Welcome Back

Well, that's what all the kids are hearing throughout school these days. For me, it's an apology that I've been "on vacation," as it were. Ironically enough, "school" is the reason I've been in absentia. I've been taking some online classes that are quite challenging. They've required a lot of time. Add to that the past three plus weeks of 95-plus--and for a few days, 100 plus!--degree weather we've been experiencing around here, and you see a great reason for just standing still in front of the AC doing nothing. Then there are things beginning to happen on the house my bro and I are remodeling. Ah, yes! And rehearsals for various thing have already started.

Where did the summer go? I was in shock when I looked on the calendar and noticed it was August 1st. Then, before I knew it, people were talking about football in a non-hypothetical context and some teacher friends of mine were counting down the days to the Labor Day holiday! Geez it! September! Next thing you know, I'll be getting a packet of opera music. (I maybe already have. I don't check my mailbox everyday. Just how many Papa John's coupons and Bed, Bath, and Beyond catalogs do you need?)

Ah, well. If you don't jump on the bandwagon, you get left behind. And so...

Two recent opera-related obituaries came to my attention recently. The first was the tragic suicide of Jerry Hadley. Being an English tenor myself, I've always highly admired Hadley's work. His willingness to do English Sacred Music projects certainly enriched my collection. He was even willing to give modern composers support, premiering Paul McCartney's first major work for chorus and orchestra, Liverpool Oratorio. (I must admit, that's one of my only-listened-to-once CDs.) But his voice--unlike many "English" tenors--was capable of more power and brightness, such that he was able to have an excellent opera career.
But having so many commitments, working long hours through rehearsals, and living out of a suitcase the vast majority of the time can take its toll. Then, when you get older, maybe your voice starts showing a little wear, people stop calling your agent, and you see you career moving into its twilight.

Depression is a terrible, debilitating illness. I can speak from experience. Even with the advancements in pharmacological treatments in recent years and new theories of thought in psychology, it still takes a lot of painful and draining personal work to conquer it... if you ever do! Statistics show that people suffering an episode of depression are highly likely to suffer other episodes in the future. Though I can't name any research done on this topic, it stands to reason that people that are more sensitive emotionally (e.g., artists of any type) could suffer from a more severe form of the illness. So, when things go wrong in life, when negative things add up, sometimes the pain just becomes too great. Hadley's sagging career, financial problems, and apparently difficult divorce, compounded with any depression he may have been suffering from previously, overwhelmed him.

One of the opera choristers I sing with struck up a friendship with Hadley through a mutual acquaintance a few years ago. She had kept in touch with him, attended some of his performances, and visited him on several occasions. I do hope she is doing okay, as I don't have her email.

The second obituary I noted was the passing of Edward Zambara, who transformed a rag-tag southern university's vocal department into a top destination for the finest young singers in America. To drop a few names influenced by Mr. Zambara, try Delores Ziegler and Cheryl Studer on for size. And even though Zambara left UT in 1980 (one year before I first entered the university as a freshman--though, as an instrumental major), his influence is still being felt to this day in the opera apprentice program and his support for the establishment of a professional regional opera company in Knoxville. Even today, there are tales told about past professors in the UT Music Building, and Zambara's famous temper--surely a sign of his commitment to the highest artistic goals and to "encouraging" some students in the only manner that they understood--is legend. For a director to go from UT to Eastman School of Music speaks volumes about his talent and abilities, not to mention involvement with the Met. The word of his death reverberated around the email systems of Knoxville for several weeks.

It will be interesting to see what the KO does this season to honor him.

Stay cool!

A (Short?) Diversion

We're taking a break from classical music and opera stuff. (It's my blog and I'll, uh... "blog" what I want to.) Instead, we're going to talk about music that is also near and dear to my heart.

BTW, yes, that's a YouTube embed up there. "Viral video" is the generic term for it, an apt moniker, since these little bits of usual-fuzzy, out-of-focus motion pictures have "infected" pop culture. Eh... it's technology, so I should be enthused about it, right? Well, I don't know if enthused is the right word, but I thought I'd give it a shot.

Besides, this video is big news for a number of faithful people that have sweated through over 20 years of obscurity.

I'm talking, of course, about fans of Devo.

Remember Devo? As far as pop music is concerned, they were a one-hit-wonder. Their late 70s hit, "Whip It" got about six months of airplay before glam-pop took over the New Wave scene in the early 80s. (Can you say, Flock of Seagulls?) But they influenced pop music in so many ways. First, they were one of the first bands with a kitschy sub-text, mainly, that man had stopped evolving and was now "devolving;" hence, the band's name. They also embraced modern musical technology, basing much of their sound on early digital synthesizers, something that only mega-rock bands were beginning to use in their big studio and live productions. They and a few other bands created what came to be called "New Wave" music.

