Night After Night

Ugly beauty.

Sooner or later, they're going to have to put Hedda Gabler on ice, to judge by the implication of a TONY colleague who says he's seen four productions in the last two or three seasons. It's probably true: I'm by no means a regular theatergoer, much to my regret, but the Hedda I saw on Tuesday night at the BAM Harvey Theater was my second this year...in the same theater.

The earlier one, which I caught back in March, was a handsome period production from the Sydney Theater Company, directed by Robyn Nevin. Performed in English, it was first-rate classical theater, with Cate Blanchett playing the title role with a sadism barely concealed by her cool beauty. The fine cast also featured Hugo Weaving as an intense Judge Brack.

The production currently on view at BAM, from the Schaubühne am Lehniner Platz, Berlin, is anything but classical theater. Neither is it a perverse reworking, despite that company's rebellious reputation. Director Thomas Ostermeier gently relocates the action to the present, notable mostly through costumes, cell phones and laptop computers. The German translation, by Hinrich Schmidt-Henkel retains virtually all of Ibsen's vision, apart from a handful of small but telling deviations. (The play was performed in German with projected English translation.)

The set, by Jan Pappelbaum, is a beautiful piece of work: a stark, spacious living room on a massive, rotating rectangular platform, which spins to provide an exterior view and glimpses of a smaller side room. A mirrored ceiling lent a sense of enclosure while making the characters seem ever exposed, in much the same way that Anthony Minghella used that effect in his Madama Butterfly at the Met. Sliding glass panels that separated the living room from the garden outside were often streaked with rivulets of rain, adding to the general gloom and feeling of entrapment. The play was performed without intermission; during scene changes, video projections by Sebastien Dupouey conveyed a sense of Hedda's essential isolation, even outside the house.

Setting aside, what really distinguished this Hedda from the one I saw in spring was the conception of the central character. Where Cate Blanchett had given a traditional performance in which the character's vulnerability and despair were masked by a willful cruelty, the foremost aspect of Katharina Schüttler's portrayal was a sort of numbed ennui, a free-floating detachment that suggested her character was more or less complacent in the face of a loveless life in which the threat of downward mobility was real, yet too intangible to warrant genuine engagement. Small and slight, Schüttler exuded sexuality rather than wielding it. Even her manipulation of the weak males that surrounded her came too easily to provide any sort of satisfaction.

The most fascinating actor was Lars Eidinger, who played Hedda's milquetoast husband, Jørgen Tesman. So convincing was the overall bland amiability of Eidinger's performance that on the rare occasions when Tesman's temper flares, it was genuinely frightening. Kay Bartholomäus Schulze was an Eilert Løvborg lean, elegant and supremely confident in his sober mastery, and a pathetic wreck in his final lapse. Annedore Bauer, as the simple but determined Mrs. Elvsted, was vivid and alluring. Lore Stefanek brought a doting charm to her portrayal of Tesman's Aunt Julle. I wasn't nearly as taken with Jörg Hartmann, a Judge Brack who seldom seemed to truly exert his obvious power over Tesman, or Hedda, for that matter; he came off as a seasoned senior colleague rather than a domineering magistrate.

Ostermeier's most audacious retooling of the play came at the very end, in a twist designed to convey the shock of the final scene in an altogether different manner. It was certainly vivid, if rather out of character: what the director seemed to suggest was that, far from being the center of power, Hedda was never anything more than a discardable bauble. It's a debatable view, but a provocative one nonetheless. (A TONY colleague who saw Nora, Ostermeier's earlier reworking of Ibsen's A Doll's House, said that the two shows are very similar in that respect and numerous others.)

Music isn't a vital concern in Hedda Gabler, but Ostermeier's use of "God Only Knows," a Beach Boys song that barely conceals the possibility of despair behind its sunny melody and rich arrangement, provided an effective leitmotif for his conception. As an operaphile, I couldn't help but think that Ostermeier might be capable of genuine wonders with Janáček. Moreover, he has already directed his company in Büchner's Woyzeck and Wedekind's Lulu. Might James Levine be in the mood for new productions of his beloved Berg?

Hedda Gabler continues at the BAM Harvey Theater through Saturday, December 2.

