How I Got My Doctorate...again

By popular request, here's a post from a few years ago I had deleted. It's graduation time and several friends will be walking. I ran or rather, was shoved. This was originally up for several months and there were some snippy comments. Now, I'm old and fat and snip away. You should know that this post was restored to me by the President of the Faculty Senate!

Happy Graduation to All! Read on:
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OKAY so there i was minding my own business spreading joy and happiness and sunshine everywhere as is my wont and I take my little form and Mary signs it and i waltz up to the graduate school and the scary lady says (growling) Who's Mary! and i say huffy as you please she's chair of the graduate program in theater thank you very much and if you came in late the scary lady in the graduate school keeps a tape measure in her desk and no man likes no woman with a tape measure i guess i should make that clear to this crowd but trust me but she uses the thing to i swear to god measure margins on the page because the need to by five point 444444 inches and that does not mean five point 4444444 inches and dear jesus children are starving and they pay people for this but okay who am i to argue anyway pop goes the scary lady's computer and the scary lady says say to me Mary is M faculty and i say good for her she's very smart what is M faculty and the scary lady says she can't advise doctoral students unless your Graduate Study Chair (cue curtsy to the face) signs this form so I say you mean dr. roses no she's away all year you'll have to find dr. billy well who the hell is HE, jeez, so cheerfully i keep walkin' to weigel hall and go to the grad study office which is bolted CLOSED TODAY so i say to nobody in particular oh no you don't Batman so off i go down to the office and i ask another lady not so scary who is dr. billy and where can i leave him a message and this dame says he's in there and points to dr. ottokar freon's office and this guy in a yellow sweater who is not dr. freon-who is looking daggers at me the whole time-and i say to the guy in the yellow sweater are you dr. billy i'm told you need to sign this and he has rather the Attitude but to be fair there i am in saggy jeans interrupting a meeting-daughters of bilitis no doubt not to be confused with the chansons de bilitis you see i told you i earned this doctorate-but damned if i was going to schlep around one more freakin' signature when OFFICE CLOSED on the taxpayer's nickel thank you very much and dr. billy says What Am I Signing and i tell him The DMA Candidacy Oral Exam Form (note caps) no its not what you think just sign the effing thing (daggers! daggers! if looks could kill do these people think i don't know Strauss's ELEKTRA?--und sie ich mit ihren blicke Totenkoennte!) but finally he does sign it but he's not-at-all happy this guy tra-la so i waltz back out chafing now and having to scratch my butt in the outer office because its warm out and then i go to the scheduling office to confirm my date and time and oh no that's no good any more it has to be later in the day even though Drs. Fee, Fi, Fo and Fum aren't free then if you came in late i should explain that Drs. Fee, Fi, Fo and Fum are my advisers who are about to advise me to take a long walk off a short pier meanwhile dr. billy is not happy and i can feel daggers in my back from sixteen yards away and i've never even ragged on this guy on the air and i get fan mail from thailand thank you again very much so i go back to my office where it is moving day into new offices gone is the computer not to mention my birgit nilsson of blessed memory live cds but i manage to e mail these people who may not even know who the eff is birgit nilsson and there's a reply from this dr. i think it was Fee maybe Fo oh no it was dr. billy! who says -cue irritating nasal voice-the Time On The Form Must Exactly Match The Time Of The Meeting (note caps)and i reply no kidding don't get your undies in a knot batman i scratched it out and changed it and went back to the scary lady in the grad school now knows who mary was and is and mary has more brains in her little finger and doesn't have to measure nothing then i hear another faculty person has to show up for this weenie roast which is now 4.30 feb 7 and i say i don't mind buying pizza for Fee, Fo or Fum but Fi or was it Fee can shift for hisself and if i were you id head to the nearest loony bin and then they say you have to have a faculty member from outside your area involved and they send me to this bulky mezzo soprano type from ecology or rectal science or something who Did. Not. Get. Me. At. All and used worlds like colloquialism and i told her i used words bigger than that at 4 o clock mass in boston in 1969 and then the time was changed to 8 am and there was no pizza and nobody brought donuts cheap cheap cheap but i was fantastic and nobody knew what the eff i was talkin about and thats how you get a doctorate love to all

MATTERHORN by Karl Marlantes

I just missed being drafted for the Vietnam war. I grew up in Lexington, MA and the irony of weekly and vivid anti Vietnam protests on the Lexington Battle Green is an active memory. Remember, this was 10 miles away from Harvard (a world away for me, alas) and what to this day is known as "The People's Republic of Cambridge". Gerald Ford had backs turned to him when he came to Lexington for the bicentennial of the American Revolution's Battle of Lexington: April 19, 1975. I was there. I remember.

But I lacked the maturity or the smarts to really understand what was happening in Vietnam back in the early 1970s. Being young doesn't always equate with being stupid or being self absorbed but it did with me. I didn't have the fire of the anti-war protesters tho they were seething all around me. About Vietnam I was largely ignorant. I suspect I didn't care.

I do now, after reading MATTERHORN a novel by Karl Marlantes, just published. Just published? Therein lies a tale. Matterhorn was long in the writing and even longer-nearly thirty years it seems inn finding a publisher. Marlantes was in fact a grunt in Vietnam-as this book reads nothing could have been invented. You are there. When the soldiers are "in the shit" so are you the reader. You wait for the catharsis. You wait for the, well, orgasm and it ain't there. There's very little redemptive about this novel except the devotion the men have for one and other, buried beneath the jokes and the insults and the violence but it is there. One soldier is eaten by a tiger, another had his legs blown off-they find his boots with his feet still in side. The brass wants quotas met and seem WAAAAY removed from the suffering of the soldiers on the line. Had this book been published in 1972 the war would have ended then and there. An enraged public, seeing it on the TV news every night would have found this novel even more powerful and immediate. I did. I hope you will too.

This is not an easy read. You will feel a great sense of accomplishment, you'll revel in the skill of the writer and if you are of a certain age you'll be angry and heartsick all over again. Don't miss Matterhorn. I thank my colleague Kassie Rose, WOSUs book critic, for the heads up.

