Hello, world

Hey folks. Bet you'd given up on ever seeing me again, eh? I went off last August in something of a diva fit during what was the longest, brokest, most boring summer in all my twenty-seven years on this earth. Since that time, I have had many adventures, both good and less so, and I come back to you now with a tally of what one person can accomplish when they feel like it.

Since my August 3rd post, I have:

Met the incomparable Lucy of Opera Obsession (and what a weekend it was!)

Begun to write reviews for BachTrack Magazine of the concerts and operas in Berlin.

Read about fifty good books

Fell in true love with my job.

Started a Tumblr under the highly original name of Tinydoom's Opernpalais

Been awfully sassy on my Twitter page

Gone to California to see my family for Christmas, where I finally admitted that while I love California, I will never want to ive there

Won a ticket to see Jonas Kaufmann make an operetta dvd in Berlin's Funkhaus, where I sat in the very front row and took this video:
http://youtu.be/LCZK4CSv4wg

All in all, it's been wild and crazy, but now I finally feel like blogging again, so hopefully we can expect regular posts. Fingers crossed!

Adventurers beware!

When I moved to Europe almost three years ago, it was with a bright hope that my life would take on the charmed aura of the heroine of one of those travel memoirs that I so love reading. I would move to Europe, fall into a whirlwind of adventure and romance and art and culture. I would travel, meet new people, speak new languages. For six months this was my reality, and I loved it. And then I moved to Berlin.

I am not going to blame Berlin for taking the romance and love of adventure out of my life for the last two years. That would be too easy, as though a city itself was invested with the cognisance to decide which of its inhabitants will love it and which will not. But I will say that Berlin is not an easy city to love. It's gritty and dirty, the people are rude, and the collective angst of the past 70 or so years makes any travel into the former East side a lesson in despair. Berlin is a great city if you love graffiti, hipsters and the sort of attitude that has all of its inhabitants under the age of 30 wearing ultra skinny trousers and stomper boots. If on top of this you dislike having to travel up to an hour to go anywhere interesting, than you quickly become disenchanted with it. But you stick with it because you have no other real choice.

To say that I disliked Berlin from the day I arrived would be an understatement. Circumstances forced me to move here when my original plan of going to Frankfurt fell through (or rather, was forcibly demolished by certain family members who thought it was a bad idea). I planned to stay only for the summer. And then, because family is all powerful and I didn't speak any German, I suddenly found myself with an apartment, a government stipend and a one year mandatory integration course into German language and culture. I won't lie, that course was hell on earth and the less said about it, the better. But because I believe in adventure, and that everything in life has a purpose, I stuck it out. Besides, I had Fidelio to work on, and nothing helps with depression like writing a novel about a woman saving the world. I finished my course, I finished my teaching certification, and I got a job. A wonderful job, with a fantastic and supportive boss who frequently tells me that she loves having me on her team. There is only one real problem with the set-up: being at the very start of my teaching career, I make hardly any money at all. And so I'm stuck with that government stipend.

Don't get me wrong: I have been so blessed since I came here. I won't starve. But part of the deal of being on a government stipend is that I cannot travel. I cannot leave Berlin without permission. To get that permission I have to go wait in line, make an appointment, and then argue with a bored bureaucrat in my decent but sub-par German about the necessity of whatever travel I'm going to do. And if I use up all my travel days (about 20 days per year), I don't get permission and so can't go. And there's nothing quite like being trapped in a place to make you dislike it.

But you make the best of it, you know? I go to the opera here occasionally and get to write about it. I can wander the city and explore. I can meet friends when they aren't too busy, or when they can come to me in my part of town. I go to a lovely church where the people are always glad to see me. But something is missing. All summer I have been sitting in Berlin, trying to summon motivation to do something, anything, but I can't, for the simple reason that I have no money. Every penny that I earn this summer has gone to bills and groceries, leaving me without a penny to play with. I can't even go down to Potsdam, because I can't afford the ticket. And it's hot. The average temperature in July was 90F with 100% humidity. This, in the land that doesn't believe in air conditioning.

Lately, my love of adventure and my reserves of patience have hit rock bottom. The cons have begun to outweigh the pros. And out of that, a rebellion was born. I am 27 years old. I speak three languages. I am a fully qualified teacher. And it is time for a change.

Pitching Fidelio, round two

Last year I stopped querying agents about my Fidelio novel after it became clear to me that further revisions were needed before it was publication-worthy. Since then, I've almost completely rewritten the first half of the book. I rewrote the first chapter-the crucial hook-and I think it's much better now. (I hope so, anyway!) So now, given that I've got a month's holiday stretching before me, I'm working on perfecting my pitch.

What do you all think of this? Would you read a book if this was its back cover blurb?

“Fidelio” is the story of one woman’s search for her husband after he is ‘disappeared’ by political enemies.
Seville 1793: A smoking bonfire contains scraps of clothing and her husband’s wedding ring, but no body. Society, and even her own family, believe Florestan to be dead, but Leonora Serrano does not. Florestan was an important man, an aide to the Minister of Justice during this time of war and political upheaval. What was he investigating that was so dangerous that he had to be removed? A chance encounter with the governor of a dreaded prison fortress leads Leonora to assume the disguise of a young man and take a job as servant at the fortress in hopes of finding her husband alive. What she learns there turns her world on its head and makes her question everything she ever knew about justice and mercy. And then, when all hope seems lost, she hears a whisper of a starving man locked in a secret dungeon. Is it Florestan? And will she reach him before he is murdered?

How I wish Lohengrin ended

Because seriously.

Wagner Straßen

If you get on any train or Sbahn to Berlin's Wannsee district and exit the station on the Zehlendorf side, you'll find yourself in a neighborhood of enormous, gorgeous mansion houses, a neighborhood filled with linden trees and tower rooms, elegant terraces and a soft spot for Wagner...

Residents seemed to be non-existent (they were probably all swimming down at the beach in Wannsee proper), which is good, because I'm sure I looked quite funny, taking pictures of street signs and grinning to myself.

