Finding shells on trees, on the walkways, and now in the bird bath. Only the vanguard, but with temperatures projected to be in the 80s for the rest if the week, and 90 on Sunday, it’s beyond time to make sure the liquor cabinet is well stocked.
“Call of the Cicadas” from Meira Warshauer’s Symphony No. 1, “Living Breathing Earth”
I always thought “Dracula” would make a terrific opera. Lo and behold! Finally! John Corigliano composes one. But Mark Adamo’s libretto conflates the vampire story with… Euripides’ “The Bacchae?” Countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo (Princeton ’04) assumes the role of Dionysus. Not quite the “Dracula” opera I envisioned, maybe, but bring it!
Corigliano’s previous opera, “The Ghosts of Versailles,” was commissioned by the Metropolitan Opera in 1980 to celebrate the organization’s centenary. The premiere had been scheduled for 1983, but it wound up taking seven years to complete. The work was finally staged for the first time in 1991. An extravagant phantasmagoria on Beaumarchais’ “Figaro” cycle, it was described by the composer as a “grand opera buffa.” Despite a light revision of the piece, in which some of the costlier elements were removed, a scheduled Met revival in 2008 was cancelled, because of nerves over the global financial crisis.
Adamo, Corigliano’s husband since 2008, is also the composer of several operas. “Little Women,” from 1998, has been the most frequently performed. The work has been presented in more than 35 productions and received over 65 international engagements. Adamo served as composer-in-residence with New York City Opera from 2001 to 2006.
Both operas, “The Ghosts of Versailles” and “Little Women” have been broadcast on PBS (“Ghosts” from the Met, and “Little Women” from Houston Grand Opera).
Corigliano’s film scores include those for “Altered States,” “Revolution,” and “The Red Violin.”
“The Lord of Cries” will receive its world premiere at Santa Fe Opera on July 17, with a run of five performances through August 17.
Don’t go into it expecting Bela Lugosi or Christopher Lee. Too bad nobody ever thought to write a Dracula opera for Lee. He certainly had the pipes. He was singing in a pub in Stockholm one night, when he was overheard by none other than Jussi Björling, who would offer to take him on as a pupil. It was one of the actor’s great regrets that he wasn’t in a position to accept.
Follow the link for more information about Corigliano and Adamo’s “The Lord of Cries” (the music in the video is actually from “The Red Violin”):
https://www.santafeopera.org/whats-on/the-lord-of-cries/
Christopher Lee demonstrates his raw talent as a singer, with selections from “The Flying Dutchman,” and “The Damnation of Faust,” with the added bonus of a recitation of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven”:
Much later, Lee shares an anecdote and proves that he’s still got it:
Lee recounts his experience with Björling and his family’s role in bringing opera to Australia:
“The Lord of Cries” is not the first Dracula opera. Philadelphia composer Robert Moran wrote “The Dracula Diary” in 1994, and Belarusian-born Swedish composer Victoria Borisova-Ollas composed “Dracula,” ostensibly the first opera to actually adhere to the events of Stoker’s book (according to the Royal Swedish Opera), in 2017.
The best-known vampire opera remains Heinrich Marschner’s “Der Vampyr,” sucking hard since 1828.
As I’m sure you’re well aware, today is tax deadline. You have through 11:59 tonight to post your pound of flesh to Uncle Sam, or to file an extension. This is all usually over and done with in April, but at the far end of a screwy year, when everything’s been off, why the hell not? Pay your taxes, and eat the rich.
In the meantime, here’s some Kurt Weill to take some of the sting out.
There is a Turkish proverb: “Coffee should be black as Hell, strong as death, and sweet as love.”
The music of Ahmed Adnan Saygun is very good coffee indeed. Saygun (pictured, right) rode a wave of Turkish nationalism to become his country’s foremost composer in the Western classical tradition. Perhaps best remembered abroad as an associate of Béla Bartók (pictured, left), Saygun was a prominent ethnomusicologist, but also an important educator and cultural administrator.
This Sunday night on “The Lost Chord,” savor an hour of his sometimes sweet, often astringent, always rewarding music, including a selection of “Etudes on Aksak Rhythms” (1964), his Suite for Violin and Piano (1956), and the Piano Concerto No. 1 (1951-57).
The refreshments are guaranteed to be aromatic, bold, and rich, on “Turkish Toughie,” this Sunday night at 10:00 EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.
I’m happy to report that after having had all of my matter rearranged by my second Covid shot on Wednesday, I have been feeling tip-top all weekend. So I will arise, phoenix-like, to assume the co-pilot’s chair for tonight’s rescheduled conversation about “Damnation Alley” (1977).
20th Century Fox put all its chips on this post-apocalyptic sci-fi thriller, starring a mustachioed George Peppard (clearly a long way from “Breakfast at Tiffany’s,” but getting a lot closer to “The A-Team”) and bad boy Jan Michael Vincent (inordinately proud of his dirt bike skills).
They’re joined by lifetime Actors Studio member Paul Winfield, and young Jackie Earle Haley, trading rocks for baseballs, right in the middle of his hot streak of “Bad News Bears” movies. Winfield and Haley were past and future Academy Award nominees (Winfield for “Sounder” in 1972, and Haley for “Little Children” in 2006). Bertolucci favorite Dominique Sanda lends some cosmopolitan “je ne sais quoi” to the “gonna say cray-cray.”
Director Jack Smight delivered his cut of the film in time for a projected December 1976 release. Unfortunately, that’s when the serious meddling began. Thanks to studio intervention, corner-cutting, and some rather unfortunate decisions made in post-production, “Damnation Alley” did not open until October of 1977 – five months after Fox’s other, generally-dismissed, sci-fi kid’s picture, a little film called “Star Wars.” And we all know how that turned out. Over the years, “Damnation Alley” may have developed a cult following, but “Star Wars” changed the course of the entire industry. But what’s a little egg on your face, when you wind up sitting on a mountain of gold?
I hope you’ll join us, in our all-terrain armored Landmaster, on the next Roy’s Tie-Dye Sci-Fi Corner. Giant scorpions and flesh-eating cockroaches can’t keep me away. From Vaccination Valley to “Damnation Alley,” we’ll be following your signal in the comments section, as we livestream on Facebook this Sunday evening at 7:00 EDT!
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