sorry guys, I was hauled to the country for the weekend, ostensibly to relax. Given that those vicious little bastards known as mosquitos were out in full force, there was little actual relaxing being done. I also missed yesterday's post. So here they both are, today. (Warning: I'm really tired tonight, so these are both going to be short entries):

Day Fourteen: Best Comedic Role

Frankly, I have always loved Figaro. Both in The Barbar of Seville and in The Marriage of Figaro, he's such a fun, conniving character that it's hard not to love him. Further, I really think he meets his comedic match in Susanna. The two of them are a laugh a minute despite the drama of their situation.

I'm only sorry I never got to see Bryn Terfel's Figaro live before he retired the role from his repertoire:

Day Thirteen: Best Libretto

The Marriage of Figaro

In terms of dramatic pacing, comic timing, characterisations and all-around storytelling, Figaro wins every time in my book. It's so cheeky, and so lively, with it's many intertwined lives and loves. It's also my dad's favorite opera, and the one I grew up listening to. I had one really rough semester in university, and Figaro was the opera I constantly listened it: it made me laugh, made me cry, and calmed me down whenever I needed it to. I still put it on when I want something nice to listen to. It's comic without being too silly, bittersweet without melodrama, and so full of love that it will always make me smile.

Here, Sull'aria

Opera Challenge: Day Twelve

2011-08-12T04:58:00.000-07:00

Today: Best Opera All-Around.

Fidelio. Duh.

I discovered Fidelio last year, during the Great Jonas Kaufmann Bender. I had heard of it before, as a teenager, and been vaguely interested ("I like Beethoven..."), but never actually gave it a listen. Little Sister and I were spending our initial Kaufmann Afternoon dazedly clicking from one YouTube video to the next (well, I was dazedly clicking; she was commentating) and ended up on the Zurich Production's Gott! Welch dunkel hier!
"Why is he all disheveled and wet?" she asked.
We clicked on the video, then onto the O namenlose Freude! clip, and then Euch werde lohn. I was hooked. I popped over to Amazon and bought the dvd.

Now, I must hasten to say that I have always had a thing for stories about men being imprisoned unjustly. The Count of Monte Cristo; A Tale of Two Cities, any number of Gothic novels...Let's just say that none of my friends were at all surprised when I trotted out Florestan and proudly presented him to them.

But Fidelio is different from the stories I listed above. In those stories, the prisoner gets out and usually goes to great lengths to wreak havoc on their former oppressors. In Fidelio, the story is about love and heroism in the face of overwhelming odds: these are ordinary people living ordinary lives, who are forced into extreme circumstances. Leonore doesn't know until halfway through the second act if it is even her husband's grave that she is helping to dig: she has so little hope that she simply keeps moving forward, resolving to save the nameless prisoner, whoever he is. And for his part, Florestan has no hope of rescue, but he has accepted his fate to the point where he is at peace. And at the end, their hope and love prevail, and they are saved.

I will always and forever love the moment when Leonore screeches (and the soprano always manages to make Leonore seem like she's screeching, even when the musicianship is impeccable), "Kill his wife first!" I love the shock with which everyone reacts. Leonore's emotions are all over the place in the opera: stress, hope, fear, grief, rage, inexpressible joy. The rescue scene, done properly, is so full of blood-and-guts drama that Leonore is just spitting nails. She completely pwns Pizarro, and it is awesome. Leonore is such a fabulous character, and I think almost unusual for the era, when women were expected to stay at home and be proper. Leonore is one tough cookie: womanly, but willing to go as far as she has to to get what she wants. And Florestan loves her for that fierceness. I love Beethoven for that.

Now let me talk about the music. I really don't think that any other composer could pull off what Beethoven did here. I know others have tried, but that Beethoven's Fidelio is the one that is still active in the repertoire says something. The music is a great celebration of love and joy. Sure, it has its weak points, but the Prisoners' Chorus, the Act Two trio, the love duet, and especially the finale are so full of emotion that I think you'd have to have a heart of stone not to be moved.

And finally, this is an opera for every age and era. I read in a review recently that this opera is what the Middle East needs right now, and I tend to agree. Love and bravery and humanity overcoming cruelty, terror and oppression? Yes. This is an opera that will never, ever be out of date.

Opera Challenge: Day Eleven

2011-08-11T06:19:00.000-07:00

Today: Best Tragic Opera

I'm going to have to go with Tosca.