In fact, the members of Devo didn't even start off to be rock icons. In the mid 70s, two sets of brothers, some of whom were attending art school in Akron, Ohio, just began composing music as a backdrop for some of their artwork. But their "shows" were so eclectic and off-the-beaten-path, they hooked into an anti-establishmentarianistic movement withing college-age youth of that time. After awhile, some of their music made it into the hands of other pop icons of the time, among them David Bowie and Brian Eno. Eno offered to produce their debut album Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo, and the rest, as they say, is history. The album sold well among its target audience, and the band began appearing on television shows looking for new music to proffer to their viewers, shows like NBC's Saturday Night Live and ABC's short-lived SNL wanna-be, Fridays. (Guess what day it came on? And, a quick note: One of the very talented regular cast members was a lanky, kooky-looking fellow by the name of Michael Richards, who would have to wait another 10 years for the powers-that-be to recognize his brilliantly odd-ball character acting in the guise of Cosmo Kramer on Seinfeld.) However, Devo wouldn't receive major airplay of their music until their fourth album, Freedom of Choice, with the aforementioned single from it, "Whip It."

How did I get to be a Devo fan? It was my dad's fault, not because he was "in to" pop music, but because he wasn't. One year, when I was a freshman or sophomore, with my birthday coming up, dad walked into the mall record shop and asked the salesperson what albums were popular at that time. He or she offered several suggestions and dad purchased three. One was Freedom of Choice. Another one was Boston's self-titled debut album, which contained their hit single "More Than a Feeling." I can't remember what the third one was, but I suspect it was a Chuck Mangione album, possibly his concert recording double-album, Live from the Hollywood Bowl. Arrangements of Mangione's jazz fusion music were making the rounds in high school bands and drum corps of that time, and since I was a band geek--and an insecure teenager wanting to be like the cool band people--I was listening to him a lot.

And yes, I still listen to Boston, and to Chuck. But, as an "uncool" social outcast in high school, Devo's music spoke to me. Of course, the fact that they were tinkering with state-of-the-art synthesizers at the time was a big draw for me, too, as was their message that man didn't seem to be moving forward, but stepping back. Vietnam was over, but its repercussions were still being felt. The Cold War was in full swing, and living only a few miles from the Oak Ridge "Y-12" nuclear bomb factory, you were almost certain to become one of the first casualties. The Ayatollah Khomeini had swept to power in Iran, complete with foreign embassy hostages and chants of "Death to America!" And then the American people went and voted a half-senile, half-demented, war-mongering, McCarthy-like-communist-hating, retired second-rate actor and former Governor of California named Ronald Reagan into the White House. Someone had labeled Devo's music as "the sound of things falling apart," and it certainly seemed to me that their sound was relevant to the period.

Okay, Eric, cut to the chase. Bottom line: I was a Devo fan. I stayed a Devo fan. Even through not-even-a-blip-on-the-radar-screen albums. Even through the band's unofficial retirement, with various members going out on their own. Lead singer/composer Mark Mothersbaugh and guitarist Jerry Casale formed their own commercial music business, Mutato Muzika, which became and is still quite successful, writing music for the Rug Rats TV cartoon and movies, Pee Wee's Playhouse (TV and movie), and many critically acclaimed films, to name a few: Rushmore, Royal Tannenbaums, and Bottle Rocket.

But the legend and legacy of Devo lived on. Many of the bands of the 80s, 90s, and 00s paid tribute to Devo's influence, either by covering their songs or copying their sound. There were also a few surprise club appearances. Then, in the early 00s, Devo's name suddenly appeared on a few concerts of the then-famous Lollapalooza circuit. There were also quiet appearances throughout the world, e.g., Tokyo. It seemed that Devo was back, and they didn't appear to have lost any of their eccentricity and anti-establishment message. ("I'll bet you don't know why we're sitting down," said Mothersbaugh in a 1987 appearance at which the band did two relaxed acoustic arrangements of their usually-frenetic songs while seated to begin the concert, "Just to show you we still can after 10 years in this [music] business.")

Then, around 2004, Devo appeared to have sold out! Suddenly, the spud boys were singing "Swiff it, swiff it good!" to a dancing housewife promoting the Swiffer duster. To some, Devo appeared to be just poking tongue-in-cheek fun at the very product they were "promoting." Other fans were completely alienated. (Some were appalled that it was actually Devo performing the shameless spoof; others thought that this was a positive sign. They had kept their own music close to the vest.) Another commercial (little seen?) appearance touting Honda scooters in 2005 was less brash, with the band members back to mocking super-conformity, implying that Honda's scooters were available in a variety of styles to single you out.