The scene that I can't make fit anywhere

Sometimes, when writing, you come up with more scenes than can fit into the narrative without slowing it down. Here is one such scene from my Fidelio novel, which I like, but can't figure out where to put. Le sigh.
NB: Jacinta is Rocco's housekeeper. Somebody has to be there to keep an eye on Marzelline!

*
“Jacinta, will you sit with Florestan tomorrow? Don Fernando wishes to speak with me again in the morning about the accounts I did, and I don’t want to leave him alone.”
Leonora Serrano, Fidelio that was, stood in the kitchen doorway, looking awkward. Jacinta paused, up to her elbows in flour, letting the dough in her hands rest.
“Of course I will. How is he this afternoon?”
“Better,” Leonora said, “though he had a nightmare. He said to thank you for the cinnamon bread. It was delicious.”
Jacinta smiled. Four days had Florestan been with them, and he was already saying thank you. Gratitude was all he had to give, she supposed. She would never have believed it of a wealthy gentleman, but then, she would never have believed that the woman in front of her could have done what she did, either. The world was changing, that was for certain.
“He seems to be a good man,” she said. Leonora nodded. “And how are you, my dear? Have you rested at all today?”
“No, no, it is not necessary,” Leonora said. The dark circles under her eyes belied her insistence, but Jacinta knew better than to press the matter.
“What time will you go? I will bring up the mending and sit with him until you return.”
“Fernando will come here at eight o’clock, and speak with me in the parlor. Thank you, Jacinta. Thank you for putting up with the extra work.”
Jacinta waved a hand. As if she would abandon two needy people!
The next morning, when Leonora brought their breakfast tray downstairs, Jacinta accompanied her into the invalid’s chamber, carrying her basket of mending. Florestan (Jacinta could not think of his as titled, not when he was so sick and helpless) lay asleep again, He did look a sight better than he had five days ago, Jacinta thought, settling herself in the armchair and taking up one of Rocco’s shirts. The ghastly grey pallor was leaving his face.
“Am I presentable?” Leonora raised her arms and turned a slow pirouette before Jacinta. In Marzelline’s borrowed blue frock, she looked entirely different from Fidelio, yet nothing like a fine lady.
“You look very pretty,” Jacinta said. She would look even prettier if her face was not so pale and anxious, but Jacinta held her tongue. The woman had every right to be anxious. “Go on, then, and make sure you tell my lord minister that he is to give you credit where it’s due.”
Leonora smiled and left. Jacinta settled into her mending. There wasn’t much, but the men would abuse their sleeves and trousers so. She hummed to herself as she worked, a sailor’s tune that she had learned as a child in Cadiz. The hum of voices downstairs drifted up to her, but she could not make out what they were saying, and didn’t bother trying. Three of Rocco’s shirts needed new cuffs, and Jacquino had torn a hole one trouser leg in his haste to let the prisoners out when the minister had bidden him to. Marzelline needed a new petticoat; this one was getting too thin in the back. Jacinta felt eyes on her and looked up. Don Florestan lay back on his pillows, his eyes open, watching her. Startled-she had not heard any change in his breathing-Jacinta let her sewing drop into her lap.
“Hello, Florestan. I did not expect you to wake so soon. Would you like some water?”
He nodded, his wary eyes not leaving her face. Jacinta stood and reached for the water jug. The tumbler on the table was clean, and Jacinta filled it and brought it to the invalid. Florestan sat up, still watching her with those big, nervous eyes.
“Here now. I always say that a glass of water on waking starts the day off right. It’s good, isn’t it? Nice and fresh. There.”
Florestan drained the cup. Jacinta took it from him and patted his shoulder.
“Thank you,” whispered Florestan. “Where is my wife?”
“Downstairs, speaking with my lord minister about how she undermined Don Pizarro. She’ll come back soon.”
Florestan nodded, hugging himself. Poor man, thought Jacinta, fetching a roll out of the basket on the table. “Would you like some bread and butter? I’ll put a little jam on it, too. Orange marmalade; homemade in January. Leonora tells me you like oranges.”
Florestan nodded again. Jacinta felt his eyes on her as she sliced the roll open and spread it with butter and marmalade (thank Heaven she had insisted that Leonora keep a basket of provisions in the room at all times). Such a simple thing, bread and marmalade, but enough to lift anyone’s spirits, especially a starving man’s.
“There now. Let’s sit you up properly.” She reached behind Florestan and fluffed his pillows, creating a wall for him to lean on. When he was comfortably situated, she reached for the plate.
“Forgive me,” Florestan said, suddenly. “I have lost the ability to converse with ease.”
Jacinta turned, the plate of dressed bread in her hand. “There is no need to apologize, Florestan. I understand quite well.”
Florestan gave her a small smile and sat back to eat his bread and jam. An ecstatic look passed over his face as he bit off the first chunk, and Jacinta resisted the urge to reach out and ruffle his hair. He may be an invalid, but he was a grown man, and not comfortable with her. Instead, she settled herself back down with her mending.
“Did my singing wake you?”
“I don’t think so. No. I like it.”
Jacinta smiled at him, and Florestan ducked his head, gave her another of those small, shy smiles. They sat together in companionable silence, Jacinta humming and Florestan enjoying his snack. How funny it was, to sit in a room so with a gentleman. It was hard for Jacinta to think of these people as aristocrats.

Jonas Kaufmann: the newest Bayerische Kammersänger!

Some great news for unser Jonas on Monday night: during the curtain call for "Trovatore" he was surprised by Intendant Nikolaus Bachler and the Bavarian Minister of Culture, who announced to a surprised audience-and tenor-that Kaufmann is now a Bayerische Kammersänger. According to the Bayerishce Staatsoper blog about the event, they're all very proud of themselves: they invited all of Kaufmann's family and friends (including Bryn Terfel and Simon Keenleyside) without anyone leaking it to the man himself. Kaufmann certainly looks surprised: I've never seen a grown man squee-hug quite like that before! It looks, at one point, like he's even wiping tears away.

Congratulations, Jonas, and happy birthday!