Remembering Nicholas Nickleby

Recently one of our cable TV late shows featured the 1947 film version of Nicholas Nickleby, directed by Calvacanti ( what's the story THERE?). The film went on past my bedtime but I was able to enjoy the first hour before my eyes began to droop. It's on my list at our local library.

The Dickens novel is a great favorite of mine. It got me through a difficult period of my life over twenty years ago. My mother had just died unexpectedly and I found myself orphaned and un-morred at 29! I was also realizing that booze was taking over my life and that I would have to stop. I did. Stop. I got a lot of laughter and a lot of joy out of the Dickens novel. Around this time Broadway was abuzz from the Royal Shakespeare Company's 8 hour version of Nicholas Nickleby, and the $100 seat prize was a scandal (quaint today). I saw the TV version of this outing and loved it. But the Calvacanti version, billed as "the first talking film of Dickens's novel"-had the wonderfully stone faced-British actors and the over the top Vincent Crummles (Mr and Mrs) and the poor all seeing Smike.

About Smike. He was played by the British actor Aubrey Woods, then 20 years old. About ten years ago, after a Met Opera Quiz appearance where I was no doubt pompously talking about Jean de Rezske, I got a letter forwarded to me by the Met from Aubrey Woods-the British actor who was a fan of the Met broadcasts as heard on the BBC. We had a short and pithy correspondence and at one point he sent me the pages of the guest book he kept in his home: Larry Olivier, Dorothy Tutin, Ralph Richardson, Margot Fonteyn and Princess Margaret are among those who came to stay and left greetings. These letters and pages from Mr Woods were my closest brush with the famous. Perhaps infamous after English country weekends, if one believe the old novels and faux-old Mahsterpeice Theatre programs. Never mind. Mr Woods was gracious and kind and seeing his younger self in a classic film version of a beloved book, both funny and sad and above all entertaining, was a treat. Thank you, Aubrey Woods. I'm off to re- read Nicholas Nickleby.

Listening

If there were ever a Bravo TV show called Classical Music CD Hoarders I could easily be the star, only because lately I can't see my phone of the filthy, sticky, coffee ringed desktop for the piles of CD awaiting...what? This must be ADD-a compulsion to listen to all of these, and to keep adding to the pile through trips to a down the hall immense CD library. OK, its part of my job to be "up" on this stuff. It's actually part of my job to blog CD reviews as well, as to at least pretend to know what I'm talking about. In the past few days I've done some rather eclectic listening. It's true, I've had to multi -task, but here's a sample of today's listening:

Handel: FARAMONDO, an opera from 1738 that went unperformed for 260 years. Now its coming to Ohio state, with performances later this month. I'm putting it on the air May 15 and have been asked to do pre- curtain talks for it the OSU production, which will be the American staged premiere. I know Handel and I know some Handel operas, but only today I've made some headway to the first Act of Faramondo. Its a plot to defeat Jerry Springer, as is most baroque opera-with gorgeous music. Thank God-I guess-there's only one recording, and that only one year old-of music by Handel!-so I don't feel compelled to wade through comparisons.

Tchaikovsky: Symphony 4, Philadelphia Orchestra, cond. Riccardo Muti. I suggest you not read heavy-in all senses- biographies of Tchaikovsky on the StairMaster. Not that there's anything wrong with that. I have a Doctorate in Music and I'm supposed to be right at home with pages and pages (and pages) of musical analysis of ALL of this composer's music. (I skip over those pages, nearly all of them to get to the juicy personal bits, which are actually very depressing, all the while StairMaster-ing away) But the author went on so enthusiastically about the 4th symphony--I'm only up to 1877-that I wanted to hear it again. I'm glad I did.

Joseph Schwantner: AFTERTONES OF INFINITY JS is coming in to do some interviews. He's in town for the local premiere of his new work, Chasing the Light. I like what I've seen of him on youtube, and he sounds like a nice guy over the phone. No recording yet of Chasing the Light, so I went through what we have. Lots of flute. Not very good for me or my nerves, but Aftertone of Infinity makes we want to know more about Schwantner and his music.

Tchaikovsky: LITURGY OF ST JOHN CHRYSOSTOM seem above, with the reference to the StairMaster.

Wagner: DIE MEISTERSINGER. God forgive me, I just don't get it. I really try. I listened to Act I because I'm airing the whole opera-over TWO Saturdays, and its being performed in Cincinnati this summer. I'll be going. Why not? It's so seldom given and I need to get with the Wagner message (I love Lohengrin, Parsifal and Tannhauser)

BENITA VALENTE, soprano, Schubert, Handel, Obradors, Brahms, Wolf. Gorgeous. Wonderful. Perfect. Beautiful. Thank God.

STILL ON THE PILE

Rimsky-Korsakov: The Tsar's Bride...I want to get into some Russian opera. Tchaikovsky's The Maid of Orleans, too.

Brahms: Piano concerto 1--CSO performances next week, the last of the season. I'm doing the talks. Gotta bone up. I'm listening to Peter Serkin, who is playing it here.

Bartok: Concerto for Orchestra...see above. REALLY bone up. Have one of the Karajan Berlin Phil recordings (How many did he do? Twelve? Thirteen?) This will be fun to talk up, playing up the Koussevitsky connection..
OH and today I ordered from AMAZON "Carmen" with Anna Moffo and Franco Corelli (I know, I know. Horrified fascination) "Fidelio" with Gwyneth Jones, James King and Karl Bohm -I wore out the LPS I had as a kid-and Joyce Di Donato's Salute to Isabella Colbran. And the new Orhpee et Euridice with Juan Diego Florez is already here...somewhere.

Hans Fallada: Every Man Dies Alone

This remarkable, disturbing, upsetting book puts you right down in the middle of Nazi Germany and in an almost unforgiving way it keeps you there. Every word of that horrible time rings true in this novel, more than any documentary film or Hollywood treatment or grainy footage of marching soldiers and little men with big salutes ever could. I'll say little else except to recommend this book, and to offer an excerpt:

In the course of his morning walk, which lasted from ten to eleven, Dr. Reichardt would sing to himself. Generally he confined himself to humming softly, because a lot of the warders wouldn't allow it, and Quangel got used to listening to his humming. Whatever his poor opinion of music, he did notice its effect on him. Sometimes it made him feel strong and brave enough to endure any fate, and then Reichardt would say "Beethoven". Sometimes it made him feel bafflingly lighthearted and cheerful, which he had never been in his life, and then Reichardt would say, "Mozart", and Quangel would forget all about his worries. And sometimes the sounds emanating from the doctor were dark and heavy,and Quangel would feel a pain in the chest, and it would be as though he was a little boy again siting in church with his mother, with something grand, the whole of life ahead of him, and then Reichardt would say, "Johann Sebastian Bach."

