Sunset Blvd. The Musical on Broadway

 In Jamie Lloyd's minimal staging of Andrew Lloyd Webber's Sunset Blvd., based on Billy Wilder's film noir, so much is left to the audience's imagination that if you have not seen the original film, you might be confused by the action onstage. Why is that man, who we eventually find out is named Joe Gillis, (Tom Francis) coming out of a black body bag? Yes, he is dead, and soon we realize that he's going to tell us his story from beyond the grave, a common film noir approach to story telling. For those of us who know the film, we miss the incredible cinematic image of Joe Gillis's body floating dead in a pool. 

If Mr. Lloyd's numerous tattoos represent a maximalist approach to his personal body art (he recently got the number "10086" tattooed under his ear -- Norma Desmond's address), his professional directorial art depends on having very little onstage. A dark empty arena with actors wearing black and white clothing is enough to bring to life the year 1949. To remind us that the source material is a classic film, videographers with Steadicam rigs project black-and-white images of the actor's faces on a gigantic screen, while also giving us opening and closing credits. This revival of Sunset Blvd. is both a stage and film adaptation of a movie that had already been turned into a musical back in 1993.

The not so-secret weapon of this production is Nicole Scherzinger, a powerhouse performer who embodies the aging silent film star Norma Desmond barefooted and, following the style of this production, wearing only a black negligee. On London's West End she won the Laurence Olivier Award, and last week she won the Tony for her performance. It is a not-to-be-missed star turn (her Broadway debut!) that might demand more than one viewing to fully absorb its layers of brilliance. Last night, the crowd at the St. James Theatre went crazy when she just appeared onstage without singing a note. After she sang "With One Look," the beautiful anthem to the joys of the silent era, something happened that I have never seen before on Broadway: a standing ovation in the middle of the performance. And more of those followed during the evening. This is the kind of idolization reserved for rock and pop stars (Scherzinger was, after all, the lead singer of the group the Pussycat Dolls). By the end of the show, where Broadway seems to give every production a standing ovation, the act of standing up to applaud felt quite anti-climactic.

 There are amazing moments in this production, the most impressive of all is when the production goes outside to 44th street with Tom Francis leading the cast walking to Shubert Alley and back to the theater (you have to see it to believe it), and it is all captured by those ubiquitous Steadicam rigs. The moment has the same gravitas found in those long shots in classic films everyone talks about (the opening shots of Touch of Evil and The Player, and the Copacabana shot in Goodfellas) where every element has to be there at the right time otherwise the magic is lost.  And this is done live, eight shows a week, rain or shine! It is a coup-de-téâtre that you will not soon forget.

The run has been extended to late July. Do not miss this great production and the amazing performance of Nicole Scherzinger. 

A New AIDA at the MET

 At a time when the popular sentiment seems to be to return plundered antiquities to the country from which they came; and as more and more people agree that the Parthenon sculptures at the British Museum, once upon a time labeled as the "Elgin Marbles," should be returned to Greece, the Metropolitan Opera's new staging of Verdi's AIDA seems to contradict the current vox populi. In a staging which can best be described as Indiana Jones meets Italian opera, 21st century archeologists rummage through ancient ruins filled with decrepit stones carved with hieroglyphics. However, when they get out of the way and the action reverts back to ancient Egypt the stones come alive thanks to the lighting scheme of Kevin Adams, and the carvings suddenly acquire their original colors. The play of light is possibly the best aspect of Michael Mayer's concept. The modern intruders, however, just clutter up the stage; their wordless comings and goings reminiscent of tourists who do not recognize the importance of a famous place. When they leave the stage and the ancient characters of Verdi's opera are given room to move about that's when the opera breathes once more. If perhaps the two worlds would have interacted with one another in some way it would have given this production a greater gravitas. At the moment it just feels like another gimmicky approach to one of opera's best known works.

The most interesting moment of this production is also partly the most objectionable, and partly the most thoughtful. During the triumphal scene, specifically while the well-known march plays, instead of the usual parade of Ethiopian riches that the Egyptian army has plundered we get another view of plundering: this time a parade of archeologists carrying away the riches of ancient Egypt. A meditation on the historical looting that has gone on between nations -- yes, but does it have to be shown to the tune of triumph? There's nothing triumphant about one nation stealing the riches of another. One can only wonder if this intercontinental robbery was the intended subtext in the original concept of Antonio Ghislanzoni, Verdi's librettist. Something tells me it was not.

