Tuesday, October 11, 2011

Susannah

Cole Grissom and Patricia Urbano are the minds behind San Francisco Parlor Opera, and Susannah, their latest production, is going to be special.  I have to say for the sake of honesty that, although I've loved the music of Susannah from the beginning of the rehearsal process, I haven't always been 100% on the libretto.  In what I feel is the often-usual (and to me so very annoying) American way, it seemed that the metaphor stuff, the stuff that its author wanted to have the character of Susannah mean, overwhelmed the characterization itself.  It always drives me crazy when I percieve that to be happening (not that I always percieve it, or that it's always happening when I do percieve it), and I think I overreact.  I was kind of ready to write the role off as a man's version of a woman*.

But Patricia's changed all that.  Her Susannah is really well-acted.  I'm just sitting back and watching and empathizing all over the place.  And everyone else is great as well (they just had less far to bring me in terms of approving of their characterizations).  The production seems to me to be getting at all the immediate, intimate human interactions of the score. 

Information is on my calendar page:
http://sara.couden.net/calendar

Performances are on November 5, 10, and 12 at 7 pm, in San Francisco at the Zellerbach mansion.  To purchase tickets, email contact@sfparloropera.org, or visit the website:
http://sfparloropera.org/Home.html


*We call this Memoirs of a Geisha-ing.  No, nobody actually calls it that.

Sunday, October 9, 2011

Beatrice et Benedict!

Beatrice et Benedict: so much more fun than this portrait of Berlioz...


...would lead one to believe. 

In all seriousness (see above image), my friends are putting on this show as an independent project, in order to gain experience points and help out Boxcar Theatre, and they're doing it with no resources but their own impressive skills.  It'll really be worth seeing.  There will be beautiful singing (wonderful voices in this cast!), and just as an example of the type of home-grown talent that's going into making this happen, my friend Ted Zoldan has cobbled together a script of dialogue from Much Ado to be said in place of the French script that Berlioz originally wrote.  We'll all be on book (read: using music), and I don't think there will be much staging, but...

okay, Personal Opinion Moment happening here: sometimes the energy of a production is really good when everyone is involved not just in performing their best, but in actually making the performance happen.  I think it should be a really convivial atmosphere.  And I know the singing will be just beautiful.  So if you're not busy, come by and check it out!

Friday, October 7, 2011

occasionally, my brain can bite me in the butt

...though not literally (if it were a literal ability, I'd be a candidate for "Stupid Human Tricks" for sure...and possibly government study).

I'm no more dyslexic than the average person whose brain is a little bad with concrete facts, but today I did something that falls under the category of "unequivocally dumb."  The idea was to contact Marin Symphony about the possibility of auditioning for them.  So far, so good.  I'd done my research the previous night, finding things like phone numbers and emails--I go to check the email, and type what I am thinking is the correct symphony into my browser, come up with a page that is a symphony page, and email the "info@" person (I'm not sure if this is the right person to email, but as Buffy says in her Season 4 dream, "Fortune favors the brave," so I think I will give it a shot).  Write a note attempting to be somewhere in the perfect (or Bermuda-esque) triangle of professional, friendly, and non-demanding, starting with the formality of "To Whom it May Concern" (capitalize the "it" or no?  I'm not sure) and moving on to a friendlier-sounding "Hi!"  "...interested in auditioning for the Marin Symphony..." keep it non-demanding, friendly, and professional, Sara... Okay, all written, all sent...

THEN a moment of, "Wait, isn't Alasdair Neale the conductor here?  This guy looks different.  He's not in color, for one thing.  Did I do something wrong--"

Well, yes, Sara, you did do something wrong.  You accidentally switched two "M" cities in your mind.  Having typed "Monterey Symphony" into your browser, you came up with the Monterey Symphony webpage, and its attendant "info@" email address, which you then emailed.

This might be okay, I think.  If I didn't type Marin Symphony in the body of the email maybe nobody will ever...

Yes, yes I did type Marin Symphony.


Monterey Symphony, I deeply apologize.  I would love to audition for you.  And if I had realized what I was doing, I would certainly have put the name of YOUR organization into the body of the email.  Oh boy.


This whole story is coming off vaguely like one of Bisco Hatori's sidebars in Ouran High School Host Club.  I embrace my reading habits with pride-ish.