--pp.426-427, Every Man Dies Alone by Hans Fallada

A Gift

A gift of getting older is the ability to finally forgive your parents, and hope that your children will finally forgive YOU!

On listening to Parsifal

We're coming up to Holy Week and I find myself non -church affiliated these days (is that even a term?) But as I age I am drawn more to the contemplative in music. The Donizetti-Bellini can still thrill but I'm more sustained now by Wagner and Bruckner (Monteverdi will always be a great love for his mixture of piety and eroticism) Years ago when living in New York I made it a habit to see Parsifal whenever it was being done at the Met. For me, unless Texaco was picking up the tab-which they did once, with brunch yet-that meant upstairs standing room. Two dollars back in the day. You could easlily touch the rotting gold leaf on the Met's ceiling. Friends and I used to walk in with sandwiches and beer. No bag checksor exams in those more relaxed days!

We needed the sustenance for Parsifal. Let's not kid ourtselves. It's nearly five hours. I never found Parsifal long in the way I still find Die Meistersinger or Siegfried. From those first muted chords in the darkness, I was always enthralled. Parsifal always began in total darkness, with the music rising up out of the pit and up, way up into the air, above the dirty ceiling and bottles of beer of those of us standing. Remember too, no titles in those days. I never knew this opera well enough to know what they were singing. German is not my language, except for the ocassional 'ach so!' and 'recht gut!' I looked up "Der reiner Thor (the innocent fool), and "Wein und Brot" was easy enoguh. But the music itself cast a spell. I know Tristan is Wagner at his most devastating, driving people nuts with its delayed and sometiems absent resoultions. Parsifal has always taken me to a deeper place, more of contementmet and a kind of cathartic sadness. I looked forward to Parsifal every year-I was drinking beer in those days so it may have helped, no more-and always left contented, feeling I've had an experience akin to worship in preparation for Easter. And mine was a pretty profane life back then.

My Parisfals were Jon Vickers and Timthy Jenkins (who alas died young) Placido Doming came a bit later. Vicker's cry of "Amfortas! Die Wunde!" still frightens me and I last heart in in 1984! My Guremanzes (?Gurnemanzen?) were Kurt Moll or James Morris...Simon Estes was Amfortas (how I wish I could have experienced Goerge London!) and Kundry was Tatiana Troyanos or Leonie Rysanek. Many of them are in heaven now, presumably, Morris and Domingo God love them soldier on. Levine condcuted. I remember his balance between music and emotion was perfect. He never wallowed and he never allowed the drama to sag or get lost. He knew we needed the hedonistic Act II and we got it. And the magnificent Met orchestra and chorus. For $2 in stnadin room and you didn't mind bringing your own beer.

I can't get to the Met anymore. Youtube, the web, and my own collections bring me Parsifal from 1936 in Buenos Aires, 1951 Bayreuth, the 50s and 60s, Vienna, Levine, Domingo, and my touchstone, the 1962 Bayreuth performance with Knappertsbusch conducting London, Thomas, Dalis and Hans Hotter. Hotter's may be the most beautiful voice I've heard on a man. Ah! It is good to get older!

Samuel Barber

This is Samuel Barber's 100th birthday. He died in 1981. His was a long career and his was the career of creativity in classical music in America. In American music. Meaning that, to me, while he embraced his predecessors, like Ravel and Satie, like Brahms and Stravinsky, he didn't need them. Barber brought a European sophistication to an American-democratic "get out there and do it because ain't nobody gonna do it for you" ethos. Virgil Thomson used the French models in music often to snobbish ends, to parse down his audiences. Barber, who at firs could be less listener friendly, did the opposite. He used dance, rhythm and texture to draw people in. Barbe's music lifts up. A good example of this is the warmth of his violin concerto. It does without a lot of slash and burn until the final movement, the "perpetual motion' composed to satisfy the commission-people wanted show off for show off sake and I don't think Barber knew how to do that.

The world knows Samuel Barber for his Adagio for Strings. It's said that Toscanini encouraged the young composer to orchestrate part of his String Quartet-hence the Adagio, which the Italian conductor pronounced 'semplice e bella" Simple and beautiful. Indeed. Barber worked well in several genres. I'm especially partial to his songs, and to his three short choral pieces 'Reincarnations' to poetry by James Stephens. I like his opera 'Vanessa' very much, and I really admire 'Antony and Cleopatra'. The failure of this work, written to open the Metropolitan Opera House in 1966, ruined Samuel Barber's life. He lived another fifteen years but his productivity fell off, and he grappled with alcoholism and depression. Still, the composer of the Adagio, of Hermit Songs, The Essays for Orchestra, a 1961 Piano Concerto written for John Browning and the opening Lincoln Center-the composer of the sublime Knoxville, Summer of 1915 and the very grand Antony and Cleopatra, this composer, Samuel Barber, deserves a statue. Better yet, more and more performances! Don't just sit there. Go to youtube and type in his name. Listen (watch) Enjoy.

Attila

I've had the pleasure over the past few weeks of actually sitting down and listening to the live broadcasts from the Met. There was a beautiful La Boheme on February 27, and then this past Saturday the Met's broadcast premiere of Verdi's Attila. Hard to believe a big Verdi opera has waited 150 years to be done by America's preeminent opera company. Attila is no stranger to New York: it was a staple at the New York City Opera with Samuel Ramey for many years from he early 1980s, and as Mr. Ramey approaches retirement age he took on the cameo role of Leone in the Met production, a nice "pass of the torch" gesture.

What a great opera! I hadn't heard Attila in a long time and I've missed something. There are starkly beautiful religious chants, big, wonderfully nasty cabalettas for the warrior Odabella, bel canto line and beauty for he baritone Ezio and some nice soprano-tenor duets. Foresto, the tenor is one of Verdi's few supporting tenor roles, but the Met did it justice by casting the wonderful Ramon Vargas.