Which brings us to the video above. Devo is back, and with smart style and the first original material written in years. Granted, they are hocking a Dell laptop computer. But the whole commercial has a natural Devo-esque feel to it, with the highly stylized post-modernist models in clean black, white, and red. Plus, check out the hot Dell XPS 1330 laptop! Fast Intel Core Duo processors, a big 13.3" screen (available with a regular fluorescent backlight LCD or the newer low-power LED backlit screen), highly customizable (as are most Dell computers) to your specifications and needs, and very thin and light at that. And all for a starting price of $1249. Su-weet!

On top of that, Devo just finished a European tour. (If you're interested, there are several video-phone videos of some of the performances.) And rumors are running rampant of a new album--"album" remaining the anachronistic term for a collection of songs published as one. Could we be perched on the brink of a Devo renaissance? Time will tell.

After all, we are living in a "Wiggly World," run by "Blockhead[s]," and we have "Freedom of Choice."

Freedom of choice is what you got. Freedom from choice is what you want.

How Much is Too Much?

Admit it. Those of you who did Carmen were exhausted by Sunday. Yes, yes, some of us did work the Rossini Festival on Saturday, but even without that, I'll wager everyone was glad when the curtain fell late Sunday afternoon.

Two performances. That doesn't count the weeks of rehearsals required to stage those two performances. "But," you say, "What performances... and what rehearsals!" Yeah, yeah. I hear you. It was grueling.

But, to put things in perspective, check out this NYT article about the Kirov Opera doing two concurrent Ring cycles at the Met this summer. Yes, on consecutive nights! The four Wagner operas! Twice!

Okay, let's just about this for a moment. What kind of forces would be required to do such a feat? Well, you'd probably want two groups to do each cycle, and you certainly wouldn't expect the major roles to be done by the same people on consecutive nights. One analogy I read said you wouldn't ask a soprano to sing Brünnhilde on consecutive nights any more than you'd ask a major league pitcher to start on consecutive nights. So, you'd need two of Brünnhilde and Siegfried, at least. (One might be pressed to find one set of singers for those roles.) Then there's the folks in the pit, which may or may not be interchangeable, not to mention tons of IATSE (production) folk and all appurtenances thereof.

What's amazing to me is that there was only one conductor: Valery Gergiev!

How many people have tried conducting? Show of hands? A few? Maybe you conduct your church choir in an anthem or two Sundays and rehearsals on Wednesdays. Of course, Christmas and Easter presentations require a little more preparation and length of time on the podium--a 45-minute cantata. Or maybe you teach choir in the schools. That's a little more conducting. Daily rehearsals, concerts for PTA and other civic groups, and one or two performances at semester's end.

Now, imagine waving your arms in the air for 4 hours a night for eight nights in a row! (There was a day off in there somewhere.) And people say, "Oh, music! That's a profession for wimps!" Ha! Think you're in shape? Workout at the gym? Free weights, you say? Two or three games of tennis or racquetball a week? (Maybe racquetball is passé nowadays.) Ooo! You're pumped!

Let's get an idea of what Maestro Gergiev had to do. Stand up and just put your arms up in front of you. They don't have to be out all the way, just out from you in a comfortable position. Now, stay that way for, oh, let's just say, 15 minutes. After 5 minutes, you begin to get that burning sensation that means that oxalic acid crystals are building up in the muscles; at 10 minutes, your arms begin trembling; at 15, you're probably on the verge of cramping.

Okay, rest a minute. Now repeat the experiment. This time, flail your arms in the air. Vary the amplitude--sometimes large, grandiose general movements, other times small precise movements. Maybe this time it's not quite as painful, as your muscles are at least getting some variance. If you're feeling fine after 15 minutes, try aiming for 30 minutes. Still going? Try 45, 60... Maybe, if you're lucky and have the biceps of Mr. T., you might get through an hour.

But Gergiev? Four hours! Every night! For 8 days! I would think that, rather than training for a single attempt at your best dead lift, one might take a leaf from marathon runners. You'd probably want to pace yourself, and learning perfect form would certainly be a must. The strength of economy. Still, that's a lot of arm waving.

The moral of this story is, if you see Valery Gergiev anytime soon, I'd refrain from challenging him to any arm wrestling.

Pete Townsend Writes New (Rock) Opera

Espied this article on my Yahoo portal. (Portal - an opening home page that serves as an aggregate reader for news and information. The 1990s equivalent of RSS feeds.) Yes, I know. You're hardly likely in your lifetime to see the Met do Tommy. But, you have to give credit to a guy that probably has taken every illicit drug there is at any one time and still has enough brain matter to live to old age and compose another rock opera.