Now, I must hasten to say that it is not my favorite of operas. However. As a vehicle for tragedy, this one cannot be beat. What on earth is sadder than Cavaradossi's E lucevan le stelle, or the lover's final embrace, or Tosca's horrible realization that her lover is actually dead, not just faking it?

Living in California, I watched a lot of opera on dvd and on YouTube, purely because the times we actually got to an opera house were few and far between. I first watched Tosca on YT, during my initial Great Jonas Kaufmann Bender. My teenage sister watched it with me, and had the dubious task of trying to console me afterward. ("Look, it's okay, he's bowing to the audience! He's not actually dead! WHY ARE YOU FREAKING OUT?!") We were watching the Luc Bondy production, most of which was online at the time (missing only one or two key scenes, like everything with Angelotti), and she kept yelling at the computer: "You idiot! He's not gonna let him LIVE!" and "STAB HIM! THATTA GIRL!"

I wrote a very long article on Tosca in university, at the behest of the local opera company, which was putting on a production of the opera. I talked about the story, about the torture and the attempted rape and the way everybody dies horribly. I talked about how Maria Callas once managed to actually stab Tito Gobbi, and the Tale of the Bouncing Tosca. I talked about Puccini and how he is an evil genius. My editor told me he liked the all-around glee with which I told the story.

I didn't go see the live performance. I was having a really, really bad week and thought that watching everyone die horribly to beautiful music would only make it worse.

When I actually sat down and watched the YT clips, I was destroyed. Absolutely and utterly destroyed. I think I freaked my sister out a little bit, to be honest, because she kept coming back to my room and offering to take me shopping, as I replayed Cavaradossi's execution and bawled.

"Ten thousand points from Puccini for destroying my soul!" I wailed at her.
"HOW CAN YOU SAY THAT?!" she screeched (Puccini is Little Sister's favorite composer).
"Go awaaaaaaaaaay," I wailed. "I'm wallowing in my emotional response."
"You are freaking out over freaking Jonas Kaufmann!" she howled back at me. "This is not normal!"
I think we ended up at a friend's that night, watching cheesy movies.

This will be the one opera I probably won't have the courage to see live, especially if it stars Jonas Kaufmann. You'd have to carry me out of the theater:

Opera Challenge: Day Ten

2011-08-10T12:53:00.001-07:00

Today: Best Conductor

I was raised on Herbert von Karajan. My father taught me young how to identify a good album to buy: "If it's Deutsche Grammophone and the conductor is Karajan, you will have an impeccable recording." I admit that too this day, I instinctively trust recordings directed by Karajan over recordings that are not.

Why is this? I have absolutely no idea.

It's hard to put into words the feeling of sheer intensity and beauty, almost wild abandon, that fill Karajan's recordings. It is like he manages to bring out the very essence of the music, its soul, and bring it across in such a way that any other version seems almost vulgar. The Karajan-led Ninth Symphony (Beethoven's) is still my go-to recording, although it is over forty years old and there are singers that I like better in other versions. The emotion present in that recording still grips me.

Perhaps because I was raised on the man, Karajan wins in my book as Best Conductor. I have really high hopes for Antonio Pappano, though. I think he's going to be this generation's Karajan. I hope so, anyway.

Here is a clip of Karajan conducting Beethoven's Ninth:

Opera Challenge: Day Nine

2011-08-09T12:30:00.000-07:00

Today: Best Comedy.

This one is hard. There are so many hilarious operas out there, some intentionally so, others not. But since I assume this question does NOT want me to make fun of the Ring Saga a la Anna Russell, I will pick an actual comic opera.

My pick for Best Comedy, then, is Rossini's La Cenerentola. I first saw this opera in university, when our local opera company put it on. I was working as the fine arts journalist for my university newspaper then, so I was given two free tickets. I gave one to a guy-friend of mine, and we went down to see it. I think we were both a little sceptical about an opera named after Cinderella, but we both liked Rossini, so we gave it a go.

Never before have I laughed so hard at a production. The singer playing Dandini was beyond perfect; the stepsisters were appropriately bitchy; the stepfather hilariously buffo. The music itself is so full of patter as to be wonderfully fun, and to top it all off, Rossini made it very cheeky. This production, which I am sure I'll never see again, was set in the 1920s, and had Dandini and the Prince pretending to be statues in the garden at one point, to escape the stepsisters. Dandini spent his aria pocketing little things from the Magnifico household (while the Prince frantically tried to get him to put them back). And to top the mayhem off, the first act finale was presented as a slow-motion food fight, with breadsticks.