This was the first time I had heard Ildar Abdrazakov, the young bass (33!) who sang the title tole. Like Ramey in his prime, who owned this opera for my generation, Mr. Abdrakazov has a large voice with plenty of beauty, a deep, pleasing presence that he never sacrificed to make dramatic points. He didn't have to. With Ricardo Muti conducting-in HIS Met debut!- the balance was perfect between Verdi's long melodic lines and the crash and dash moments that give the opera its forward momentum. What I loved was how Muti-and thus everyone-respected and loved this work, for all of its violence we heard two hours of great MUSIC,beautifully made.

I can't comment on the production because I heard it without seeing it. What I heard was an afternoon of superb music making, being re-introduced to an early Verdi opera, like encountering a past girlfriend from long ago and finding her aged but in every way alluring. Bravo.

The recording of this broadcast will make the rounds. Meanwhile, don't forget the first modern stereo recording of Attila, conducted by Lamberto Gardelli, with Ruggero Raimondi, Sherrill Milnes, Carlo Bergonzi and Cristina Deutekom. Muti's recording has Samuel Ramey, Giorgio Zancanaro and Cheryl Studer from La Scala, and I believe there's a DVD with this cast, too. No excuses! Go find Attila!

In case you're wondering......

There seems to be some shmutz going on with this blog and all the nonsense spammy comments with no relevance to what I'm posting,etc. Just skip over 'em. Sorry.

Alexandra

I've just watched a film I liked very much, "Alexandra" filmed in Chechnya in 2006 by Director Alexander Sokurov. It's the story of an old woman who leaves her home in St. Petersburg and travels to Chechnya-at war with Russia, invaded by them-to visit her grandson who is part of the occupying Russian army. I didn't realize the searing political implications of this film until I watched the press conference with the director and leading actress after seeing the movie. "Alexandra" is much more controversial, indeed politically loaded than I even now realize-I'm just responding to the powerful imagery and the simplicity of the story.

The film stars Galina Vishnevskaya. She is the widow of the Russian cellist conductor Mstislav Rostropovich. For many yeas, Vishnevskaya ("Galina Pavlova") was the leading soprano of the Bolshoi Opera-the most famous of all Russian singers since the 1950s. I recall her concerts in Boston of all Russian music, with Rostropovich at the piano-shortly after the couple was expelled from Russia in the 1970s for sheltering Solzhenitsyn. Vishnevskaya was a tall, slim, stunning dark haired woman. People play at being a diva. She WAS. Not in "Alexandra". She's a frumpy, dowdy old lady, moving slowly and achingly through the desert heat-reprimanding her grandson for a dirty uniform but taking remaining unimpressed by the privations around her and the military hierarchy. At the press conference the director said, "I warned Galina Pavlova that the conditions of making this film in Chechnya, in the 120 degree heat would be terrible, and she told me that she had survived the blockade of Leningrad in the 1940s. She could survive this."

Alexandra is a film of understatement that finds beauty in a desolate physical setting. The heart of the film is when an old Chechnyan woman in the market place clucks over Alexandra's exhaustion, takes her home and makes her a cup of tea. Its that simple and that moving. I had heard about this move and I had seen stills of the imperious and stunning Vishnevskaya playing a lady her own age but from a very different walk of life. In the distance, one in a great while you hear a woman singing but it is indistinct-Vishnevskaya is not necessarily the leading character. There is on one leading character. You pay attention to the soldiers, the elderly, the kids, the desert, the tanks, the guns and futility and uselessness of it all. But when I think of Vishnevskaya as Tosca or Tatiana I will add the elderly Alexandra to my list of unforgettable portraits, and this one is without music.

The Great Dawn Powell

I suspect most of us would never had heard of Dawn Powell without the efforts of her biographer, Tim Page, who not only wrote a scrupulous biography of this heretofore neglected writer, but also published her diaries and volumes of her letters. Dawn Powell was a small town girl from Ohio who made good in New York around World War I. She remained a devoted New Yorker for the rest of her life (1896-1965). Her sixteen novels divide evenly between those set in rural Ohio, and those set in Manhattan. The locations may vary, but Powell's biting wit, humor and unapologetic style remain in the forefront. I warn you, Dawn Powell's writing is addictive. Don't believe me?

LETTER TO CHARLOTTE JOHNSON January, 12, 1919

If I have ugly babies I am going to kill them. Unless they happen to have a rich father. Then I might let them live a few years to see just what sort of numb skulls they develop into...Beauty is after all the only thing in the world that matters-not mental or spiritual beauty or any of that lying rot, but splendid physical beauty-healthy or unhealthy beauty so long as it is beauty.

_______________

Well now. That throws down the gauntlet, doesn't it? Here are some excerpts from her diary:

June 22, 1934

I am lost without a novel. Those plays confuse me with their hysterical bursts into my life. A novel is like a gland pill--it nips of the cream of my hysterics and gets them running on track in a book where they belong instead of rioting all over my person.

June 22, 1965

Most important thing for a novelist is curiosity and how curious that so many of them lack it. They seem self absorbed, family absorbed, success absorbed, but the new social climbing writer professes indifference to the people across the aisle, the noise from the next apartment, as if a gentleman does not concern himself with things not his business.

LETTER TO HER COUSIN JACK SHERMAN June, 1931

As for New York City, it's the only place where people with nothing behind them but their wits can be and do anything. A young man, particularly with a tuxedo and decent manners, can go anyplace, be welcomed in the ritziest circles and even fought over by debutantes. All he needs to do is act wise...men are too scarce for girls to care whether they were brought up anywhere. The chief difference between New York and everyplace else in the world is that you brag of your early struggles-how you worked on the section or delivered ice and your folks were mountain whites or blacks-and everybody brought up at Harvard or Vassar or in convents abroad is very envious and hates their folks for always coddling them....