I have to admit, I have only seen bits and pieces of Tommy. And it seemed like, as a child of the 70s, Elton John was blasting out a version of "Pinball Wizard" every five minutes. I vaguely remember the "buzz" (as in, a gnat at your ear: something you, and the rest of the world, hardly notice) when Quadrophenia came out, but, again, that was more about who was playing the main character: A guy named Sting, lead singer and bassist from an up-and-coming band named The Police. But, like so many "old" composers, Pete Townsend instills a sense of respect from the musical community. People are willing to listen to whatever the aging composer puts out.

Handel churned out work after work in his old age. He had become famous in England by then, and there was no shortage of royalty during the mid-18th-century willing to pony up the money for whatever he wrote. By then, he had developed all of his formulaic techniques and could just churn out the pages for whomever. I wonder if the phrase "Sold out" existed back then. One could make that argument for Handel, as one might make the argument of any rock band in the 1970s.

Yadda-yadda...

What's that? You know I'm tech-head and gadgeteer and want to know what I think of the iPhone? Well, thanks, but I don't have one and have no plans to purchase one. And from the reading I've done, that's a good thing. Sure, it looks cool, but it's not the vast jump in technology that everyone was hyping it to be. As a matter of fact, as a phone, the general consensus is that it's awful. The sound is bad, it's difficult to dial manually or send text messages on the "virtual" keyboard displayed on the smooth glass face, and said face gets caked with oily fingerprints, making viewing a movie or a web page a less-than-stellar experience. The last complaint has been a continuing complaint about the iPods since they were first released.

Now, you have to understand, I'm a dyed-in-the-wool PC guy. I'm not an Apple-head. My heroes are (well, in some cases, were) Carly Fiorina and Bill Gates. Yes, I know, "artistic" types are supposed to swoon over every word that comes forth from the mouth of Steve Jobs and rush out to buy every product that he sells.

And I have to admit, I did break down and buy an iPod Nano, begrudgingly. And I've been very impressed with it. I probably have it two-thirds full of albums from my own "old" CD collection and have even bought a few things off of iTunes. I think iTunes says that adds up to about 2.2 days worth of music (about 58 hours of constant listening to music). And, though, you'll find quite a bit of rock and stuff, you'll also find a lot of early music, some jazz, and a little opera. To me--a guy who lugged around a 10-pound "boom box" throughout much of the late 70s and early 80s, then a large case of cassettes when the Sony Walkman came out, then a large case of CDs when the CD Walkman came out--the idea of holding two straight days of music in a box smaller and less-hefty than an old-style cigarette lighter, it's a dream come true. (I own a couple of non-iPod MP3 players that are equally amazing in their size but lack the intuitiveness of the iPod.) Yes, I do record the music in a compressed format (as opposed to Apple lossless), but the quality doesn't degrade that much. I love my Nano!

But when it comes to computers, I'm a PC guy. I was much more excited about the release of Windows Vista than I was OS X, and I'll scoff at the people that stand in line to buy Jaguar, the next Apple OS release, coming, well... whenever Apple gets the kinks out of it. (In Apple's defense, they do put out a polished and complete product, as opposed to Microsoft's release-it-and-we'll-work-out-the-bugs-later philosophy.) Part of this bias is that the particular field I work in uses PCs almost exclusively. I make my living off being able to make Microsoft Office stand up and beg for people. And what office productivity suite do most Mac-based-businesses using? Office for the Mac, which is very different from the PC version. Yes, there are alternatives to MS Office, but none of them have yet been developed to the point of overtaking the capabilities of the Microsoft product--this includes Corel's WordPerfect suite.

So, no iPhone for me, thank you. At least, not for the foreseeable future. As a matter of fact, I recently purchased a new Samsung phone which I'm very happy with. It can surf the web, sort of. I can play games on it, should I be so inclined, which isn't very often. And I have a contacts list on it, but just to facilitate dialing numbers. (If I need more in-depth knowledge of names and schedules "in the field," I have my trusty Palm Pilot, which, incidentally, syncs up very well with my copy of Outlook on my home PC.) The call quality on the Samsung is excellent, and it's Bluetooth enabled. So I have a wireless earpiece/mic arrangement which makes me look a bit like a cyborg. And the light on it blinks, which tells everyone around me that, yes, I am that important a person.

