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Orchestra Regionale Filarmonia Veneta: Rossini nel cuore

August 8, 2026

We were treated to a performance by the Orchestra Regionale Filarmonia Veneta last night in Rovigo’s handsome Piazza Vittorio Emanuele, part of a concert called Rossini nel cuore, held in honor of Rossini, a much-loved local cat who had recently died. The program naturally leaned toward the music of Gioachino Rossini, the composer whose name is inseparably associated with Pesaro, although it also included works by Lehár, Mascagni, Bernstein, and Bizet.

We had spotted Danilo Rossi, the evening’s conductor, sitting at a local café before the concert. Rossi is perhaps better known as a violist than a conductor, having served for 36 years as principal viola of Teatro alla Scala in Milan. He brought an exuberant energy to the podium, particularly in the only piece we were able to hear: the overture to Rossini’s Semiramide.

The concert was scheduled for 9:30 p.m., which proved a little ambitious for the younger concertgoers we had brought with us. By the time Rossi launched into Rossini, they were already well past their bedtime. We therefore had to make our exit after the overture, leaving us unable to hear the singers and the rest of the program.

There was, however, time for a brief speech from the sindaco, who noted that it was International Cat Day and thanked the animal lovers who had come out for the occasion. It was an appropriately Italian mixture of civic ceremony, music, and cats.

The setting was particularly attractive. The orchestra was positioned on a stage in the piazza, with the audience gathered below and around it. The principal drawback was the acoustics. The open-air arrangement made some of the higher and lower registers difficult to hear, and the sound did not always carry with the clarity one would expect inside a concert hall. But this was an outdoor concert in Italy, in a handsome historic square, and it was free. There is only so much complaining one can reasonably do under those circumstances.

Front cover of the Rossini nel cuore concert program in Rovigo — A Cat in the Heart of the City

Still, I was sorry to miss the remainder of the program. The bill included soprano Nao Takeuchi, mezzo-soprano Maria Elena Pepi, and tenor Matteo Urbani, and I would have liked to hear how their voices carried across the piazza.

I wasn’t there, so I don’t feel qualified to comment, but I am told that Rossi’s somewhat liberal viola interpretation of the Habanera from Bizet’s Carmen, (L’amour est un oiseau rebelle), did not go over particularly well. I am less certain how the popolo received the Carmen overture as interpreted by Il Riciclato Circo Musicale, an Italian folk-rock group that builds its instruments from discarded and repurposed materials. Judging from the beaming faces in a video when the orchestra returned in full force, however, I would say that the rodigini are probably traditionalists at heart.

What we did hear was a spirited Rossini, energetically conducted by Rossi, with the orchestra providing an appropriately lively opening to an unusual but rather charming tribute. A concert in honor of a town cat may not be the most conventional reason to gather an orchestra in a piazza, but on a warm August night in Rovigo, it seemed perfectly fitting.

After all, we are just six days from the ancient and hallowed festival of Ferragosto. Cities like Bologna, Rossini’s adopted home, will soon be virtually devoid of life as the holiday approaches. So here’s to the smaller cities like Rovigo, where on a summer night you can still find an orchestra, a piazza full of people, and a concert for a cat.

Featured

Wolf Trap Opera Studio Artists in Concert

Holy Trinity Catholic Church, Georgetown
July 21, 2026 • 7:00 p.m.

Last night saw a series of bravura performances by a talented group of young people at Georgetown’s Holy Trinity Church courtesy of Wolf Trap Opera’s Studio Artists. The Georgetown church itself was part of the experience: its chamber-like acoustics were nearly an additional instrument, amplifying the voices of the singers without overdoing it or producing any odd effects (not the case for the jazz drummers at a recent Sunday service at the National Cathedral).

The evening began with a reminder that Holy Trinity was the church of John F. Kennedy, followed by somewhat-inevitable observation that Wolf Trap will continue presenting concerts there until whatever is figured out with the Kennedy Center. Some laughs and groans were heard. A few recipients of Wolf Trap’s master class in Tuscany who were present — one woman and three men — were asked to stand to thunderous applause. Eventually the presenter himself mercifully noted, “enough talking.”