From THE BRIDE'S HOUSE published 1929

Buggies and wagons lined the streets of the self satisfied little town, flew flags, bands played parading down the street, Civil war veterans marched and a group of youngsters bore a Loyal Temperance Legion banner and sang, "Saloons, saloons, saloons must go!" But on the contrary saloons had sprung up overnight to meet the country's annual thirst. A fragrant alcoholic haze hung over the town, and tented the entire fairgrounds. Streets were giddy with laughter and the shrill voices and megaphoned speeches of visiting politicians. There were clusters of starched white and flying ribbons here and there, groups of rosy farm girls giggling and ogling each passing man. By nighttime the groups, with good luck, would be scattered, each girl giggling with an awkward young man in some tree shaded buggy behind the fair grounds, hysterically sipping from a jug of corn whiskey and abandoning herself to private yearnings. The wretched little frame hotels, supported comfortably all year by a half a dozen traveling salesmen, now bulged with guests and window shades were drawn night and day, boasting of the iniquity of their bedrooms. Carnival gods rode over the city and sprinkled the orthodox with their confetti.

From A TIME TO BE BORN, published 1942

This was a time when the artists,the intellectuals, sat in cafes and in country homes and accused each other over their brandies or their California vintages of traitorous tendencies. This was a time for them to band together in mutual antagonism, a time to bury the professional hatchet, if possible in each other, a time to stare at their flower arrangements, children bathing, and privately to weep, "What good is it? Who cares now?" The poet, disgusted with the flight of skylarks in perfect sonnet form, declaimed the power of song against brutality and raised hollow voice in feeble reproof. This was no time for beauty, for love, or private future; this was the time for ideals and quick profits on them before the world turned to reality and the drabber opportunities. What good for a new soprano to sing 'Vissi d'arte, vissi d'amore?' What good for eager young students to make their bows? There was no future. Everyone waited, marked time, waited. For what? On Fifth Avenue and fifty-seventh hundreds waited for a man in a hotel window ledge to jump' hundreds waited with craning necks and thirsty faces as if this single person's final gesture would solve the riddle of the world. Civilization stood on a ledge, and in the tension of waiting it was a relief to have one little man jump.

George Jellinek

George Jellinek was the kindest man I ever knew. I did not know him well, or for very long, but he was enormously generous in sharing his knowledge, not only of vocal music but of the humanities, of LIFE, and he always spoke to me as if I were his peer, and that I will never be. George died a few days ago at the age of 90. A friend pointed out to me in my sadness, "that was ninety years very well lived" and he's right. Very well lived in the sense of providing education and enjoyment to thousands from his wonderful radio series The Vocal Scene, originating at his home base, WQXR is New York, and achieving a long productive life in syndication. Today, George would be blogging and posting all over the web and boy would we be lucky.

I met George in the early 1980s. I was trying to figure out what to do after grad school at NYU. I lived in a dump, and had funky and delightful friends (many now gone and that's another reason for tears)and sold records (RECORDS not yet CDs) at Barnes and Noble on 5th Avenue. I found myself a panelist on the august Texaco Opera Quiz-the story how THAT happened is told elsewhere on this blog. (Type Richard Mohr in the search engine)There I was with Edward Downes, Alberta Masiello, Father Owen Lee, the most articulate and intelligent of people, and with George Jellinek. I was a devotee of the vocal scene (YOU should have been) and had read his biography of Maria Callas, which apparently had not annoyed that lady. George was modest and kind. He never let me feel like I was a kid record salesman with no right to be there. Quite the contrary (and this was true of every person I ever encountered on the Met Quiz over twenty years). George didn't care I was wearing a borrowed suit and had to leave before the last act of "Eugene Onegin" to work the evening shift at B&N. He and his dear wife Hedy fed me occasionally and took me to concerts I never could have approached on my $200/week. Victoria de los Angeles at the Manhattan School of Music was unforgettable, as was her very warm embrace of George and Hedy after the performance and her smile at me, as if she knew I was lucky to be in their presence rather than hers...and I was.

George wrote two more books in his later years. "History Through the Opera Glass" is indispensable for those who love Don Carlo or Boris Godunov and what to know what REALLY happened. "My Road to Radio and The Vocal Scene: Memoirs of an Opera Commentator" takes him from refugee to radio star (he'd shake his head at that description). I recommend both warmly. Even better, listen to recordings of your favorite operas and your favorite singers, enjoy them, think of George and fall in love with the music all over again. That would be a lovely tribute to a lovely man.

Nelson Eddy

To Whom It May Concern:

I have just had the pleasure of listening to an interview that Christopher Purdy did with Kaye Ballard (www.wosu.org/interviews). I am co-authoring a biography of the late Nelson Eddy. Based on information Mr. Purdy imparted during the interview I would like to contact Mr. Purdy to ask some questions about about information he may have, or may have been told during other interviews about Mr. Eddy

Thank you.
JH

Dear JH:

Thank you for your recent e mail concerning my 2007 interview with Kaye Ballard. I don't remember talking about Nelson Eddy with Ms. Ballard-perhaps we did, I haven't heard the interview in a while. I did enjoy Ms. Ballard enormously!

Concerning Nelson Eddy, here's a bit form my blog-a review of Mr. Eddy's concert in Boston's Symphony Hall in April of 1940. The writer is Edward Downes (1911-2001) who at the time was music critic of the Boston Evening Transcript. Edward was the son of NY Times chief critic Olin Downes (1886-1955). I got to know Edward through the Metropolitan Opera broadcast intermsisions when he was the host of the popular weekly 'Texaco Opera Quiz'. I was a panelist for a number of years. Edward, in fact was the subject of my DMA thesis here at Ohio State.

NELSON EDDY
April 3, 1940

Nelson Eddy, famous all American baritone of the stage, screen and ether waves, gave a recital last night in Symphony Hall which began with Albert Hay Lamotte's setting of Shelly's "Ode to a Skylark" and ended with "The Lord's Prayer", set to music by the same intrepid composer. The program informed us "Of all vocal compositions, Lamotte's setting of The Lord's Prayer is requested most often, a significant indication of the reverence of a people who know how to turn to God." This last confused us considerably. Does it mean the real way to turn to God is to write a fan letter to Nelson Eddy asking him to sing "The Lord's Prayer"? Or does it mean that the number of requests for this kind of vocal composition is a kind of barometer of the devoutness of the American public?

I'm afraid this review is not very flattering. A man who performed Wozzeck and sang in the movies proved his chops!

