The Fire this Time

Can 2020 get any worse? On a personal woe level, it started with the breakdown of my iMac and the loss of data, and it continued, in cinematic level, to a world-wide zombie Apocalypse which still has a grip on us. Not only does it not want to let go, but it has plans to come back when the warm weather dissipates and the leaves start falling. And now we have a situation that we have seen before, but this time, to continue putting it in cinematic terms, it's looking a lot like Conquest of the Planet of the Apes.  You remember!  It's the fourth film of the original series. The one where the apes have evolved and forced into servitude to humans until they can't take it anymore and rebel against their masters. It's brash social satire where the violence of the conclusion of the film is looking a helluva lot like the scenes of violence and destruction that we are experiencing in Minneapolis/St. Paul, and which has trickled down to the major cities of the country. It has been a week of protests, where the peaceful protestors have been swallowed by a bigger subset that has been successful in inciting violence.

Lawlessness begets lawlessness. The kind of violence that we have seen in the streets has a contagious feeling. Fires have been set, and copycat of these disturbances erupted throughout different evenings in different metropolitan areas. The looting of shops in Los Angeles has no place in these protests. The sight of a corner Sol Moscot store being looted by hoodie-wearing teens is both objectionable and disgusting. But the kind of lawlessness we are watching is the direct result of the lawlessness that exists in many of the police departments in our country. Officers, the wild west is over! If your idea of policing comes from a scene in a Warner Brothers gangster film, then you are in the wrong profession.

To be sure, it puts any police department in a precarious situation. The present protestors have no direct or indirect knowledge or tradition of the kind of social protest that the Reverend Martin Luther King preached. It's all textbook stuff from a time before they were conceived. This crowd gets up to a police officer's face and yells a barrage of expletives. They resist when a cop pushes them back with a baton. They spit at cop's faces. And the cops are supposed to take it. When the going gets rough, the only recourse a police department has is to shoot rubber bullets into the ground. Officer's hands are tied. Why? Well, if they bring out the big guns like the water canons that do a fast job of dispersing crowds, if they bring out those scary attack dogs and cavalry horses that have the ability to injure protestors, that police department will not only be accused of police brutality, but it will bring back those days in the 1960's when Southern white supremacist cops used these methods to disperse the architects of the Civil Rights Movement.

And in the middle of all of this, Elon Musk's dream if putting astronauts into space with his SpaceX company became a reality yesterday afternoon when the Crew Dragon rocket launched from Cape Canaveral on its way to dock with the International Space Station. Shades of the Apollo program which reached the heights during the decade of the 1960s while Medar Evers, Dr. King, Malcolm X, and Robert Kennedy were assassinated. President Donald Trump flew to Florida to witness the launching live. Given the murder of George Floyd, SpaceX's achievement seems to me to be a hollow victory.

Last night Don Lemon on CNN challenged the rich well-known and powerful, the likes of Ellen, Oprah and Drake to descend from their ivory tower of privilege, and get down to the crowds and  oppose the chaos and anarchy that the protests have turned into. Why not? When Dr, King was assassinated, the then Mayor of New York City, John Lindsay, walked through the streets of Harlem, as he had often done before, in order to quell any type of rioting. It worked. While neighborhoods In Washington DC, Chicago, Kansas City and Newark went up in flames, New York City remained free of the looting and arson that fell on those other cities.

The 2020-2021 Metropolitan Opera Season announced

 

The 2020-2021 Metropolitan Opera season sounds very exciting. It will open with a new production of Aida. This is a risky move by General Manager Peter Gelb and the company since the current production of this work is one of the grandest, and as a result one of the most popular productions in the house repertory. Lately, however, the production has been mostly populated with singers who are either up-and-coming, or who have been up and down the Nile one too many times. The MET will rectify that with a stellar September 21 Opening Night cast that features Anna Netrebko in the title role, Piotr Beczała as Radames (he will try out this role in the Festival Castell Peralada, Catalonia Spain in August of this year a month before the MET opening), and Anita Rachcelishvili as Amneris. Opening night will also serve as the official debut of conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin who will become the MET's new music director.

Another debut which promises to be interesting and, no doubt, controversial is the much anticipated house debut of director Ivo van Hove helming two productions: Mozart's Don Giovanni, a staging that the MET shares with the Paris Opéra, and Jake Heggie's Dead Man Walking, based on the novel by Sister Helen Prejean, both conducted by Mr. Nézet-Séguin.

Perhaps the most challenging debut next season is that of Barrie Kosky. Mr. Kosky, who hails from Australia and calls himself a "Jewish gay kangaroo" is no stranger to European theaters where his productions have entertained and have added to the polemic of Regietheater. At Bayreuth, his entertaining and controversial production of Wagner's Die Meistersinger, which focuses on the antisemitic aspects of the work, drew boos from a segment of the audience at its opening night. I have seen this production twice, once in its debut year and again the following year. Boos were heard during my second visit to this interesting vision of the work. At the MET, Mr. Kosky will direct a rare Sergei Prokofiev work called The Fiery Angel. The staging, which comes from the Bavarian State Opera, features the chorus dressed as Jesus, complete with bloody crowns of thorns as well as a devil with a dildo. As critic Michael Cooper wrote in the NY Times "Zeffirelli's Boheme this isn't." Here is a preview of this staging.