Playlist:

Various Artists - The EMI Record of Singing, Volume Three (1926-1935) (Testament)

Marillion - Holidays in Eden (Sanctuary)

King Crimson - Beat (Virgin)

Augusta Read Thomas - Rumi Settings; Piano Etudes 1-6; Incantation; Bubble: Rainbow - (spirit level); Bells Ring Summer; Pulsar; Chant; Prairie Sketches I - Tony Arnold; Amy Dissanayake Briggs; Callisto Ensemble/Cliff Colnot (ART)

Pēteris Vasks - Symphony No. 3; Cello Concerto* - Marko Ylönen*, Tampere Philharmonic Orchestra/John Storgårds (Ondine)

Anna Netrebko - Russian Album - Orchestra of the Mariinsky Theatre/Valery Gergiev (Deutsche Grammophon)

Richard Strauss - Der Rosenkavalier - Claire Watson, Hilda de Groote, Brigitte Fassbaender, Karl Ridderbusch, Bavarian State Opera Orchestra and Chorus/Carlos Kleiber (Opera d'Oro)

In comes Company.

One of last season's breakaway Broadway hits was John Doyle's innovative production of Stephen Sondheim's Sweeney Todd, in which Michael Ceveris, Patti LuPone and the rest of the cast doubled as the orchestra, playing all of the musical parts onstage. As I noted here, I thought that production was a stroke of genius; admittedly, it probably helped that I wasn't burdened by nostalgic memories of a more conventional staging.

I figured that sooner or later Doyle would stage another show from the Sondheim canon in the same manner -- I just didn't expect one quite so soon, since I was unaware of the Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park production of Company. That show opens on Broadway this week, at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre on Wednesday night. Dr. LP and I caught a preview performance on Sunday afternoon.

David Gallo's sleek, spartan stage design worked well for a show set almost entirely in a series of Manhattan interiors. Ann Hould-Ward's stylish costumes, exclusively in black and white, occasionally made it tough to figure out which male character was which; female characters were more easily discerned, given differences in design and hairstyles.

Doyle's concept of actors-as-players had a different impact here than in his Sweeney Todd. There, the effect heightened the overall macabre surreality. Here, the presence of everyone onstage, or nearby and visible in the wings, effectively served to impart a sense of claustrophobia, which underscored the idea that Robert, the central character, can scarcely escape the pull of his various married friends as they offer advice on his status as an eligible single. That said, Company requires a larger cast than Sweeney Todd, and much of the blocking in this show reminded me of marching band drills -- sometimes deliberately, but mostly not, I suspect.

While some of the instrumental playing was admittedly scrappy at times, overall Mary-Mitchell Campbell's reorchestration lifted this attractive score out of its dated original form. (I can't overemphasize how much the absence of the amplified harpsichord effect aided this impression.) It was arguably this, more than anything else, that lifted Doyle's Company out of its original milieu and made it lean, modern and anytime. I especially admired a scene in which Robert's three girlfriends tooted saxophones in swing-era synchronization.

Raúl Esparza, a Robert handsome and lithe in manner and voice, spent most of the show providing an mellifluous blank slate against which everyone else's passions were played, but he certainly earned his ovation with a strongly felt "Being Alive." Angel Desai's Marta stood out with a punky stance and brassy "Another Hundred People." Kristin Huffman, the former Miss Ohio and runner-up Miss America cast as Sarah, was a big, blond highlight of every scene in which she appeared, and played a mean alto sax, flute and piccolo -- the last alluringly tucked away in her cleavage for safe keeping.

Heather Laws, as Amy, offered a breathtakingly nimble "Getting Married Today," and Leenya Rideout's Jenny was particularly convincing as a stoned straight. Less so was Barbara Walsh, whose Joanne looked the part but sounded a bit like Elaine Stritch by the numbers, most especially in bellowing extremes of "The Ladies Who Lunch." As for the men, they did their bit; Bruce Sabath, as Larry, and Keith Buterbaugh, as Harry, did more besides.