Then it was on to the Wolf Trap Opera Studio Artists, singers who can serve as covers or take smaller roles in the Filene Program while gaining the experience of working in a professional opera environment. They took the stage with no delay, accompanied only by a pianist (either Tzu Kuang Tan, Gabrielė Žemaitytė, or Joseph Stevens). It takes a certain amount of courage to simply face the crowd (probably 300-400) that way, and they singers delivered.

The clear standout of the evening was Michael Mensah, whose bass voice seemed perfectly suited to the vast atmosphere of the church. The guttural German syllables of his selection from Mozart’s Die Entführung aus dem Serail matched his thunderous voice beautifully. It was a bravura display, but one controlled by musical intelligence rather than mere volume. Some of his theatrical touches and gestures, although never silly or excessive, brought a laugh from the audience — this reviewer included — and showed that he understood that opera is not only about singing but also about inhabiting a character.

That was par for the course for many of these talented young singers, namely Ayanna Delk Lewis and Sydney Sorbet, whose excerpt from Bellini’s Norma showed both power and sensitivity. Their voices worked beautifully together, and I would have liked to hear more of them. Their rapport on stage was striking — at times it was difficult to tell where the acting ended and genuine feeling began; they seemed genuinely moved by each other’s performances.

Christopher Gray sings “Schweig” from Weber’s Der Freischütz

Christopher Gray, in Weber’s Der Freischütz, also made a strong impression, particularly in “Schweig!” His powerful baritone brought real authority to the music.

Xiaofeng Hou, the tenor, had only a brief opportunity to make an impression, appearing in the ensemble (“tutti”) portion of Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor. What little we heard suggested another promising artist, and I would have liked to hear more of him in a solo capacity. The ensemble finale he featured in, “T’allontana, sciagurato,” brought the artists together in a fitting display of dramatic energy.

“T’allontana, sciagurato” — tutti in scena

The programming was excellent. The selections ranged across the operatic tradition: Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro, Don Giovanni, and Die Entführung aus dem Serail; Bellini’s Norma; Handel’s Ariodante; Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin; Massenet’s Werther; and works by Weber, Britten, Gounod, and Donizetti. It was an ambitious and intelligent program that allowed the singers to demonstrate their individual strengths and the breadth required of these rising talents.

There were no slouches in this performance. Every one stood out in some way, and it is tantalizing to imagine what they might accomplish as they embark on professional careers.

Opera is, after all, an acting art as much as a musical one, and these performers understood that. They acted their selections fully, but without the sort of exaggerated melodrama that can sometimes overwhelm opera (see Premesso’s review of La Cenerentola).

The weaker moments for me were the selections from Doctor Atomic and Sunday in the Park with George. Their musical language and dramatic approach did not resonate in the same way as the classics. It could be a matter of taste, although I’ll confess to a one-time dalliance with Adams’ Harmonielehre owing to seeing it in an Italian movie.

Finally, as DC-area residents will understand, the concert was made more memorable by the summer storm that arrived at the end, nixing my plans for the reception and causing me to bolt for safety, as I’d left my umbrella elsewhere.

Gracious of Wolf Trap to offer Washington denizens a completely free concert of outstanding young talent in one of the city’s best neighborhoods. Ben fatto.

Thanks to Washington Classic Review, expertly curated, for listing this and many other fine performances this summer.

Rachmaninoff — Baltimore Symphony Orchestra with Joyce Yang

Strathmore, July 24, 2026 • 7:30 p.m.

A few notes on last night’s Rachmaninoff concert: I barely made it there, avoid the crushing Beltway. and taking a slow, but pleasant, drive through the Palisades There was a good Friday night turnout, better than the Sunday matinee I previous attended, and there seemed to be a number of Russian or Slavic speakers in attendance; appropriate for the material and perhaps turning out to support guest conductor, Russian-born Lidiya Yankovskaya.