The rest of the season features great revivals including Tristan und Isolde, Lulu and Rusalka. Especially great is the return of Richard Strauss's Die Frau Ohne Schatten in its 2001 Herbert Wernicke production and The great John Dexter production of Benjamin Britten's Billy Budd, still going strong since 1978.  Exciting artists taking on new roles in existing productions include Ms. Netrebko's first Abigaile in Giuseppe Verdi's Nabucco, Angela Meade in Vincenzo Bellini's Norma, as well as tenor Javier Camarena in Bellini's other great work, Il Pirata.

An interesting change to the calendar is that the MET will close its doors during the month of February, traditionally a period when audiences tend to stay home, and the company ends up losing money. The season will be extended up to June 5 cutting into the traditional American Ballet Theater season.

It promises to be a very exciting season, and perhaps this might be the right time when New York's conservative audiences finally accept Mr. Gelb's tireless crusade to bring the MET to the 21st century. The MET has been notoriously lagging behind in comparison to the great European houses when it comes to presenting works by visionary, avant-garde directors. Older audiences, as well as the MET's own Board of Directors and patrons, have been reticent to spend money on productions that may not be popular because of the new approach they take to beloved works, and those other works that have become very popular older productions. Luminaries of Regietheater not likely to be seen at the MET in the near future include iconoclastic Catalan director Calixto Bieito. His proposed La Forza del Destino was cancelled. Stefan Herheim's clever Die Meistersinger, which was first staged at the Vienna State Opera, was also cancelled.

Will the MET ever get rid of their popular cash cow Franco Zeffirelli Boheme? Not in the cards thus far, but you never know. I never thought their Aida would go. Now we look forward to a new staging. Let us see how the New York crowd reacts to this major leap forward.

PARASITE wins big -- really big!

Last night, at the 92nd Oscar ceremony, the film Parasite did something no other film had done in the history of the awards. Bong Joon-ho's magnificent thriller was the first to win the International Film category, as well as taking home the Best Film Oscar. Last year Alfonso Cuarón's film Roma, a Netflix production, was also nominated for both, but it failed to win both awards, ending up only with the International Film statuette. Mr. Bong also won in the Best Director category. In his thank-you speech, which he spoke in his native Korean, he thanked Martin Scorsese, who has been an inspiration to the young filmmaker. It was a wonderful example of a relatively new filmmaker thanking the established, older director. This is the first Oscar win for South Korea.

West Side Story at the Broadway Theatre

In Ivo Van Hove's recreation of West Side Story it's not always easy, at first, to tell the Jets from the Sharks. Each gang is now racially mixed, all are heavily tattooed, and show off some kind of distinctive bling around their necks. As they stand at the apron of the stage at the start of the performance, and sway to the right and to the left, these gang members share the look with MS-13, the Bloods and the Crips rather than with the original teen hoodlums Arthur Laurents had in mind when he adapted Romeo and Juliet and placed it in New York's dangerous San Juan Hill neighborhood, the very place where today Lincoln Center stands, and where Robert Wise shot the 1961 film adaptation of this 1957 Broadway musical. Gone also is the Jerome Robbins choreography, in favor of an even more acrobatic style, thankfully still rooted on ballet, by Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker. You won't find any finger snapping here to signify they are hip cool cats. Far from it. These are dangerous individuals you do not want to meet on a dark New York street.

The Ivo Van Howe treatment is well-known by now: minimalism married to dazzling technology, often using HD video. On Broadway he has re-thought Arthur Miller's A View From the Bridge and The Crucible, as well as last year's dazzling rethinking of Paddy Chayefsky's screenplay  Network starring Bryan Cranston. This time, with a cast made up of mostly young unknowns, he has re-thought this classic musical in ways that often delight us, as well as confound us. The music is still Leonard Bernstein at his finest, minus the song "I Feel Pretty," cut, I presume because it slows down the action. (So does the aria "Un Bel Di" in Puccini's Madama Butterfly). I get the feeling that it's out because of its inherent kitschy feeling. The production also plays in one single act nearing two hours. This is a no-nonsense, tight production, as serious and as stark as a Greek tragedy. No laughing aloud. I'm surprised "Gee, Officer Krupke" remained intact, although it has lost some of its comedic values given the seriousness of Mr. Van Hove's approach. Luckily "America" still works as a marvelous example of great music and witty lyrics by the then young Stephen Sondheim, the only surviving member of the original creative team.

During the 1980's many of the classic shows of the 1950's and 1960's were revived, often with the same orchestrations as well as the same scenic conceptions. In fact, many of the original stars of those shows came back to reprise their past triumphs. Carol Channing in Hello Dolly, Rex Harrison in My Fair Lady, Zero Mostel in Fiddler on the Roof and Richard Burton in Camelot. Yul Brynner made a cottage industry out of The King and I, reviving it over and over again, even as he was dying of cancer. And, of course Jerome Robbins returned to Broadway to direct West Side Story in 1980, using the same scenic, lighting and costume designs employed in the original production. While the world of musical comedy remained stagnant, opera was being rethought in Europe. The 1976 version of Richard Wagner's Ring of the Nibelung at Bayreuth by Patrice Chereau led the way for experimentation in the lyric theater. The practice is very much the current trend. Depending where you stand it's either "Regietheater" (theater of the director) or "Eurotrash."

What is dazzling in this production is the use of HD cameras. The live feed is projected upstage, behind the playing area, on a huge screen that captures the characters up close. It is like watching a movie and a theater piece all at the same time. The camera is vital to the production. The two main sets, Doc's candy store and Anita's sweatshop,  dressed in hyper-realism by Jan Versweyveld (Mr. Van Hove's partner), are upstage with nooks and crannies out of the audience's view. However, the camera follows the action inside these hidden corners and broadcasts it to us revealing the amazing detail. Why these theatrical settings are pushed out of the way, and only allowed to be seen through the camera lens is one of the questions we must ask the creative team.

