Listening Post
As a columnist (“Listening Post”) and feature writer, Doug DeLoach has been contributing to Creative Loafing since the early 1980s. A regular contributor to Songlines, a world music magazine based in London, his ruminating on arts and culture have appeared in publications such as Georgia Music, ArtsGeorgia, ArtsATL, Stomp & Stammer, High Performance, and Art Papers.
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string(8175) "Embracing pandemical shelter, masking up for an errand run, ducking and covering from microbial dread, we suffer the remedial, yet essential, tasks made all the more anxiety-inducing by the dictates of corrupt leadership and the selfish belligerence of willfully ignoratnt fellow citizens. Given the revolting cast and gloomy plot of this summer blockbuster, Listening Post offers a few diversionary pursuits as a temporary antidote.
Everyone is by now familiar with virtual streaming concerts and other types of online musical programming. Back in March, one of the first examples encountered by your correspondent was billed as a “Facebook Live” event featuring Richard Thompson. Filmed at his New Jersey home with partner Zara Phillips lending support and occasional backing vocals, the hour-long concert presented Thompson in typically poised, wry form. Watching him tossing off amazing guitar riffs with the greatest of ease, singing with serious intent when the material called for it, all while cracking wise and sitting on a couch in his living room, made for a hugely enter-taining experience.
Closer to home (proximally speaking), Listening Post has been especially enjoying the mostly local fare offered by Kimono My House, a virtual concert series on Facebook launched in March and administered by Kim Ware, Andy Gish, and The Yum Yum Tree. Fave installments so far include performances by Jeff Evans’ Chickens & Pigs, Bad Friend, Nerdkween, In Sonitus Lux, Al Shelton, Zentropy, Christo Case, and TT Mahoney.
Part of the fun of Kimono My House and similar series is watching the artist(s) perform in their natural habitat. Whether it’s a studio, rec room, back porch, or kitchen, the casual, mistakes-don’t-matter setting makes for a refreshingly engaging vibe. When the audience’s comments and emojis are acknowledged, a kind of rapport is conjured up, which adds to the “live” ambience. Sometimes, the banter between songs is as entertaining as the music itself. It’s no substitute for hanging out with friends at 529, Buteco, Eddie’s Attic, The Masquerade, Variety Playhouse, or The Earl, but this virtual gig thing can still be a lot of fun.
* * *
On May 14, the Rialto Center for the Arts kicked off its “Homegrown Artists Series” with a noontime mini-concert by saxophonist, clarinetist and composer Jeff Crompton, who is no stranger to regular Listening Post readers. Curated by Rialto Stage Manager Nathan Brown, the series showcases local musicians via short (15-20 minutes) artist-submitted videos streamed on all of the Rialto’s social media platforms at 12 noon.
In May, the “Homegrown Artists Series” featured Jeffrey Butzer (May 21) and Zentropy (Allen Welty-Green) with Oblique Audio Haikus (May 28). Scheduled in June are singer-guitarist Bridget Leen (June 4) and tuba wizard Bill Pritchard (June 11) with additional performances TBD. Pritchard will be performing under the moniker Amplituba, which denotes his work incorporating electronic digital processing and effects.
For the “Homegrown” concert, Pritchard will play two compositions, one of which, ElevenTwelve, was written in 2019 for the tubist by Joanna Ross Hersey, inspired by Hildegard von Bingen, whose life and career as a nun, Abbess, composer, author, political figure and spiritual leader spanned the 11th and 12th centuries (1098-1170). Hersey advises the performer of ElevenTwelve thusly: “The soloist’s musical choices evoke an overall atmosphere of peace and serenity, through the use of flowing and meditative melodic lines. These melodies bring to mind Hildegard’s chant music, sung by the nuns during the worship at Disibodenburg (site of the convent’s abbey in Germany), honoring their lives and work, worship and community.”
Separately, the Rialto’s Brown is virtually spinning a full jazz album every evening at 7 p.m. Links to the albums are posted on the Rialto Center for the Arts Facebook page by searching #7pmJazz.
* * *
Another cool home-alone program is “Banjo House Lockdown,” featuring Bela Fleck and Abigail Washburn. Live-streamed on Fridays at 7 p.m. EST (also archived on YouTube) from the couple’s Nashville residence, the show is part serious banjo fandango and part all-in-the-family sitcom, the latter aspect stemming from impromptu and staged participation by Fleck and Washburn’s impossibly cute sons, Juno, six, and Theo, two. A typical episode setlist includes an Appalachian murder ballad, an 18th-century ghost song, a 19th-century sea shanty, a 20th-century coal miner’s protest song, something from Fleck’s or Washburn’s vast personal repertoire, and original material the dynamic duo is still honing. One of my favorite segments is “Sheroes in the Shower,” which, oddly enough, features Washburn singing a cappella in the shower, taking advantage of the space’s special acoustic properties. There are kids’ songs complete with puppets and hand-crayoned sets, an abundance of virtuosic frailing and flatpicking, and more knee-slapping family-friendly entertainment than an episode of The Beverly Hillbillies. (I wonder how many readers will get the comparison).
* * *
NPR Music has a terrific site, which lists live concert audio and video streams from around the world. The calendar includes performances by the Metropolitan Opera and New York City Ballet; various chamber ensembles and solo instrumental recitals; folk, jazz, rock, and bluegrass bands; all of which are accessible on platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube. As NPR notes, some of the programming requires registration or a subscription, but most of it is free. That said, as with most pandemic programming, audiences should be predisposed to digitally tip the artists and avail themselves of opportunities to directly support the performers by buying music and merchandise.
* * *
Speaking of buying music and merch, on two recent Fridays, Bandcamp waived its standard revenue share on sales, thereby increasing the amount of income flowing to artists who use the company’s online platform to distribute and sell music and related wares. On a typical Friday, according to Bandcamp founder and CEO Ethan Diamond, the site registers about 47,000 orders. On March 20, fans placed 800,000 orders for music and stuff worth $4.3 million; at peak activity, Bandcamp was registering 11 sales per second. Two months later, on Friday, May 1, the 24-hour tally amounted to $7.1 million. With all indications pointing to the Coronavirus going nowhere but everywhere with the inexorable stubbornness of a tsunami, Bandcamp extended its revenue waiver program to include the first Friday of the next two months. On June 5 and July 3, from midnight to midnight PDT, musicians will substantially benefit from “duty free” sales placed through Bandcamp. Remember, kids, the COVID-19 Christmas season is just around the corner.
* * *
From King Crimson founder Robert Fripp comes “Music for Quiet Moments,” a series of ambient instrumental soundscapes available online every week for 50 weeks. “Something to nourish us, and help us through these uncertain times,” notes the inventor of Frippertronics. “Quiet moments are when we put time aside to be quiet. Sometimes quiet moments find us. Quiet may be experienced with sound, and also through sound; in a place we hold to be sacred, or maybe on a crowded subway train hurtling towards Piccadilly or Times Square. Quiet moments of my musical life, expressed in soundscapes, are deeply personal; yet utterly impersonal: they address the concerns we share within our common humanity.” Who is Listening Post to disagree? The first three installments were exactly what one would expect: gracefully distinctive guitar effects eddying, gliding, and pirouetting above an undulating, fathoms-deep modal ocean. Choose your favorite mantra and Zen away the coronal chaos with Fripp. Also deserving mention is the “Sunday Lockdown Lunch” series, which stars Fripp and Toyah Wilcox cavorting in brief, humorous music videos. My top pick so far is the “Swan Lake” episode. —CL—"
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Everyone is by now familiar with virtual streaming concerts and other types of online musical programming. Back in March, one of the first examples encountered by your correspondent was billed as a “Facebook Live” event featuring Richard Thompson. Filmed at his New Jersey home with partner Zara Phillips lending support and occasional backing vocals, the hour-long concert presented Thompson in typically poised, wry form. Watching him tossing off amazing guitar riffs with the greatest of ease, singing with serious intent when the material called for it, all while cracking wise and sitting on a couch in his living room, made for a hugely enter-taining experience.
Closer to home (proximally speaking), Listening Post has been especially enjoying the mostly local fare offered by Kimono My House, a virtual concert series on Facebook launched in March and administered by Kim Ware, Andy Gish, and The Yum Yum Tree. Fave installments so far include performances by Jeff Evans’ Chickens & Pigs, Bad Friend, Nerdkween, In Sonitus Lux, Al Shelton, Zentropy, Christo Case, and TT Mahoney.
Part of the fun of Kimono My House and similar series is watching the artist(s) perform in their natural habitat. Whether it’s a studio, rec room, back porch, or kitchen, the casual, mistakes-don’t-matter setting makes for a refreshingly engaging vibe. When the audience’s comments and emojis are acknowledged, a kind of rapport is conjured up, which adds to the “live” ambience. Sometimes, the banter between songs is as entertaining as the music itself. It’s no substitute for hanging out with friends at 529, Buteco, Eddie’s Attic, The Masquerade, Variety Playhouse, or The Earl, but this virtual gig thing can still be a lot of fun.
__* * *__
On May 14, the Rialto Center for the Arts kicked off its “Homegrown Artists Series” with a noontime mini-concert by saxophonist, clarinetist and composer Jeff Crompton, who is no stranger to regular Listening Post readers. Curated by Rialto Stage Manager Nathan Brown, the series showcases local musicians via short (15-20 minutes) artist-submitted videos streamed on all of the Rialto’s social media platforms at 12 noon.
{img fileId="31427" stylebox="float: right; margin-left:25px;" desc="desc" max="400px"}In May, the “Homegrown Artists Series” featured Jeffrey Butzer (May 21) and Zentropy (Allen Welty-Green) with Oblique Audio Haikus (May 28). Scheduled in June are singer-guitarist Bridget Leen (June 4) and tuba wizard Bill Pritchard (June 11) with additional performances TBD. Pritchard will be performing under the moniker Amplituba, which denotes his work incorporating electronic digital processing and effects.
For the “Homegrown” concert, Pritchard will play two compositions, one of which, ''ElevenTwelve'', was written in 2019 for the tubist by Joanna Ross Hersey, inspired by Hildegard von Bingen, whose life and career as a nun, Abbess, composer, author, political figure and spiritual leader spanned the 11th and 12th centuries (1098-1170). Hersey advises the performer of ''ElevenTwelve'' thusly: “The soloist’s musical choices evoke an overall atmosphere of peace and serenity, through the use of flowing and meditative melodic lines. These melodies bring to mind Hildegard’s chant music, sung by the nuns during the worship at Disibodenburg (site of the convent’s abbey in Germany), honoring their lives and work, worship and community.”