Yankovskaya in her element (July 24, 2026, Strathmore)

The program began with Rachmaninoff’s Vocalise, a deceptively simple piece that immediately established the warm quality of the full orchestra. It was followed by the Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, with Joyce Yang as soloist, and concluded after intermission with the Symphonic Dances.

Yankovskaya was solid, conducting with verve. Someone might’ve invoked what Dr. Johnson said about women preaching, but for tonight’s concert, that would have been most uncharitable.

Joyce Yang, of course, was the center of the show. Although it would be hard to displace Khatia Buniatishvili’s mastery of Rachmaninoff (see especially her take on the Piano Concerto No. 3 in D Minor, Op. 30) in my mind, Yang was worthy, and was easily able to deal with Rachmaninoff’s formidable demands in the Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, including the complex hand stretches and the cascading variations. One could hear the familiar Dies irae theme that Rachmaninoff wove into the work, allowing dark undertones to surface fleetingly. Yang’s command of the piece was impressive, although in a few of the louder passages I felt the orchestra overwhelmed the piano somewhat. This may have been an issue of acoustics, but in a work where dialogue is central, it was noticeable.

Yankovskaya spoke briefly to the audience before the concert and again after intermission. I continue to find this off-putting, as it breaks the spell, but frankly her comments were informative. She explained, appropriate for the venue and the semiquincentennial, that Symphonic Dances reflects Rachmaninoff’s travels across the United States.

During the waltz-like second movement, I thought I detected some echoes of Beethoven. It could be because the last orchestral concert I attended at SummerFest featured Beethoven, as I don’t think there’s much formal basis for the comparison, but it was an interesting reminder of how one piece can color the way one hears another. Yankovskaya also noted that some passages in Symphonic Dances sounded like Aaron Copland; an opinion, but I don’t disagree, and it was a side of Rachmaninoff I hadn’t expected.

The audience responded with a standing ovation almost immediately and it struck me how generous we Americans are with our praise. Yang returned for an encore: Gershwin’s The Man I Love, in a solo piano transcription. It was a change of mood, and I suppose that I could be persuaded that Gershwin could well end up with a more serious reputation than he had for most of the 20th century.

A fitting end, then, for America’s 250th summer (at least for me, anyway). Rachmaninoff remains unmistakably Russian, but Symphonic Dances, his final major work, was created here in America, where he died and was buried.

The performance itself was another success in the warm wooden hall at Strathmore. As usual for these types of events, if one is under seventy-five one feels very young. There were plenty of walkers and wheelchairs, and even a woman on oxygen near me. But perhaps this is to the good. No matter what one thinks of “the boomers,” they are, in their own way, keeping these performances alive.

However there were also signs of a younger audience. I stood with a gang of polite, Chinese-speaking youth, and walked out with a couple of young guys smarting off to each other.

“So did you park in the garage”
“No, I did no such thing. I parked on the street, like a true American.”

True Americans indeed. Fittingly, the biggest challenge of my evening was exiting the long lines at the (free!) Metro parking garage and winding back home on the still-choked Beltway.

Review: Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, “Brilliant Beginnings: Mozart and Beethoven”

Symphony No. 1 in E-flat major, K. 16 (Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart)

Piano Concerto No. 12 in A major, K. 414 (Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart)

Encore: To the Spring (An der Frühling), Op. 43, No. 6 (Edvard Grieg)

Symphony No. 1 in C major, Op. 21 (Ludwig van Beethoven)

The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra’s Sunday afternoon program paired early Mozart and Beethoven, which seems sensible enough, right?. Fortunately, the BSO has little to prove here. The orchestra was rock solid throughout, and Beethoven’s First Symphony was energetic without becoming overbearing.

Before the performance, conductor Jiannan Cheng offered a brief introduction to the program. I didn’t see the need for this — it reminded me of the didactic guides in the program at the Washington National Cathedral a week earlier, which made me feel like I was already living in a museum of my own culture — but I did learn something, namely that Beethoven’s Symphony No. 1 in C Major begins with a dominant seventh chord that immediately resolves to F major — creating a signature disorienting effect.This made up for the fact that she styled Mozart and Beethoven as the “Beyonce and Taylor Swift” of their day. Please.