I happened to catch an old video of Beverly Sills singing "The Willow Song" from Ballad of Baby Doe on the ARTS channel yesterday. (I don't know anything about the ARTS channel, except that it broadcasts on the Knox County Schools channel when the school system doesn't have any programming, i.e., at night or during the summer. They show old videos of classical music performances.) It was an old, old video, judging by the look of things, probably the early to mid-1960s. She was on what appeared to be some kind of talk show, with a couple of hosts in director chairs and a small studio audience. That kind of genre of show was popular in the 60s, so that's what made me think it was from then. Anyone who has seen Monty Python lampoons of talk shows from the BBC in the 1960s/early 1970s will know the format I mean.

I wish I'd caught the whole performance instead of the last minute or so. But, c'est la vie. It was wonderful to watch such a consummate singer as Sills. The key to good opera singing is to make it sound--and look--like it's just the easiest thing in the world. The next time you see a video of Pavarotti, check out his jaw. There's absolutely no tension whatsoever. It's just hanging there, even though he's belting out high Cs and Ds. Ditto for the tongue. And, of course, he sounds like, "Why, Cs and Ds are in the middle of my range." And Sills was no exception in this video. The closing high notes--I'm not familiar enough with the opera to know what they were--were just as easy as all the other notes. You could see that her body, the diaphragm, all the torso musculature, was doing all the work. But she didn't look like she was working hard at all.

The only thing I found odd was how much she dropped her jaw on the highest notes. It seems to me that the jaw has a natural range of motion, opening and closing. If you exceed your natural downward extension, you have to exert extra energy in those muscles that pull the jaw down. (Forgive me, Ms. Michaelopolis. I don't remember the names of them from vocal pedagogy.) That's tension. And any tension anywhere in the facial muscles affects the sound... not that Beverly Sills sounded that way at all. It just looked rather odd. I don't think singers today do that. It may have been an affectation peculiar just to Sills, or it may have been the pedagogical thought at the time. (Research on singers via endoscopy was probably just getting revved up in the late-50s/early-60s)

Pedagogy, like any science, changes. Any singers around with the weird, fast vibrato so popular in the 30s and 40s? Nope. Thank goodness! And though everyone reads Enrico Caruso's treatise on singing and the singer in vocal ped., there's a lot of things in it that don't hold water in this day and age. An example would be alcohol consumption, although a) this might be cultural (Italian vs. American), and b) Caruso doesn't say to drink it in excess. In his defense, also, many scientists today agree that a glass of wine a day has an overall positive effect. Other things he says have stood the test of time. He touts a diet rich in fruits and vegetables. (Don T. has related how Pavarotti requested large platters of fresh fruits and vegetables when he was in Knoxville oh-so-many years ago.)

For protein, Caruso said that he ate primarily lean chicken and fish.

I believe he also mentions taking a brisk walk every morning, though, given the air pollution in most major industrialized cities during the early 20th century, one wonders how the scale would weigh in on if that behavior would be healthy or hazardous. In any case, the plug for daily exercise is there. As I say this, I've been sitting at my computer drinking strong coffee since I got up 3-1/2 hours ago. My chief plan of exercise for the day is walking around my parents' house with the contractor and, possibly, lifting a Blue Coast Burrito or two... not to say that anyone would ever confuse me with either Caruso--or even Mario Lanza--physique or vocal-wise.

But, regardless, Sills treatment of "The Willow Song" is wonderful. And, if I may say, physique-wise, she was pretty much a babe. I don't recall ever seeing her in the media where she didn't look dressed to the nines, always elegant and composed. The paragon of opera sopranodom, or just femininity.

Ahem. I do hope that Britney, Paris, and Nichole will read this and take heed.

Sad Day for Opera

The Reuters article on Beverly Sills dying today.

Not growing up an opera buff, I remember Beverly Sills as the host (nobody uses "hostess" anymore, right?) of An Evening at the Met, at least, I think that's what it was called, on PBS. On the occasions I watched it, her enthusiasm was infectious. She obviously loved her craft and loved sharing it with others.

I was surprised to read that she was, at one point, on the board of Time Warner. Time Warner! And they say sopranos are airheads!

The last paragraph is so sad. Her husband died last year, which I'm sure took a lot out of her.

It's an all-to-common thing, people dying shortly after their spouse passes away. You hear stories about it all the time. The strain of dealing with living without someone you've spent so much time with just wears the physical body down, which leads to all kinds of opportunistic maladies. My mom had a stroke five months after my dad passed away. She managed to hang on another year, but, at the end, I think she just got tired of being on this earth without dad.

In a way, it's kind of sweet. Even in this day and age, when some psychologists and sociologists proclaim that humans weren't meant to be monogamous throughout their entire lives, it seems that, in so many cases, they're wrong. Homo sapiens seems to mate, literally, for life... or tries to, as the case may be.