Ultimately, the real important question we must ask ourselves is if a musical like West Side Story is able to successfully navigate the world of "Regietheater" and still emerge unscathed. Save for a major incongruity: 1950's lingo sputtered by a crowd that looks and behaves more at ease in the hip-hop hood, the answer is a resounding yes. My feeling is that Broadway audiences will accept this modernization of a treasured warhorse as long as the performances are of such amazing caliber, especially Dharon Jones as Riff, and Isaac Powell (who is back after he injured himself during previews) as Tony. Over on the Shark's turf, the dancing mastery of New York City Ballet's Amar Ramasar (with whom I shared the stage years ago when we performed another piece by Bernstein, Chichester Psalms), as well as the talented Yesenia Ayala as Anita and Shereen Pimentel as Maria bring fresh approaches to these characters.

The production should have opened last Thursday, but due to Mr. Powell's injury the official opening is now February 20th. Now Mr. Powell is back and sounding wonderful, especially in his two main songs "Something's Coming" and the ever popular "Maria."

Whatever you think of this approach towards classic musicals, this is a major revival by some of the most talented creative minds working today. Their aim is to bring a breath of fresh air to a wondrous piece of our creative past. By doing so, they revitalize the theater and bring a masterpiece to a new generation of audiences that will be as thrilled as those lucky enough to have been at the Winter Garden Theatre back in 1957. What is now running at the Broadway Theatre is a West Side Story for 2020 and beyond.

Kobe Bryant - R.I.P.

Dracula meets Sherlock meets Who

Bram Stoker's novel has been given the BBC Mark Gatiss / Steven Moffat treatment. Their adaptation of Dracula owes less to the author's original epistolary classic and more to their inimitable jigsaw puzzle writing style that the pair have nurtured in their on-going update of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes, also for the BBC.

The story is told in flashback by a dying Jonathan Harker (John Heffernan) who has escaped Dracula's castle, and has landed in a nunnery. He tells his story to a pair of nuns, one of whom seems to know quite a lot about the occult and who tends to treat Catholicism with more skepticism than her deep knowledge of vampires.

At first it all starts out fairly recognizable. Jonathan Harker awaits the count's carriage in the middle of a stunningly beautiful snowy forest. The faint glimpses of the coachman who picks him up, however, promises that things will not end well for this Victorian traveler. Castle Dracula certainly looks creepy enough, and is a clear homage to the scenic design of the Bela Lugosi 1931 Universal film. It all begins to slowly descend downhill with the first appearance of the count. The vampyre is played by Danish actor Claes Bang, and the first time we see him he is a wizened old man, but soon enough with a little bit of sustenance provided by Harker he turns into a young man faster than when Faust signed his contract with Mephistopheles -- but, that's another story.

The problem is that Claes Bang is all wrong for the part. His face is too fleshy, neither possessing the dread that Lugosi emoted, nor the skeletal fright of Max Schreck in Nosferatu. Gatiss and Moffat were going after a post-Christopher Lee look: a Louis Jourdan, Frank Langella type. Instead the writers throw out the possibility of peppering Mr. Bang's dark looks with a dash of old-fashioned creepiness, and instead make him into a bitchy queen. One scene in particular contains the worst, most out-of-place line in the history of any horror movie. After morphing from wolf to man, Dracula  feels the animal's black hair and turns to a group of nuns with the following quip: "I don't know about you girls, but I sure do love fur."

Meanwhile, imprisoned in a castle, a labyrinth right out of the short stories of Argentinian author Jorge Luis Borges, Harker soon begins to deteriorate as Dracula makes his nightly visits. Soon enough Harker realizes that he must escape if he is ever going to see his beloved Mina back in London again. No sooner does he find out the secret of the castle's construction that he realizes that the place is also inhabited by several of Dracula's creations: caged prisoners, slowly being turned into vampires, and all of them (including a vampire baby) ready willing and able to bite a chunk out of Harker's jugular.

The best part of this adaptation involves a part of the story which is usually either omitted, or dashed away quickly in previous versions: the voyage of the ship Demeter to London. The entire second part of this series involves this sea voyage. The only problem with this decision is that the writers turn it into an Agatha Christie murder mystery -- a mixture of  Murder on the Orient Express meets And Then There Were None. And what's wrong about this approach? It's not a whodunit anymore, we know who's doing it! Still, despite the clumsy writing decision, this episode has the proper atmosphere, dread, and seriousness that the story deserves.

Good, right?  WRONG!

This episodes also features the most outrageous cliffhanger ever -- something right straight out of a Dr. Who episode.

At this point, I'll say no more. If you've read this far you're either not going to go anywhere near this show, or I have elevated your curiosity so much that you're running to your Netflix. Either way, it's an entertaining bit of fluff, but not the kind of adaptation that this classic deserves. Unfortunately, both Mr. Gatiss and Mr. Moffat, as fanboys, are way too close to the material to actually make a decent adaptation.

I can't wait to see what they do with Moby Dick if they decide to adapt it.

Lise Davidsen makes her debut at the MET

The debut of an important up and coming artist at an opera house is always a reason for celebration. At the Metropolitan Opera, the fabled evenings when Enrico Caruso, Marian Anderson and Leontyne Price made their debuts have gone down in the annals of the opera house as important signposts for the company, as well as golden moments in the history of the art form in the 20th century.