This production premiered on New Year's Eve, but Saturday night was filled with illness and cancellations. It was clear on December 31st that tenor Piotr Beczała, who struggled through "Celeste Aida," his Act I aria, was very sick. Last night tenor SeokJong Baek came to the rescue. The young Korean is making a name for himself all over the world, with debuts at Covent Garden, San Carlo in Naples and Deutsche Oper Berlin. He possesses the kind of strong, stentorian voice that MET audiences adore. He is loud, and yes, my ears were ringing. It's great to experience that, but I wish he would trust the house's acoustics and realize that not every note has to be sung forte. Lise Davidsen has learned that over the years. Morris Robinson filling in for Dmitry Belosselskiy as Ramfis was cavernous, making mostly unpleasant bass sounds, and from the rear of the orchestra boos were heard. Harold Wilson was excellent as the King, the role that Mr. Robinson was supposed to have sung. Quinn Kelsey was strong as Amonasro, his heavy baritone lending a bellicose air to his character.

Judit Kutasi was a reliable Amneris, but her acting belongs in the silent film era. As the New York Times reported she "has a loud, wavering voice and a campy gift for staggering around the stage in despair, clutching her head." Arguably the night belonged to Angel Blue, who warmed up to the title role as the evening progressed. If she was a bit unsure in "Ritorna Vincitor" in Act I, by the time "O Patria Mia" came around she had comfortably settled into the role, and for the rest of the evening she delivered beautiful, elegant phrases filled with longing and honest emotion, her voice secure throughout her range.

What if you take away the modern explorers? I kept asking myself. What you'll have left over is a very conservative, old-fashioned production; the costumes, for instance, are right out of a Hollywood biblical film of the 1950's. Let's face it, what MET audiences relish is a production that rings true to the original intention of the work's creators. I'm sure that many a patron last night was thinking "get those silly Indiana Jones clones out of the way, and let old-man Verdi get through."

Verdi's La Forza del Destino at the MET

 

 

The last time the Metropolitan Opera presented Giuseppe Verdi's titanic opera La Forza del Destino it was the 1970's: a decade that saw some of the reigning voices of the MET take their last bows (Leontyne Price, Robert Merrill, Franco Corelli) and give way to the new kids on the block (Plácido Domingo, Luciano Pavarotti, Renata Scotto).  It was the decade when voices ruled, and productions were carefully overseen by the MET's general director Joseph Volpe, an administrator who believed in spending millions on a new staging because it was his belief that a production must last at least twenty years. In those days productions were lush, detailed and faithful to the libretto. The last time I saw Forza at the MET Leontyne Price and the young Domingo sang a memorable performance, dressed in the cloak-and-dagger finery of eighteenth century Spain.

Peter Gelb is no Joseph Volpe. Since he assumed the general management of the MET he has tried to bring the institution into the 21st century, meaning, replacing the old tried-and-true stagings with "Regietheatre" productions (which some call Eurotrash) where the voices become secondary and the director is the star of the show. 2024 was the year for Verdi's grim melodrama to get the Gelb treatment. There were rumors that he sought out Calixto Bieito, the iconoclastic Catalan director, but Mr. Bieito's plans for the opera, coupled with his track record of avant-garde productions around the world, proved to be too much for the MET's board of directors. Finally, Gelb settled on Mariusz Treliński, the artistic director of the Grand Theatre of Warsaw. 

 

Mr. Treliński gives us a modern staging devoid of any certain locale. It could be Eastern Europe or even a banana republic. Given the fact that the last act takes place in a decrepit New York subway station gives us the clue that we are in The United States of America after the killing of an important official has thrown the country into the chaos of a second Civil War.  All references to Spain in the Francesco Maria Piave libretto have been eliminated. For instance, in the recitative to the poignant "Oh, tu che in seno agli angeli" Don Alvaro sings "Seviglia..." reminiscent of his homeland. The English translation of this reads "happier days."  This translation change of the libretto's original words is not something new. During the MET run of the "Las Vegas Rigoletto," the libretto's words were updated into a "Rat-Pack" argot worthy of Frank Sinatra and Joey Bishop.