Summer time and the living is easy

Well, if you aren't a procrastinating writer/blogger/opera lover like I am. Remember when I used to update everyday? I'm amazed I had the tenacity.

Let's see, what have I done to keep me away for the last few weeks?

*Gone to teach at English Summer Camp, in the wilds of Buckow (right outside Berlin). If that was not the most sophisticated summer camp that I have ever been to, I'll eat my hat. We had an actual house, with our own kitchen and bathrooms, and catered meals. It was less like work than it was play English language games with the kids all day and eat really good food. And run around in the forest.

*Been to two operas (The Pearl Fishers and Attila and Erwin Schrott's Berlin Rojotango concert. The first two I wrote about for BachTrack, so I didn't talk about them here, and the third I just didn't have time to review, given the hectic schedule I had in June.

*Watched Jonas Kaufmann be Awesome and Badass in Il Trovatore (which was also hilarious) in the weird-but-I-liked-it new Bayerische Staatsoper production by Oliver Py. We had a Twitter Block Party for it, so if you follow me on Twitter, you can read my thoughts there.

*Got into a huge fight with a PR person over the meaning and use of the word "butthead". Rather lost my taste for the internet for a few days after it devolved into character defamation.

*Spent a week curled up in my armchair tearing through Ben Aaronovitch's hilarious and wonderful Rivers of London series. This is me while I read it:

It's just that good.

Oh, and I changed the URL of this blog to more properly reflect my current internet name. So there's that.

I have something up my sleeve for August, but I'm not going to say what yet. You'll have to stick around and see. :-)

Steampunk Opera: Il Trovatore

Who's looking forward to the July 5th live broadcast out of the Bayerische Staatsoper? This girl right here. Even if unser Jonas is looking rather thin and peaky.

Rumpelstiltskin Re-imagined

My boss asked me to write a play about Rumpelstiltskin for our annual English Summer Camp. Personally, I can't stand the story, so I reinvented it a little to make it less awful. It made me giggle, so I'm posting it here.

The Adventures of Lala and her friend, Rumpelstiltskin

Narrator: “Once upon a time, there was a very foolish farmer and his very clever daughter, Lala. The farmer liked to tell stories about his daughter’s cleverness, like the time she invented chocolate muffins, and the time she slayed the dragon.”
Lala: “Only I didn’t slay the dragon. I convinced him to become a vegetarian and move to Mallorca.”
Narrator: “Anyway, the foolish farmer bragged about his clever daughter so much that the King heard about it. When he asked the farmer what his daughter could do, the farmer said something very stupid.”
Farmer: “I said that Lala was so smart, she could spin straw into gold. Well, I didn’t think he’d really believe it!”
Narrator: “So the King made Lala come to his palace.”
King: “You must spin all the straw into gold or I will kill you!”
Lala: “That’s unfortunate.”
Narrator: “Lala was very sad. She couldn’t think of what to do.”
Lala: “My hair isn’t long enough to climb out the window, like Rapunzel did. Oh, what will I do?
Narrator: “Luckily, at that moment, a strange man heard Lala talking to herself and came to see what the problem was.”
Rumpelstiltskin: “What’s shaking, baby?”
Lala: *screams*
Rumpelstiltskin: “Sorry, sorry. Why are you so sad? And what are you doing with all this straw?”
Lala: “The King wants me to spin it into gold. He’ll kill me if I don’t.”
Rumpelstiltskin: “What’s unfortunate.”
Lala: “I know. And I was just going to go on vacation!”
Rumpelstiltskin: “Let me help. I can spin straw into gold. I’m magic, you know.”
Lala: “…Okay.”
Narrator: “So the magic man spun all the straw into gold. While he did, Lala talked about his Life Plans. The magic man wanted to open a hotel in Italy and have ten kids. Lala thought this sounded like a good idea.”
Lala: “Hotels are good business.”
Rumpelstiltskin: “There! All the straw is gold.”
Lala: “Oh, thank you! What can I give you as thanks?”
Rumpelstiltskin: “Is your necklace valuable?”
Lala: “No, not really.”
Rumpelstiltskin: “Well, it can still help buy my hotel.”
Lala: “Then here you go.”
Narrator: “When he saw all the gold, the King was so happy that he did a little dance.”
King: “YAY!”
Narrator: “Then he locked Lala up in another room and told her to spin MORE straw into gold, or he’d kill her.”
Lala: “Men.”
Rumpelstiltskin: “Hey, Lala, what’s shaking?”
Lala: “The King wants more gold or he’ll kill me.”
Rumpelstiltskin: “Well, let’s get to work.”
Narrator: “So the magic man spent all night spinning the straw into gold, and Lala sat up talking to him. They decided that the hotel needed to have a swimming pool and a five-star restaurant.”
Lala: “And free Wifi!”
Narrator: “In the morning, instead of leaving, the magic man hid behind a curtain. When the King came to see Lala, he was very happy.”
King: “YAY! Lala, will you marry me and be my Queen? Then we will always have gold.”
Lala: “Er, no. You threatened to kill me. Twice.”
King: “But I’m the King! I can do what I want!”
Lala: “No, you can’t. This is my friend.”
Narrator: “And Lala brought the Magic Man out from behind the curtain.”
Lala: “If you can guess his name, then I’ll marry you. If you can’t, I’m going to go with him to make a hotel in Italy.”
Rumpelstiltskin: “You’ve got three chances!”
King: “Is you name Tom? Or Luca? Or Jonas?”
Rumpelstiltskin: “Nope! Try again!”
King: “Is your name Juliet, or Margaret, or Sophie?
Rumpelstiltskin: “Lol, no!”
King: “Is you name, well, is it…is it…Hans?”
Rumpelstiltskin: “Nope! Get your coat, Lala, we’re going to Italy!”
King: “WHAT!”
Lala: “Finally.”
King: “WAIT! I know your name: it’s Rumpelstiltskin! You’re the magician from Basel!”
Rumpelstiltskin: “Yep, but you’re still too late. Ready, Lala?”
Narrator: “Lala was done putting on her lipstick and was stuffing her pockets with gold thread.”
Lala: “Yes! Let’s go. Bye, King!”
King: “WHAT!”
Narrator: “So Lala and Rumpelstiltskin went off to Italy and started a hotel. It had three swimming pools, a five-star restaurant, and free Wifi. They got married and had ten children, and they lived happily ever after. The End!”