The audience wasn't so much laughing as it was screaming its collective head off with glee.

With that happy memory, I give you a clip that will never be quite as funny, but nonetheless shows what fun this opera can be:

Opera Challege: Day Eight

2011-08-08T12:35:00.000-07:00

Today: Best Bass/Bass-Baritone.

Bryn Terfel. Obviously.

Bryn is one of my Honorary Operatic Uncles. I was raised on his Figaro (Le Nozze di Figaro being my dad's favorite opera), and diligently followed all of his recordings. I've always loved his voice; it's deep and velvety and rich as dark chocolate. His "Deh vieni alla fenestra" was on constantly repeat when I was in high school; it was and is still the ultimate seduction.

I had the great good fortune to meet the man when he sang in my university town, Salt Lake City, a few years ago. He came to perform Mendelssohn's Elijah with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, and after hitting the ceiling with glee, I bought a ticket. However, I couldn't wait for the last, free performance, which is the one I'd reserved a seat for. So, I took myself down to the concert venue and did something diabolical. I stood outside and looked pathetic until they let me in.

Let me hasten to say that it's totally within the Tab's general awesome that their concerts are generally free of charge, the dress rehearsals are open to the public, and the ushers are usually sweet, retired grandparent-types who think it's cute that young kids like to go to classical concerts. So I found myself sitting on the front row, watching Bryn Terfel rock out to Mendelssohn. It was AMAZING.

Afterwards, I went outside and around the back entrance to the hall, taking the shortcut back to the tram, and guess who was outside?

So I sashayed over to the small conglomoration of people and, when given the chance, presented Mr. Terfel with my concert program and said, "Thanks for coming, it was a wonderful concert." I was very proud of myself, I didn't wibble or burst into tears or anything.

Bryn took my program. I'd expected him to sign the cover or something, but he said, "Oh here, we need the actual program," and began to thumb through it.

"Did you have a good time?" he asked me.
I'm afraid I did this at him. O_O. "Yes, of course. I like Mendelssohn."
"Very hard seats, though," he said, cheerily, signing my program with a flourish. "I asked why they didn't put cushions in; probably to keep everyone awake."
I didn't know what to say to that, so I just grinned. Because he totally has a point; the seats in that hall are designed to destroy the tailbone.
"Here you are, then," Bryn said, and gave me my program. I thanked him again and left. I wanted to make my escape before I completely disgraced myself.

Here's a clip of Bryn singing "Deh vieni alla fenestra", which will always be one my favorite seduction arias.

Opera Challenge: Day Seven

2011-08-07T11:33:00.000-07:00

Today: Best Baritone

I have to go with Thomas Hampson.

I had a serious crush on the man during university. My roommate was horrified: "He's so OLD!" I always told her that age didn't matter; she never believed me.

I can't remember when or where I first heard Hampson. It was sometime in the last five years, but I honestly can't remember how I came across him. All I know is, I really do love his voice. It is rich and full and a little rough, almost brittle, but I think this works for him. And he is smart. I really love intelligent people, and reading interviews with Hampson is a little like hearing a lecture from a favorite professor: he knows his stuff, and can get it across in such a way that you come out knowing a lot without being bored. I appreciate that in a man, even if he isn't an opera singer.

Here, a rehearsal video for the 2010 gala at the Hungarian State Opera:

Opera Challenge: Day Six:

2011-08-06T10:33:00.001-07:00

Today: Best Tenor

Guess who I get to talk about? :P

This is a good place to state that today I lost a lot of money to the purchase of a ticket to hear Jonas Kaufmann sing Liszt, here in Berlin in October. I'm betting that it's going to be a lot better than the last time I saw him perform (not that he was bad, far from it; but the memory of that un-airconditioned hall will be with me for a long time). The program is all Liszt: Psalm 13 and the Faust Symphony, so this should be fun. *happy dances*

Okay. Jonas Kaufmann. I first discovered him a year ago, quite by accident, in New York. My mother LOVES NYC, so it was decreed that my family would be meeting her violin tour group there for the Fourth of July. Now, anyone who has been to New York will know that it is Hotter Than Hell in the summertime, and humid, and I...I do not like the heat. Give me winter, any day. So, more out of Rageful Rage ("It's HOT and I HATE IT and you brought me here when the OPERA SEASON IS OVER WTF?!") I spent a good chunk of my time in the giftshop at the Metropolitan opera. And I spent a lot of money there, too. During one of my purchases, the cashier handed me a cd in a cardboard jacket.