Separately, the Rialto’s Brown is virtually spinning a full jazz album every evening at 7 p.m. Links to the albums are posted on the Rialto Center for the Arts Facebook page by searching #7pmJazz.
__* * *__
Another cool home-alone program is “Banjo House Lockdown,” featuring Bela Fleck and Abigail Washburn. Live-streamed on Fridays at 7 p.m. EST (also archived on YouTube) from the couple’s Nashville residence, the show is part serious banjo fandango and part all-in-the-family sitcom, the latter aspect stemming from impromptu and staged participation by Fleck and Washburn’s impossibly cute sons, Juno, six, and Theo, two. A typical episode setlist includes an Appalachian murder ballad, an 18th-century ghost song, a 19th-century sea shanty, a 20th-century coal miner’s protest song, something from Fleck’s or Washburn’s vast personal repertoire, and original material the dynamic duo is still honing. One of my favorite segments is “Sheroes in the Shower,” which, oddly enough, features Washburn singing a cappella in the shower, taking advantage of the space’s special acoustic properties. There are kids’ songs complete with puppets and hand-crayoned sets, an abundance of virtuosic frailing and flatpicking, and more knee-slapping family-friendly entertainment than an episode of ''The Beverly Hillbillies''. (I wonder how many readers will get the comparison).
__* * *__
NPR Music has a terrific site, which lists live concert audio and video streams from around the world. The calendar includes performances by the Metropolitan Opera and New York City Ballet; various chamber ensembles and solo instrumental recitals; folk, jazz, rock, and bluegrass bands; all of which are accessible on platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube. As NPR notes, some of the programming requires registration or a subscription, but most of it is free. That said, as with most pandemic programming, audiences should be predisposed to digitally tip the artists and avail themselves of opportunities to directly support the performers by buying music and merchandise.
__* * *__
Speaking of buying music and merch, on two recent Fridays, Bandcamp waived its standard revenue share on sales, thereby increasing the amount of income flowing to artists who use the company’s online platform to distribute and sell music and related wares. On a typical Friday, according to Bandcamp founder and CEO Ethan Diamond, the site registers about 47,000 orders. On March 20, fans placed 800,000 orders for music and stuff worth $4.3 million; at peak activity, Bandcamp was registering 11 sales per second. Two months later, on Friday, May 1, the 24-hour tally amounted to $7.1 million. With all indications pointing to the Coronavirus going nowhere but everywhere with the inexorable stubbornness of a tsunami, Bandcamp extended its revenue waiver program to include the first Friday of the next two months. On June 5 and July 3, from midnight to midnight PDT, musicians will substantially benefit from “duty free” sales placed through Bandcamp. Remember, kids, the COVID-19 Christmas season is just around the corner.
__* * *__
From King Crimson founder Robert Fripp comes “Music for Quiet Moments,” a series of ambient instrumental soundscapes available online every week for 50 weeks. “Something to nourish us, and help us through these uncertain times,” notes the inventor of Frippertronics. “Quiet moments are when we put time aside to be quiet. Sometimes quiet moments find us. Quiet may be experienced with sound, and also through sound; in a place we hold to be sacred, or maybe on a crowded subway train hurtling towards Piccadilly or Times Square. Quiet moments of my musical life, expressed in soundscapes, are deeply personal; yet utterly impersonal: they address the concerns we share within our common humanity.” Who is Listening Post to disagree? The first three installments were exactly what one would expect: gracefully distinctive guitar effects eddying, gliding, and pirouetting above an undulating, fathoms-deep modal ocean. Choose your favorite mantra and Zen away the coronal chaos with Fripp. Also deserving mention is the “Sunday Lockdown Lunch” series, which stars Fripp and Toyah Wilcox cavorting in brief, humorous music videos. My top pick so far is the “Swan Lake” episode. __—CL—__"
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string(9028) " 2 Wu Fei & Abigail Washburn By Shervin Lainez 7 2020-06-03T21:34:25+00:00 2_Wu_Fei_&_Abigail_Washburn_by_Shervin_Lainez_7.jpg listeningpost Online diversions offer respite for listeners and support for musicians 31428 2020-06-03T21:35:23+00:00 LISTENING POST: Don’t pandemic! jim.harris@creativeloafing.com Jim Harris DOUG DELOACH Doug DeLoach 2020-06-03T21:35:23+00:00 Embracing pandemical shelter, masking up for an errand run, ducking and covering from microbial dread, we suffer the remedial, yet essential, tasks made all the more anxiety-inducing by the dictates of corrupt leadership and the selfish belligerence of willfully ignoratnt fellow citizens. Given the revolting cast and gloomy plot of this summer blockbuster, Listening Post offers a few diversionary pursuits as a temporary antidote.
Everyone is by now familiar with virtual streaming concerts and other types of online musical programming. Back in March, one of the first examples encountered by your correspondent was billed as a “Facebook Live” event featuring Richard Thompson. Filmed at his New Jersey home with partner Zara Phillips lending support and occasional backing vocals, the hour-long concert presented Thompson in typically poised, wry form. Watching him tossing off amazing guitar riffs with the greatest of ease, singing with serious intent when the material called for it, all while cracking wise and sitting on a couch in his living room, made for a hugely enter-taining experience.
Closer to home (proximally speaking), Listening Post has been especially enjoying the mostly local fare offered by Kimono My House, a virtual concert series on Facebook launched in March and administered by Kim Ware, Andy Gish, and The Yum Yum Tree. Fave installments so far include performances by Jeff Evans’ Chickens & Pigs, Bad Friend, Nerdkween, In Sonitus Lux, Al Shelton, Zentropy, Christo Case, and TT Mahoney.
Part of the fun of Kimono My House and similar series is watching the artist(s) perform in their natural habitat. Whether it’s a studio, rec room, back porch, or kitchen, the casual, mistakes-don’t-matter setting makes for a refreshingly engaging vibe. When the audience’s comments and emojis are acknowledged, a kind of rapport is conjured up, which adds to the “live” ambience. Sometimes, the banter between songs is as entertaining as the music itself. It’s no substitute for hanging out with friends at 529, Buteco, Eddie’s Attic, The Masquerade, Variety Playhouse, or The Earl, but this virtual gig thing can still be a lot of fun.
* * *
On May 14, the Rialto Center for the Arts kicked off its “Homegrown Artists Series” with a noontime mini-concert by saxophonist, clarinetist and composer Jeff Crompton, who is no stranger to regular Listening Post readers. Curated by Rialto Stage Manager Nathan Brown, the series showcases local musicians via short (15-20 minutes) artist-submitted videos streamed on all of the Rialto’s social media platforms at 12 noon.
In May, the “Homegrown Artists Series” featured Jeffrey Butzer (May 21) and Zentropy (Allen Welty-Green) with Oblique Audio Haikus (May 28). Scheduled in June are singer-guitarist Bridget Leen (June 4) and tuba wizard Bill Pritchard (June 11) with additional performances TBD. Pritchard will be performing under the moniker Amplituba, which denotes his work incorporating electronic digital processing and effects.
For the “Homegrown” concert, Pritchard will play two compositions, one of which, ElevenTwelve, was written in 2019 for the tubist by Joanna Ross Hersey, inspired by Hildegard von Bingen, whose life and career as a nun, Abbess, composer, author, political figure and spiritual leader spanned the 11th and 12th centuries (1098-1170). Hersey advises the performer of ElevenTwelve thusly: “The soloist’s musical choices evoke an overall atmosphere of peace and serenity, through the use of flowing and meditative melodic lines. These melodies bring to mind Hildegard’s chant music, sung by the nuns during the worship at Disibodenburg (site of the convent’s abbey in Germany), honoring their lives and work, worship and community.”
Separately, the Rialto’s Brown is virtually spinning a full jazz album every evening at 7 p.m. Links to the albums are posted on the Rialto Center for the Arts Facebook page by searching #7pmJazz.
* * *
Another cool home-alone program is “Banjo House Lockdown,” featuring Bela Fleck and Abigail Washburn. Live-streamed on Fridays at 7 p.m. EST (also archived on YouTube) from the couple’s Nashville residence, the show is part serious banjo fandango and part all-in-the-family sitcom, the latter aspect stemming from impromptu and staged participation by Fleck and Washburn’s impossibly cute sons, Juno, six, and Theo, two. A typical episode setlist includes an Appalachian murder ballad, an 18th-century ghost song, a 19th-century sea shanty, a 20th-century coal miner’s protest song, something from Fleck’s or Washburn’s vast personal repertoire, and original material the dynamic duo is still honing. One of my favorite segments is “Sheroes in the Shower,” which, oddly enough, features Washburn singing a cappella in the shower, taking advantage of the space’s special acoustic properties. There are kids’ songs complete with puppets and hand-crayoned sets, an abundance of virtuosic frailing and flatpicking, and more knee-slapping family-friendly entertainment than an episode of The Beverly Hillbillies. (I wonder how many readers will get the comparison).
* * *
NPR Music has a terrific site, which lists live concert audio and video streams from around the world. The calendar includes performances by the Metropolitan Opera and New York City Ballet; various chamber ensembles and solo instrumental recitals; folk, jazz, rock, and bluegrass bands; all of which are accessible on platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube. As NPR notes, some of the programming requires registration or a subscription, but most of it is free. That said, as with most pandemic programming, audiences should be predisposed to digitally tip the artists and avail themselves of opportunities to directly support the performers by buying music and merchandise.
* * *
Speaking of buying music and merch, on two recent Fridays, Bandcamp waived its standard revenue share on sales, thereby increasing the amount of income flowing to artists who use the company’s online platform to distribute and sell music and related wares. On a typical Friday, according to Bandcamp founder and CEO Ethan Diamond, the site registers about 47,000 orders. On March 20, fans placed 800,000 orders for music and stuff worth $4.3 million; at peak activity, Bandcamp was registering 11 sales per second. Two months later, on Friday, May 1, the 24-hour tally amounted to $7.1 million. With all indications pointing to the Coronavirus going nowhere but everywhere with the inexorable stubbornness of a tsunami, Bandcamp extended its revenue waiver program to include the first Friday of the next two months. On June 5 and July 3, from midnight to midnight PDT, musicians will substantially benefit from “duty free” sales placed through Bandcamp. Remember, kids, the COVID-19 Christmas season is just around the corner.
* * *
From King Crimson founder Robert Fripp comes “Music for Quiet Moments,” a series of ambient instrumental soundscapes available online every week for 50 weeks. “Something to nourish us, and help us through these uncertain times,” notes the inventor of Frippertronics. “Quiet moments are when we put time aside to be quiet. Sometimes quiet moments find us. Quiet may be experienced with sound, and also through sound; in a place we hold to be sacred, or maybe on a crowded subway train hurtling towards Piccadilly or Times Square. Quiet moments of my musical life, expressed in soundscapes, are deeply personal; yet utterly impersonal: they address the concerns we share within our common humanity.” Who is Listening Post to disagree? The first three installments were exactly what one would expect: gracefully distinctive guitar effects eddying, gliding, and pirouetting above an undulating, fathoms-deep modal ocean. Choose your favorite mantra and Zen away the coronal chaos with Fripp. Also deserving mention is the “Sunday Lockdown Lunch” series, which stars Fripp and Toyah Wilcox cavorting in brief, humorous music videos. My top pick so far is the “Swan Lake” episode. —CL— Shervin Lainez For the housebound, Listening Post recommends Bela Fleck and Abigal Washburn's "Banjo House Lockdown," a free, weekly (Fridays at 7 p.m.) DIY concert program live-streamed on Facebook and archived on YouTube. Shown above, Washburn (Fleck's wife and frequent musical collaborator) and Chinese guzheng player Wu Fei recently released a duo album on Smithsonian Folkways 0,0,10 listeningpost LISTENING POST: Don’t pandemic! "
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Wednesday June 3, 2020 05:35 pm EDT
Online diversions offer respite for listeners and support for musicians
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string(9661) "Here we are, a few months into the COVID-19 pandemic. Hitherto relatively normal citizens are executing pre-dawn raids on Publix, Piggly Wiggly, and Walmart to secure inordinate caches of toilet paper, hand sanitizer, surgical masks, Pringles, and microwavable dinner entrees. The stock market has taken a dump, and the general economy teeters on the brink of DEFCON 2. After Senate Republicans ensured that assistance to the least advantaged Americans was pared down to the barest minimum and the largest corporations jacked up for another stock buyback bonanza, checks that might cover a monthly mortgage payment and, in some cases, maybe a week’s worth of groceries, are trickling into the coffers of the proletariat.
Lunatics, for the most part, are running the pandemic response asylum. The president of the United States, Donald J. Trump, offers guidance based on hunches, selfish whims, and exhaust gasses from the right-wing scream machine. By the time you read these words, the White House may or may not have discontinued daily televised briefings co-starring the handpicked Coronavirus Task Force. Previous episodes featured the president’s fapping assessment of his great and unmatched wisdom coupled with deranged rantings at critics real and imagined. Sometimes, tidbits of factual, helpful information by scientists and health experts, cowed into gurgling subservience, made their way into the script. Regardless of whether the White House network cancels the COVID-19 reality show, whose ratings Trump touts as a praiseworthy achievement, the public can expect ongoing obfuscation and disinformation from the president’s sycophantic representatives dutifully following the dictum that chaos favors the powers that be.
Closer to home, buoyed by not quite unanimous approval from the state legislature and supported by a body politic inclined toward herd stupidity, Governor Brian Kemp, the former Secretary of State who oversaw his own election, is ignoring the global consensus of epidemiological experts, not to mention the federal government’s official guidelines, in favor of his own strategy for handling COVID-19. While it’s too early to draw hard conclusions about Kemp’s approach, it doesn’t take a PhD in epidemiology to predict a less than desirable outcome resulting from opening up businesses and encouraging public gatherings, for example, at shopping malls and restaurants, regardless of whatever safety measures are being observed at any given locale.
Thank the goddesses, Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms is disinclined to follow Kemp’s lead. On March 19, with the rising number of coronavirus cases and deaths caused by the disease showing no sign of leveling off, Bottoms ordered the closure of all nightclubs, private social clubs, fitness centers, gyms, movie theaters, bowling alleys and arcades within the city limits “until further notice.” At press time, restaurants and bars are limited to offering take-out and curbside pickup service. Individually, metro area county and city officials have issued executive orders and announced strong recommendations regarding what residents and businesses within their jurisdictions can and cannot do. Check your local listings, as they say, for the latest details.
In this time of pandemic sheltering, here are a couple of Listening Post recommendations:
Buy and read Jim Tate’s Bruce Hampton: The Early Years (1962-1970). Tate was a close adolescent friend of the late iconoclastic musician and actor (Sling Blade) who passed away May 1, 2017, while performing onstage at the Fox Theatre during his 70th birthday celebration. Only a man of preternatural essence could pull off such a dramatically compelling mortal uncoiling. Tate’s brief, 50-odd-page, anecdotal account confirms the presence of this essence in his friend at an early age. During their teenage years, Tate and Hampton lived a few doors apart on Millbrook Drive near Chastain Park. They shot basketballs, raced bicycles in the dirt, and did the usual stuff teenagers do together. Except, this was Bruce Hampton, which means “the usual stuff” also included strange powers of prognostication, unearthly athletic feats, and the incitement of a near-riot on Live Atlanta Wrestling. All of the shenanigans described in the book transpired before the formation of the Hampton Grease Band, which marked the beginning of Hampton’s journey to avant-jazz-rock before “the Colonel”’s jam band fame, acknowledging small details in the mirror of embarrassment, and cosmic immortality. Get Tate’s book and discover the latent reality behind the myth tangential to the enigma wrapped around the conundrum, which forever remains Bruce Hampton.
Elsewhere in this issue, Chad Radford provides details on Halocline, a new release from Duet for Theremin and Lap Steel, and Six Feet Apart, a three-track mini-album featuring DfTaLS lap steel specialist Frank Schultz and percussionist Klimchak performing as a duo. Bandcamp is the place to download and preorder both albums, with proceeds from sales going to Giving Kitchen and the Atlanta Musicians’ Emergency Relief Fund.
Halocline is a superbly crafted work of electronic ambience, the best release yet by Duet for Theremin and Lap Steel’s Scott Burland and Schultz. Texturally variant, richly layered, irresistibly immersive, the eight tracks entice the listener into an alternate dimension of contemplative spaces. Think of Halocline as an antidote to pandemic-induced anxiety.
The tracks were taken from improvised sessions during February, March, and April of 2019. Three songs feature Louisville, Kentucky-based Dane Waters, an operatically trained singer with an exquisitely light, precise, and alluring voice. DfTaLS sent three tracks to Waters who sang and improvised non-lyrical melodic lines for incorporation into the final mix. Her contribution lends a gracious, human presence to the instrumental proceedings.
“We met Dane while on tour in 2019 and fell in love with her voice,” says Schultz. “After seeing her perform in Louisville, we went to her house the next day and asked her to provide some vocal tracks for our upcoming album.”
The album’s title refers to an oceanic phenomenon in which the salinity of water changes rapidly in a vertical gradient, causing dramatic differences in the water’s density and clarity, which produces visually observable effects. “We saw a similar phenomenon in the music we chose for the album,” says Burland. “Some is shapeless, murky, dense, while other pieces are melodic and sparse.”
With track titles such as “Swell,” “Brinicle,” and “Sea of Eternal Gloom,” the aquatic theme runs deeply through the album. Years ago, a reviewer described Duet for Theremin and Lap Steel’s music as “a long-lost soundtrack to a deep-sea documentary,” which Burland says “describes Halocline perfectly.”
Regarding Six Feet Apart, Schultz says he enjoyed the collaboration-at-a-distance with Klimchak, even though some aspects of the process took some getting used to. The music was conceived and mixed before sheltering in place became the operational norm. Schultz recorded his tracks alone, while experimenting with preparing and playing the lap steel with chopsticks, then sent the completed tracks to Klimchak.
“What is missing is being in the same room and making on-the-spot decisions, whether agreements or changes, as well as that feeling of urgency, immediacy, and instant gratification,” says Schultz.
The idea of collaborating in a more conventional setting was something the two musicians had been discussing for some time. When he initially received the three tracks from Schultz, Klimchak says it seemed like a good idea from a convenience standpoint.
“I was in the midst of several other big projects, so it was actually a way to jump right in without having to fit a practice session around other deadlines,” he says. “It really only seemed odd after the fact, now that long-distance collaboration is something we have to do.”
The music on Six Feet Apart is a captivating mixture of modal undercurrents created by waves of synthesized sound; sharply percussive accents, modified natural and electronic noise elements, and what sounds like horror movie samples from Klimchak’s fathomless bag of tricks; and a distinctly gamelan-like metallic reverberation imparted partly by Schultz’ chopsticks on lap steel technique. The mélange of exotically beautiful, vaguely Asiatic tonal colors and deeply sinuous world grooves make for a perfectly wondrous listening experience.
“While Frank’s parts were improvised, mine were not improvised, although improv was a part of the composing process,” Klimchak explains. “Because I had his finished tracks before starting on mine, I had the luxury of listening to his parts at length and trying different things to see what worked best. After picking out the individual instruments that I wanted to use, I sat down and wrote the parts, then recorded them.”
Klimchak is currently in the middle of a long-distance collaboration with percussionist Sean Hamilton in Grand Junction, Colorado. The duo decided to record an album in lieu of a planned five-week West Coast tour in April/May. “It’s been really easy going because of the experience doing Six Feet Apart,” says Klimchak.
If there is a silver lining to the coronavirus pandemic, it might turn out to be the different ways in which musicians and other artists are forced to collaborate at a distance. Even beset by a plague, the muse always finds a way. —CL—"
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Closer to home, buoyed by not quite unanimous approval from the state legislature and supported by a body politic inclined toward herd stupidity, Governor Brian Kemp, the former Secretary of State who oversaw his own election, is ignoring the global consensus of epidemiological experts, not to mention the federal government’s official guidelines, in favor of his own strategy for handling COVID-19. While it’s too early to draw hard conclusions about Kemp’s approach, it doesn’t take a PhD in epidemiology to predict a less than desirable outcome resulting from opening up businesses and encouraging public gatherings, for example, at shopping malls and restaurants, regardless of whatever safety measures are being observed at any given locale.