It gives those of us that have not found that special someone hope. I have always felt like I had a very naïve concept of love, a viewpoint I attribute to watching too many Disney movies when I was a kid. (Didn't Dean Jones always get Suzanne Pleshette in the end?) What if love is like the early Disney movies and all those learned "experts" are wrong?

I know. I'm a hopeless romantic.

Leaue, me, O loue which reachest but to dust,
And thou, my mind, aspire to higher things.
Grow rich in that which neuer taketh rust;
Whateuer fades, but fading pleasure brings.
Draw in thy beames, and humble all thy might
To that sweet yoke where lasting freedomes be;
Which breakes the clowdes, and opens forth the light,
That doth both shine and giue us sight to see.
O take fast hold; let that light be thy guide
In this small course which birth drawes out to death,
And thinke how euill becommeth him to slide,
Who seeketh heau'n, and comes of heau'nly breath.
Then farewell world; thy vttermost I see:
Eternall Loue, maintaine thy life in me.
--Sonnet 150, Astrophel and Stella, Sir Philip Sidney (1554-1586)

Homeowner's Journal for 6/23/07

I hesitate to mention this yet again, but my brother and I are in the process of renovating our deceased parents' early 1950s rancher. Up to this point, we've been primarily concerned with getting 45+ years of junk thrown/given/sold out of the house and assessing what needs to be done and what we'd like done with the place. Other than dire maintenance (e.g., roof suddenly leaks, get new roof), the house is pretty much what it was when it was built in 1952-53, so there's a lot to think about and dream about.

This is my first experience with property ownership, so I'm just a wide-eyed kid when it comes to deeds, deed restrictions, zoning, permits, etc.. My brother, on the other hand, bought a townhouse 15 or so years ago, but he's never had to do any kind of major remodeling. So we've been floundering about what we want done and what must be done. We've watched enough flip/remodel shows to know that hiring contractors is an absolute crap shoot, so we've floundered in finding someone to do the job.

Thankfully, aid has come to us in a close family friend who renovated/remodels houses, primarily down in Alabama but also one or two in K-town. But he only does oversight. However, he has worked with another family friend who does do the actual contracting work and has agreed to work with us.

I think I had intimated previously that we had met with both friends to talk about possibilities. After that meeting, my brother and I felt like we'd gotten further along on the house in a couple of hours of talking with them than we had in the previous year since our mom died. But it was all preliminary talk, as my brother and I hadn't really nailed down what we wanted, or even if we were going to keep it or sell it. So we had some work to do between ourselves. We've been getting together for the past few weeks to dream about all kinds of wild possibilities for the house.

Well, today we're meeting our newly-hired contractor friend and talking real turkey! Like, what do we want done and when construction can actually start. It's kind of exciting... and scary. But having two friends you trust in the business of contracting has made so much difference in how we look at things.

Actually, three friends! I have a real estate buddy that really helped us get the ball rolling as far as return-on-investment, what buyers look for--though we're not selling in the near-term--and positive things that were already going for the house.

So, as oil landscape painter Bob Ross used to say on his PBS program when he was about to demonstrate a make-or-break brush stroke on the canvas, "This is your bravery test." I'm feeling a little chicken right now, but am more confident every day. I'm sure that, once a few things are redone or added to the house, I'll be much more willing to make my bigger, bolder ideas come true.

Thou Shalt Suffer for Thine Art

An interesting article in the UK's Guardian online equivalent of a composer suing a reviewer for libel. (Actually, it's about a higher court overturning an earlier decision by a lower court that said the reviewer was libel.) It seems that Keith Burstein's opera, Manifest Destiny, presented in 2005 at Edinburgh, was disparaged by reviewer Veronica Lee in The Guardian. Burstein was incensed enough by some of the things said to take her and The Guardian to court.

The opera is about a young Palestinian woman training to be a suicide bomber (How does one "train" to be a suicide bomber?) whose cell leader falls in love with her and, to save her, turns her over to the Americans. Ms. Lee did not care for the subject matter, saying that the opera was "trite," glorified suicide bombers, and had an anti-American tone to it. Mr. Burstein took this to mean that he was anti-American and sympathetic to suicide bombers and--in this day and age of don't-you-never-be-dissin'-on-America--brought suit. The lower court had allowed the suit to go to trial; the jury found for Mr. Burstein, and he was awarded 8,000 pounds. The higher court overturned the ruling, ordering Burstein to repay the 8,000 plus an additional 80,000 of the defendant's legal costs. The judge said that, though the opera did have an anti-American tone, it was a matter of opinion (apparently, a brief one at that) and, as such, was protected by freedom of speech.