Good luck on your book, and thank you for contacting me.

Christopher Purdy

Dear Mr. Purdy:

Thank you for my inquiry. It is much appreciated.

Just to clarify--you didn't mention Nelson Eddy during your interview with Kaye Ballard. The item that caught my interest was when you made the comment that you "teach opera" and how unaware students are when you play "old stuff" for them. Based on that comment, I was hoping you might have conducted an interview with someone at some time when Nelson was discussed. Barring that, I wanted to ask your assessment of Nelson's voice and talent and possibly ask for your comment on how he, too has been relegated to obscurity.

While conducting research and interviews, I have had the good luck to be able to talk with Lillian Murphy and her husband Earl William Sauvain. I wonder if you have any comments or thoughts about either of these individuals or their talents.

Thank you for the link to your blog. I have read the review of Nelson's concert written by Edward Downes. Although you are correct it is "not very flattering", it seems Mr. Downes went to that concert for the sole purpose of finding something negative to write about. I find it humorous that the only thing he could find was information written in the program. His review never addressed the quality of the concert or Nelson's performance. It would appear he couldn't find anything negative to say about hem, so he simply didn't comment on them but chose to make nasty little innuendoes implying Nelson must have thought of himself as God. Mr. Downes was not being fair to anyone with this review-including his readers.

JH

Dear JH

Edward Downes's papers are at Boston University. I went through them after his death. The only snarky mail I found from his days as a music critic concerned the Nelson Eddy review. There were a few notes, well preserved for sixty years, objecting to Edward's attitude toward a concert that was probably sold to the walls and well enjoyed. In person Edward was a bit of an aesthete with high standards. Still, his tone is surprising. Nelson Eddy, as you know better than me, had a very distinguished career in opera before he went to Hollywood. He studied with David Bispham, the first American born baritone to have an international carer in opera. Eddy not only did the bread and butter operas, but sang leads in the American premieres of Ariadne auf Naxos, Wozzeck, and Maria Egiziaca. This was no dilettante.

One more Edward Downes story. He lived most of his life in New York's Dakota apartments. Forty years ago he was on the board, and was asked to interview prospective new tenants, a couple who were musicians. They came for tea, barefooted and needing a bath. But he liked them and they were allowed to buy into the building. He liked John Lennon and Yoko Ono--this was in 1969, immediately post Beatles, and he had no clue who they were. He died at 90 in the apt. upstairs from Yoko Ono, who today owns most of the building. (To his credit, Edward always enjoyed telling this story on himself!)

You can't make this stuff up.

CP

Sam Savage

I know very little about the writer Sam Savage, author of two terrific novels. I read them in reverse order. The second, "The Cry of the Sloth" was one of my favorites for 2009. I just read his first novel, "Firmin", the autobiography of a rat who lived in a bookstore in Scollay Square. Where? Scollay Square was a Boston neighborhood that was bulldozed, completely wiped out, in the late 1950s to make way for the ugly and barren Government Center. Scollay Square was home to pimps, hookers, thieves, strippers, sailors, crooks and the like. As such it was the bustling heart of the city, the alternative to sometimes chilly Friday afternoons in Symphony Hall. (A digression: My mother's first cousin, Mary Elizabeth Corbett, became the voluptuous Marie Cord, headliner at the majestic and infamous Old Howard, complete with swinging tassels. Go ahead, laugh. Marie died young on Christmas Day 1963, but to this day her elderly siblings live in a fine house she bought and paid for). Firmin, our rat friend, is not only born in a bookstore-in a nest made of shredded bits of Moby Dick, but he becomes a voracious reader himself. He eats up great books, often literally. He falls in love with Ginger Rogers, whose films he sees regularly at the Rialto Theater-which becomes a porno house at the stroke of each midnight. Firmin also falls in love with Norman, proprietor of the bookshop, but Norman resorts to rat poison and that's the end of THAT Romance. Ultimately Firmin is adopted by the down at heel writer and philosopher Jerry Magoon, who likes rats. Alas, the street life catches up with our Jerry and finishes him off. Leaving Firmin in a cleaned up neighborhood devoid of interest and humanity-the very qualities this novel has in abundance!

All I know about Sam Savage is what I read in his brief author bio: advanced degrees from Yale, born 1940 in South Carolina, now living in Madison Wisconsin. He's a complete original. Read "Firmin" and "The Cry of the Sloth"-put them on your Best Book list of 2010. Thanks Sam, whoever you are!

Here's an excerpt:

And you don't have to believe stories to love them. I love all stories. I love the progression of beginning, middle and end. I love the slow accumulation of meaning, the misty landscapes of the imagination, the mazy walks, the wooded sleeps, the reflecting pools, the tragic twists and comic stumbles. The only literature I cannot abide is rat literature. Including mouse literature. I despise good natured old Ratty in The Wind in the Willows. I piss down the throats of Mickey Mouse and Stuart Little. Affable, shuffling, cute they stick in my craw like fish bones.
--Sam Savage, "Firmin" pp.37-38 Coffee House Press

Books in 2009

Early this morning I was reading in bed, it was still dark out but it was time to get going. I had 10 pages left to read of John Irving's new novel Last Night in Twisted River. I'll get back to it tonight. I loved this book. John Irving rules!

Also on my reading table:
To Serve Them All My Days by R.L. Delderfield
-a World War I vet's life teaching in an English public school

and

Ted Kennedy's autobiography, "True Compass"

and the books I've finished most recently I've really loved:

Jane Eyre-Charlotte Bronte

The Humbling, Phillip Roth. I'm not much of a Roth fan, although I did like The Human Stain and The Plot Against America. But I loved The Humbling, the story of what it means to be an artist. This short novel made me run out and re read Isaak Dinesen's sublime Babette's Feast, then I read The Humbling again.