Thank the goddesses, Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms is disinclined to follow Kemp’s lead. On March 19, with the rising number of coronavirus cases and deaths caused by the disease showing no sign of leveling off, Bottoms ordered the closure of all nightclubs, private social clubs, fitness centers, gyms, movie theaters, bowling alleys and arcades within the city limits “until further notice.” At press time, restaurants and bars are limited to offering take-out and curbside pickup service. Individually, metro area county and city officials have issued executive orders and announced strong recommendations regarding what residents and businesses within their jurisdictions can and cannot do. Check your local listings, as they say, for the latest details.
In this time of pandemic sheltering, here are a couple of Listening Post recommendations:
Buy and read Jim Tate’s ''Bruce Hampton: The Early Years (1962-1970)''. Tate was a close adolescent friend of the late iconoclastic musician and actor (''Sling Blade'') who passed away May 1, 2017, while performing onstage at the Fox Theatre during his 70th birthday celebration. Only a man of preternatural essence could pull off such a dramatically compelling mortal uncoiling. Tate’s brief, 50-odd-page, anecdotal account confirms the presence of this essence in his friend at an early age. During their teenage years, Tate and Hampton lived a few doors apart on Millbrook Drive near Chastain Park. They shot basketballs, raced bicycles in the dirt, and did the usual stuff teenagers do together. Except, this was Bruce Hampton, which means “the usual stuff” also included strange powers of prognostication, unearthly athletic feats, and the incitement of a near-riot on ''Live Atlanta Wrestling''. All of the shenanigans described in the book transpired before the formation of the Hampton Grease Band, which marked the beginning of Hampton’s journey to avant-jazz-rock before “the Colonel”’s jam band fame, acknowledging small details in the mirror of embarrassment, and cosmic immortality. Get Tate’s book and discover the latent reality behind the myth tangential to the enigma wrapped around the conundrum, which forever remains Bruce Hampton.
Elsewhere in this issue, Chad Radford provides details on ''Halocline,'' a new release from Duet for Theremin and Lap Steel, and ''Six Feet Apart,'' a three-track mini-album featuring DfTaLS lap steel specialist Frank Schultz and percussionist Klimchak performing as a duo. Bandcamp is the place to download and preorder both albums, with proceeds from sales going to Giving Kitchen and the Atlanta Musicians’ Emergency Relief Fund.
''Halocline'' is a superbly crafted work of electronic ambience, the best release yet by Duet for Theremin and Lap Steel’s Scott Burland and Schultz. Texturally variant, richly layered, irresistibly immersive, the eight tracks entice the listener into an alternate dimension of contemplative spaces. Think of ''Halocline'' as an antidote to pandemic-induced anxiety.
The tracks were taken from improvised sessions during February, March, and April of 2019. Three songs feature Louisville, Kentucky-based Dane Waters, an operatically trained singer with an exquisitely light, precise, and alluring voice. DfTaLS sent three tracks to Waters who sang and improvised non-lyrical melodic lines for incorporation into the final mix. Her contribution lends a gracious, human presence to the instrumental proceedings.
“We met Dane while on tour in 2019 and fell in love with her voice,” says Schultz. “After seeing her perform in Louisville, we went to her house the next day and asked her to provide some vocal tracks for our upcoming album.”
The album’s title refers to an oceanic phenomenon in which the salinity of water changes rapidly in a vertical gradient, causing dramatic differences in the water’s density and clarity, which produces visually observable effects. “We saw a similar phenomenon in the music we chose for the album,” says Burland. “Some is shapeless, murky, dense, while other pieces are melodic and sparse.”
With track titles such as “Swell,” “Brinicle,” and “Sea of Eternal Gloom,” the aquatic theme runs deeply through the album. Years ago, a reviewer described Duet for Theremin and Lap Steel’s music as “a long-lost soundtrack to a deep-sea documentary,” which Burland says “describes ''Halocline'' perfectly.”
Regarding ''Six Feet Apart'', Schultz says he enjoyed the collaboration-at-a-distance with Klimchak, even though some aspects of the process took some getting used to. The music was conceived and mixed before sheltering in place became the operational norm. Schultz recorded his tracks alone, while experimenting with preparing and playing the lap steel with chopsticks, then sent the completed tracks to Klimchak.
“What is missing is being in the same room and making on-the-spot decisions, whether agreements or changes, as well as that feeling of urgency, immediacy, and instant gratification,” says Schultz.
The idea of collaborating in a more conventional setting was something the two musicians had been discussing for some time. When he initially received the three tracks from Schultz, Klimchak says it seemed like a good idea from a convenience standpoint.
“I was in the midst of several other big projects, so it was actually a way to jump right in without having to fit a practice session around other deadlines,” he says. “It really only seemed odd after the fact, now that long-distance collaboration is something we have to do.”
The music on ''Six Feet Apart'' is a captivating mixture of modal undercurrents created by waves of synthesized sound; sharply percussive accents, modified natural and electronic noise elements, and what sounds like horror movie samples from Klimchak’s fathomless bag of tricks; and a distinctly gamelan-like metallic reverberation imparted partly by Schultz’ chopsticks on lap steel technique. The mélange of exotically beautiful, vaguely Asiatic tonal colors and deeply sinuous world grooves make for a perfectly wondrous listening experience.
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“While Frank’s parts were improvised, mine were ''not'' improvised, although improv was a part of the composing process,” Klimchak explains. “Because I had his finished tracks before starting on mine, I had the luxury of listening to his parts at length and trying different things to see what worked best. After picking out the individual instruments that I wanted to use, I sat down and wrote the parts, then recorded them.”
Klimchak is currently in the middle of a long-distance collaboration with percussionist Sean Hamilton in Grand Junction, Colorado. The duo decided to record an album in lieu of a planned five-week West Coast tour in April/May. “It’s been really easy going because of the experience doing ''Six Feet Apart'',” says Klimchak.
If there is a silver lining to the coronavirus pandemic, it might turn out to be the different ways in which musicians and other artists are forced to collaborate at a distance. Even beset by a plague, the muse always finds a way. __—CL—__"
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string(10570) " LP #1 DfT&LS By Jeffrey Grove 2020-05-11T20:37:19+00:00 LP_#1_DfT&LS_by_Jeffrey_Grove.jpg Thanks for the mention of my book: Bruce Hampton - The Early Years. It is available here on Amazon: https://tinyurl.com/ybdum8sg listeningpost New music and a small book for the untimely sheltered 31021 2020-05-01T04:15:00+00:00 LISTENING POST: Persevering through the plague jim.harris@creativeloafing.com Jim Harris DOUG DELOACH Doug DeLoach 2020-05-01T04:15:00+00:00 Here we are, a few months into the COVID-19 pandemic. Hitherto relatively normal citizens are executing pre-dawn raids on Publix, Piggly Wiggly, and Walmart to secure inordinate caches of toilet paper, hand sanitizer, surgical masks, Pringles, and microwavable dinner entrees. The stock market has taken a dump, and the general economy teeters on the brink of DEFCON 2. After Senate Republicans ensured that assistance to the least advantaged Americans was pared down to the barest minimum and the largest corporations jacked up for another stock buyback bonanza, checks that might cover a monthly mortgage payment and, in some cases, maybe a week’s worth of groceries, are trickling into the coffers of the proletariat.
Lunatics, for the most part, are running the pandemic response asylum. The president of the United States, Donald J. Trump, offers guidance based on hunches, selfish whims, and exhaust gasses from the right-wing scream machine. By the time you read these words, the White House may or may not have discontinued daily televised briefings co-starring the handpicked Coronavirus Task Force. Previous episodes featured the president’s fapping assessment of his great and unmatched wisdom coupled with deranged rantings at critics real and imagined. Sometimes, tidbits of factual, helpful information by scientists and health experts, cowed into gurgling subservience, made their way into the script. Regardless of whether the White House network cancels the COVID-19 reality show, whose ratings Trump touts as a praiseworthy achievement, the public can expect ongoing obfuscation and disinformation from the president’s sycophantic representatives dutifully following the dictum that chaos favors the powers that be.
Closer to home, buoyed by not quite unanimous approval from the state legislature and supported by a body politic inclined toward herd stupidity, Governor Brian Kemp, the former Secretary of State who oversaw his own election, is ignoring the global consensus of epidemiological experts, not to mention the federal government’s official guidelines, in favor of his own strategy for handling COVID-19. While it’s too early to draw hard conclusions about Kemp’s approach, it doesn’t take a PhD in epidemiology to predict a less than desirable outcome resulting from opening up businesses and encouraging public gatherings, for example, at shopping malls and restaurants, regardless of whatever safety measures are being observed at any given locale.
Thank the goddesses, Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms is disinclined to follow Kemp’s lead. On March 19, with the rising number of coronavirus cases and deaths caused by the disease showing no sign of leveling off, Bottoms ordered the closure of all nightclubs, private social clubs, fitness centers, gyms, movie theaters, bowling alleys and arcades within the city limits “until further notice.” At press time, restaurants and bars are limited to offering take-out and curbside pickup service. Individually, metro area county and city officials have issued executive orders and announced strong recommendations regarding what residents and businesses within their jurisdictions can and cannot do. Check your local listings, as they say, for the latest details.
In this time of pandemic sheltering, here are a couple of Listening Post recommendations:
Buy and read Jim Tate’s Bruce Hampton: The Early Years (1962-1970). Tate was a close adolescent friend of the late iconoclastic musician and actor (Sling Blade) who passed away May 1, 2017, while performing onstage at the Fox Theatre during his 70th birthday celebration. Only a man of preternatural essence could pull off such a dramatically compelling mortal uncoiling. Tate’s brief, 50-odd-page, anecdotal account confirms the presence of this essence in his friend at an early age. During their teenage years, Tate and Hampton lived a few doors apart on Millbrook Drive near Chastain Park. They shot basketballs, raced bicycles in the dirt, and did the usual stuff teenagers do together. Except, this was Bruce Hampton, which means “the usual stuff” also included strange powers of prognostication, unearthly athletic feats, and the incitement of a near-riot on Live Atlanta Wrestling. All of the shenanigans described in the book transpired before the formation of the Hampton Grease Band, which marked the beginning of Hampton’s journey to avant-jazz-rock before “the Colonel”’s jam band fame, acknowledging small details in the mirror of embarrassment, and cosmic immortality. Get Tate’s book and discover the latent reality behind the myth tangential to the enigma wrapped around the conundrum, which forever remains Bruce Hampton.