In the Cards: "The Stockholm Octavo"

The assassination of Sweden's Gustav III may be one of the more outrageous events of the turbulent 1790s, but it usually falls into shadow when compared to the execution of France's Louis XVI less than one year later. Indeed, outside of the realm of historians and Verdi fans, few people in day to day life realize that Sweden had a king who was shot at a masked ball at the Royal Swedish Opera. (Sadly, the original building was demolished in 1892, showing that man's desire to knock down beautiful old buildings and replace them with dubious new ones is not a new trait.)

Gustav III of Sweden met his fate in March 1792, when he was shot in the back and died days later of septicemia. Gustav had come to the throne twenty years earlier, after the death of his father, staged a coup against the reigning aristocracy, and reformed the country's political systems so completely that by the 1790s, there were two major camps vying for power-Royalists and Patriots (the latter made up of the former ruling aristocrats that believed their country was, for lack of a better term, going to hell in a handbasket). The situation had reached a boiling point by the time of Gustav's death, and it is this cauldron sedition and treachery that makes up the background of Karen Engelmann's debut novel, The Stockholm Octavo.

The plot of Verdi's Un ballo in Maschera revolves around a love-triangle of king-soprano-assassin and, to shake censors concerned about regicide in an unstable political climate, is set in Boston. The Stockholm Octavo, takes the same story and twists it a little. Instead of a sympathetic king or courtier, we have a lowly custom's officer with an interest in card games, women, and the Occult.

Emil Larsson, customs officer and card sharp, is ordered by his superiors to find a wife in order to maintain his position. To this end, he consults Sofia Sparrow, owner of an exclusive gambling salon and a seer. She lays out an octavo for Emil: a circle of eight cards that represent the people who will influence his path to happiness and love. In his quest to find the eight people represented in the cards, Emil is thrown into a dangerous world of politics, revenge, hidden loyalties, poison, and madness. We meet The Uzanne, a baroness and fan collector with a hatred for the autocratic Gustav that is so intense it borders on madness; a runaway apothecary with working knowledge of semi-poisonous soporifics, a dedicated fan maker, a Seer (based on a real soothsayer, Madame Arvidson, the Ulrica of the opera), and numerous functionaries and hangers-on.

Emil needs to find the eight people whom fate has decreed will guide him on his journey to love and contentment. His Companion, the person whose actions will shape his, is a widowed baroness with intensely anti-Gustav sentiments and a knowledge of the language of fans that makes her ruthlessness even more terrifying, in that no one takes her for anything more than a pampered woman. It is The Uzanne whom this story ultimately revolves around, and her machinations to end the reign of Gustav and restore the proper order to things. Emil himself plays only a tiny part; it is the constellation of characters moving around him, to either encourage or thwart (or both, or neither) the coming assassination. Alas for the reader, that singularly interesting premise falls flat in the telling.

There is a common rule, perhaps the golden rule, of fiction writers: Show, don't Tell. Never, ever, ever Tell if what you need to convey can be done so by Showing. Do not tell the reader "Let me tell you about X. X was born in France and grew up in a large family. When she was 18, she married the Count of S and came to live in G. She learned about the art of Z and sought out the best learning to eventually become a master of her field." Were you as bored reading that as I was typing it? This sort of writing usually doesn't make it passed the editorial stages or, if the author is absolutely unable to make a scene Showing the reader, can be made into dialogue. "I discovered the art of poisoning as a girl, and it intrigued me. Suddenly I had the power of God in my hands, to be used as I wished. Power, x. Can you imagine it? The sweet taste of secret knowledge, gleaned from years of researching ancient tomes." See, now that's fun. That's something the reader can sink their teeth into, because it adds another important aspect of a story: voice, which we'll come to in a minute.

Telling is especially bad if the author stops to tell us in minute detail what the character is wearing and how the room is set. No one cares. A brief, subtle mention of it will do.

From time to time, Engelmann falls into the trap of Telling. Not often, but enough that the discerning reader picks up on it. Her book is fast-paced, but it suffers from the narrator, Emil, pausing to tell us things that he could rather show us. This, though, is more a problem of Voice and its twin sister, Perspective, than anything else.

There are three different main perspectives in The Stockholm Octavo, and at least two minor ones. We have Emil, The Uzanne, and Johanna, the protégée and love interest. This is all very well and good, but the book itself is written in the First Person: the "I" perspective. Thus, we have Emil (who really doesn't do much besides vacillate between characters, wailing to himself) narrating the intimate thoughts and actions of events that he had no opportunity to ever see. The author uses a clever trick to get away with this: she puts a cast of characters who "witnessed" the event at the top of every chapter and passes it back as History. It works fine, but perhaps it would have been better to opt for the Third Person Omniscient, which allows the reader to get into each character's head without the narrator resorting to hearsay.

So you have an excellent premise with an unfortunate narrator and lots of awkward scenes that would have benefited from a simple change of voice.

This is not to say that The Stockholm Octavo is poorly written. Quite the opposite, in fact: it is a well-paced, well-plotted and well-told tale, with characters to love and hate. Unfortunately, there ARE technical details that keep the story from achieving that polish that comes to a truly excellent story. It reads a little like tonic water that has lost some of it's sparkle: still good, but ultimately leaving you dissatisfied.

The Stockholm Octavo by Karen Engelmann.
Three out of five stars.

Silent movies at the opera: Die Zauberflöte at the Komische Oper Berlin

It is not every day that you go to the opera and experience roughly two hours of singers hooked to a blank wall, but that is exactly what was on the menu last Saturday night at the Komische Oper here in Berlin. And it was awesome.



