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Notes -
What live music/arts events have you attended recently?
Last weekend was pretty packed for me. On Friday I saw a production of Swan Lake by the World Ballet Company, an international troupe staffed mostly by Russians. It was really incredible; the costumes and sets were elegant, traditionalist, and sumptuously beautiful; the dancing was significantly above the level I’m accustomed to from my times seeing the San Diego Ballet Company - the woman dancing Odette/Odile was particularly spectacular - and everyone was good-looking, conventionally-gendered, and either white or Central/East Asian.
On Saturday afternoon, I attended a production of the musical Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812, an adaptation of a segment of Tolstoy’s War and Peace, at San Diego’s Cygnet Theatre with a group of friends who wanted to see it. Personally, I didn’t care for the show. It’s sung-through (meaning that all dialogue/exposition is done through singing, with no spoken lines) in the style of an opera, which makes the plot more difficult to follow. Certain musicals, such as Les Misérables and Rent, can get away with this by ensuring that all of the music is melodically interesting and memorable; if the music is tuneless, then one is left with the impression that they’re singing just to sing, and that was certainly the case with this show. Many of the actors were individually quite talented - one of the gimmicks of the show is that many of the actors also play guitar and/or accordion, and I have to commend the hard work which must have gone into teaching these actors how to play those instruments - but the show itself is just not that interesting. (The whole plot is about a love triangle between a pouty aristocratic heiress, the caddish lothario who seduces and abandons her, and her absent soldier boyfriend who is barely onstage for 80% of the show.) Also, this production featured multiple racially-inappropriate actors playing 19th-century Russians, including an overweight black woman with a septum piercing and multicolored hair, in the role of the “beautiful and sexually alluring” character Hélène. Spare me.
Then on Saturday night, I attended a performance by the San Diego Symphony Orchestra at the Rady Shell, a waterfront venue downtown. The first half of the program consisted of Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto, ably performed by a precociously talented young man. The second half consisted of the entire first act of Wagner’s Die Walküre, a part of the epic Ring Cycle, performed by the orchestra with three top-notch operatic soloists. Sadly, the first half is not the part that includes the famous “Ride Of The Valkyries” which even the common man would know from that one Bugs Bunny cartoon, but it was still a gorgeous performance, complete with sets, props, and a real fire onstage.
Tomorrow night I’ll be seeing the same orchestra again at the same venue, this time performing Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 4 and the complete score to Stravinsky’s Firebird, accompanied by animated projections representing the characters from the ballet.
Earlier this month I saw a double-header of Desire and Johnny Jewel. Great fun, retro synth-pop vibes. Made me a little sad that such an obviously talented band are still coasting on the fact that their music was featured in the movie Drive over a decade ago.
In March I saw Sunn O))) live. A wholly unique experience I have no intention of ever repeating.
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A few weeks ago, I attended the NY Philharmonic rendition of Mozart's Symphony No. 35 and No. 39 and Beethoven Ah! Perfido! It was lovely, as usual.
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Maylene and The Sons of Disaster are on an east coast tour.
Cheap beer and parking lot cigarettes before and after the shows.
Lots of piercings and multi-colored hair. None of the chicks really dance. There's a scary Russian who plays bass, I think.
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I want your life. I haven't been to a proper good concert since around 2002 when I saw Vladimir Ashkenazy conduct some orchestra in Tokyo doing Rachmaninoff's Symphony No.2 E Minor. Actually I did go to a John Williams tribute concert in Kobe with my family a few years ago, but we only managed that because the boys knew a lot of the music from films. That was fun, but they didn't play some of the best pieces Williams has done for whatever reason. Plus because it was a "tribute" some rando was conducting--it wasn't actually John Williams, which would have been amazing.
I really want to get back into seeing orchestras perform. There's nothing quite like it. The music itself is one thing, but seeing so many expert musicians playing together is transcendent, and really takes you out of the mundane and is something close to experiencing real beauty.
Edit: Also as I have posted before I love me some Wagner.
Don’t you live in Japan? They’ve got symphony orchestras in every major Japanese city as well, and my understanding is that tickets are not particularly expensive. Why not go attend a concert?
Ideally I'd go with my wife, and for the last decade and change we've been raising kids so I haven't made time. These days it's more doable, you're right.
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