The average age could not have been far from 85, with multiple wheelchairs scattered throughout the hall, although I also espied a few people under 40. Compared with the Wolf Trap crowd, however, this audience seemed slightly more refined. There was no heavy pre-show drinking, no catcalling, no sense that anyone had confused a concert with a high school pep rally. Instead, there was the quiet expectancy of people who had come specifically to hear good music.

Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 12 featured Finnish pianist Juho Pohjonen, whose gifts were immediately apparent. He also indulged us with an encore — Grieg’s miniature from 1886’s third volume of Lyric Pieces, “To the Spring,” which he named in a tone so hushed as to be inaudible. As for the Mozart, I would never endorse napping at a concert, but there is something to be said for closing one’s eyes during a performance. In Mozart especially, removing all distractions allowed the themes to emerge more clearly, and the recurring ideas becoming easier to follow in sensory deprivation

The BSO itself was remarkably assured. Concertmaster Jonathan Carney stood out in the first violin section. The orchestra has the kind of solidity that comes from years of playing together and it made my miss my old days at the Meyerhoff in the early aughts.

That is not to say everyone observed the conventions of concert etiquette. The couple seated beside me was incapable of remaining silent between movements, filling every pause with uncomfortably loud commentary (“that was short! sounded like a waltz to me” after the third Beethoven movement, which is, in fact, in 3/4 time; “he wrote this when he was 13! [sic]” at the end of the whole piece), but I found myself appreciating their total and unabashed enthusiasm. The woman in the pair rocked her head and stomped her feet as if she were at a rock concert and both, despite their advanced age, immediately stood at the end for program-bashing applauding. I couldn’t help but grin — why not? I stood, too.

Strathmore remains one of the area’s great concert venues, a lovely room tucked into a verdant corner of Bethesda. The hall deserves a comment: the construction, and warmth of the wood give it a sense of craftsmanship that is increasingly rare in modern performance spaces, redolent of my best days at Brussels’ Bozar. The acoustics allowing a large (or small, as the case was for the Mozart symphony) orchestra to sound expansive without losing its intimacy or connection to the audience.

The afternoon concluded with Beethoven’s First Symphony, a work too often treated merely as the opening chapter of a much larger story. The BSO wisely avoided searching for the Beethoven who had not yet arrived. Instead, they allowed this symphony to stand on its own terms: witty, energetic, and remarkably confident. It was a great rendition, and a reminder that even Beethoven’s beginnings already contain a fully formed musical personality. All the same, my enthused neighbors couldn’t help but comment, “wow, that sounded like… you know, Beethoven!”

I took the opportunity on the way home to pass through old haunts in Takoma Park and Silver Spring, places I thought I would never see again, stopping to take a setting sun at the Lee Jordan Athletic Field, where one fall many years ago I passed many an evening of hard exercise. It seemed a fitting return, a reminder of another beginning now ended.

Filarmonica della Scala

Prova Aperta

March 8, 2009

Originally published in Pinball People, March 2009, and re-posted here.

Carl Maria von Weber

Oberon, Ouverture

Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy

Concerto in E minor, opus 64 for violin and orchestra

Robert Schumann

Symphony no. 4 in D minor, opus 120

It’s rare that one gets to see the workings of an orchestra laid bare, especially under the direction of a maestro as fine as Leonidas Karakos, but La Scala opened its doors on a clear Sunday night and offered up the prova as a benefit to a local children’s hospital. For the players and the maestro it was all business, but for the audience, it was an occasion not only to hear some fine German romanticism but also to get a glimpse of Karakos’ unique style.

This time we even got our own palco, right above stage left. The musicians were strolling around the stage in street clothes, and we watched timpanist Jonathan Scully and French horn player Renato Duca tune their instruments. We were amused by just how casual the clothes were – especially in Milan – as we watched a first-violinist strip down to a red t-shirt and another enter in sneakers. An oboist was taking a cell phone call when maestro Kavakos emerged.

