7/1. RIP Richard Taruskin (1945-2022). Since getting the searchable Kindle edition of his 2005 “Oxford History of Western Music” it has functioned as my music encyclopedia. I can’t follow the analyses, but the commentary is always stimulating, even when it seems outrageous. It set me on the path to the systematic listening. His reviews and essays have also left an indelible mark, often on surprising topics:
“The movies did not only preempt the operatic audience. At a profound level, the movies became the operas of the mid- to late-twentieth century, leaving the actual opera houses with a closed-off museum repertoire and a specialized audience of aficionados, rather than a general entertainment public hungry for sensation. With the advent of sound film, opera found its preeminence as a union of the arts compromised and its standing as the grandest of all spectacles usurped. The kinds of subjects that had been its chief preserves—myth and epic, historical costume drama, romantic melodrama, fast-paced farce—suited the new medium even better. Actors and actresses on film were literally, not just metaphorically, larger than life. The mythic aura of the diva attached itself irrecoverably to them.”
7/14. Tony Smith at Pace Los Angeles. (See image at the top) Thirteen pieces? That’s the most Tony Smith I’ve ever seen at one time. I’m still buzzing with delight. What a treat! The pieces were immaculate. I don’t know if they have to be. But it helps with the shadow-play; the masses disappearing into shadows, or masses emerging from shadows. They’re good company. They seem very straightforward at first sight. But as you walk around, play attention, they start to perform.
7/17. Francis Beaumont’s “Knight of the Burning Pestle”, presented by the Independent Shakespeare Co., for free, next to the old zoo in Griffith Park.
What an extraordinary gift this performance was. A rarity presented with wit and ingenuity.
It’s a crazy thing. A romantic drama no sooner begins on stage when a Citizen and his Wife and Assistant in the audience interrupt, and re-direct the action widely off course.
This is all in Beaumont’s text, though he doesn’t provide any instructions about how the actors are supposed to respond to the Citizen and his Wife. ISC had them impersonate rude attendees to an ISC performance: arriving after the lights were turned off; yacking too loud; carrying too much food, drink, blankets and chairs; tromping people who were already settled in their spots.
When the Assistant joins the actors on stage and plays many parts – none called for by the plot – the show really takes off.
The comedy is also live theatrical criticism, mocking clichés of contemporary rowdiness (giants, battles, death endings) and gentility (frustrated lovers, happy endings).
And there’s even more to it. A demonstration of the necessity of impropriety (Citizen & wife) and disobedience (the separated lovers in the romantic drama) and irresponsibility (the impossible Mr. Merrythought). The reconciliations at the end are moving. We’ve been through a lot together, let’s give each other a break.
I assumed it was a very free interpretation. But re-reading the text afterward, I realized ISC kept amazingly literal. I.e. the arrow-through-the-head prop that the Apprentice wears for his melodramatic death scene is the “forked arrow” specified by Beaumont.
(A sign of civilization)
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