Stagings of Die Zauberflöte can be problematic. On the one hand, there's the traditional production, a la the Staatsoper: a good, solid fairy tale with extremely awkward misogynist and racist moments. On the other are regie productions, wherein it is attempted to make the misogyny and racism into some sort of lofty thing, which never works. The production at the Komische Oper manages to straddle the two while not making the dated awfulness of Monostatos and Sarastro too painful. How? With the aforementioned blank wall.

Picture a single huge, blank surface, which contains a number of doors for the characters to go through. Now picture everything you know about the silent film era. Now merge the two. The result is a wonderful storybook telling of the opera. The opera itself becomes a silent film: there are no props and no spoken dialogue. Instead, the recits become silent film piano (a riff on a Mozart Fantasie) with the dialogue projected onto the wall. And once the curtain goes up, that white wall becomes a riot of color and excitement, filled with strange projections of flowers, fairies, trees, houses, cats, and elephants, as well as an array of strangely geared machines, through which our heroes make their journey. The singers appear at different levels in the wall, standing on tiny platforms, hooked up with seat belts. In keeping with the silent film/storybook feel of the production, they were a mix of fantastical and '20s. Pamina wore a LBD and a Louise Brooks haircut (except for the brief time when she gave into Sarastro's assertion that women must be ruled by men, in which she was dressed in a black Victorian gown); Tamino a tux; Papageno the mustard yellow suit and straw hat of a particularly sleezy carpet salesman. The Three Ladies wore awesome coats and fabulous hats. The Queen of the Night was a giant spider. Monastatos was albino. The Magic Flute itself was a woodland fairy and Papageno's Magic Bells were bells with chubby dancing legs coming out of the bottoms.

Some things have to be seen to be believed.



Frankly, I found the production so impressive that I didn't once get sucked into the feminist rage pit that I normally do when seeing this opera.

At the heart of this Zauberflöte is Suzanne Andrade of the London-based performance company 1927. As they explain on the Komische Oper website, "At the heart of 1927’s practice is the desire to explore the relationship between live actor and animation to create dynamic and innovative live theatre. 1927 fuse, merge and mix creative mediums to create a unique performance style." This production is certainly that, a marriage of acting, animation and music that had the audience bouncing with glee.

But the music? What about the music?

Nicole Chevalier as Pamina won the night for the quality of her singing and acting. Her soprano was rich and clear, filling the entire house straight to the back. In comparison, Peter Sonn's Tamino was unremarkable, and Julia Novikova's Königen sounded a bit faint and strained (though to be fair, it must be rough work to sing that coloratura while bolted to a wall and dressed as a spider). Alexey Antonov's Sarastro was fine, as was Tom Erik Lie's Papageno. The weakest link was Monastatos, sung by Stephan Boving. Whether due to a bad night or bad training, he just couldn't fill the house. The strongest singers besides Chevalier, frankly, were the Three Ladies, sung by Mirka Wagner, Karolina Gumos and Caren von Oijen.

The Komische Oper orchestra, under Kristiina Poska, sounded excellent-and might I note that this was the first woman conductor I've seen since moving to Europe. Bravo, madama. Silent Film Piano was played by Peter Meiser, who married that genre's tinkly hilarity with one of Mozart's Fantasies in a way that made this girl grin.

All in all, if you're able to get out to the Komische Oper and see this performance, do. It was fabulous and awesome and, not least, fun. I can't praise it enough.

Same scene, two versions

I'm currently doing re-writes of the last third of my Fidelio novel. I'm currently playing around with a very tricky scene at the climax of the story: the rescue. Here's a small segment.

Version 1:
Pizarro leaped at them again, knife raised, and dropping the shovel, Leonora whipped her pistol out at last. She leveled it at Pizarro, stopping him cold.
“Make one more sound,” she said evenly, “and you are dead!”
The monster froze; the knife in his hand looked suddenly small and inefficient. Leonora watched him, her finger ready on the trigger. She almost hoped that Pizarro would try to attack them again. It was all she could do not to pull the trigger, not to kill this man for what he had done to the person she loved best. Behind her, Florestan gave a sob of relief. And then, above them, faintly, came the raucous call of a trumpet. Its distant notes echoed down the stairwell to ring faintly in Florestan’s dungeon, and to Leonora it felt like the call of an avenging angel.
“Hell and death!” Pizarro swore. “The minister!”
“Drop your knife! Now! Drop it!” Leonora’s finger was on the trigger, ready to shoot. Disgust filled her, hatred. Pizarro, with one last hateful look at her, threw the knife down at her feet. Leonora kicked it, sending it skittering across the dungeon to land in the open grave. Florestan sagged in relief, covering his face with shaking hands. Leonora held her hand out behind her. A moment passed, a long tense second as though the world was holding its breath, and then Florestan’s sticklike fingers crept into hers and clung. Leonora squeezed his hand, her heart bursting. She could feel her husband shaking with relief. As the trumpet call faded, Jacquino’s voice could be heard in the stairwell, shouting for Rocco.

Version 2:
Pizarro leaped at them again, knife raised, and dropping the shovel, Leonora whipped her pistol out at last. She leveled it at Pizarro, stopping him cold.
“Make one more sound,” she said evenly, “and you are dead!”
The monster froze; the knife in his hand looked suddenly small and inefficient. Leonora watched him, her finger ready on the trigger. She almost hoped that Pizarro would try to attack them again. It was all she could do not to pull the trigger, not to kill this man for what he had done to the person she loved best. Behind her, Florestan gave a sob of relief. And then, above them, faintly, came the raucous call of a trumpet. Its distant notes echoed down the stairwell to ring faintly in Florestan’s dungeon, and to Leonora it felt like the call of an avenging angel.
“Hell and death!” Pizarro swore. “The minister!”
Pizarro threw the knife down at Leonora’s feet. The hatred in his eyes made her stomach turn, and suddenly it was all that she could do not to kill him. Oh, how she wanted to pull the trigger and see this man fall! Her finger was on the trigger, ready to shoot. She could kill him now and end his reign of terror, avenging her husband and the men upstairs. It would be easy, so very easy. A long, tense second passed, as though the world was holding its breath, and then there was a rustle, a small movement from behind her, and Florestan’s fingers clutched hold of her jacket. His touch steadied her. Leonora stepped back from the black abyss. She kicked Pizarro’s knife and sent it clattering across the floor to land in the open grave.