My most unforgettable books in 2009:

The Humbling-Phillip Roth
Jane Eyre-Charlotte Bronte
No Future Without Forgiveness-Desmond Tutu
The Help-Kathryn Stockett
An Infinity of Little Hours-Nancy Klein Maguire
Zeitoun-Dave Eggers
Last Night in Twisted River-John Irving
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WHAT DID YOU READ IN 2009? LET ME KNOW!
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These are the books I read in 2009. *= a favorite

Thomas Beecham, An Obsession with Music--John Lucas
The Reluctant Fundamentalist-Moshin Hamid
War as They Knew It-Rosenberg
Chic-Bob Hunter (OSU football great Chic Harley)

Homeboy-Seth Morgan

Laura Keene -V. Bryon (Keene was the actress manager on stage at Ford's Theatre the night Lincoln was shot, starring in "Our American Cousin". There was a lot to her story).

Moth Smoke-Moshin Hamid
Mrs. Astor Regrets-Meryl Gordon

The Ayatollah Begs to Differ: The Paradox of Modern Iran--Homan Madj
Love,Work, Children-Cheryl Mendelssohn
The Scarlet Letters-Louis Auchincloss

Embracing the Wide Sky-Daniel Tamnent
Verdi-Julian Budden

Cakes and Ale-Somerset Maugham
*Push-Sapphire
*Animals Make Us Human-Temple Grandin
In Spite of Myself-Christopher Plummer

*No Future Without Forgiveness-Desmond Tutu
War Journal-Richard Engel
Theatre-Somerset Maugham

*An Evil Cradling-Brian Keenan-an Irishman kidnapped in the Middle East

Victor Fleming-Michael Sgrabin-the bio of the director of The Wizard of Oz and Gone With the Wind

Lincoln-Gore Vidal
The Violent Bears it Away-Flannery O'Connor
Flannery O'Connor-Brad Gooch

Inside the Recording Studio-Peter Andry

*The Last Dickens-Matthew Pearl unfolding the mystery of "The Mystery of Edwin Drood"

*The Believers-Zoe Heller
Murder in the Marais-Cora Black
Rough Weather-Robert Parker

Falconer-John Cheever
*Cutting for Stone-Abraham Verghese
Cheever-Blake Bailey

White Heat: Emily Dickinson and Thomas Higginson-Brenda Wineapple
Music Therapy: Death and Grief-Chava Sekeles

Now or Never-Jack Cafferty
The Lady Elizabeth-Alison Weir

"*The Unlikely Disciple-Kevin Roose-undercover at a fundamentalist Christian university

The Sound of Freedom: Marian Anderson and the Lincoln Memorial-Raymond Arsenault
The Last Lion: Ted Kennedy -ed. Boston Globe

Manic-Terry Cleary

*Joseph P. Kennedy Presents-Cari Beauchamp--the patriarch's years in Hollywood, with and without Gloria Sanson

*Columbine-Dave Cullen harrowing

*The Help-Kathryn Stockett. READ THIS BOOK

Go Down Together-The Story of Bonnie and Clyde--Jeff Guinn

*Closing Time-Joe Queenan

*Brooklyn-Colm Toibin
The Gardner Heist-Ulrich Boser

*An Infinity of Little Hours-Nancy Klein Maguire-the lives of Cistercian monks in England. Magnificent book.

Dead Line -Brian McGrory
*Gabriel Garcia Marquez-Gerald Martin
Horse Boy-Rupert Isaacson
Peace Mom-Cindy Sheehan

Requiem Mass-Dufresne
A Whole New Mind-Daniel Pink hope for those of us who are right brained!

*The Unit-Nikki Holmquist

A Drink Before Dying-Dennis Lehane

Remembering Laughter-Wallace Stegner
Losing Mum and Pup-Christopher Buckley
Crossing to Safety-Wallace Stegner

Strange Child of Chaos: Norman Treigle-Brian Morgan

*The Speed Queen-Stewart O'Nan

Answered Prayers-Truman Capote
Father Joe-Tony Hendra

*Parallel Play-Tim Page a struggle with Asperger syndrome
A Pale View of Hills-Kazuko Ishiguro

*A singer's Silent Sounds-Linda Esther Gray-what happens to an opera star who loses her voice

Siegfried-Harry Mulish--what if Hitler had a son?
Homer and Langley-E.L. Doctorow

The Confessions of Edward Day-Valerie Martin
The Biographer's Tale-A.S. Byatt

*The Cry of the Sloth-Sam Savage-a compulsive letter writer and curmudgeon. My type of fella!

That Old Cape Magic-Richard Russo

Born Round-Frank Bruni
Tenors-John Potter
This is Where I leave You-Trotter

Strength in What Remains-Tracy Kidder
*Zeitoun-Dave Eggers--one family survives Katrina
The Queen Mother-Hugo Vickers

Intervention-Robin Cook

The Mammy-Brendan O'Carroll
The Friends of Eddie Coyle-George Higgins
Busted-Art Schlicter

*Wolf Hall-Hilary Patel Man Booker prize winner-the life of Thomas Cromwell at the dangerous court of Henry VIII

A Strange Eventful History: Henry Irving, Ellen Terry and Gordon Craig--Michael Holyroyd

*Jane Eyre-Charlotte Bronte
Sinatra-Anthony Summers
*The Humbling-Phillip Roth
Put Out the Flags-Evelyn Waugh
*Invisible-Paul Auster

*Practicing Catholic-James Carroll

*Last Night in Twisted River-John Irving

*Firmin-Sam Savage-READ THIS

Offical Book Club Selection-Kathy Griffin

Lit-Mary Carr

New York Trilogy-Paul Auster

The Man Who Saved Christmas-Les Standiford

John Irving's "Last Night in Twisted River"

I love John Irving's books and this new one is a honey. What I especially admire among Irving's themes is the profound love between fathers and sons. Especially the concern and protectionism of an older father to a growing son. None of this Oedipal crap that gets in the way. I understand John Irving didn't know anything about his own biological father-who had been a war hero during WWII-until very recently, and that Irving has three boys of his own. Lucky boys.