Last night another such moment happened again at the MET, one taylor-made for the new century. Soprano Lise Davidsen made her much anticipated debut as Lisa in Tchaikovsky’s The Queen of Spades. Like the artists mentioned above Ms. Davidsen comes to the MET already a star, having made an enormous impact in the classical world with her triumphant debuts in Glyndebourne, the Vienna State Opera, the Royal Danish Opera, and London's Royal Opera, Covent Garden. As well as last summer's debut at the Bayreuth Festival where her performance as Elisabeth in Tannhäuser was hailed by the international press as a "voice once in a century." This summer she will return to the Green Hill as Sieglinde in Bayreuth's new production of the Ring. In addition to all these marvelous accolades, Ms. Davidsen has been awarded an exclusive recording contract by Decca Records, the first since that honor was given to soprano Birgit Nilsson.

Is sex appeal important in opera? You bet, and Ms. Davidsen has it in (I won't say in spades) greater than usual amounts. Her tremendous stage presence and radiant looks, more Mediterranean than Nordic, command the stage even before she sings a single note. And when she does, she produces a powerful even sound throughout her register that causes one's ears to tingle. The kind of sound that only a true lyric dramatic soprano possesses.

It was a triumphant evening in all accounts. Ms. Davidsen, in her curtain call as seen above, looked radiant and happy on a job well done. Her colleagues also did remarkably well. Tenor Yusif Eyvazov was a haunted creature as Hermann, whose obsession with discovering the secret of the three cards drives him and those in his orbit to destruction. Mr. Eyvazov's tenor is a pleasant instrument which he knows how to use well throughout the evening. Also worthy of accolades was another debut: Igor Golovatenko, whose powerful baritone graced the role of Prince Yeletsky. Conductor Vasily Petrenko, also making his house debut, led the forces of the Metropolitan Opera orchestra and chorus with remarkable beauty and efficiency.

The Queen of Spades is another jewel in the MET's remarkable crown this year, which also includes the triumphant new productions of Porgy and Bess and Philip Glass's Akhnaten, which are currently running. It would be unwise to miss this revival of Tchaikovsky's opera, especially when it is graced by such a remarkable singer as Lise Davidsen. Let's hope that she makes the MET a favorite home away from home.

Joaquin Phoenix in JOKER

That the film Joker, the new Tod Phillips origin story of Batman’s most deranged arch villain, would incite violence in the streets of the real Gotham City and beyond proved to be much ado about nothing. There were armed guards with machine guns outside Alice Tully Hall at the New York Film Festival screening, but after weeks of playing around the country there have not been any serious acts of violence perpetrated as a result of watching this film. That, in and of itself, speaks volumes about this movie.

In 1971, Stanley Kubrick’s film A Clockwork Orange was banned in many countries as a preventative measure, fearing hordes of disaffected teenagers would go on bloody rampages mimicking the ultra-violence depicted in the film. But just for the record, let me state right now that Joker is no Orange.  Kubrick’s film, based on Anthony Burgess’s novel, is a frightening analysis of an out of control youth under an ineffective government in a UK steeped in a dystopia nightmare.  Joker is simply about raising to a pedestal a psychopath, and wallowing in the random violence he commits.

Joaquin Phoenix has been receiving praise for his performance, a character that brought posthumous Oscar honor to Heath Ledger, and which served as a campy vehicle for Cesar Romero in the 1960s Batman TV series. As a result of an uneven script by the director and Scott Silver, Joaquin Phoenix is allowed to be all over the place. Sure, you can’t take your eyes off him, but that’s because you don’t know what he’s going to pull next. This unexpected, mercurial approach to a troubled character worked really well for the actor in the film The Master, but again that was a tight controlled film where Phoenix could shine. Here he attempts a similar approach, and oftentimes his talent gets him over the hump, despite the material he is forced to work with. It yields an inconsistent performance where he can be tender when speaking to his mom, frightening when he looks into a mirror and whips his mouth into a deranged smile, and inexplicably campy when he is dancing on steps in the South Bronx, or when he is invited to a late night talk show whose host, ably played by Robert De Niro, is a veiled caricature of Johnny Carson.

I suppose the film works best as a recreation of 1970’s New York, but even here, it ends up being merely a Hollywood version of what New York was like in that decade. In other words, in the film the graffiti and the garbage in the streets is more abundant than it ever was in reality. For a real look at the Big Apple during that decade, shot on the very same mean streets, look to The French Connection and Taxi Driver, for starters, two films that Joker shamelessly tries to mimic. In its depiction of rioting crowds loose on the streets the film attempts to offer an allegory for our time of political discontent, and that it does real well. However, I wonder how many members of the audience will be thinking allegorically when presented with this gritty, violent material.

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NYFF: The Irishman - new Martin Scorsese film

Martin Scorsese's film career has been graced by landmarks of greatness: Mean Streets (1973), Taxi Driver (1976), Raging Bull (1980), and Goodfellas (1990) among many, many others. Most recently he has turned his gifts towards a wider canvas: The Departed (2006) -- in my opinion an uneven film where I felt Scorsese was out of his element. Still, that film was the one that got him his Oscar for Best Director. A few years ago The Wolf of Wall Street (2013) made an incredible showpiece for Leonardo DiCaprio, an actor who lately had become his latest muse. These films serve as signposts that lead the way to his present masterpiece: a movie where he has reunited with some of his former muses. 