The verdict? The good Doctor wasn't altogether impressed (and how weird and uncomfortable a show to attend with one's fiancee, anyway), and the assembled TONY posse, not to give too much away, seemed mixed. For me, it was a qualified thumbs up, more "up" than "qualified." Doyle's conception yielded results far removed from what he achieved in Sweeney Todd, and initially I wondered whether this was because Company is more based in contemporary reality. In the end, however, I think it has more to do with intimacy; I can't imagine Into the Woods, a thoroughly fantastical show, successfully done in this manner. But I'd love to see Doyle take on Assassins.

More views, from theaterophiles and Sondheim-ites more seasoned than me, can be found at Litwit and Chazzy(blo)g (whose claim that more could have been made of textual nuance in individual lyrics I find completely spot on, in retrospect).

Playlist:

My Chemical Romance - The Black Parade (Reprise)

Killswitch Engage - As Daylight Dies (Roadrunner)

Lamb of God - Sacrament (Epic)

Witold Lutoslawski - Symphony No. 4 - Los Angeles Philharmonic/Esa-Pekka Salonen (Deutsche Grammophon download)

Steve Lacy - Esteem: Live in Paris 1975 (Unheard Music Series/Atavistic)

Derek Bailey and Cyro Baptista - Derek (Amulet)

Kiss- Kiss (Mercury) - box set, discs 3-5

Tim Berne - Discretion (Screwgun)

Philip Glass Ensemble - Live in Monterrey, Mexico (Orange Mountain Music download)

Krzyszstof Penderecki - Symphony No. 7, "Seven Gates of Jersusalem" - Warsaw National Philharmonic Choir and Orchestra/Antoni Wit (Naxos)

Kiss - Kissology, Vol. 1 (1974-1977) (VH1 Classics DVD)

Classics on demand.

"Where Collectors Can Get Lost Classical Recordings"
The New York Times, Saturday, November 25, 2006

Shuffle mode.

The Lark Quartet at Merkin Concert Hall
The New York Times, November 21, 2006

La fiesta Mexicana

The American Symphony Orchestra at Avery Fisher Hall
The New York Times, November 20, 2006

Mixed doubles.

Jonathan Biss and Benjamin Hochman at the 92nd Street Y
The New York Times, November 18, 2006

American band.

"Committed to the New, Now in Smaller Forms"
The New York Times, November 16, 2006

An article about a surprising, smart new direction currently being pursued by the American Composers Orchestra, in which Corey Dargel, Susie Ibarra and Derek Bermel feature prominently.

Tonight through Saturday night, the orchestra will be collaborating with Wynton Marsalis's Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra in a compelling "Third Stream" program featuring Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue with Marcus Roberts at the keyboard, as well as a premiere by Bermel and music by Charles Mingus, John Lewis, Gunther Schuller and others. Those performances are all sold out -- a very good sign.

If that leaves you looking for something else to do tonight in New York City, consider this: Dargel is performing with fellow "artsongwriter" Kamala Sankaram at The Tank at Collective: Unconscious. Both will offer individual sets, and they'll be teaming up in selections from Nick Brooke's multimedia chamber opera, Tone Test. (Keep an eye on Dargel's site for details of an A.C.O.-sponsored showcase coming up next March.)

Playlist:

Robert Plant - Fate of Nations, Dreamland and Mighty Rearranger (Es Paranza/Rhino, from the box set Nine Lives)

Opeth - Ghost Reveries (Roadrunner "Special Edition")

Philip Glass - Wichita Vortex Sutra  - Branka Parlić (YouTube video, via aworks)

Grateful Dead - "So Many Roads," Sam Boyd Silver Bowl, Las Vegas, NV, June 26, 1994 (YouTube video)

Best one yet.

James Bond is ruthless and unseasoned in Casino Royale, the latest installment in the long-lived film franchise, which returns Ian Fleming's British secret agent to the very beginning of his career. He makes critical errors, but learns and compensates; he earns his stripes, and in the process has his heart shattered. He also survives a torture scene that actually eclipses the memorable one in the first Lethal Weapon film.

Directed by Martin Campbell -- who shot GoldenEye, one of the better Pierce Brosnan installments in the series -- Casino Royale has been likened to Christopher Nolan's Batman Begins as an attempt to reboot a flagging but still potentially lucrative cinematic commodity. After a preview screening on Tuesday night at the luxurious Ziegfield Theater, I'm convinced that it completely succeeds in doing so, even in ways I hadn't expected.

