Bieito’s productions are always theatrical, divisive and deeply thought-provoking. The year opens with an old chestnut, reimagined by director Calixto Bieito into a new, bright bud. Verdi, Messa da Requiem Staatsoper Hamburg, January Here’s to taking it out of the trunk, and wearing it often and well in 2019.
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“Adventurous” is less a new fascinator than an old (and beloved) hat. I don’t know if any of these things are (or were) true, but making a point of experiencing the work of artists who reveal and inspire (and challenge and move) has become the single-biggest motivating factor in my life. “You’re so serious ,” I was once told, “serious and critical and intellectual.”
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Refreshingly, such a process has not been defined by the rather narrow tastes of a somewhat culturally dictatorial mother, but by things I like, things I miss, things have no need to feel validated for liking. Rediscovering the contents of my own trunk, pulling each item out, examining it in the sunlight, looking at what it means now (if anything) and deciding whether to keep or bin, has been a slow if meaningful process it has been a homecoming to myself, one groaning and gloriously stretching with every breath. Please do not reproduce without permission. À chacun son goût, perhaps.įrantišek Kupka, Plans par couleurs, grand nu 1909-1910, on loan to Grande Palais Paris permanent collection, Guggenheim NYC. It’s fun to swim in the warm, frothy seas of nostalgia every now and again, but mistaking those waves for (or much less preferring them to) the clear, sharp coldness of fresh water seems a bit absurd to me. Such romanticizing utterly defines various segments of the opera world, resulting in various factions marking themselves gatekeepers of a supposedly fabled legacy which, by its nature, is meant to shape-shift, twist, curl, open, and change.
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My mother’s passing in 2015 initially created a worship of ornate things from her trunk - perhaps my attempt to raise her with a chorus of sounds, as if I was Orpheus, an instinct based more in the exercise of sentiment than in the embrace and extension of soul.Ĭontending with a tremendous purge of items from the near and distant past has created a personal distaste for the insistent grasping and romanticizing of history (though I do allow myself to enjoy some of its recorded splendor, and its visual arts, as the photos on this feature attest). Decades of weighty responsibility cut that forest down and gave me a deep trunk, into which all the unfinished canvases of a fragrant, lush wonder were stored I came to believe, somehow, such a trunk had no place in the busy crowded living room I’d been busily filling with the safe, acceptable predictability of other peoples’ stuff. Flattering as this is, it’s also a reminder of the extent to which I have layered over my past, one largely spent wandering through the vast, lusciously dark forests of curiosity and wonder. As well as a desire to keep more cultural experiences within the personal realm, I’d prefer look ahead, to things that spark my imagination and inspire expansion, challenge, and evolution.Įarlier this year a friend observed that my tastes have become (his words) “more adventurous” over the past eighteen months or so. Please do not reproduce without permission.Ī new year is a good time for assessments and remembrances, for reflecting on moments good, bad, and otherwise. Andreas Schlüter, Kopf einer Göttin (Head of a Goddess) Bode Museum Berlin, 1704.