The Irishman is a sprawling, lengthy film, clocking in at 209 minutes, where the director once again brings to life the familiar world of organized crime and populates it with some of his regulars. In its approach it feels like Scorsese's personal apotheosis of a genre he has kept alive for decades. We have Robert De Niro, who plays Frank Sheeran, whose nickname is the Irishman, a career mob hitman. Harvey Keitel in a small but important cameo role as a mob boss, and Joe Pesci, whose performance is a revelatory study in subtlety, and a 360 degree turn for this actor who came out of retirement to play this role. To these Scorsese regulars, the director has added Al Pacino, with whom he had never worked before. Pacino plays Jimmy Hoffa, the labor leader who disappeared in 1975, and who was presumably executed by the mob. Pacino's performance might seem a bit large compared with the subtlety of the other principals, but this is in keeping with the bigger-than-life character Hoffa created for his public persona, and which was embraced by his Teamster brothers.

In the hands of the director and his gifted cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto, The Irishman becomes a rumination on organized crime, and a personal study of a lifetime creating films in this inimitable genre. With muted colors, and a dark palette, the film is about the end of something. It's the Omega of the Scorsese mob movie, populated with the kind of cast that could probably not be possible to assemble again. If Goodfellas, with its bright sunny colors and upbeat rhythms, was his career's Alpha, then the somber but brilliant Irishman is its logical twilight.

In featured parts there are great performances by Bobby Cannavale, Ray Romano, and Sebastian Maniscalco as mobster Joe Gallo, whose murder in Little Italy's Umberto's Clam House is carefully recreated. In a very small role Anna Paquin is unforgettable as Sheeran's daughter, a woman who learns about the kind of work her father does, and eventually wants nothing to do with him. Her recognition scene is poignant despite its subtle, minimalist approach.

The Irishman had its world debut this weekend at the New York Film Festival, and will have a limited theatrical run before it can be streamed on Netflix. According to Wikipedia "The film will not play at the theaters owned by AMC, Cinemark, Regal, or Cineplex because the "four week progression to SVOD remains unacceptable to those chains^." It was previously reported in February 2019 that Netflix would possibly give the film a wide theatrical release, at the request of Scorsese. The heads of several theater chains, including AMC refused to play Roma the previous November, said they would only be open to playing The Irishman if Netflix respects the decades old theatrical window, that suggests that movies come to theaters first for a couple of months, and then go to the home^."

The way to see The Irishman is in a theater, preferably one that's full with movie lovers, so make every effort to do so despite the lack of places that might show it.

Plácido Domingo Accussed of Sexual Harrasment

The term "Latin Lover" assumes certain types of behavior that in today's #Me Too movement can quickly and easily turn into accusations of sexual harassment. Plácido Domingo, who for years came to prominence on the operatic stage as a virile tenor, oozing sexual charm, has now been accused of sexual harassment by a number of singers and a dancer. Mr. Domingo, who is now 78 and continues to conduct and sing opera, albeit as a baritone, has denied these accusations, some of them dating back more than thirty years.

The LA Opera, an institution that Domingo has served for over thirty years will engage outside counsel to investigate these allegations. However the San Francisco Opera has cancelled all of Domingo's upcoming performances in October citing these allegations. They went on to give a statement to CNN. "Though the alleged incidents reported did not take place at San Francisco Opera, the Company is unable to present the artist on the War Memorial Opera House stage. San Francisco Opera is committed to its strong anti-sexual harassment policy and requires all Company members to adhere to the highest standards of professional conduct. San Francisco Opera places a great priority on creating a safe and secure environment where everyone can focus on their work and art, and in which colleagues are treated with respect, dignity and collegiality." 

The Metropolitan Opera, the musical organization with which Domingo is perhaps best known for, has yet to comment on these accusations.

Mr. Domingo offered the following statement to CNN: "People who know me or who have worked with me know that I am not someone who would intentionally harm, offend, or embarrass anyone. However, I recognize that the rules and standards by which we are -- and should be -- measured against today are very different than they were in the past. I am blessed and privileged to have had a more than 50-year career in opera and will hold myself to the highest standards."

Life on the Moon (?)

The question as to whether or not there is life on the Moon may finally have a positive answer. A payload of tardigrades, micro animals that have shown to be the most resilient species on Earth, may have survived an Israeli spaceship that crash landed on the Moon back in April. The Beresheet spacecraft was carrying thousands of them.

Tardigrades, as you can see by the picture above, are pudgy little animals no longer than one millimeter long. They live in water or in the film of water on plants like lichen or moss, and can be found all over the world, in some of the most extreme environments, from icy mountains and polar regions to the balmy equator and the depths of the sea.

Along with the creatures, the ship also carried an archive of 30 million pages of information about planet Earth, as well as human DNA samples and a payload of the little creatures which had been dehydrated.

According to Nova Spivack, co-founder of the mission, "Best-case scenario is that the little library is fully intact, sitting on a nice sandy hillside on the Moon for a billion years. In the distant future it might be recovered by our descendants or by a future form of intelligent life that might evolve long after we're gone. From the DNA and the cells that we included, you could clone us and regenerate the human race and other plants and animals."

As far as the tardigrades are concerned, they will not be able to reproduce or move around in their dehydrated state, but if they survived the crash and are rehydrated they can come back to life years later.