*

I'm leaning towards Version 2, myself. It seems to flow better. Any thoughts?

Let them eat cake

Something magical is happening in Brandenburg right now. The air is suddenly, for the first time in months, warm and sweet-smelling, the sky is marbled blue and white, the trees are beginning to show blossoms and buds. At work today I was able to sit alongside the river during my long break, reading Julia Child's memoir My Life in France and eating homemade sausage rolls. I fed the leftovers to the ducks and took a long, leisurely walk while the sun warmed my shoulders and the prettiness of it all warmed my heart. And then I tripped and fell over and bonked my head and strained my wrist. Which was embarrassing, to say the least.

Still, a sore arm cannot dampen the joy of springtime, and I was in the mood for something good to eat (reading anything by Julia Child will do that to you), so when I got home this evening, I embarked upon an orgy of cookery. I made cake.

Now, I cook a lot, but I am not always a successful baker. Cakes seem to dislike me, even thoughI love them. But this cake was special. I found it online, via Tumblr, where someone had posted a gorgeous photo of it. Pretty photo, pretty day, pretty cake. Lemon-Rosemary-Yogurt Cake.


The ridiculous thing is that I had all the makings for it right there in my kitchen, ready to go.

Here is the recipe, and the link to the website, Baked Bree, where I found this recipe. I've copied it into the big Moleskine notebook where I write all the recipes I really like (sort of a "mom's cookbook" for the single girl), but I have to share it, because it's so wonderful.

Lemon Rosemary Yogurt Cake
Ingredients

3/4 cup butter, room temperature
1 cup Dixie Crystals sugar
2 Tablespoons lemon juice
Zest of one lemon
2 teaspoons vanilla
1/2 cup Mountain High Vanilla Yoghurt
3 eggs
1 1/2 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 Tablespoon fresh rosemary, finely chopped
Glaze:
1 cup Dixie Crystals powdered sugar
3 to 4 Tablespoons fresh lemon juice
Rosemary sprigs (optional)
Instructions

Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add lemon juice, zest, and vanilla. Add yogurt, and add eggs one at a time. Add flour, baking powder, salt, and rosemary. Mix for an additional minute, scrapping the bowl, until everything is smooth and combined. Pour batter into a loaf pan that has been sprayed with cooking spray.
Bake in a preheated 350 degree oven for 45 to 50 minutes. Cool in pan for 10 minutes. Take the cake out of the pan, and cool completely on a rack.
Make the glaze by whisking powdered sugar and lemon juice. Add more sugar and lemon juice as needed. Drizzle over cake and add rosemary sprigs. Let glaze stand until completely set.

http://tinyurl.com/ctwrnaa

As Julia Child would say, Bon Appetit! :-)

I got an award!

And no, it's not that of "Queen of Lamest Blog Titles Ever". I only came in second for that.


The ever fabulous Raisa nominated me for a Blogger Award, which is very cool of her. There's a rule attached: tell my readers 7 non-operatic things they may not know about me. So here goes:

1. I'm fascinated by psychology. I adore it. Learning why humans react the way they do to situations is one of my favorite things, and I devour novels that deal with such topics. I also write them.

2. I had a deep and abiding yearning to be a Scholar of Some Importance as a teenager. Unfortunately, I'm really not made of scholarly stuff: I love to learn and research and write, but mostly in the realm of fiction. Dealing solely in fact irritates me, whereas the "what is" of writing is oh so enticing.

3. At one point in time I wanted to be a costume designer. I made loads of costumes, particularly for my home town's Renaissance Faire, and particularly outfits based on The Lord of the Rings and Pirates of the Caribbean. I even spent a semester as an intern at the Utah Opera Company. Alas, that was when I realized that I'm really just not very good at things that aren't, you know, fiction, so I eventually gave it up. And I don't miss it.

4. I am incurable Romantic who has a hard time believing in the concept of True Love. And when I say "Incurable Romantic", I mean the head-in-the-clouds poet/writer/artist type who spends their days wandering in the woods and falling down holes, starving genteelly in Paris or Florence, and eventually dying horribly of TB. The ones who churned out poems and novels and music on such things as Death and Life and Life and Death. You know, that kind of Romantic.

5. I have always had a Thing for stories of Unjustly Imprisoned Men. I fully blame The Count of Monte Cristo and The Man in the Iron Mask for this. What did they do? How do they deal with it? What if they escaped? What if they were broken out? When I discovered Fidelio, it wasn't so much a surprise as a long time in coming.

6. I grew up with a deep and abiding hatred of Germany. Between my Jewish grandmother and her stories of the Holocaust and my immigrant father with his stories of escaping Cold War East Berlin, my judgement of the country in which I now live was one of deep disgust and shame for my ancestry and heritage. It took me years to get over it.

7. I love to cook and have been doing so for as long as I can remember. However, I have a hard time getting excited about actually eating. It's the joy of the act of creation that I like. I've been known to make food and then not eat a bite of it, but give it to other people with an "Oh, no, I don't eat X; I just wanted to try the recipe" attitude. This drove my mother bonkers growing up.

Now I'm supposed to tag a bunch of other people, but I'm not really comfortable doing that, so I'm gonna only pick one. And that is Lucy, from the fabulous, educational and informative Opera Obsession. Have at it, Lucy!

Is it spring yet?

Not in Berlin, it's not. I'm beginning to think that it's never going to be warm again...

Questions and Answers with Massimo Giordano

Occasionally in life, something so random and cool happens that it completely throws you for a loop. In my case, this happened two weeks ago (right on the eve of the worst Death Cold I've had in ages), when Massimo Giordano himself sent me a message on Twitter to ask if I would please write a blog for him, about his new album. I believe the correct response in this case is "Um, YEAH". Alas, the fact that I teach 120 students under the age of 6 worked against me, as I came down with the Cold From Hell almost immediately after this, and was out of commission for a week and a half. But at long last, and thank you for your patience, Signor Giordano, is my blog post. :-)

Massimo Giordano has finally come out with an album for those of us who love tenor arias (and let's face it, most of us do). Amore e Tormento, produced by BMG, will feature a selection of Italian arias by Puccini, Verdi and Giordano, including those from "Don Carlo", "Manon Lescaut" and "Andrea Chenier".