If the production is dark and grim, gray and steely, the singing was luminous from the superb cast headed by superstar Lise Davidsen who is on a roll these days. As the NY times wrote she has "become the rare singer you want to hear in everything." Perhaps her voice does not have the inherent sweetness of a Price or a Renata Tebaldi (and the jury is still out whether or not Ms. Davidsen is a true Verdi soprano), but with the MET absence of Anna Netrebko, Ms. Davidsen is the best we've got, and that is a great thing.  I'm looking forward to the day when Ms. Davidsen gleefully faces her father Wotan and greets him with a fiery "Hojotoho."  It's coming!

The rest of the cast was very strong, especially Igor Golovatenko as Don Carlo di Vargas.  He has a wonderfully pleasant baritone with a clear attractive top. Tenor Brian Jagde as Leonora's beloved Don Alvaro, has a stentorian dark voice with ringing high notes. The roles of the Marquis of Calatrava and Padre Guardiano were played by bass Soloman Howard: a strange choice, but one that almost worked except when the ghost of the dead Marquis kept popping up at melodramatic instances (way too many times!). Fra Melitone was sung with dour perfection by Patrick Carfizzi. He was the rudest religious friar I've ever seen. Maestro Yannick Nézet-Séguin led an exciting reading of this memorable score, and the orchestra sounded strong and together.

I found the performance last night powerfully cathartic, like a Greek play that dares to show unbelievable tragedy and somehow purifies the audience. Perhaps a curious output from such a melodramatic piece, but it worked, strangely enough, in that respect. The production had something to do with it, but in the final analysis it is Verdi's music that has the power to elevate your soul into a different realm; and in that respect, having one of the world's greatest soprano stop the show with the incredible "Pace, Pace mio Dio" doesn't hurt either.

Killers of the Flower Moon: a new Scorsese film

When the Osage people find oil in their newly acquired land, hungry, greedy wolves come prowling in the guise of white cattle barons: white men courting and marrying Osage woman only to kill them in order to get their new-found wealth. This is the bare bones plot of Martin Scorsese's new film Killers of the Flower Moon, an epic film clocking in at just under four hours. The film is an examination of American greed and the relationship between the native nations of America, and the settlers that hungered for their land. Scorsese has made a film that is part western, part murder mystery, and court-room drama with shades of the conclusion of Goodfellas. The film premiered out of competition at the 76th Cannes Film Festival earlier this year, and it was curiously absent from the film festival circuit. With a budget reported to be over $200 million, the film avoided the film festival circuit in order to make money, but with such a massive running time, which means fewer daily showings, the film is going to have a hard time making its money back in its initial theatrical run.  As of today, the film has grossed $23 million in the United States and Canada, and $11 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of only $44 million.

I saw the film today, and it is the best work that Robert de Niro and Leonardo DiCaprio have done in quite a while. This is De Niro's tenth collaboration with Scorsese, and he gives a subtle performance as William King Hale, the mastermind of the Osage massacre. It is great to witness such inventive acting from De Niro, even mastering a Midwestern accent to perfection. Mr. DiCaprio is no stranger to Scorsese's films either. In this, his sixth collaboration with the director, he also gives a performance rooted in nuance; and although he seems to progress through the role with a permanent frown on his face, he brings to life the role of Ernest Burkhart, who becomes a pawn in Hale's greedy schemes.

But is is Lily Gladstone, an actress that portrays Mollie, Ernest's Native American wife, who casts the longest shadow in the film. Ms. Gladstone, who is part Native American (and who is related to British Prime Minister William Gladstone), grew up in the Blackfeet Nation reservation, and has only made a handful of films before this one. You will not forget her expressive face and her sorrowful eyes. Many of the members of the Osage Nation also took part in the film behind the scenes, as well as taking important roles in the film.

Mr. Scorsese is in top form as a director, even making an Alfred Hitchcock-like cameo appearance in a denouement to the film that I can only describe as inspired. The final shot of the film, as memorable a shot as can be, brings to mind scenes from Scorsese's 1997 Kundun, and it populates the field of flowers of the title with a vibrant homage to the Osage people.

A Mahler Fall

My Mahler fall continues. Let me explain. No sooner did autumn start turning leaves a myriad of seasonal colors, and the weather bid goodbye to summer heat, that Gustav Mahler began to make itself present in my life. In many ways this is not unusual. Mahler has always been one of my favorite composers. Very few composers can reach the heights like he can: those lush melodies, those exciting, ear-splitting crescendi, and best of all his concentrated effort time and again for his music to reach the sublime.

 

In a completely roundabout way, but maybe not, it all started with my introduction to Alban Berg’s Violin Concerto: that popular but strict twelve-tone composition written to honor the death of Manon Gropius, the teenage daughter of Bauhaus giant Walter Gropius and Mahler’s wife, Alma.

 

What strange times those must have been for Viennese society.  The child of the great architect, and the wife of Vienna’s greatest composer dead at a tender age, and Vienna’s other great composer writing what many consider his masterpiece only to die a short time after its completion. Berg never heard his elegy for Manon, and the piece served to be Berg’s own requiem.

 

As autumn progressed, the New York Film Festival came to town, and Tár made its debut. In what arguably is this year‘s most interesting film, Cate Blanchett plays Lydia Tár, a virtuoso conductor who is preparing Mahler’s Fifth Symphony with the Berlin Philharmonic for a live recording. I saw the movie back in October. Today is November 12 and I’m at the Redeye Grill having dinner before going to see The Berlin Philharmonic led by their music director Kirill Petrenko. They will be playing Mahler’s seventh. And, oh yes, how can I forget. In October I also went to Carnegie to hear Gustavo Dudamel and the LA Philharmonic. I didn’t know what they were going to play, but when I got there I saw the poster outside of Carnegie Hall and to my great surprise they were going to perform Mahler’s First. Perfect!

 

Yesterday I was at the Longacre Theatre. I went to see Leopoldstadt, the great new play by Tom Stoppard. Gustav Mahler’s name was on the lips of those Jewish Viennese characters. Sigmund Freud’s name and his radical theory of dreams was also bandied about, but Mahler was praised: he was their composer, the recipient of rousing L’Chaim. A toast I’ll also take a part in for making this autumn so musically memorable.

NOPE - Don't Look Up!

 On the 19th of June, 1877 British pioneering photographer Eadweard Muybridge made a series of photographs of the race horse Sallie Gardner, owned by the former governor of California Leland Stanford. The result is well-known to every student of film. When the photographs are shown in sequential succession the horse is seen at full gallop, at one point all four legs off the ground.

 

 

Arguably the beginning of motion pictures, or at least an intermediate stage towards true cinematography. This, and the fact that the jockey riding the horse is an African-American man is the genesis of Jordan Peele's latest film NOPE. But that's just the beginning. The writer/producer/director starts there and his imagination propels him towards not just a rumination of motion pictures, but also its link to the American West, or better yet: the myth of the American West as created by Hollywood, and how this myth continues to survive in our collective unconsciousness. And, oh yeah the film also explores the afterlife of child actors once the limelight has either faded away, or in this case, ripped apart. And, oh yeah, it's also about aliens. Not the ones that cross our American border everyday, but the ones that they say come from many light years away, from another galaxy, and who reach us via flying saucers.

 

In the last few months, the various trailers have revealed some of the cryptic images of the film: a veiled lady with no lips and a horrific smile (shades of Conrad Veidt's character in the silent film The Man Who Laughs), a chimp with bloody hands and mouth, and most mysterious of all those colorful dancing man ballons that dot the western valley prairie, and rise up to the sky. Also we can't ignore the fanboy Internet chatter that the title of the film is an acronym for Not Of Planet Earth. Guess what? All of those images are tied together in what has to be Mr. Peele's most audacious and bewildering reflection on modern American culture. And the meaning of the title? Yeah, there's something to that as well.

And of course there are the stars of the film: OJ, played memorably by Daniel Kaluuya, and his sister Emerald, the incredible Keke Palmer. These siblings own a ranch where they breed and train horses for the Hollywood and TV industry, a business started by their father who early on in the film dies a rather mysterious death. To further make ends meet, OJ sells horses to Ricky “Jupe” Park (Stephen Yeun), a former child star who now runs a Western-themed amusement park called Jupiter’s Claim, and who is haunted by a terrible event that happened on the set of his TV show. When strange occurrences begin happening at the ranch they seek the help of an IT guy (Brandon Perea), and later on when things really start getting weird, they bring on an even weirder cinematographer (Michael Wincott) to photograph the event and get "the Oprah shot." Angel, the IT guy installs surveillance cameras at their house, but Antlers, the cinematographer, comes in with a hand-cranked IMAX camera. Even though this is a contemporary story, you'd think all of this this was happening forty years ago: the film is filled with turntables, VHS recorders and all kinds of obsolete technology.