The Main Slate of the New York Film Festival

The Main Slate for the 2019 New York Film Festival has been announced.  Here are the films:

Opening Night The Irishman Dir. Martin Scorsese 

Centerpiece Marriage Story Dir. Noah Baumbach

Closing Night  Motherless Brooklyn Dir. Edward Norton

Atlantics: A Ghost Love Story Dir. Mati Diop

Bacurau Dir. Kleber Mendonça Filho and Juliano Dornelles

Beanpole Dir. Kantemir Balagov

Fire Will Come Dir. Oliver Laxe

First Cow Dir. Kelly Reichardt

A Girl Missing Dir. Koji Fukada

I Was at Home, But… Dir. Angela Schanelec

Liberté Dir. Albert Serra

Martin Eden Dir. Pietro Marcello

The Moneychanger Dir. Federico Veiroj

Oh Mercy! Dir. Arnaud Desplechin

Pain and Glory Dir. Pedro Almodóvar

Parasite Dir. Bong Joon-ho

Film Comment Presents
 
Portrait of a Lady on Fire 
Dir. Céline Sciamma

Saturday Fiction
Dir. Lou Ye

Sibyl
Dir. Justine Triet

Synonyms
Dir. Nadav Lapid

To the Ends of the Earth
Dir. Kiyoshi Kurosawa

The Traitor
Dir. Marco Bellocchio

Varda by Agnès
Dir. Agnès Varda

Vitalina Varela
Dir. Pedro Costa

Wasp Network
Dir. Olivier Assayas

The Whistlers
Dir. Corneliu Porumboiu

The Wild Goose Lake
Dir. Diao Yinan

Young Ahmed
Dir. Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne

Zombi Child
Dir. Bertrand Bonello

HAL PRINCE dies at 91

That picture above represents the way I will always remember Hal Prince, that giant of Broadway, who died yesterday in Iceland at the age of 91. White-bearded with a twinkle in the eye so highly visible because his glasses were always off, balanced on his bald head. I learned his name as either the director or producer of so many musicals I was too young to have seen, but knew well through the LP original cast albums in my collection. Scratching the surface of his prodigious output there was West Side Story, Fiddler on the Roof, Cabaret, and Damn Yankees. All of them hits, some classics of the American Musical Theater.

Those were the old musicals I knew. When I started going to Broadway shows during high school and college, I realized the man was active, and collaborating with Stephen Sondheim, the greatest living composer/lyricist. That's when I saw Sweeney Todd, my first Hal Prince musical. I saw the original cast three times. I went back to discover the previous Prince/Sondheim creations: A Funny Thing Happen on the Way to the Forum, Follies, Company, A Little Night Music (based on Ingmar Bergman's film Smiles of a Summer Night), and Pacific Overtures, a masterpiece about the opening of Japan by Commodore Perry, that flopped on Broadway on its initial run: a condemnation of American imperialism in 1976, the American Bicentennial year. There were Tony Awards galore, and music that has become part of Broadway lore. It was the 1980's, the time when Broadway decided to revive many of these musicals with their original stars. To this day the revival of Fiddler, with Zero Mostel reprising his role of Tevye is one of my treasured memories of Broadway.

Hal Prince went on to work with the British invasion of Andrew Lloyd Webber. He directed The Phantom of the Opera in the West End and on Broadway. To this day the New York production of Phantom, now in its 31st year of continuous operation, regularly grosses over $1 million weekly. It is also still running in London, and around the world productions of this work has been seen by over 140 million people. The original cast recording has sold over 40 million copies.

He is the last of the great producers/directors, and Broadway will not see the likes of someone like him again. He will be remembered as one of the great talents to grace the Great White Way.

THE IRISHMAN will open the 2019 NY Film Festival

The New York Film Festival will open on September 27th with the world premiere of Martin Scorsese's latest film The Irishman, a biopic of Jimmy Hoffa based on the book I Hear you Paint Houses by Charles Brandt. The film stars Robert DeNiro, Al Pacino and Joey Pesci, who came out of an unofficial retirement to do this project. It is the ninth collaboration between DeNiro and Scorsese, and their first since 1995's Casino.

With a budget reported to be $200 million dollars, the film is being distributed by Netflix, which hopes to outdo last year's Roma, a film by Alfonso Cuarón which won Oscars for Best Foreign Film and Best Cinematography, and which was the centerpiece offering at the NY Film Festival last year. A passion project for Scorsese, the movie also stars Harvey Keitel, Bobby Cannavale and Anna Paquin.

Following the NY Film Festival showing and a short theatrical release, the film is set to stream digitally late in 2019.

Spanish Singer Makes Debut at Bayreuth

Jorge Rodríguez Norton, the tenor from Asturias, Spain made his debut at Bayreuth on Thursday's opening night gala of the new production of Tannhäuser, directed by Tobias Kratzer and conducted by Valery Gergiev. Mr. Rodríguez Norton, who sings the role of Heinrich der Schrieber, becomes only the third Spaniard to sing at the Green Hill after Victoria de los Ángeles and Plácido Domingo. Festspielchef Katharina Wagner personally communicated with the singer through Facebook after she heard him sing in a performance of Tristan und Isolde at the Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona. At first, the singer thought that somebody was playing a prank on him. but soon enough he realized that Ms. Wagner was offering him an opportunity to sing at the festival. Since the production will be repeated next year, the tenor from Avilés says that he has already signed for the 2020 festival, and has attended the rehearsals of the rest of the offerings for this year.