Elsewhere in this issue, Chad Radford provides details on Halocline, a new release from Duet for Theremin and Lap Steel, and Six Feet Apart, a three-track mini-album featuring DfTaLS lap steel specialist Frank Schultz and percussionist Klimchak performing as a duo. Bandcamp is the place to download and preorder both albums, with proceeds from sales going to Giving Kitchen and the Atlanta Musicians’ Emergency Relief Fund.
Halocline is a superbly crafted work of electronic ambience, the best release yet by Duet for Theremin and Lap Steel’s Scott Burland and Schultz. Texturally variant, richly layered, irresistibly immersive, the eight tracks entice the listener into an alternate dimension of contemplative spaces. Think of Halocline as an antidote to pandemic-induced anxiety.
The tracks were taken from improvised sessions during February, March, and April of 2019. Three songs feature Louisville, Kentucky-based Dane Waters, an operatically trained singer with an exquisitely light, precise, and alluring voice. DfTaLS sent three tracks to Waters who sang and improvised non-lyrical melodic lines for incorporation into the final mix. Her contribution lends a gracious, human presence to the instrumental proceedings.
“We met Dane while on tour in 2019 and fell in love with her voice,” says Schultz. “After seeing her perform in Louisville, we went to her house the next day and asked her to provide some vocal tracks for our upcoming album.”
The album’s title refers to an oceanic phenomenon in which the salinity of water changes rapidly in a vertical gradient, causing dramatic differences in the water’s density and clarity, which produces visually observable effects. “We saw a similar phenomenon in the music we chose for the album,” says Burland. “Some is shapeless, murky, dense, while other pieces are melodic and sparse.”
With track titles such as “Swell,” “Brinicle,” and “Sea of Eternal Gloom,” the aquatic theme runs deeply through the album. Years ago, a reviewer described Duet for Theremin and Lap Steel’s music as “a long-lost soundtrack to a deep-sea documentary,” which Burland says “describes Halocline perfectly.”
Regarding Six Feet Apart, Schultz says he enjoyed the collaboration-at-a-distance with Klimchak, even though some aspects of the process took some getting used to. The music was conceived and mixed before sheltering in place became the operational norm. Schultz recorded his tracks alone, while experimenting with preparing and playing the lap steel with chopsticks, then sent the completed tracks to Klimchak.
“What is missing is being in the same room and making on-the-spot decisions, whether agreements or changes, as well as that feeling of urgency, immediacy, and instant gratification,” says Schultz.
The idea of collaborating in a more conventional setting was something the two musicians had been discussing for some time. When he initially received the three tracks from Schultz, Klimchak says it seemed like a good idea from a convenience standpoint.
“I was in the midst of several other big projects, so it was actually a way to jump right in without having to fit a practice session around other deadlines,” he says. “It really only seemed odd after the fact, now that long-distance collaboration is something we have to do.”
The music on Six Feet Apart is a captivating mixture of modal undercurrents created by waves of synthesized sound; sharply percussive accents, modified natural and electronic noise elements, and what sounds like horror movie samples from Klimchak’s fathomless bag of tricks; and a distinctly gamelan-like metallic reverberation imparted partly by Schultz’ chopsticks on lap steel technique. The mélange of exotically beautiful, vaguely Asiatic tonal colors and deeply sinuous world grooves make for a perfectly wondrous listening experience.
“While Frank’s parts were improvised, mine were not improvised, although improv was a part of the composing process,” Klimchak explains. “Because I had his finished tracks before starting on mine, I had the luxury of listening to his parts at length and trying different things to see what worked best. After picking out the individual instruments that I wanted to use, I sat down and wrote the parts, then recorded them.”
Klimchak is currently in the middle of a long-distance collaboration with percussionist Sean Hamilton in Grand Junction, Colorado. The duo decided to record an album in lieu of a planned five-week West Coast tour in April/May. “It’s been really easy going because of the experience doing Six Feet Apart,” says Klimchak.
If there is a silver lining to the coronavirus pandemic, it might turn out to be the different ways in which musicians and other artists are forced to collaborate at a distance. Even beset by a plague, the muse always finds a way. —CL— Jeffrey Grove WATERS RUN DEEP: Halocline, recently released on Bandcamp by Duet for Theremin and Lap Steel (Frank Schultz, left, and Scott Burland, right), is a full-length album featuring Louisville, Kentucky-based vocalist Dane Waters. Proceeds from album sales benefit Giving Kitchen and the Atlanta Musicians’ Emergency Relief Fund. 0,0,10 listeningpost LISTENING POST: Persevering through the plague "
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LISTENING POST: Persevering through the plague Article
Friday May 1, 2020 12:15 am EDT
New music and a small book for the untimely sheltered
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string(18452) "As this was posted prior to concerns regarding the global coronavirus COVID-19 outbreak, please check to see if these events are still occurring. Be safe. Be healthy. Wash your hands.
The last time Creative Loafing checked in with Tomer Zvulun, the general and artistic director of the Atlanta Opera, he was preparing for the 2019 Atlanta premier of Dead Man Walking. The opera by Jake Heggie is based on the book by Sister Helen Prejean who became spiritual advisor to a man on death row in Louisiana. Last December, following its Atlanta run, Zvulun traveled to Israel to direct the Israeli Opera, the company with which he began his career, in a series of performances of Dead Man Walking. Opening night in the Tel Aviv Opera House marked the first time a contemporary American opera was ever staged in Israel.
“The most telling moment for me occurred when I met the head of the makeup department,” Zvulun recalled, chuckling. “They’re used to working with wigs and costumes for classic operas. When they asked what kind of wigs we used for Dead Man Walking, I laughed and replied, ‘The opera is set in New Orleans in the 1980s. I don’t have any wigs, but I do have tattoos.’”
In January, the Atlanta Opera announced its 2020-21 season, which starts in November. The lineup includes four main-stage productions at the Cobb Energy Performing Arts Center: Giacomo Puccini’s La bohème, Gioachino Rossini’s The Barber of Seville, Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein’s The Sound of Music, and Richard Wagner’s Das Rheingold. The Atlanta Opera’s Discoveries Series, which showcases newer, more intimate works, will present The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs by Mason Bates at the Ferst Center for the Arts on the Georgia Tech campus and Laura Kaminsky’s As One at the Out Front Theater on the west side of Downtown.
Remaining on the 2019-20 Atlanta Opera calendar are two major operas and one Discoveries production. George and Ira Gershwin’s masterpiece, Porgy and Bess, runs March 7-15, while Puccini’s beloved Madama Butterfly runs May 2-10 at the Cobb Center. Tom Cipullo’s Glory Denied, which tells the tragic tale of Col. Jim Thompson, America’s longest-held prisoner of war, opens May 21 and closes May 24 on the Hertz Stage at the Woodruff Arts Center.
::::
Doug DeLoach: Reflecting on the critical acclaim and popular success of Dead Man Walking and other contemporary operas, it seems like opera is on a roll in the 21st century.
Tomer Zvulun: There is something really exciting happening, historically, right now in the world of opera, especially in America. It’s like a renaissance. So many new pieces are being written. Opera America recently published a survey, which noted that there are a couple of hundred new pieces — chamber operas, full-scale operas — written every year. A lot of companies make it a point to commission new operas, including the Atlanta Opera, which will be staging a world premiere in 2022.
Grand old opera is all of a sudden relevant again.
TZ: We’re seeing more operas with a conscience, operas that are focused on social justice, and themes that are relevant, such as LBGTQ issues, bullying in school, veterans’ experiences, or familiar characters, like Steve Jobs. Those pieces are different from the classic boy-meets-girl, boy-falls-in-love-with-girl, girl-dies stories. We still love the classic operas, but it’s hard to find social context in many of them. We find humanity and universality in those operas, but there is something very immediate about new operas, which we find especially fascinating.
When I came to the Atlanta Opera in 2013, I insisted on running a modern American opera every year. That first year it was Three Decembers by Jake Heggie with a libretto by Gene Scheer. Then we did Soldier Songs about the life of a veteran. The following year, it was Out of Darkness: Two Remain about the Holocaust. Then came Silent Night about World War I, followed by Dead Man Walking. Next year, we’re doing As One, which is about the journey of a transgender woman; and an opera about one of the most iconic people in recent history, Steve Jobs.
We are living in a great period in opera history.
The music has to match the theme in terms of its ability to engage with the audience, which was not always the case after the end of the bel canto era and the turn of the 20th century.
TZ: Opera experienced a crisis in the 20th century. If you look at the 18th and 19th centuries, you have composers like Verdi, Mozart, Donizetti, Puccini, Bizet, and Wagner. Then you think about the 20th century and who comes to mind? Berg, Schoenberg, Britten. There was all this atonal music, which was popular in the academic world, but which did not grab audiences. Cerebrally, philosophically, it’s fascinating — and, in many cases, it was tremendous music. But a lot of times, it was alienating because it lacked the raw emotion, tonality, and melodic style which characterized those composers from the 18th and 19th centuries.
In the late 20th century, people like Jake Heggie, Gregory Speers, and other emerging composers were not afraid of embracing tonality, melody, the tonic world — a world in which audiences can still hum what they hear in the opera house.
Did you approach programming the 2020-21 season any differently than previous seasons?
TZ: Whenever we are planning the season, it’s like planning a meal for friends. You’ve got your protein, your vegetable, a nice dessert, good wine.
We start with two of the most famous operas in the canon, La bohème and The Barber of Seville, presented in new interpretations with visually stunning productions, great voices and orchestra. With these works, people who want to introduce friends to opera know they can return and see something they will love.
Then we are doing what is maybe the most challenging opera in the company’s history, Richard Wagner’s Das Rheingold. The Ring Cycle is generally considered to be the pinnacle, the most rewarding operatic masterpiece ever written. Then we’re doing a brand new work, The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs, at Georgia Tech as part of our Discoveries Series, and an opera about transgender, As One.
We’re also presenting The Sound of Music, a very well-known musical theater piece, a crossover work, like we’ve done in the past with Sweeney Todd, West Side Story, and The Pirates of Penzance. The Sound of Music is a completely new production, which we are doing with a partner, the Glimmerglass Festival in Houston.