NOPE is an entertaining movie that will produce interesting conversations. It is certainly one of the most thought-provoking films this summer by a filmmaker that specializes in making sure you think. And at the risk of further spoiling the film, let me just say that you will be doing a lot of unpacking when you go to see this movie.

FUNNY GIRL back on Broadway

For Sarah Bernhardt, the great actress of the turn of the century, playwright Victorien Sardou wrote the melodrama La Tosca in 1887.  From then on Bernhardt owned this role until Giacomo Puccini turned Sardou's work into one of the seminal operas of the Verismo period, and Maria Callas came along to usurp the role, albeit in its musical form. As time erased the collective memory of audiences who actually saw Bernhardt on stage, and as video of the second act of the opera surfaced, La Callas became the soprano against who all subsequent performers must measure themselves against. Is it the same with Barbra Streisand and her portrayal of comedienne Fanny Brice in the musical Funny Girl?

The musical is back on Broadway at the August Wilson Theatre, starring Beanie Feldstein as Ziegfeld's funny girl. Sarah Bernhardt not only created some of the great stage roles of the 19th and early 20th century, but she was also a film pioneer, and a number of her performances were filmed. Of course, when we watch these early films the first thing we notice is how artificial stage acting of the turn of the century feels to modern audiences. Since Bernhardt's time acting has passed through Stanislavsky and the Method, and Maria Callas on stage, although operatic acting of her time maintained more than an ounce of the histrionics of the past century, feels very modern when compared to Bernhardt's technique. And the camera does not lie. Most people today know Ms. Streisand's girl not through her 1964 breakthrough role in the original Broadway production of Funny Girl, but through the 1968 William Wyler film that earned Ms. Streisand her first Academy Award as Best Actress -- "Hello Gorgeous!" 

So, this is what Ms. Feldstein is up against: the collective memory of a great performance forever preserved in celluloid. In 2016 The Library of Congress selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry. It's an uphill battle that requires all the help she can get. And many come to the rescue with varying degrees of success. First, there's Harvey Fierstein, whose name alone (and his reworking of the original book) helps box office receipts. Ms. Feldstein is also aided by Ramin Karimloo, as her lover Nick Arnstein. He has the charms and good looks that Sydney Chaplin (the original Nick) and Omar Shariff (The film's Nick) both had. Add to this a pleasant singing voice, and you have a memorable performance. The idea of putting Jane Lynch in the role of Mama Brice might have looked great on paper, but unfortunately she is horribly miscast, possessing little of the proper "Yiddishkeit" needed to bring this character to life. Help or no help, when it comes to Ms. Feldstein, I can't help but think that a star is born with this role. She is a trooper: loads of charm, huge energy, good comic timing, and a beautiful, smooth soprano that makes those Jules Stein/Bob Merrill songs come to life. (and no, you won't find the song "My Man" in this revival, oddly enough.) For a musical that tries to please an audience weened on the film this was a brave directorial decision by Michael Mayer, who otherwise has overproduced most aspects of this musical. A true standout are the beautiful costumes by Susan Hilferty: truly inspired creations that bring to life the period in which this musical takes place.

Is it a good revival? Should you go to see it?  I say yes, go see Ms. Feldstein, it's always exciting to see a star in the making. But be aware that the show tries way too hard to please you. The orchestra at times is a tad sloppy, and it is really loud. I don't remember such a loud, miked show. Performers address the audience directly, throw money in the direction of the first few rows near the stage for no reason at all, and confetti falls upon the orchestra section. Great theater tricks to get the Big Black Giant on your side. Most of the time it works, when the strings don't show. This time they do. But what bothered me most were the lights around the proscenium of the stage. They light up time and time again to give those songs that extra oomph they really don't need. Some of the time in rhythm to the music. Tacky! Already the creative team of this production feels that every song in the score deserves a loud, crescendo fortissimo style. It brings them out of their seats during the curtain-calls, but then again what show these days does not end with a standing ovation? Broadway audiences pay a lot for those seats, and they want to be entertained or talked into the illusion that they are being entertained. If a show doesn't get a standing ovation, it's in trouble.