(Some of what follows might be construed as spoilers, so skip out now if you want to be surprised.)

The traditional pre-credit overture, presented in stark black and white, depicts the crucial first two kills that earned Bond his "Double-0" status. If he's conflicted about his duty, the remorse doesn't linger.

Daniel Craig, the new Bond, is blondish and rough hewn; he's not conventionally handsome, but his feral presence is commanding, and barely masked by a blank-slate countenance. This Bond's magnetism is born not from unquestionable command, but of its semblance. Craig's is also by far the most athletic Bond, though he's outstripped in that department by some of his targets -- notably in an early pursuit of a suspect who flees with a startling, simian grace. And at last, the deeper ramifications of a job that presupposes an ability to take human lives without remorse was investigated, at least somewhat.

As the film progressed, Craig's portrayal showed signs of developing along the lines of Sean Connery's Alpha Male take on the character, though edgier and not yet as comfortable. Add to that the hard-edged ferocity of Timothy Dalton's loose cannon account in his second Bond film, Licence to Kill, without the kitsch that ultimately overwhelmed him. Pierce Brosnan's urbanity and sex appeal go missing; so, thankfully, does the slapstick in which several of Roger Moore's Bond films were mired. The plot felt as canonical as the neglected On Her Majesty's Secret Service, but it was enacted with more grit than the noble but out-of-his-depth George Lazenby could muster.

Gadgetry is kept to a bare minimum, and serves quite effectively in the few times it surfaces (notably a powerful first-aid kit that barely keeps this Bond alive at one point). There's no sign of John Cleese, no Q Division at all, in fact. The one major link to earlier Bond films proved wise: Judi Dench, who played intelligence chief M in the Brosnan films, remained on board as a stern administrator shamed by Bond's fledgling excesses, who barely tolerates Bond's unpredictability and rule-breaking -- at least until he's proved himself to be the dependably deadly operative she firmly believed him capable of becoming.

Despite his physical tics, there's nothing especially flamboyant about Bond's first major nemesis, Le Chiffre, banker to the world's most dangerous jackals (portrayed by Mads Mikkelsen); in fact, he's a threatened victim himself at several points in the film. And French actress Eva Green held her own opposite Craig's Bond as Vesper Lynd, here a treasury agent sent along to keep tabs on Bond's gambling with several million pounds from Her Majesty's piggy bank. Lynd is established as easily the green secret agent's equal -- not a first for a Bond Girl, but certainly noteworthy -- and her ultimate fate is portrayed in a truly gripping manner.

Somewhat miraculously, Casino Royale presents a Bond faithful to Ian Fleming's creation, while simultaneously in tune with latter-day action films such as The Bourne Identity. David Arnold's score reveals attention fruitfully paid to John Barry's example. And despite expectations, "You Know My Name," Chris Cornell's title song, is actually pretty agreeable.

Slightly more than two-and-a-half hours later, I sympathized with something I overheard a viewer seated behind me at Tuesday night's preview screening say: This film hasn't even been released (it opens on Thursday), and already I'm hungry for the next installment.

Playlist:

Air - Air Time (Nessa)

Robert Plant - Shaken 'n' Stirred and Now & Zen (Es Paranza/Rhino, from the box set Nine Lives)

Steve Martin was wrong.

Comedy is in fact pretty, at least when it's done at the Metropolitan Opera lately. Donizetti's Don Pasquale, the closing salvo of the Volpe regime, was a popular success largely because of the magnetism of its principals, dishy soprano Anna Netrebko and boyish tenor Juan Diego Flórez. Physical allure also plays a part in the company's new production of Il Barbiere di Siviglia, which stars citywide poster boy Flórez alongside another dishy soprano, Diana Damrau, with Swedish barihunk Peter Mattei added to the mix. These are very attractive players, who also made very attractive sounds.