Giordano himself comes from a working class Italian family, and has managed to make a pretty phenomenal international career, singing in all the world's major houses (including my personal favorite, the Vienna Staatsoper). He's sung with La Trebs, Natalie Dessay, and scores of others.

But you thought this was going to be a press release, didn't you? Nope. I've always been rather forward, and having a fever of 102F didn't really help. I asked for an email interview. I got it. And remember those Silly Opera Interview questions I posted months ago? Yeah, I asked some of those. And the ever fabulous Signor Giordano replied, no problem!

If you could sing any role, regardless of voice type or fach, what would it be?

Actually, I really like the bass voice. I find it very noble and I would love to sing Philippe the II in Don Carlo even though if I have to admit that each voice type has interesting arias that I would love to sing.

What's the funniest mistake you've ever made onstage?/What's the scariest thing that's ever happened to you in a performance?

I have to say that nothing that funny ever happened to me on the stage until today. However, I remember a time I had a concert and 3 times I had to enter the stage and I completely tripped ALL 3 TIMES while going up the stairs to the stage!!!! … and then the Presenter of the concert immitated me by doing the same!!! :-)

Instead of the scariest, well I remember when I sang La Jongleur de Notre-Dame in Rome and at the end in order to show people that Jean was going to become an angel, I had to climb all the way up to the rooftop of the theater and I can assure you with or without security that was really scary!!!!

If you could turn any book or movie into an opera, what would it be and why?

Hummm ok this is what I call a nice question ;-)
I think that would be really interesting to make an opera about the political situation in Italy of the last 50 years because more then an opera would be a tragedy!

But seriously I love Boardwalk Empire this would be a great opera for the content of the story and the main character Mr. Thompson but especially because it is inspired by a real life story.

What's the last performance you cried over?
-------
Certainly it was Bohème in Paris with Inva Mula in the last act I finished always crying for real and it was a great emotion.

What made you choose to go with BMG for your debut album?

BMG gives me all the artistic freedom possible and the new Master Right model that Mr. Hartwig Masuch has invented is really effective. I also think that this will be the future for us as artists!

Which upcoming performances are you desperately excited about?

The exit of my album Amore e Tormento, because it will be a huge success :-)
But also the debut as Andrea Chenier in Wien this will be a great challenge and I am really looking forward to it!

Thank you, Massimo! Look forward to Amore e Tormento, coming soon to a record store near you!

Dienen! Dienen! Parsifal in HD

After weeks of excited waiting, I finally saw the Met broadcast of Parsifal last night. What an opera! I think the last time I was so affected by an opera, it was Fidelio, and we all know how that turned out. But in this case, it wasn't so much the music that affected me (although it was spectacular) as it was the sometimes shockingly human emotions that were put across by the singers.

If you've been following this blog for a while, you know that I am first and foremost a writer, not a critic. I did choir in school and had music lessons as a child, but I am not remotely a musician, just an enthusiastic amateur. What attracts me most to opera, after the music, is the story. It is hard for me to just listen to the music without having seen the opera in performance, first. Because I am very visual and very connected to the storyline, I have to really see an opera before I can decide if I like it or not. This comes from my need to understand the character, what drives him, what his surroundings are. I tend to approach opera as a novelist, first and foremost.

So this production blew me away. I went into it much like I have with all the other Wagner operas I've seen thus far: I read up on it in William Bergers's
awesome and hilarious Wagner book, and then came to it with an open mind. All of my Twitter friends have been posting about leitmotifs and poetry and past performances and all that, and I let it be. I decided to just show up and see what they had to offer. And I was blown away.

I think it goes without saying that there is something almost supernatural about Jonas Kaufmann's combined acting and singing ability. That man owned this opera. He went from arrogant and impressionable boy to maturing youth to humble, weary knight in a way that probably puts all the great Wagner tenors of the past to shame (fighting words, I know). I loved the unintentional hilarity of his watching the Grail service take place. There's Amfortas, weeping and wailing at his pain and his unworthiness as he is surrounded by the knights, and suddenly Parsifal pops up, looking over their shoulders as if to get a better view, before retreating from the knights' death-glares. The way the ceremony was staged made it feel less controversial to me (I am not a Catholic, so don't attend mass, but this was so far from a proper mass as to be something else entirely). And the music! All I can say was that I was completely verklempt during the first pause.

As I said on Twitter when I got home last night, I kind of want to marry Peter Mattei and have his little Swedish babies for what he did to that role. His was incredible. The singing, the acting, the pain-I have rarely seen anything quite like it, period. He absolutely killed me during his Act 3 aria. Rene Pape, too, is my hero. His Gurnemanz was magnificent.I am a sucker for tenderness, and the way he handled Act 3 was just...I'd say I have no words, but I actually have a lot of them.

Let me talk for a moment about Act 3. A ton has been said about Act 2 and the seduction, and Act 1 and the separation of the sexes in the wilderness, so I'm not going to touch that. Let me instead tell you what really touched me, in the end.

I am, I have to admit, a right old sap. I love to see characters go on a journey and get really beaten, and yet transcend their troubles to become their higher selves. In that sense, Parsifal was tailor-made for me. In Act 3, we see Gurnemanz praying before some open graves, then finding Kundry, lying asleep in a heap. He takes her hand and rubs it, trying to wake her, strokes her hair, even goes so far as to kiss her fingers (not, I think, something he would have done in Act 1). And then Parsifal enters, bent almost double, dragging himself along as though he barely has the strength to stand. He prostrates himself on the ground before the Spear, exhausted, and then Gurnemanz finally recognizes him as that "young fool" from so long ago. As someone who doesn't care for pomp and arrogance, I loved the way this scene was played. Parsifal is exhausted, hungry, upset that he wandered for so long, unable to find Amfortas, that everyone's been dying. He sinks down into Gurnemanz's arms like an exhausted child, half conscious, and that good knight just holds him up, not saying anything, while Kundry fetches water. As per the libretto, they bathe him and give him new clothes. As per the Girard production, Gurnemanz blesses Parsifal and helps him to dress with all the tenderness of a father for his long-lost son. And you see how grateful for it Parsifal is. They touch hands, shoulders, an old man and his long-hoped-for son, both tired and downtrodden, but sensing peace and hope in each other.