Kavakos is, as our program affirmed, a “rare talent and virtuoso,” and I was eager to see how he would both direct and play violin simultaneously. He mounted the podium and turned to face the audience, and the orchestra launched into the overture from Weber’s “Oberon.” The maestro played the first solo on his 1692 Stradivarius, turned to wave his bow a bit and the orchestra, and then resumed. His playing is fluid and graceful, and he paused often to eye his own first chair violin before leading the entire string section into some pizzicato parts. It’s a nice choice for a starting piece, affording the chance for Kavakos to play a long, delicate solo before concluding.

The audience is satisfied but the maestro is not. He gives direction mainly to the cellists with a liberal mix of humming and basic Italian – “a bit more of this [hums], not so much like that [hums again]. The cellists pass a pencil and dutifully make notes on their shared scores. The piece resumes, but stops again to that Kavakos can direct, gently, the timpanist. Then it’s turn of one of the oboists, who is meticulously instructed to hold out a long, wavering note for three more beats so that the rest of the orchestra can follow the transition. The young maestro is kind but firm and the oboist repeats it until he is satisfied. The oboist leads the orchestra back into the end of this bit of hearty German Romanticism, Kavakos takes off again, stooping down into his instrument, stopping and then directing with his bow, lunging like a fencer. The audience is again pleased, and there are shouts of “bravo!”

But he is a perfectionist, we are to learn. Back to the timpani. When they come in, he tells Scully, they must be “like a surprise.” At this point, the audience is with the orchestra. The oboes do their part perfectly and merit a “grazie” from the maestro as the piece carries on.

By the fifth run-through, I’m trying to pick out the theater’s in-house quartet, who are listed in the program but who don’t seem to be onstage this particular night. Suddenly the maestro proclaims the orchestra “bravi,” the bows tap, and applause somewhat wearily follows.

There’s a brief pause, not really formal enough to be an intermission, and Kavakos is back, this time without violin. His baton is delicate and finely pointed, and he leads the orchestra through all four movements of lengthy Mendelssohn’s Concert in E Minor. Amazingly, he has only given out direction once through the entire piece, and I can’t help but wonder if he wanted just to show us how meticulous he was with the Weber piece. Even if it’s only a rehearsal, it’s still on a stage.

Such is not the case, though, as he puts down the baton and begins to page through the score. The second violins are first up. “Please, a little bit more of this,” and then he enunciates the phrasing, not really a hum but more “Pa-PA-pam-pam.” They play the troublesome bravura again. “That’s fine… but this [hums] is a bit agitato. And this movement is, after all, allegro appassionato.

Kavakos takes the orchestra back to measure 655 and we begin anew. It’s really fascinating to note, though, that Kavakos, although he seems quite comfortable in Italian, mainly uses his hand, his mouth, and his baton to communicate, ever-exactly, what he wants from the orchestra. And so it should be, it is, after all, music.

Again, out of seemingly nowhere, there’s a “grazie mille!” and applause commences. It’s 10:30; the rehearsal has been going on two and a half hours. The orchestra just stands up and clears the stage, it’s that simple. The maestro says “a domani!” Tomorrow the Filarmonica della Scala would do it all over again. No one seems to mind the omission of the Schumann symphony. The first-run through of the Mendelssohn was worth the ticket price alone – which went to a worth cause anyway.

The casualness didn’t end after the show. Out in the piazza, a woman rushed past us, case in hand, to a stand of Vespas and motor scooters.

La Scala

1 February 2009

Quartetto d’archi della Scala

Giacomo Puccini, Crisantemi, elegia per quartetto

Giuseppe Verdi, Quartetto in mi min. per archi

Giuseppe Verdi, Antologia da “Rigoletto”, arranged for strings by A. Melchiori

This originally appeared in Pinball People in February 2009; I’m re-posting here.