We are serving different flavors to accommodate the different palates of our dinner guests.
What does the live musical presentation of The Sound of Music bring to the party, which is different from the famous film?
TZ: I’m a huge film buff. Movies inform my vocabulary as a director. But there is a competitive advantage to live performance, which movies or Netflix will never have. That advantage is the feeling of community when 2,500 people gather in the same room, breathing the same air, feeling the energy from the stage, and transmitting their own energy back to the performers on the stage.
The second advantage to producing these pieces in the opera house comes from the kind of singers we are getting for those shows, classically trained singers backed by a world-class orchestra. The quality that you are getting is very high. I would love to program future productions of Fiddler on the Roof, Cabaret — there are so many great musical theater pieces, which deserve to be seen through an operatic lens.
What distinguishing elements will the Atlanta Opera bring to the production of Das Rheingold?
TZ: It’s an altogether new production, which I have been working on for the past four years. I have been preparing for the time when the company is ready to do something monumental, which requires an extraordinary level of excellence and commitment. If you look at the landscape right now in North America, there are very few companies producing Wagner on a high level: The Met, San Francisco, Chicago, Seattle, Toronto, maybe Washington. From the marketing department to the orchestra to the production and technical abilities of the company, to do something so grand is a daunting undertaking. It’s like saying to an athlete, “You are going to the Olympics.” The training is at a different level. The nutrition is at a different level.
The opera we are putting on right now (January 2020), Richard Strauss’ Salome, isn’t Wagner, but it’s close. Strauss was a disciple of Wagner. Salome has a similar style and other requirements. You need a large orchestra capable of handling very technically challenging music. You need dramatic singers who can overcome that sort of orchestration, and you need production elements on the highest level supported by the technical ability to make everything work flawlessly. It takes years to build a company that can manage all of those things.
Das Rheingold is using the same production team as Salome. I’m going to direct. My colleague, Erhard Rom, is creating the set projections. Mattie Ullrich is creating the costumes. We are very excited about the production team.
How do you describe or characterize the stylistic elements, which the Atlanta Opera is bringing to productions like Salome and Das Rheingold?
TZ: This style is something we have been bringing to our audiences in the hope that they will appreciate what we’re doing. With productions such as Eugene Onegin, Dead Man Walking, Silent Night, Madama Butterfly, and La bohème? — all pieces we’ve done here with the same team — the term we use to describe this style is ‘timeless mythology.’
One of the things that I think functions as a cliché or trap for opera productions is when the first thing the audience asks is, “What time period is this?” or “What is the location?” I think that’s a cop-out. If you’re thinking, “I am going to do Eugene Onegin in 1982 in Soviet Russia,” that’s where the idea ends. It will never match what the composer had in mind because the opera was written in the 18th century. And the production will be dated because 1982 might be interesting right now, but, in 20 years, it might not be so interesting; it won’t feel organic.
In “timeless mythology” you are abstracting the time and creating a mythological world. When you’re watching Game of Thrones or Lord of the Rings, you never ask yourself, “What time period is this?” or “Is that an 18th- or 19th-century gown the princess is wearing?” Instead, you are immersed in the story, the characters, and the psychology of the characters. That’s an important word for me and my team: psychology.
The most fascinating thing about great operas is the psychology of the characters and the relationship between them. That’s what opera does so well, because music and the human voice allow you to penetrate a psychological world in a way mere words do not allow.
::::
Does this strategy represent a conscious attempt to break from tradition?
TZ: I’m not inventing anything new here. I’m not trying to be the world’s greatest innovator. We believe that opera is a combination of all the art forms: It is theater as much as it is music. It’s the voice as much as it is design. Projections and scenery and costumes and makeup — all of those art forms are coming together to create a magical evening at the theater.
Opera is primarily storytelling. It’s universal. It’s about humanity. It’s supposed to move you emotionally. I get a little worried about psychological theories, Freudian theories, Jungian theories, whatever. At some point, that kind of discussion distracts from the fact that opera is the most emotionally powerful art form you can imagine.
We’re not trying to cerebralize anything. We’re trying to strip away distraction and focus on the human character in a way that brings forward the music and the human voice. Salome is a great example. When Oscar Wilde wrote his play, his departure point was the Bible, but he didn’t write a biblical story. More than anything else, Wilde wrote a story about forbidden love, obsession, phobias, and all the things that were on Oscar Wilde’s mind, which also happened to be on Richard Strauss’ mind, which happen to be on our minds today.
Think about forbidden love taken to extremes, such as necrophilia and incest. Think about Wilde and his struggles in his own time. We’re dealing with these struggles in our time with issues related to LBGTQ. The point is, I don’t care about the biblical setting of this opera. If you’re focusing on that, you’re missing the point. All of the operas we are doing are going in that direction: What is this story about? What is this character about? Not what a dress in 1882 should look like.
How does this conceptual strategy apply to the remaining 2020 productions, Porgy and Bess and Madama Butterfly?
TZ: Porgy and Bess is a very successful production by Francesca Zambello who is one of our frequent collaborators. She runs the Glimmerglass Festival at the Washington National Opera. The production has traveled extensively in America from Chicago to Seattle to New York, and it will be done in Washington immediately after Atlanta. The cast is fantastic. Morris Robinson and Kristin Lewis who sang the opera in La Scala a couple of years ago. When it was presented in Atlanta in 2005 and 2011 to sold-out crowds, the Atlanta Opera Chorus was such a force of nature that when the Opera Comique in Paris decided to do Porgy and Bess, they chose the Atlanta Opera Chorus to perform with them all over Europe. Not to mention the fact that the story takes place in the South, not far away from us, in South Carolina.
The same team that’s doing Butterfly did Salome and are doing Das Rheingold. We have great respect for the Japanese setting and style, but, at the same time, we are telling a universal story. A foreigner in a different country falls in love with a girl. Despite the differences between them, they find something that deeply connects them. Circumstances separate them, and heartbreak ensues. When you think about Puccini writing Madama Butterfly or La fanciulla del West or Turandot, he’s never been to Japan or the Wild West or China. He’s an Italian guy who was really interested in a universal tale that combines love, death, and sex — the things we love about opera.
What about the person who can hum all the arias from Madama Butterfly, but has never been to the opera? How do you lure that person into the Cobb Center to experience Madama Butterfly as it should be experienced?
TZ: Number one, you do it with the people who are starring in this production of Madama Butterfly, who will knock your socks off. Gianluca Terranova, who sings Pinkerton, is a world-class tenor who was here for Turandot, La bohème, and Carmen. He is one of the greatest singers of our time. Yasko Sato, who plays Madama Butterfly, is a Japanese soprano who has sung this role all over the world with great success. She embodies the character of Cio-Cio San. The character of Sharpless is sung by Michael Chioldi, an American baritone making his Atlanta Opera debut. He possesses a powerful voice and is very charismatic. Suzuki is sung by Katharine Goeldner, a mezzo-soprano who has sung the role at The Met and every other major opera house. The conductor, Carlo Montanaro, is an Italian who specializes in Puccini. I did La bohème with him in Seattle several years ago. He is so charismatic and musical and will be exciting for the orchestra to work with.
So, you have this incredible cast and this rich storytelling combined with modern technology, such as lighting effects, projections, and other visual effects, which let us get into the characters’ minds in ways we were not able to do before.
In contrast to traditional operatic themes, Glory Denied, the remaining production in the 2020 season, is about as topical as an opera can get.
TZ: We have a program for veterans, which started when I arrived. We did Soldier Songs, an opera by David T. Little, and Silent Night by composer Kevin Puts and librettist Mark Campbell, which is about World War I and the universal experience of being a soldier. Those two pieces paved the way for us to create an initiative for veterans supported by Home Depot, which, to date, has brought 7,000 veterans to see our shows free of charge. Every season 2,500 veterans get to see Atlanta Opera productions. On opening night for Salome, 750 veterans were in the audience.
Glory Denied continues this tradition. It’s about the longest-held prisoner of war, Colonel Jim Thompson, who was captured in Vietnam in 1964 and released in 1973. When he came back, his life was shattered. His family was broken. His wife was with someone else. Four children — he came back to a world that was completely different.
Michael Mayes, who starred in Sweeney Todd and Dead Man Walking, stars in a role he created. He is also co-directing the opera with me. He brings so much passion to his work. I think he’s one of the greatest singing actors of our time. It’s a small cast of four with an orchestral ensemble of 13 or so musicians. We open it on the weekend of Memorial Day, which is often seen as a holiday when you go to the beach and barbecue in the backyard, but originated as a day to honor our soldiers and veterans.
In what way does the 2020-21 season represent the next evolutionary step in the growth and development of the Atlanta Opera?
TZ: Next season is what we have been waiting for and building toward for seven years. In 2013, we did three rental productions, Faust, The Barber of Seville, and Tosca. We were a $5 million opera company. Today, the Atlanta Opera is a $10 million company. We’ve been in the black for the last four years, and we will be in the black this season. We are doing six productions, three of which are brand new, with a diversity of programming and a caliber of singers, conductors, designers, directors, and staff that can stand with any opera company in the world. We have an infrastructure, largely created over the last two years, which has garnered a level of support that allows us to accomplish our mission: We believe this major international city deserves a major international opera company."
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The last time Creative Loafing checked in with Tomer Zvulun, the general and artistic director of the Atlanta Opera, he was preparing for the 2019 Atlanta premier of Dead Man Walking. The opera by Jake Heggie is based on the book by Sister Helen Prejean who became spiritual advisor to a man on death row in Louisiana. Last December, following its Atlanta run, Zvulun traveled to Israel to direct the Israeli Opera, the company with which he began his career, in a series of performances of Dead Man Walking. Opening night in the Tel Aviv Opera House marked the first time a contemporary American opera was ever staged in Israel.
“The most telling moment for me occurred when I met the head of the makeup department,” Zvulun recalled, chuckling. “They’re used to working with wigs and costumes for classic operas. When they asked what kind of wigs we used for Dead Man Walking, I laughed and replied, ‘The opera is set in New Orleans in the 1980s. I don’t have any wigs, but I do have tattoos.’”