It would be interesting to posit whether here in America such a case would even go to trial. We have the First Amendment that pretty clearly keeps the press out of court, though it does happen. A recent example is the government suing the New York Times for an article leaking what was considered sensitive information. C'mon! How much more frivolous does the case in question seem compared to that?

Besides, composers have always been trying to push the public's buttons. That's the artist dream for ya! To push compositions (be they music or other media) to the cutting edge. To push the craft forward. Beethoven's later symphonies, particularly the Ninth, were much disparaged as being too far out. Stravinksy and Diaghilev caused a riot in Paris with Rite of Spring (but from all accounts they were ecstatic about the reaction). Imagine an almost-but-not-quite post-Victorian-era audience watching Strauss' Elektra and Salome. The Met had to close Salome after one night; Elektra's dissonances garnered cartoons of Strauss directing an orchestra of animals. (Some things don't change. For the record, when KO did Salome a few years back, I think there were more people on stage and in the pit than were in the audience.) Then there's my favorite, Charlie Ives, poor guy. He endured a lifetime of ridicule and was an old man before 20th century music "caught up" to things he'd written in the 1890s.

Don't think that we performers get off easy, either. We have to suffer for our art. While our non-music friends in college were partying on Cumberland Avenue and looking forward to six-figure offers on graduation, we were in dark, dank, dusty practice rooms or pouring over a crumbling score in a two-foot cubicle in the music library. Someday, perhaps, we would find a town that would allow us to eke out a living on a music-derived salary, or perhaps we have another career area we can survive on while plying our craft. "You sing opera?! Amazing! I didn't know Knoxville had an opera company?" could just as easily be "You juggle cats?! Amazing! I didn't know Knoxville had cat jugglers?"

Yet we composers, performers, painters, sculptors, what have you... We continue on unabated.

Take me for example: My senior year in high school I had an extra period open so I took freshman French and did fairly well in it. Upon graduation, I told my mom that I was going to go to UT and pursue a career in music, to which she replied, "But what about your French?" And it wasn't like she was ignorant. Her brother was a famous jazz and classical musician and college band director in Chattanooga! When I got out of school--both times--I could've been a band director or direct a church's music program, but I elected to ply my performance craft and find some kind of job to put food on the table: air conditioner salesman, clerk, word processor, ticket counter, data programmer. One day I had a revelation. What if I just kept on doing what I was doing? Working a regular, full-time, salaried-but-not-high-paying job by day and singing at night and on the weekends? Would my life change significantly? Well, yes. I'd be making enough money to get a car, rent an apartment, and have an occasional dinner at P.F. Chang's. Duh! As the Steve Miller Band opined, "Go on, take the money and run!"

And so it goes. Here I am, at another crossroads of my career, developing a different area of my talents in order to survive. But I don't intend to give up music! If that means working at Sears again, then so be it. You gotta do what you love and you gotta do what you have to. If those things aren't the same, well, then so be it. Oh sure, I've thought about "retiring" from singing--more and more as I get older and those easy high As aren't as easy as they used to be. But that's a ways off, if at all. They'll have to pry the photocopy of the choruses in La Boheme from my cold... dead... hand!

Suffer on.

Annie Karenina Hall?

Los Angeles Opera's general director, Placido Domingo, announced today that Woody Allen would direct "Gianni Schicchi" in the 2008 production of Puccini's Il Trittico.

William Friedkin, who directed The Exorcist and The French Connection, will direct the other two parts of Trittico, "Il Tabarro" and "Suor Angelica."

Perhaps Tom Eberts should begin work on relearning his "role" as the hapless (and dead) Gianni Schicchi. Maybe he could get an audition!

When was it we "Schicchi?" Fall 2001? Wow! That long ago? We did Pagliacci on the second half of the bill. The ridiculous and the sublime. I have pictures. I think it was Frank Graffeo's second year with us. It should be a good fit for Allen. From what I remember, it was really quite funny. And our illustrious opera apprentices at the time did a good job with it.

It's too bad that Puccini didn't write more comedies. I think they would've been good.

But, no! He was too involved with jilted Japanese girls, frigid Chinese princesses, sopranos jumping from parapets, and the artsy-but-poor-and-disease-ridden of Paris.

What was it about nineteenth century life (and I think of Puccini as a 19th c. composer) that made everybody that wrote stuff back then so darned depressing? Maybe it was all that coal oil they were breathing. The weltschmertz of the early industrial revolution?

Seriously. We don't call that musical era "Romantic" for nothing. So many people hear that word and think immediately of love. But there's a broader meaning: Webster's says "imbued with or dominated by idealism, a desire for adventure, chivalry, etc." (OK, it also gives a narrower definition pertaining specifically to the musical period.)

Doesn't that sound like music of the 19th c.? A broadening of the harmonic language. New instruments. Improved old instruments. Longer, broader compositions. Programmatic music. More feeling!

Yawn. My apologies on the ADD-ness of this entry. Maybe it's best we just end things here. I'm tired. I worked out in the yard at the house this afternoon. Bad idea. My sinuses are having a conniption.

All Voice, No Looks

I came across this article (a humorous take) on the winner of Britain's (sort of) version of American Idol, a guy named Paul Potts, who actually sang opera as his talent.

I agree with the author of the article, Rick Coster, completely. Mr. Potts, though a pretty-talented guy, is probably not going to go anywhere. Oh, he'll get his 5 minutes in front of the Queen, but that's going to be the peak of his career. But, in the meantime, way to go, Paul! Let's hear it for the not-beautiful people making some waves!

Now, you must know that that picture of me at right is my "head shot" and, like most singers, it was taken about 15 years ago. (C'mon, admit it! It's true! When was the last time you saw any singer, other than some kid fresh out of college, whose head shot was current?) I wish I looked that good now. If I'd known I'd looked that good back then... but then, I didn't. I'm realistic about my looks, then and now. Especially now that the "blush of youth" has left my cheek. I know that, though I can sing Britten and Handel and Purcell, Covent Garden isn't going to be calling me anytime soon.

But that's the whole point of this article. Looks. This guy, Paul Potts, isn't exactly a handsome fellow. He's overweight, has bad teeth (I can hear the jokes now, "But, don't all Britons have bad teeth?"), and is not exactly a fill-up-a-room-with-his-personality type of guy. Yet he does have a very good voice. (Check out the YouTube video.) I can't even fake my way through "Nessun Dorma."

But he did manage to win Britain's Got Talent, which I suppose is more the equivalent of the eponymous American counterpart than Idol... except instead of a manic Simon Cowell, America's Got Talent has a drunk David Hasselhoff. Potts not only had to beat out singers, one of which was a cute 6-year-old, but jugglers, comedians, etc., which makes it all the more impressive.

But, you say, maybe Britain has more of a "thing" for opera than we do. After all, it is a European country. While there may be some truth to that in the case of older folk, I would imagine that the younger Brits, i.e., those that watch a "reality" series on the telly, could, like their American cousins, care less. They're more about pop culture: Hugh Grant/George Clooney, the White Stripes, and MySpace and/or Facebook.

So what does an average-Joe, portly opera singer in America or Britain, or any other country in the world nowadays do? Everything today is looks, looks, looks. If Pavarotti had been born 20 years later, would he have done as well as he has? "You have an amazing voice, Mr. Pavarotti, but we're really looking a different type, someone who could play the handsome, romantic lead. Thanks for coming in."

Meanwhile, a teenage girl in Kansas is sticking her finger down her throat so that she'll vomit and become as thin--and beautiful--as Kate Moss. Dr. Phil has a family in which the mother and older daughter have had breast implants and now the youngest, 19-year-old daughter wants them, but--get this!--her older sister and mother are against it. Hmmm... A fat kid from Corbin, Kentucky absolutely loves musicals and moves to New York to pursue his dream, only to end up a stock boy in a downtown chain store.

I'm all for technology, but maybe all those guys who are credited with inventing the camera did us a disservice. Look at the pictures of paintings of Beethoven, Bach, Handel, even Mozart. Do you think they really looked that good? (Well, there are some later paintings of Handel that aren't exactly flattering.) With a diet as poor as ours today, a sanitation system that consisted of a rut in the middle of the street, and health care that touted bleeding a person almost dry for "expelling the ill humors from the body"? I seriously doubt that. But composers have it easy, even today. A patron is much more likely to hear a work by a composer and realize its brilliance than to hear a talented singer without looking at his or her head shot. At least, back in the day, they gave you the benefit of a doubt.

But, I hear you, painters made the ugliest people beautiful; then photographers learned certain dark-room tricks that would cast, literally, a favorable light on someone's appearance; the invention of the airbrush brought us further along the path of "retouching"; lots of carbon-arc lamps did wonders for the complexions of Hollywood motion-picture starlets in the 1920s and '30s; and now we have digital--Photoshop (new version CS3!) and its kine--to help us to look our best. People have found ways to not look how they really look for millenia. And, perhaps, someday we'll all have some kind of advanced, light-bending clothing to make us look really good in public.

But, until then, good luck Paul Mott. We're pullin' for ya.