In this production, there was nothing but humility about Parsifal when he returned. He blessed Kundry and held her hand not with the loftiness of a knight of the Grail, but as a man who has learned to understand the horror she has been through. They are fellows at this moment, compatriots. It was totally appropriate for her to be the one to open the Grail cask and participate in the ceremony-I really don't think it could have been anyone else. And again we had Gurnemanz, he of the quiet strength, to hold her as she died with a dignity that has been denied to her for millenia.

That's what does it for me: quiet tenderness, absolution, the love the characters have for each other in spite of all that they have been through. Kaufmann, Pape and Dalayman were able to bring that across in spades. My inner softie was a howling mess by the time the curtain went down.

And yet, through it all, my inner Twitter-loving sasspot couldn't quite shut up. Well, at least not for the first two acts. She was smacked into silence by the softie for Act 3. So here are some of the brief, irreverent thoughts I had earlier on in the opera:

In Act 1, these didn't so much seem like the Knights of the Holy Grail as they did the Knights of the Holy Sea Anemone.

German audiences do not applaud at the end of Act 1. Even when the opera is a movie theater and as far away from Wagner's vision as it can possibly get. I'm pretty sure they were all cursing the New York audience as philistines.

My subtitles were in German, so I'm not sure I understood this correctly, but this exchange seemed to happen in Act 1:
Amfortas: "Where's Gawain?"
Squire: "Klingsor got him."
Amfortas: "Damn."

Katarina Dalayman's Kundry clearly went to the Helena Bonham Carter school of crazy. She reminded me of nothing so much as a less evil Bellatrix Lestrange.

German audiences LOVE their boys. Jonas Kaufmann got so many cheers and giggles during his interview, and everyone shrieked with glee when he turned to the camera to "say a few sentences in German", and proceeded to great all his family and friends and "my Uncle Carmello in Berlin". So much love for him. He was so cute.

Rene Pape standing behind Eric Owens in the dressing room area and moving to see if the camera was still there was so funny. I half expected him to move right...move left...wave. But he didn't. Alas. Also, Kaufmann strolling around behind Owens without a shirt on had to be a prank. Either that, or no one thought that interview location through properly.

Am I the only one who was reminded of that creepy movie The Ring during Act 2? The Flower Maidens were Samara and it was scary as hell.

And those are my (disjointed, rambling) thoughts. We can talk about it more in the comments, if you like.

Mini-marathon of the novel sort

Remember what I said about updating more frequently in 2013? Apparently I lied. It's been two weeks since I touched this blog, but what a two weeks it's been! I finally accomplished all of my goals re: Fidelio. How? Good question.

I had last week off from work, due to school holidays in Brandenburg (where I officially teach). Now, for the past, oh, six months, I'd been bashing myself mentally about having writer's block. There were a number of things I had to do to the Fidelio story to make it better, and I just couldn't bring myself to do them. I would pull the doc open and stare at it, read a little, and close it, deciding that it there was too much to be done and that it was better that I just leave it than tinker with it when I had no energy to. But then, two weeks ago, my darling boss (and I say that without irony; she's the nicest lady I've ever met) told me that we had holidays. And suddenly, something woke up inside me.

I went through all of my notes, and my readers' notes, and made a list of what needed to be done. And then, on the Monday that Winter Break began, I went on a marathon. I took myself to my favorite local cafe, plunked myself down in a corner, and wrote for three hours straight. And so it went, every day. I got up in the morning, did yoga, had breakfast, and went to the cafe to write. When my computer was out of battery, I went home and wrote some more. On Friday, I just stayed in the whole day and spent six hours writing. And at about 10 p.m., I was finished with Draft 7. I broke 100,000 words, re-wrote ten chapters, edited the timeline to make it clearer, and added a whole slew of new scenes.

Is there still work to be done? Yes. I didn't touch the post-rescue chapters (informally known as the "cuddle chapters" and which I've spent an inordinate amount of time on compared to the rest of the novel), and on further thought have decided there are a few things I could clear up there. Am I satisfied with it? You betcha. So satisfied that I feel I can begin querying agents about it again. And maybe on this go-around, someone will respond with something more than a polite, "Great writing, but not what I'm looking for right now".

I also acquired around ten new followers on Twitter, as I couldn't shut up about what I was doing on that last marathon day. That's a pretty cool feat, too. :-)

Belated resolutions

One of the hard things about blogging is knowing what interests people. When I started this blog, it was as a joke really, poking fun at my family members who had suddenly "discovered" blogging after years of mocking me for having one of my own. I posted simple every day things-stories about school, quotes I liked, whatever-and didn't expect to get more than a couple of views per week.

Then, I moved to Europe. At the same time, I was researching how to market books, thinking that it will come in handy if (when?) "Fidelio" gets published, and decided to use this blog as more of a diary of this adventure. I decided, too, to try to focus its content on music and opera. There's one problem there, however: I don't get out to the opera very much. I'm currently in the just-starting-my-career-and-so-quite-poor stage of life, so I don't get to go to concerts and stuff the way I'd like. So there's a problem.

The other thing is that I am interested in so much besides opera. And so, for the last couple of months, I've been procrastinating with updates, trying new forms of update, and wondering if anyone actually bothers with this blog at all. Do I, I wondered, write only about music, or do I post my own writing here, and do people want to read what I think about traveling and life and literature and fandom things, in addition to the mere pittance I can add to the wealth of opera blogs out there?

This year, my one of my goals is to post more regularly on this blog. I'm going to experiment with posting a variety of things, and hopefully, any regular readers I do have will enjoy it. Here's to 2013!