I was a bit skeptical about going to see a string quartet at La Scala, but the tickets were a thoughtful gift and besides, it was La Scala’s in-house quartet performing Puccini and Verdi. The venerable Milan institution’s ushers, clad in clasped cloaks, seated us with that ineluctably continental mix of politeness and indignation. No palco for us, we got lucky with front and center seats.

The concert began with a rarely-performed treat, one of Puccini’s few pieces of chamber music, “Crisantemi” (Chrysanthemums). During this single-movement elegy, there was a hint of cellist Massimo Polidori’s expressiveness with a few restrained pizzicati.

The quartet’s exuberance really began to show itself during their performance of Verdi’s only piece of chamber music, the String Quartet in E Minor. Violinist Piero Negri managed to seem both relaxed and possessed at the same time, sitting with legs splayed but almost rising out of his chair during the allegro movement. As the musicians finished the movement, bows raised, there was a hint of applause, not totally uncommon, as one may assume there might be a small child or someone else unaccustomed to music written in movements might be in the audience. But it suddenly crescendoed, and violinist Francesco Manara gently reminded the audience that there are four movements and that afterwards, if we like it, then we can applaud. Mr. Polidor’s cello seemed to take on a life of its own during the third movement (prestissimo), as both violinists made room for it by plucking, and the piece concluded with a playful scherzo, in which the quartet showed impressive dynamic control, Mr. Polido using a gentle martelé.

Initially apprehensive about a quartet in the grandeur of La Scala, I was pleased to see that the musicians were not dwarfed by the opera house’s magnificence, neither literally nor figuratively.

The next piece was on more familiar ground for Italy, an anthology of pieces from Rigoletto. During the prelude, Mr. Manara’s violin came into the fore. The aria “questa o quella per mi pari sono” gave Mr. Polidori’s cello a chance to lend more levity to the piece, but in the following “Caro nome che il mio cor” he allowed Mr. Manara ample space for a delicate solo. The frantic scherzos of “Cortigiani, vil razza dannata” garner applause for both Mssrs. Manara and Polidori, and the audience was allowed some levity with the song “La donna e’ mobile” to bring us out of the depths previous aria.

The Rigoletto portmanteau closed with “Un di’, se ben rammentomi…bella figlia dell’amore,” a piece full of fortissimi scherzi. During thunderous applause Polidori addresses us with a half-smile, telling us that although they can’t play all of Rigoletto, they are glad that Verdi can stand on his own, senza voce. What follows is an encore that Polidori promises that we should instantly recognize, although I can’t place it. It’s light, and short, and gives the quartet one more chance to show that the world at La Scala can extend far beyond opera, and the audience is generous with applause, the quartet coming back out no less than three times.

However, as able as the Scala’s String Quartet is, I can’t help but think that of course they excel at Puccini and Verdi. It would have been interesting to see how they handle Webern, Shostakovich or Haydn – all of which I note is in their repertoire.

La Cenerentola

Barns at Wolf Trap • Saturday, June 27, 2026 • 7:30 p.m.

As we head towards American 250, I will concede that the Barns at Wolf Trap might be an appropriate setting for Rossini’s La Cenerentola, although I’d have preferred the Kennedy Center. Part of the larger Wolf Trap complex, the performance took place in a converted barn whose scale suited Rossini’s madcap opera well. From an upstairs seat, the entire stage remained in view, and the room was small enough that no one seemed far from the action.

Before the curtain, my seat-neighbor introduced herself as a former singer who now works with the regional branch of the Metropolitan Opera Laffont young artist competitions. She pointed out that Angel Raii Gomez, the principal tenor (Prince Ramiro), was a singer who had come through the program, a reminder that the production serves as a showcase for emerging talent. The two patrons seated beside us quietly departed during intervallo and did not return, leaving us an empty row for the remainder of the evening.

The production was, mercifully, traditional. The costumes suggested the nineteenth (or at least early twentieth) century, and there was no attempt to relocate the story into a modern setting or surround the singers with video screens or conceptual symbolism — sadly not the case for the numerous Mozart performances I saw in 2020 at Brussels’ otherwise-magisterial La Monnaie. For those accustomed to stage directors who want to upstage composers and singers, common to northwestern Europe, a welcome change.