"We're giving away samples of new albums," she said. I took it, thanked her, and put it in my bag, very eagerly looking forward to listening to it when I got home. The singers listed on the back were Anna Netrebko, Bryn Terfel, Juan Diego Florez, and some guy I'd never heard of before, Jonas Kaufmann. I really liked the first three, so I was excited, and figured they'd make up for the Unknown Singer.

Fast forward two weeks. My little sister and I were driving up to San Francisco for some reason, and I remembered the opera cd I'd been given. I put it in the player. My teenage sister, bless her heart, likes opera enough to put up with me (although we occasionally have fantastic rows over whether it's appropriate driving music), and examined the case while I lectured her on the awesome of Bryn Terfel and JDF.

"This guy's kinda hot," she said, pointing at the little pic of Kaufmann's Die Shone Mullerin album.

Soon enough, the cd reached Kaufmann. Cassie and I both fell silent, listening, as he sang Trockene Blumen and Wintersturme wiche dem Wonnemond. When it was over, Cassie looked at me and said, "I like him better than that sparkly tenor."

So we went home and did a YouTube search. Each video we played of him was like being hit over the head with a board: the musicality was so perfect, so intense and rich and gorgeous that I basically sat in the living room, unable to move. My mom came home from work in the midst of this, listened for a few minutes, and said, "Well. I had a bad day, but it's all better now." I think we were listening to Fidelio at that point, which was the first time I'd ever listened to Beethoven's opera. I have to thank Jonas Kaufmann for giving me Fidelio: I might never have discovered it without him.

One year later, I have all his albums, have been to one of his concerts, and will be going to another. I also have most of his dvds, due to my dad and sister going to Munich last December and raiding the giftshop at the Staatsoper. (I got a phonecall at five in the morning, California time, during the intermission for La Boheme: "DO YOU LIKE RICHARD WAGNER? MAYBE? OKAY, GO BACK TO SLEEP!")

I'll give my sister the last word on this. She views my obsession with a sort of amused despair, and once said, "I blame myself for this. If I hadn't opened my big mouth and mentioned how hot he was, this would never have happened." Yes, it would have.

Here is the first ever video I found of Jonas Kaufmann, which opened up the world of Fidelio to me. If I ever meet him, I'll thank him for that:

Opera Challenge: Day Five

2011-08-05T13:39:00.000-07:00

Today: Favorite Contralto

Guilty Confession: I don't have one.

This is due more to my own lack of interest in the contralto repertoire than it is to anything else. I tend to lean towards high female voices and deep male voices, which means that the voices in the middle get cut off. However, I am learning to like Felicity Palmer quite a bit. She plays the Marquess in La Fille du Regiment with great comic timing, and I find her voice rich and full. Hopefully I will find more of her work and be able to expand my knowledge of contraltos.

Here, Felicity Palmer in La Fille du Regiment (aria starts at about 3:34)

Opera Challenge: Day Four

2011-08-04T13:10:00.000-07:00

Today: Best Mezzo-Soprano

This is a tough one.

I have two current favorites: Joyce DiDonato and Elina Garanca. I love Joyce because she is hilarious ("Congratulations on getting it up tonight" to the techies during Die Walkuere), she makes awesome vlogs, and she seems to have this awesome joie de vivre that encompasses everything, as witnessed by her Flicker account. She just seems so very normal, which is always nice to see in opera stars. And, of course, she is a fabulous singer. Her Rosina and her Isolier are just too charming for words. Witness:

My other favorite mezzo is Elina Garanca. I know less about her than Joyce, but I love her voice. It's dark and sexy and all-around fabulous. Her Carmen is beyond awesome. Again, I have to rely on YouTube to show me these things, but she is coming to Berlin in the fall and I hope to see her perform then.

Opera Challenge: Day Three

2011-08-03T09:35:00.000-07:00

Today: Favorite Soprano

This one is, at the moment, easy. I am wholeheartedly loving Natalie Dessay. She is FABULOUS. In terms of sheer coloratura chuzpah, she has it all. her voice is like a bell, ringing clear and true, and I'm continually impressed by how long she can hold out. That, and her range of roles shows her versatility. From Lucia to Marie to Olympia, this woman can become her character.

Here's a French biopic made a few years ago, showing her in her various roles and activities: