Yet another fine production that I’ve been allowed to enjoy.
Highlights include:
1. Those who sat in the seats adjacent to mine: Our merry band included John MacInnis (when he drives his hoopty back home to the ghetto, they call him “J-Mac”); Ben Kammer; Laura Korver; Heather Wallis. We had a lovely Pre-Artist-Series time in Laura’s apartment watching a video I had surreptitiously taken of John and Ben doing the “Orangutan with a Nail-Gun” dance. Ben, ever the pottery whiz, was kind enough to craft a 500-lb ceramic Cocker Spaniel with a voice box installed that plays staticky German Oktoberfest anthems. The ushers made us leave it at the camera-check window. Laura gave us cookies, and John did some strange things with the liquid sweetener.
2. Some really good singers. The guest artists were great. I give my official stamp of approval to Greg Graf as well.
3. The bizarre elements. The opera actually made sense to me. Maybe I’m just older and can appreciate the operas more. Or maybe the operas are getting progressively simpler. But anyway, I could understand what was going on.
Until the aristocratic dance party. Then, out of nowhere, this mob of girls, dressed in pink and carrying shepherd staffs, pops onto the stage, without the slightest provocation, and they start singing. I was offered no explanation as to why the Pink-Clad Bo-Peep Choir chose to burst onto the scene. As yet, I still have been offered no explanation for this seemingly psychedelic element of the opera.
4. The nutritionally complete feast: Between the Pre-Artist-Series-Party and my Artist-Series-Gift-Snacks-That-Come-In-A-Colorful-Bag, I was able to partake of the 5 basic food groups:
(1) Dairy: Half-and-half in my coffee
(2) Vegetables: The bald little carrots we ate at Laura’s apartment. Coffee is a vegetable too.
(3) Bread/Cereal: The cookies were succulent and pleasing to the palate.
(4) Meat: Well, we were all waiting for Heather (who was late, I might add; and don’t believe a word she says about me and the llama hoof) in Laura’s apartment, and a squirrel wandered in, and the microwave was right there . . .
(5) PEZ: Heather got me a lovely Bobby the Beagle PEZ dispenser. It is the first fur-covered PEZ dispenser I’ve ever owned. I’ll never go back to the fur-less kind.
All in all, ’twas a lovely evening. Until you go to a BJU opera, you’ve only sipped from the cup of life.
I was baffled by the Bo-Peeps as well. Jessica and I decided that it was a subtle way of saying that all of Andrea Chenier's poems were drug-inspired.
Posted by: apple at March 20, 2004 03:23 PMdidn't I try to stoke rumors of there being an acid incident during the performance?
Posted by: Kammer at March 21, 2004 01:32 AM*sigh. you people.
Posted by: gwen at March 21, 2004 05:03 PMI know, uncultured swine they are.
Posted by: Kammer at March 22, 2004 08:53 PMStill need an explanation?
Three words in the synopsis in your program were your clue to the bizarre element of the girls in the cotton-candy-colored clothes: "the pastoral masque."
Yes, Chenier drudged up that type of literature that Virgil made popular in his Eclogues--the celebration/glorification of a simpler way of life, particularly that of the shepherd or shepherdess.
Though it would take a pretty large dose of mind-altering drugs to induce anyone today to walk about in pink with a shepherd's staff (outside of an opera performance), it's unlikely that Chenier was so influenced.
Ah. The mystery unraveled. Thanks.
Posted by: slig at March 24, 2004 09:42 AM
As the assistant staging director, I think I can explain the "pink" mystery from Act I of the opera.
Andrea Chenier is an opera of contrasts. The aristocracy on one hand are living in luxury and frivolous ease, while the commoners struggle in the dirt to make ends meet.
I am sure you know of the history of pastoral masques--musical/theatrical events that were performed at the courts of the rich and royal.
The Pastoral section in Chenier served to highlight the extravangance of the aristocracy. This spectacle was solely for their entertainment; in fact, all of their evenings consisted of this sort of meaningless frivolity.
Meanwhile, the peasants lived in squalor.
I think the masque was in the opera to demonstrate the huge gap which existed then between two classes of people in France.
Thanks, Dave. Yet another of life's mystery's unraveled. I have thus been loosed from my chains of ignorance, and can no more crack jokes about the psychedelic shepherd chicks.
Posted by: slig at April 6, 2004 11:20 AMAnd as Dave Barry would say... "Psychedelic Shepherd Chicks would be a great name for a rock band." So would "chains of ignorance," actually:)
(This statement in no way is an endorsement of rock bands, Dave Barry, or psychedelic stuff)
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