In our American case, the director and cast only erred by pursuing comedy a bit too enthusiastically. As I remarked to my seat mate, well, it is an opera buffa, and opera need not conform always to La Scala’s ominous black-cloaked ushers. But after one too many episodes of exaggerated facial expressions, corny dances, and slapstick during an otherwise stunning aria I grew weary. (I believe it was during Raii Gomez’s rendition of “Si ritrovarla io giuro” that I really felt the clowning of the male chorus was a detraction.) Rossini leaves room for humor, but the staging often seemed reluctant to trust either the libretto or the score. A lighter approach would have allowed the comedy to emerge on its own.

The singing carried the evening. The cast was consistently strong, particularly the principal bass, whose voice anchored every ensemble in which he appeared. The company reflected opera’s international character, with singers from a variety of backgrounds sharing the stage. Once the music began, biography became irrelevant.

Wolf Trap itself proved part of the evening’s appeal. Located just off one of Northern Virginia’s busiest highways, it nevertheless feels removed from the surrounding suburbs. Arriving well before the 7:30 curtain left time to walk the grounds, where patrons lingered over dinner before making their way to the Barns. The audience was casually but neatly dressed, giving the evening the atmosphere of a summer festival rather than a formal gala.

As a first visit to the Barns, the evening was an introduction worth making. The production occasionally mistook quantity of comedy for comic timing, but Rossini’s score was served by a strong young cast in a venue that suits chamber-scale opera well. I left thinking less about the staging than about returning for another performance — which I may do if I can get a ticket for Evgeny Onegin next month.

Language, Sincerity and Authenticy in the Machine Age

I came across an essay almost a year old by one Mattias Desmet called “The De-Souling of the World.” It ends with these lines:

“This revolution essentially boils down to this: a society led by a propagandized mass is replaced by a society led by a group of people connected through sincere speaking. […] What are the different ways in which a person can use words, and which form of speaking can penetrate the veil of appearance and inspire people in times when they are suffocating under manipulation and appearance? How can we master the art of Good Speech?”

Which put to mind John Dos Passos’ “Sacco and Vanzetti” passage from U.S.A., (The Big Money, 1936), Camera Eye 50:

“America our nation has been beaten by strangers who have turned our language inside out who have taken the clean words our fathers spoke and made them slimy and foul”

It also recalls these quotes found in Lionel Trilling’s Sincerity and Authenticity (1972):

“Born Originals,” Edward Young said, “how comes it to pass that we die Copies?” (p. 93, Oxford University Press edition)

“The machine, said Ruskin, could make only inauthentic things; dead things and the dead things communicated their deadness to those who used them. Nor, in his view, is it only actual machinery which produces dead objects but any mode of making that does not permit the maker to infuse into the artefact the quality of his being.” (p. 127, Oxford University Press edition)

With thanks to Shirty Sleeves’ “Constellations” series for the inspiration.

Big and Bad

Recent events — or the media imagery thereof — put in my mind an old Thomas Pynchon article, “Is It O.K. To Be A Luddite?” from nearly forty years ago. There’s a photo that could go with this, but it’s far too obvious, so you’ll have to settle for Kong. For readers interested in the continuing re-evaluation of the Enlightenment, I would draw your attention to the third quote. But I’d paraphrase further by saying that turning to the hulk means denying the machine, which means a chance for the earthly ones to take part in the transcendent.

There is a long folk history of this figure, the Badass. He is usually male, and while sometimes earning the quizzical tolerance of women, is almost universally admired by men for two basic virtues: he is Bad, and he is Big. Bad meaning not morally evil, necessarily, more like able to work mischief on a large scale. What is important here is the amplifying of scale, the multiplication of effect.