I'm further attracted in "Last Night in Twisted River" by advice given to writers:

"In the media, real life was more important than fiction; those elements of a novel that were, at least, based on personal experience were of more interest to the general public than those pieces of the novel writing process that were 'merely' made up. In any work of fiction, weren't those things that really happened to the writer-or perhaps, to someone the writer had intimately known-more authentic, more verifiably true, than anything anyone could imagine? (This was a common belief, even though a fiction writer's job was imagining, truly, a whole story-as Danny had subversively said, whenever he was given the opportunity to defend the fiction in fiction writing-because real life stories were never whole, never complete in the ways novels could be.)"
John Irving, Last Night in Twisted River, pp. 372-373

Cardinal Cushing

Richard Cardinal Cushing (1895-1970) was archbishop of Boston during my Boston Irish Catholic youth. I remember him as the ancient gravelly voiced prelate rumbling the rosary of the radio. He seemed to have a gift for public relations and established a power base in my politically minded hometown. He wasn't afraid of controversy and he was known as good copy. I remember during the busing riots in Boston in the mid 70s, after his death, my parents saying "Cushing would walk right into Southie and tell them all to knock it off." He was known as a friend of the Kennedys (surprisingly, not always a good thing in Boston) and his support of Jacqueline Kennedy at her marriage to Onassis was cited as contributing to his resignation in 1968--his resignation was not accepted by the Vatican, which continued to criticize the President's widow. Cushing was said to me discouraged and angered at the volume of hate mail he received in support of her.

I thought of Cardinal Cushing again while reading "Practising Catholic" by James Carroll. A lot it is a re evaluation of Cushing, who if remembered at all is as a sodden old man. Cushing stood up to the conservative movements tying to overtake Vatican II. He complained loudly when the sessions were conducted in Latin. He wouldn't tolerate the anti Semitic rants of Father Feeney and he practically invented the dialogue between Catholicism and other faiths. Cushing's sister was married to a Jew-very dicey in Boston 80 years ago-and the Cardinal's love for his sister and her husband enabled him to face down criticism and hierarchical nonsense and embrace people as he found them. No Nulla salus ex Ecclesia for this Ironmonger's son. If Cushing himself wasn't a comfortable man he made Catholicism a structure to embrace all of humanity. Yes, he took the Nuns to the Dodge 'em cars at Nantasket Beach-he dodged the Curia too, and seemed to remember the working people who made up the church in his day. I'm sure he would have hit abusive clergy right up side the head, and they woulda been history, goddammit!

Cardinal Cushing awaits a serious biographer.

What do you read in the gym?

Readers of this blog will know of my misadventure last year in moving a large, heavy, bulky elliptical machine from the top of my house to the bottom. Suffice it to say that unlike Humpty Dumpty, who I otherwise resemble, the machine was put back together again and had a few more good months before a final collapse. It is now in pieces, in the basement, with cobwebs and worse, like the old wreck that rode it for years--me. The old wreck has joined the local gym, the better to abuse the Ellipticals (ellipticii?) Stairmasters, Precors or whatever over there. The sight of me growling and huffing away resembles a polar bear in acute bowel distress no doubt, but I at least try to read while running, the better to improve my mid while my girth grows, Elliptcii or not.

What do you read in the gym? I've found that trash and smut work best, but I'm, usually too embarrassed to take my own advice. Recently, "The Lost Diary of Mary Queen of Scots" by Erickson had me mired in chick lit lite, historical fantasy with Mary Stuart consorting with Elizabeth I in a mud bath, alas not what you think. This was too fuzzy (muddy?) even for me, but I did finish the book. Better was Anthony Summers's bio of Frank Sinatra. Our Tony (!) has mafia on the brain, and the best bedfellows weren't Mia or Ava Gardner but Sam Giancana with the Kennedys. Who needs Marilyn?

Michael Holyrood's very, very long book about Henry Irving and Ellen Terry and Gordon Craig and all their friends and relations over 100 years of the British and European theatre (re please, theatre) was, like this sentence, long, long, long. I kept thinking as I pounded away, Are these people ever going to die?! They did. A bio of the Queen Mum was okay, if you like twee and lilacs. I kept hoping she'd beat up a chamber maid or do a hit and run on the Duchess of Windsor or at least spill a little of the pink gin, but no. William Shawcross's new 1000 page "authorized" bio of the late Royal Mother is on my list. The papers thanked the abdication crisis for adding a little spice to the sugar, even a spot of bother but that isn't until page 431! I may lose weight on that one. "The Tenors" had the attractive Placido-Luciano-Jose buddy boy photo on the dust jacket, but you'd better want to know about Heddle Nash and the rest of 'em too.

And then there's "Practising Catholic" by James Carroll. He focuses on the 60s,when he was studying for the priesthood with the socially aware Paulist Fathers, and its nice to see a hero made of the Prince of my youth, Richard Cardinal Cushing, who survives today in memory as an irascible old guy with more than a touch of the Irish virus. His diplomatic skills and bloody smarts are shown time and again. Reading light this is not, but a provocative, sometimes infuriating bloody good read it certainly is. Books like this will keep me going to the gym. Tell me I'm losing weight. Go ahead, lie to me!

AIDA in HD

I'm one of those people always yelling that yes, you need to have committed actors for opera and sure it helps I guess if they're good looking but bottom line I want to hear the great voices who understand what they are singing about. And I underline great voices. Like many of us, I grew up on recordings and added the visual element later in life. My opera going days during the 700s and 80s were mostly from standing room way WAAAAY upstairs so my perspective was very different from seeing youtube at my desk (and what a blessing youtube is!)

The Met's HD presentations in movie theaters are changing things. I suspect that many of the productions, staged in the past four or five years were designed to be seen from a closer perspective. Showing the twenty year old Aida gave us close ups of hollow columns that from a distance look spectacular. And then there were the singers.

Look, you need big magnificent voices for Aida. The tenor and the mezzo had 'em. The mezzo owns this music, all over the world. I haven't heard anyone touch her for power. But the camera was not kind to her. The close ups of this princess of Egypt did no one any favors. After all these years her voice is undiminished. It's a force of nature. I don't approve of my attitude in even noticing anything else about her. The tenor is a big BIG boy. A really big boy. I loved the fact that he was unafraid to use the sweetness in his splendid voice for Radames. He really sang the music, and he sounded like a lover. I suspect the experience live in the theater was more powerful than in the cinemas. Again, I'm worried that I even noticed, but up on the big screen, blown up the size of a building people's physicality can't be missed or discounted. I did love our mezzo throwing a few skinny bitch looks to Renee Fleming during an awkward intermission interview. Renee looked great but she can't sing Amneris. Our mezzo...my God!-certainly did!