In January, the Atlanta Opera announced its 2020-21 season, which starts in November. The lineup includes four main-stage productions at the Cobb Energy Performing Arts Center: Giacomo Puccini’s La bohème, Gioachino Rossini’s The Barber of Seville, Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein’s The Sound of Music, and Richard Wagner’s Das Rheingold. The Atlanta Opera’s Discoveries Series, which showcases newer, more intimate works, will present The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs by Mason Bates at the Ferst Center for the Arts on the Georgia Tech campus and Laura Kaminsky’s As One at the Out Front Theater on the west side of Downtown.
Remaining on the 2019-20 Atlanta Opera calendar are two major operas and one Discoveries production. George and Ira Gershwin’s masterpiece, Porgy and Bess, runs March 7-15, while Puccini’s beloved Madama Butterfly runs May 2-10 at the Cobb Center. Tom Cipullo’s Glory Denied, which tells the tragic tale of Col. Jim Thompson, America’s longest-held prisoner of war, opens May 21 and closes May 24 on the Hertz Stage at the Woodruff Arts Center.
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__Doug DeLoach: Reflecting on the critical acclaim and popular success of ____''Dead Man Walking''____ and other contemporary operas, it seems like opera is on a roll in the 21st century.__
__Tomer Zvulun__: There is something really exciting happening, historically, right now in the world of opera, especially in America. It’s like a renaissance. So many new pieces are being written. Opera America recently published a survey, which noted that there are a couple of hundred new pieces — chamber operas, full-scale operas — written every year. A lot of companies make it a point to commission new operas, including the Atlanta Opera, which will be staging a world premiere in 2022.
__Grand old opera is all of a sudden relevant again__.
__TZ__: We’re seeing more operas with a conscience, operas that are focused on social justice, and themes that are relevant, such as LBGTQ issues, bullying in school, veterans’ experiences, or familiar characters, like Steve Jobs. Those pieces are different from the classic boy-meets-girl, boy-falls-in-love-with-girl, girl-dies stories. We still love the classic operas, but it’s hard to find social context in many of them. We find humanity and universality in those operas, but there is something very immediate about new operas, which we find especially fascinating.
When I came to the Atlanta Opera in 2013, I insisted on running a modern American opera every year. That first year it was Three Decembers by Jake Heggie with a libretto by Gene Scheer. Then we did Soldier Songs about the life of a veteran. The following year, it was Out of Darkness: Two Remain about the Holocaust. Then came Silent Night about World War I, followed by Dead Man Walking. Next year, we’re doing As One, which is about the journey of a transgender woman; and an opera about one of the most iconic people in recent history, Steve Jobs.
We are living in a great period in opera history.
__The music has to match the theme in terms of its ability to engage with the audience, which was not always the case after the end of the bel canto era and the turn of the 20th century.__
__TZ__: Opera experienced a crisis in the 20th century. If you look at the 18th and 19th centuries, you have composers like Verdi, Mozart, Donizetti, Puccini, Bizet, and Wagner. Then you think about the 20th century and who comes to mind? Berg, Schoenberg, Britten. There was all this atonal music, which was popular in the academic world, but which did not grab audiences. Cerebrally, philosophically, it’s fascinating — and, in many cases, it was tremendous music. But a lot of times, it was alienating because it lacked the raw emotion, tonality, and melodic style which characterized those composers from the 18th and 19th centuries.
In the late 20th century, people like Jake Heggie, Gregory Speers, and other emerging composers were not afraid of embracing tonality, melody, the tonic world — a world in which audiences can still hum what they hear in the opera house.
__Did you approach programming the 2020-21 season any differently than previous seasons?__
__TZ__: Whenever we are planning the season, it’s like planning a meal for friends. You’ve got your protein, your vegetable, a nice dessert, good wine.
We start with two of the most famous operas in the canon, La bohème and The Barber of Seville, presented in new interpretations with visually stunning productions, great voices and orchestra. With these works, people who want to introduce friends to opera know they can return and see something they will love.
Then we are doing what is maybe the most challenging opera in the company’s history, Richard Wagner’s Das Rheingold. The Ring Cycle is generally considered to be the pinnacle, the most rewarding operatic masterpiece ever written. Then we’re doing a brand new work, The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs, at Georgia Tech as part of our Discoveries Series, and an opera about transgender, As One.
We’re also presenting The Sound of Music, a very well-known musical theater piece, a crossover work, like we’ve done in the past with Sweeney Todd, West Side Story, and The Pirates of Penzance. The Sound of Music is a completely new production, which we are doing with a partner, the Glimmerglass Festival in Houston.
We are serving different flavors to accommodate the different palates of our dinner guests.
__What does the live musical presentation of The Sound of Music bring to the party, which is different from the famous film?__
__TZ__: I’m a huge film buff. Movies inform my vocabulary as a director. But there is a competitive advantage to live performance, which movies or Netflix will never have. That advantage is the feeling of community when 2,500 people gather in the same room, breathing the same air, feeling the energy from the stage, and transmitting their own energy back to the performers on the stage.
The second advantage to producing these pieces in the opera house comes from the kind of singers we are getting for those shows, classically trained singers backed by a world-class orchestra. The quality that you are getting is very high. I would love to program future productions of Fiddler on the Roof, Cabaret — there are so many great musical theater pieces, which deserve to be seen through an operatic lens.
__What distinguishing elements will the Atlanta Opera bring to the production of ____''Das Rheingold''____?__
__TZ__: It’s an altogether new production, which I have been working on for the past four years. I have been preparing for the time when the company is ready to do something monumental, which requires an extraordinary level of excellence and commitment. If you look at the landscape right now in North America, there are very few companies producing Wagner on a high level: The Met, San Francisco, Chicago, Seattle, Toronto, maybe Washington. From the marketing department to the orchestra to the production and technical abilities of the company, to do something so grand is a daunting undertaking. It’s like saying to an athlete, “You are going to the Olympics.” The training is at a different level. The nutrition is at a different level.
The opera we are putting on right now (January 2020), Richard Strauss’ Salome, isn’t Wagner, but it’s close. Strauss was a disciple of Wagner. Salome has a similar style and other requirements. You need a large orchestra capable of handling very technically challenging music. You need dramatic singers who can overcome that sort of orchestration, and you need production elements on the highest level supported by the technical ability to make everything work flawlessly. It takes years to build a company that can manage all of those things.
Das Rheingold is using the same production team as Salome. I’m going to direct. My colleague, Erhard Rom, is creating the set projections. Mattie Ullrich is creating the costumes. We are very excited about the production team.
__How do you describe or characterize the stylistic elements, which the Atlanta Opera is bringing to productions like ____''Salome''____ and ____''Das Rheingold''____?__
__TZ__: This style is something we have been bringing to our audiences in the hope that they will appreciate what we’re doing. With productions such as Eugene Onegin, Dead Man Walking, Silent Night, Madama Butterfly, and La bohème? — all pieces we’ve done here with the same team — the term we use to describe this style is ‘timeless mythology.’
One of the things that I think functions as a cliché or trap for opera productions is when the first thing the audience asks is, “What time period is this?” or “What is the location?” I think that’s a cop-out. If you’re thinking, “I am going to do Eugene Onegin in 1982 in Soviet Russia,” that’s where the idea ends. It will never match what the composer had in mind because the opera was written in the 18th century. And the production will be dated because 1982 might be interesting right now, but, in 20 years, it might not be so interesting; it won’t feel organic.
In “timeless mythology” you are abstracting the time and creating a mythological world. When you’re watching Game of Thrones or Lord of the Rings, you never ask yourself, “What time period is this?” or “Is that an 18th- or 19th-century gown the princess is wearing?” Instead, you are immersed in the story, the characters, and the psychology of the characters. That’s an important word for me and my team: psychology.
The most fascinating thing about great operas is the psychology of the characters and the relationship between them. That’s what opera does so well, because music and the human voice allow you to penetrate a psychological world in a way mere words do not allow.
::{img fileId="29682" desc="desc" styledesc="text-align: left;" max="800"}::
__Does this strategy represent a conscious attempt to break from tradition?__
__TZ__: I’m not inventing anything new here. I’m not trying to be the world’s greatest innovator. We believe that opera is a combination of all the art forms: It is theater as much as it is music. It’s the voice as much as it is design. Projections and scenery and costumes and makeup — all of those art forms are coming together to create a magical evening at the theater.
Opera is primarily storytelling. It’s universal. It’s about humanity. It’s supposed to move you emotionally. I get a little worried about psychological theories, Freudian theories, Jungian theories, whatever. At some point, that kind of discussion distracts from the fact that opera is the most emotionally powerful art form you can imagine.
We’re not trying to cerebralize anything. We’re trying to strip away distraction and focus on the human character in a way that brings forward the music and the human voice. Salome is a great example. When Oscar Wilde wrote his play, his departure point was the Bible, but he didn’t write a biblical story. More than anything else, Wilde wrote a story about forbidden love, obsession, phobias, and all the things that were on Oscar Wilde’s mind, which also happened to be on Richard Strauss’ mind, which happen to be on our minds today.
Think about forbidden love taken to extremes, such as necrophilia and incest. Think about Wilde and his struggles in his own time. We’re dealing with these struggles in our time with issues related to LBGTQ. The point is, I don’t care about the biblical setting of this opera. If you’re focusing on that, you’re missing the point. All of the operas we are doing are going in that direction: What is this story about? What is this character about? Not what a dress in 1882 should look like.
__How does this conceptual strategy apply to the remaining 2020 productions, ____''Porgy and Bess''____ and ____''Madama Butterfly''____?__
__TZ__: Porgy and Bess is a very successful production by Francesca Zambello who is one of our frequent collaborators. She runs the Glimmerglass Festival at the Washington National Opera. The production has traveled extensively in America from Chicago to Seattle to New York, and it will be done in Washington immediately after Atlanta. The cast is fantastic. Morris Robinson and Kristin Lewis who sang the opera in La Scala a couple of years ago. When it was presented in Atlanta in 2005 and 2011 to sold-out crowds, the Atlanta Opera Chorus was such a force of nature that when the Opera Comique in Paris decided to do Porgy and Bess, they chose the Atlanta Opera Chorus to perform with them all over Europe. Not to mention the fact that the story takes place in the South, not far away from us, in South Carolina.