[…]

What gave King Ludd his special Bad charisma, took him from local hero to nationwide public enemy, was that he went up against these amplified, multiplied, more than human opponents and prevailed. When times are hard, and we feel at the mercy of forces many times more powerful, don’t we, in seeking some equalizer, turn, if only in imagination, in wish, to the Badass – the djinn, the golem, the hulk, the superhero – who will resist what otherwise would overwhelm us?

[…]

The Methodist movement and the American Great Awakening were only two sectors on a broad front of resistance to the Age of Reason, a front which included Radicalism and Freemasonry as well as Luddites and the Gothic novel. Each in its way expressed the same profound unwillingness to give up elements of faith, however ”irrational,” to an emerging technopolitical order that might or might not know what it was doing.

[…]

To insist on the miraculous is to deny to the machine at least some of its claims on us, to assert the limited wish that living things, earthly and otherwise, may on occasion become Bad and Big enough to take part in transcendent doings.

—

The Fall had a song about Ned Ludd, too, called “Ludd Gang,” a b-side to “The Man Whose Head Expanded” from their wonderful 1983 two-drummer period. I wonder what Mark E. Smith would think of the current contest in America. “Ludd Gang” has a little dig on Gang of Four which MES explained in a 1981 interview in SPEX Magazine.

S: Why don’t you like the Gang of Four?

Mark: Because their songs are about politics. They preach the leftist ideas. They went to University and belong to the privileged class. The problem is that they pretend to know what the working class wants. But they haven’t got a clue. Sham 69 however knew what they were talking about and they were good. The English working class (including myself) find the music of the Gang of Four offensive, insulting, hurtful. I listed to their first singles a lot in those days. Later on I saw them live, too and then you could tell they lacked the feeling when they got to the heart of the matter. I mean, how could they talk about problems and changes in the world when they play like that. Maybe I am being cynical but it’s more important to me to be honest to myself. I don’t like the music of the Gang of Four. I prefer rock’n’roll bands.

Finally, I’ll point out a Gang of Four song that’s also topical and leave it at that.

Christmas Around the World

Every year during my childhood, our post box was graced with an 80 page volume of one of the World Book’s Christmas Around the World series, a gift, I think, from my globetrotting grandparents. Although somewhat dated and with some breathlessly misleading information (the Spain entry insists that Spaniards eat loads of turkey for Navidad, but that it’s stuffed with garlic and glazed with olive oil, and the Washington volume seems to describe a city that hasn’t existed for a good century or so, and possibly never did), they’re still wonderful glimpses into the habits of other countries at Yuletide. At the very least they inspire curiosity, which I’d like to think has something to do with why I can vouch for how Christmas is passed in the locales of at least five of the books on the below list. I hunted in vain for a decent list online, and failing to find one, decided to post the below, which I’ve verified with family members who still have the books. I have a few of them in my possession myself (pictured). It seems the series went on for another decade, till at least 2003, when probably — like so many other good things in the past — someone decided that the internet did a better job with “information.” But those who had these colorful volumes know the truth. A reader who knows the series very well writes in to note that the books “also arrived with an advent calendar, small ornament, and recipe cards. A family could celebrate Christmas around the world!”

1993 — Germany
1992 — Russia
1991 — Brazil
1990 — The Philippines
1989 — Poland
1988 — Washington, D.C.
1987 — The Holy Land
1986 — Denmark
1985 — Ireland
1984 — New England
1983 — Spain
1982 — Austria
1981 — The Netherlands
1980 — France
1979 — Italy
1977 — Scandinavia
1978 — Britain
1976 — Mexico

Given the paucity of information out there about the series in general, for the completist I’ll add the below list. I don’t actually own any of these (although I wish I had the Belgium one, at least), but these are the fruits of the some internet labor, mainly thanks to ThriftBooks.com. There appear to be a couple of duplicates, or possibly some of the copyright dates are wrong.

2003 — Puerto Rico
2002 — Belgium
2001 — Scotland
2000 — Greece
1999 — Finland
1999 — Australia
1998 — The Phillipines
1997 — Ukraine
1997 — Colonial and Early America
1996 — American Southwest
1995 — ?
1994 — Switzerland
1994 — Canada