I'm guessing that Monday night's performance was more settled and better balanced than the Friday night premiere, because I didn't detect any of the insecurities that both Tony Tommasini (in his New York Times review) and Patrick J. Smith (in a review on the subscriber-only MusicalAmerica.com) reported of Flórez's singing in the prima. Here, his voice was a thread of pure spun gold: pitch perfect, and mellow even in his most strenuous passages. I agree with Tommasini's assessment that Almaviva's long soliloquy near the end did seize up the finale's momentum, but when confronted with vocalizing so vivid and heroic, it seems somewhat pointless to complain: grandstanding is certainly native to this idiom. Flórez's acting was also far more mobile and committed here than the milquetoast presence he offered in Pasquale.

Likewise, Damrau's pinpoint-accurate coloratura provided an uncorkable flow of electricity. Here was a Rosina whose iron will was evident even in captivity; you could believe it when the housekeeper Berta deems her "insane" (at least according to the Met's translation). But the evening's true rock star was Mattei, whose Figaro was a smoldering presence with an Elvis-like swagger, frequently accompanied by a gaggle of groupies. The barber's boasts seemed unusually potent when attended by a fawning entourage; more importantly, Mattei sang with dexterity and a rich tone that filled the room, and acted with a lithe athleticism that riveted attention even when he was tiptoeing through the scenery.

John Del Carlo's blustering Dr. Bartolo was a stuffy tyrant who richly deserved his comeuppance -- but how welcome it was to see this managed without the pitch-black, soul-sucking cruelty of that aforementioned Pasquale. Samuel Ramey played Don Basilio with the same comedic instincts that made his Leporello (opposite Gerald Finley's Don Giovanni in 2005) so memorable. As the wheezing Berta, Wendy White once again confirmed her status as one of the Met's most valuable character actors. And Rob Besserer, in the non-singing role of Ambrogio, Dr. Bartolo's manservant, stole scene after scene with his caustic narcolepsy.

Credit for these alert, genuinely funny performances is surely due in some part to director Bartlett Sher. The evening's other major innovation, the walkway that extended around the pit, proved a mixed blessing: Rossini's intricate mix of voices was superbly projected, and the singers were afforded ample opportunity to sell their goods to an audience at close range. But the orchestra sounded slightly muffled, especially during the overture. The percussion section, to which I always pay special attention, didn't always keep up with conductor Maurizio Benini's springy conception; otherwise, the ensemble lived up to its usual high standard.

Contrary to the mass of critical opinion, I found designer Michael Yeargan's spare sets -- mostly orange trees and moveable doorways manipulated by shadowy cavaliers (much as Anthony Minghella enlisted ninjas to shuffle room dividers in his Madama Butterfly) -- highly attractive. Yeargan sketched settings loosely but succinctly, leaving much to the imagination. (This was also true of Sher and Yeargan's elegant musical, The Light in the Piazza.)

That said, I'm completely in sync with a point Justin Davidson made in his Newsday review: With settings this sparse, the production is going to live and die by the performers who animate it. In this, the Met did well on Monday night, and there's every reason to suspect the same will be true when Joyce DiDonato dons Rosina's wild wig next spring. But unlike the company's usual best sellers -- Zeffirelli's various eye-popping orgies, the non-stop pachinko machine of Julie Taymor's Magic Flute (and maybe Minghella's Butterfly), all of which might tolerate all comers -- the fate of this particular Barbiere seems to be completely beholden to the vocal talent and personal charisma of the singers who inhabit it.

Playlist:

Gioacchino Rossini - Il Barbiere di Siviglia - Maria Callas, Luigi Alva, Tito Gobbi; Chorus and Orchestra of La Scala, Milan/Carlo Maria Giulini (Opera d'Oro)

Kaija Saariaho - Maa - Mikko-Ville Luolajan, Tuula Riisalo, Lea Pekkala, Eva Tigerstedt, Pauliina Ahola, Jaana Kärkkäinen, Tapio Aaltonen, Juhani Hapuli, Juhani Liimatainen, Tapio Tuomela (Ondine)

Felix Mendelssohn - Violin Concerto in E minor; Max Bruch - Romance in F for viola and orchestra; Violin Concerto No. 1 - Janine Jansen, Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra/Riccardo Chailly (Decca; forthcoming release)

Revelations and revelry.

Phil Kline's John the Revelator at the World Financial Center's Winter Garden,
and Teatro Grattacielo's La Farsa Amorosa at Alice Tully Hall
The New York Times, November 14, 2006