Once Upon a Time ... in Hollywood: new Tarantino film

With a title that evokes two of director Sergio Leone’s great films, as well as the world of fairy tales, which imply make believe and wish fulfillment, Quentin Tarantino’s ninth film Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood is a love letter to the film industry at a time when great sweeping changes were going on in cinema. A young generation had taken the reins, European new waves were challenging the very nature of film entertainment, the American studio system had crumbled, and dark foreboding clouds were gathering in the horizon. The summer of love was gone, and ahead, horrible events would occur behind the gated mansion of an up-and-coming movie star and her famous director husband. Or will they? The director riffs on the Tate-LaBianca murders by the Charles Manson family, an event triggered by the lyrics of an album from a British group that already was showing tears at its seams. Tarantino reinvents this era in a highly ambitious wide canvas that bears the gravitas of apocalyptic times.

Next door to Sharon Tate (Margot Robbie) and Roman Polanski (Rafal Zawierucha) lives Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio), an actor who specializes in World War II B pictures and TV westerns, and who now is on the downward slope of his career. His buddy Cliff Booth (an excellent Brad Pitt) is his stunt double, chauffeur and confidant. Cliff's shady past poses an obstacle for him to get work, as a matter of fact, it is only because of Rick that he gets any film work at all. And it shows, while Rick lives in the Hollywood hills in a beautiful house with a pool, Cliff lives in a derelict trailer with his pit bull next to a drive-in.

The film is an engrossing and kaleidoscopic recreation of a time that Tarantino did not personally know or yearn for in any kind of nostalgic way; after all he was a six year old child when the events of this film take place. As always the decade is brought to life through the world of cinema, which Tarantino knows better than any other director working today. Therefore, the film is highly detailed with homages and illusions to the famous spots in L.A. and the theater marquees announcing the films of the time. Some of these are well-known, but in the great tradition of film geekdom, at whose throne Tarantino sits, the majority are rare and forgotten. As far as the director is concerned, though, they are treasures to be discovered by a new contemporary audience.

Aside from the performances of DiCaprio and Pitt, both surely destined for Oscar nominations, there are wonderful moments from Margot Robbie, whose Sharon Tate is a free spirit radiant beauty who visits a Hollywood theater so she can see her own performance in the film The Wrecking Crew, alongside Dean Martin. Powerful also is Bruce Dern in a tiny cameo playing the blind, aged owner of a Western Ranch being rented by the Manson family.

Without a doubt, Once Upon a Time ... in Hollywood is Tarantino's most accomplished film, and one of the best movies of the year. Gone are the jerky rhythms of many of his past films, here replaced by a deliberately smooth glide when it comes to camera movement as well as story development. A new Tarantino? Not exactly. There's still a whole lot of the old Quentin that we all love, but this film shows signs of artist maturity, which is definitely not a bad thing.

Bayreuth: New Staging of Tannhäuser

The Bayreuth Festival began today with a new production of Richard Wagner's romantic opera Tannhäuser, directed by Tobias Kratzer and under the musical leadership of Valery Gergiev, both men making their Bayreuth debuts this year. For the director this opera goes beyond the conflict of profane versus pure love; he sees it as a clash between high and lowbrow art. Mr. Kratzer noticed that the composition of this work took place at a time when Wagner himself did not know whether he was going to go down in history as an anarchist or as a composer, or even if he was going to be remembered at all. Given this background to the work Mr. Kratzer states that "Wagner is writing about two models of life ... two conflicting love models." He goes on to explain that this approach to the story "makes it more contemporary than if you restrict the whole thing to the whore versus saint conflict of Romanticism."

Thus we are presented with a van with a green rabbit on top, and outside speakers, driving through the Romantic pine forests of Germany, and a biogas plant (an in-joke to the last Bayreuth production of this work by Sebastian Baumgarten). Driving the van are Venus in a skintight suit (Elena Zhidkova), and her lover Tannhäuser (Stephen Gould), a clown (shades of Josef von Sternberg's 1930 film The Blue Angel where a distinguish English professor marries a lusty cabaret performer only to find himself degraded to the role of clown -- literally). Riding with them, in silent roles, are Oskar the midget (Manni Laudenbach) and famed black cabaret drag queen Le Gateau Chocolat. The Venusberg is a simple German cottage complete with human-sized garden gnomes, a perfect reason for Le Gateau to don her Snow White outfit straight out of the Walt Disney film. As the relationship between Venus and Tannhäuser deteriorates during the Venusberg scene we discover that only one item makes any sense for him: a duffel bag with a vocal score that says "Wagner" on the front cover, presumably the score to this opera itself. When he invokes the name of the Virgin Mary, Tannhäuser is transported to Bayreuth itself, and we find out that he was a singer who went rogue. He is welcomed back to the Green Hill, but not by Elisabeth (Lise Davidsen) who usually is absent from the first act. In this staging she makes an appearance and formally welcomes her former lover with a slap on the face.

The concept of using Bayreuth as the background for a production is reminiscent of Stefan Herheim's great staging of Parsifal in 2008 where Wahnfried became the point of departure for a production that chronicled the story of Germany through the World Wars and reconstruction. As Act II begins we realize that Mr. Kratzer will stage this act as if it were a performance of the act itself, even with video from backstage showing stage managers. The production in this ersatz staging is nothing like Bayreuth has seen since 1951. The costumes look like a pre-Wieland Wagner staging from the 1930's. The conflict between high and low art comes to a head during the song contest. Eventually, the characters from the first act infiltrate the Festspielhaus, and rush the stage at the mention of Venus and Tannhäuser's praise for carnal love. In a video cameo Katharina Wagner herself calls the police to arrest the intruders, and when they drive up the Green Hill they handcuff Tannhäuser and take him away as he sings the words "Nach Rom!"

