Bikram in Philadelphia

The Bikram Yoga studio in center city Philadelphia has this large mural on the back wall of Arjuna being led to victory by Lord Krishna. It's a lovely studio with lots of laid back character.

Singing for A. H. keeps you young?

Check this story about Johannes Heesters who is still singing at 104. There are utube links too.

Opera Memphis announces its season

Next year, we are going to do LA TRAVIATA, TREEMONISHA, and FAUST. We're particularly excited to bring Joplin's seldom performed show to Memphis. TREEMONISHA was never performed in Joplin's lifetime and we are going to do a new version of the show which shows Joplin's difficulty in getting a production of his show, which is set in Texarkana and is about a group of freed slaves trying to better themselves, while fighting superstition and ignorance. TREEMONISHA will play in January 09.

The season opens in October with LA TRAVIATA, starring Kallen Esperian and closes with Caroline Worra and Adam Klein singing Marguerite and Faust in FAUST. There's more about this at the Opera Memphis website.

This weekend I'm going to see David Di Chiera's new opera CYRANO at Opera Company of Philadelphia.

Bye bye polaroid

Polaroid is going to stop making film for its instant cameras. I still have the audio equivalent--lots of cassette tapes, quarter inch reel-to-reel tapes of old piano recitals. Even digital audio tape (DAT) isn't used very much any more. Pretty soon the TVs in my house are going to be dinosaurs too.

We try to make art, music, and literature to last, but even something as ageless seeming as Mozart is only 200 some years old. Hopefully Mozart won't seem like Polaroid some day. Technology marches on; hopefully art loses its utility at a slower pace.

Obligatory Disney Hall LA Photos

In the foreground is the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) and behind the Gehry building on the right is one of the other buildings in the Music Center complex, the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion which houses the opera house.

It was a treat to see the famous Tristan John Treleaven in the title role in Wagner's four and a half hour marathon opera.

Yoga Championships

While in LA, I happened to be there on the same weekend as the International Yoga Asana Championship. Sponsored by Bikram's Yoga College of India. Our local Bikram studio owner, Lori was in the competition, representing Tennessee. Although I wasn't able to see her perform, I did manage to see an hour or so of the men's competition before having to go back to things operatic. There were some bendy men!

Unfortunately, out of respect for the concentration of the contestants, I wasn't able to use a flash, so most of my pictures came out fuzzy.

In LA to see Tristan and Isolde

I stopped by the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles' Little Tokyo. The museum has some rather static but moving exhibits in a beautiful building. The highlight was meeting a docent/volunteer named Mary who was an elegant woman who had been in the internment camp at Gila River for two years. Mary was quite particular about calling the camp a concentration camp and that the concentration camps in Europe should be called extermination camps. She was a living representation of a part of Japanese Amercan history--look for her if you ever go to the museum.

Two Good Performances

The third act of Macbeth turned out to be particularly fun to conduct--witches chorus, ballet, apparitions scene, another chorus/ballet, and a duet with Mac and Lady Mac.

Verdi elected to leave out "By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes," so we added it back in as a spoken line. In Italian it goes: "Dal prurito che ai pollici sento, vien qui qualcosa di cruento..."


It was nice to see Rudolph Cleare of the Negro Spiritual Scholarship Foundation,
at the second performance. We will host a branch of the competition later in the spring.

Macbeth: An opening day like any other

Although there are those that like to rest up on the day of an opening, I find that if I do not have some semblance of normalcy--some errands, some chores, some correspondence--I arrive at the theatre lethargic. I need to jump around backstage to get my energy up.

One of my conductor colleagues mentioned to me that once the performance starts, it is useful for
there to be a small mistake early on, some slight mishap in ensemble perhaps, in order to really give a little adrenalin boost.

Backstage at Macbeth

In Macbeth, King Duncan is played by a supernumerary who doesn't speak as he does in the Shakespeare play. Check him out cutting up backstage on You Tube at dress rehearsal.