As the opera continues into the concluding act the production becomes less Wagner's story, and begins to be overpowered by Mr. Kratzer's conceit. The third act takes place in a junkyard invaded by pilgrims who look more like refugees. Wolfram dresses up in the clown outfit and wig that Tannhäuser wore in Act I and, at the urging of Elisabeth herself, has sex with her in the van. Tannhäuser eventually returns only to find that Elisabeth has committed suicide.

There was amazing singing from all the principals, especially Stephen Gould, who is no stranger to the role of Tannhäuser. Lise Davidsen sang with a smooth, powerful voice that beautifully exemplifies this character. Markus Eiche has the perfect voice for Wolfram, and his song to the Evening Star was a highlight of the concluding act, pity that so much of the staging made very little sense. Valery Gergiev lead a competent reading of the score, but a personal vision of the work was missing. His appearance on stage during the curtain calls drew a smattering of boos.

Needless to say the production team was greeted by ferocious boos by about half of the audience, although applause seemed to have won out in the end due to the great quality of singing and acting by all. Not a bad start for this year's festival. Let's hope that the critics do not totally kill this production, since there are many good ideas, especially in the first act. I'm sure Mr. Kratzer will be refining the production as it makes a comeback in years to come.

Bayreuth: New Ring for 2020

On the eve of the start of the 2019 Bayreuth Festival, festspielchief Katharina Wagner has announced in a press conference that a new Ring will be staged at the Green Hill in 2020. The new production will replace the Frank Castorf staging, a mish-mash that was universally hated since its premiere back in 2013. According to Ms. Wagner the young, Austrian director Valentin Schwarz will stage the new production. Mr. Schwarz made a mark in the opera world when he staged Maurizio Kagel's opera Mare Nostrum at Cologne. The musical direction will be in the hands of Pietari Inkinen, the young Finnish violinist and conductor of the Japan Philharmonic and the Prague Symphony Orchestra.

Ms. Wagner has always championed young talent, so it is no surprise that Mr. Schwarz and Mr. Inkinen will both be making their debuts at Bayreuth with this new production. In addition, Ms. Wagner has never shied away from importing talent that often brings controversy to the yearly summer festival. Back in 2004, when her father Wolfgang Wagner was still running the Festspielhaus, she championed the new Parsifal by Christoph Schlingensief and Pierre Boulez, one of the most controversial productions in the recent history of the festival.

The press conference also revealed some of the singers who will grace this new staging. Günther Groisböck is scheduled to sing the role of Wotan, Klaus Florian Vogt, who has become the "house tenor" will be Sigmund, while Andreas Schager and Stephen Gould will share the role of Siegfried. The role of Brünnhilde will also be shared by Petra Lang in Die Walküre, Daniel Köhler in Siegfried, and American soprano Christine Goerke, fresh off her triumph in the Metropolitan Opera Ring staging from last season, will perform in Götterdämmerung.

A Roadmap for Impeachment?

We are hours away from a day that has been awaited by many on the democratic side of the aisle in Washington D.C. Robert Mueller will testify today in congress for the American people. Could it be the beginning of the end of the Donald Trump presidency? According to the many pundits who have chimed in about this Wednesday morning, the hearing might not reveal any earth shattering facts, especially if the former special counsel adheres to his 448 page report. Mueller will appear before the House Judiciary Committee at 8:30 a.m., a hearing that is expected to run for three hours. After a break, Mueller will testify before the House Intelligence Committee at noon. Although the hearing has the possibility of being explosive, Mr. Mueller is a reluctant witness, and if he is questioned about something in the report, he might just ask the various committee members to re-read the report that he already wrote in order to get the answer they are looking for. That would be the biggest disappointment for anyone who feels that Trump's days in the White House are numbered. A do or die moment for democrats, and a chance for republicans to close the book on this part of Trump's presidency.

Bayreuth 2019: All Systems are GO!

In the spirit of the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing, all systems are go for the opening of the 2019 Bayreuth Festival, which will take place on August 25 with a new production of Tannhäuser, directed by Tobias Kratzer and conducted by Valery Gergiev. Mr. Kratzer being famous as an avant-garde director, together with the recent  track-record at Bayreuth during the last 10 years or so, it is safe to say that it will be an experimental look at Richard Wagner's romantic opera. Mr. Kratzer has already directed this work during the 2010-2011season in Bremen. The following video, a promo for that production, might give you an example of what the director has in mind for the Green Hill this summer.


But then again, I'm sure Mr. Kratzer has had time to rethink the opera, and most likely will offer a production with new ideas, and with a deeper understanding of the work. One thing is certain: I doubt very much that, despite being being an anniversary year for the moon landing, Mr. Kratzer will stage Tannhäuser in space as in the unconventional staging of La Bohème, conducted by Gustavo Dudamel, which debuted at the Opéra National de Paris in 2017. A production which produced a storm of boos during its run.

Something tells me that the boos will still be heard at Bayreuth no matter what. It has been a tradition lately to boo the creative team on opening night, especially if the concept is new and controversial. Even last year, at a performance of Die Meistersinger I attended, which had already played the year before, I experienced an audience which booed Barrie Kosky's production with its references to the post-war Nuremberg trials, and its highlight of Wagner's anti-Semitic approach to his character Sixtus Beckmesser.

We will see what this summer brings.  It is my understanding that the production will once again be broadcast live by BR-KLASSIK.