The same team that’s doing Butterfly did Salome and are doing Das Rheingold. We have great respect for the Japanese setting and style, but, at the same time, we are telling a universal story. A foreigner in a different country falls in love with a girl. Despite the differences between them, they find something that deeply connects them. Circumstances separate them, and heartbreak ensues. When you think about Puccini writing Madama Butterfly or La fanciulla del West or Turandot, he’s never been to Japan or the Wild West or China. He’s an Italian guy who was really interested in a universal tale that combines love, death, and sex — the things we love about opera.
__What about the person who can hum all the arias from ____''Madama Butterfly''____, but has never been to the opera? How do you lure that person into the Cobb Center to experience ____''Madama Butterfly''____ as it should be experienced?__
__TZ__: Number one, you do it with the people who are starring in this production of Madama Butterfly, who will knock your socks off. Gianluca Terranova, who sings Pinkerton, is a world-class tenor who was here for Turandot, La bohème, and Carmen. He is one of the greatest singers of our time. Yasko Sato, who plays Madama Butterfly, is a Japanese soprano who has sung this role all over the world with great success. She embodies the character of Cio-Cio San. The character of Sharpless is sung by Michael Chioldi, an American baritone making his Atlanta Opera debut. He possesses a powerful voice and is very charismatic. Suzuki is sung by Katharine Goeldner, a mezzo-soprano who has sung the role at The Met and every other major opera house. The conductor, Carlo Montanaro, is an Italian who specializes in Puccini. I did La bohème with him in Seattle several years ago. He is so charismatic and musical and will be exciting for the orchestra to work with.
So, you have this incredible cast and this rich storytelling combined with modern technology, such as lighting effects, projections, and other visual effects, which let us get into the characters’ minds in ways we were not able to do before.
__In contrast to traditional operatic themes, ____''Glory Denied''____, the remaining production in the 2020 season, is about as topical as an opera can get.__
__TZ__: We have a program for veterans, which started when I arrived. We did Soldier Songs, an opera by David T. Little, and Silent Night by composer Kevin Puts and librettist Mark Campbell, which is about World War I and the universal experience of being a soldier. Those two pieces paved the way for us to create an initiative for veterans supported by Home Depot, which, to date, has brought 7,000 veterans to see our shows free of charge. Every season 2,500 veterans get to see Atlanta Opera productions. On opening night for Salome, 750 veterans were in the audience.
Glory Denied continues this tradition. It’s about the longest-held prisoner of war, Colonel Jim Thompson, who was captured in Vietnam in 1964 and released in 1973. When he came back, his life was shattered. His family was broken. His wife was with someone else. Four children — he came back to a world that was completely different.
Michael Mayes, who starred in Sweeney Todd and Dead Man Walking, stars in a role he created. He is also co-directing the opera with me. He brings so much passion to his work. I think he’s one of the greatest singing actors of our time. It’s a small cast of four with an orchestral ensemble of 13 or so musicians. We open it on the weekend of Memorial Day, which is often seen as a holiday when you go to the beach and barbecue in the backyard, but originated as a day to honor our soldiers and veterans.
__In what way does the 2020-21 season represent the next evolutionary step in the growth and development of the Atlanta Opera?__
__TZ__: Next season is what we have been waiting for and building toward for seven years. In 2013, we did three rental productions, Faust, The Barber of Seville, and Tosca. We were a $5 million opera company. Today, the Atlanta Opera is a $10 million company. We’ve been in the black for the last four years, and we will be in the black this season. We are doing six productions, three of which are brand new, with a diversity of programming and a caliber of singers, conductors, designers, directors, and staff that can stand with any opera company in the world. We have an infrastructure, largely created over the last two years, which has garnered a level of support that allows us to accomplish our mission: We believe this major international city deserves a major international opera company."
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string(19015) " LP La Boheme Atlanta Opera Jeff Roffman Web 2020-03-03T16:43:52+00:00 LP_La_boheme_Atlanta_Opera_Jeff_Roffman_web.jpg The Atlanta Opera‘s 2020-21 season reaches for next-level performance 29679 2020-03-03T16:33:07+00:00 LISTENING POST: Opera unbound will.cardwell@gmail.com Will Cardwell DOUG DELOACH 2020-03-03T16:33:07+00:00 As this was posted prior to concerns regarding the global coronavirus COVID-19 outbreak, please check to see if these events are still occurring. Be safe. Be healthy. Wash your hands.
The last time Creative Loafing checked in with Tomer Zvulun, the general and artistic director of the Atlanta Opera, he was preparing for the 2019 Atlanta premier of Dead Man Walking. The opera by Jake Heggie is based on the book by Sister Helen Prejean who became spiritual advisor to a man on death row in Louisiana. Last December, following its Atlanta run, Zvulun traveled to Israel to direct the Israeli Opera, the company with which he began his career, in a series of performances of Dead Man Walking. Opening night in the Tel Aviv Opera House marked the first time a contemporary American opera was ever staged in Israel.
“The most telling moment for me occurred when I met the head of the makeup department,” Zvulun recalled, chuckling. “They’re used to working with wigs and costumes for classic operas. When they asked what kind of wigs we used for Dead Man Walking, I laughed and replied, ‘The opera is set in New Orleans in the 1980s. I don’t have any wigs, but I do have tattoos.’”
In January, the Atlanta Opera announced its 2020-21 season, which starts in November. The lineup includes four main-stage productions at the Cobb Energy Performing Arts Center: Giacomo Puccini’s La bohème, Gioachino Rossini’s The Barber of Seville, Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein’s The Sound of Music, and Richard Wagner’s Das Rheingold. The Atlanta Opera’s Discoveries Series, which showcases newer, more intimate works, will present The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs by Mason Bates at the Ferst Center for the Arts on the Georgia Tech campus and Laura Kaminsky’s As One at the Out Front Theater on the west side of Downtown.
Remaining on the 2019-20 Atlanta Opera calendar are two major operas and one Discoveries production. George and Ira Gershwin’s masterpiece, Porgy and Bess, runs March 7-15, while Puccini’s beloved Madama Butterfly runs May 2-10 at the Cobb Center. Tom Cipullo’s Glory Denied, which tells the tragic tale of Col. Jim Thompson, America’s longest-held prisoner of war, opens May 21 and closes May 24 on the Hertz Stage at the Woodruff Arts Center.
::::
Doug DeLoach: Reflecting on the critical acclaim and popular success of Dead Man Walking and other contemporary operas, it seems like opera is on a roll in the 21st century.
Tomer Zvulun: There is something really exciting happening, historically, right now in the world of opera, especially in America. It’s like a renaissance. So many new pieces are being written. Opera America recently published a survey, which noted that there are a couple of hundred new pieces — chamber operas, full-scale operas — written every year. A lot of companies make it a point to commission new operas, including the Atlanta Opera, which will be staging a world premiere in 2022.
Grand old opera is all of a sudden relevant again.
TZ: We’re seeing more operas with a conscience, operas that are focused on social justice, and themes that are relevant, such as LBGTQ issues, bullying in school, veterans’ experiences, or familiar characters, like Steve Jobs. Those pieces are different from the classic boy-meets-girl, boy-falls-in-love-with-girl, girl-dies stories. We still love the classic operas, but it’s hard to find social context in many of them. We find humanity and universality in those operas, but there is something very immediate about new operas, which we find especially fascinating.
When I came to the Atlanta Opera in 2013, I insisted on running a modern American opera every year. That first year it was Three Decembers by Jake Heggie with a libretto by Gene Scheer. Then we did Soldier Songs about the life of a veteran. The following year, it was Out of Darkness: Two Remain about the Holocaust. Then came Silent Night about World War I, followed by Dead Man Walking. Next year, we’re doing As One, which is about the journey of a transgender woman; and an opera about one of the most iconic people in recent history, Steve Jobs.
We are living in a great period in opera history.
The music has to match the theme in terms of its ability to engage with the audience, which was not always the case after the end of the bel canto era and the turn of the 20th century.
TZ: Opera experienced a crisis in the 20th century. If you look at the 18th and 19th centuries, you have composers like Verdi, Mozart, Donizetti, Puccini, Bizet, and Wagner. Then you think about the 20th century and who comes to mind? Berg, Schoenberg, Britten. There was all this atonal music, which was popular in the academic world, but which did not grab audiences. Cerebrally, philosophically, it’s fascinating — and, in many cases, it was tremendous music. But a lot of times, it was alienating because it lacked the raw emotion, tonality, and melodic style which characterized those composers from the 18th and 19th centuries.
In the late 20th century, people like Jake Heggie, Gregory Speers, and other emerging composers were not afraid of embracing tonality, melody, the tonic world — a world in which audiences can still hum what they hear in the opera house.
Did you approach programming the 2020-21 season any differently than previous seasons?
TZ: Whenever we are planning the season, it’s like planning a meal for friends. You’ve got your protein, your vegetable, a nice dessert, good wine.
We start with two of the most famous operas in the canon, La bohème and The Barber of Seville, presented in new interpretations with visually stunning productions, great voices and orchestra. With these works, people who want to introduce friends to opera know they can return and see something they will love.
Then we are doing what is maybe the most challenging opera in the company’s history, Richard Wagner’s Das Rheingold. The Ring Cycle is generally considered to be the pinnacle, the most rewarding operatic masterpiece ever written. Then we’re doing a brand new work, The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs, at Georgia Tech as part of our Discoveries Series, and an opera about transgender, As One.
We’re also presenting The Sound of Music, a very well-known musical theater piece, a crossover work, like we’ve done in the past with Sweeney Todd, West Side Story, and The Pirates of Penzance. The Sound of Music is a completely new production, which we are doing with a partner, the Glimmerglass Festival in Houston.
We are serving different flavors to accommodate the different palates of our dinner guests.
What does the live musical presentation of The Sound of Music bring to the party, which is different from the famous film?
TZ: I’m a huge film buff. Movies inform my vocabulary as a director. But there is a competitive advantage to live performance, which movies or Netflix will never have. That advantage is the feeling of community when 2,500 people gather in the same room, breathing the same air, feeling the energy from the stage, and transmitting their own energy back to the performers on the stage.
The second advantage to producing these pieces in the opera house comes from the kind of singers we are getting for those shows, classically trained singers backed by a world-class orchestra. The quality that you are getting is very high. I would love to program future productions of Fiddler on the Roof, Cabaret — there are so many great musical theater pieces, which deserve to be seen through an operatic lens.
What distinguishing elements will the Atlanta Opera bring to the production of Das Rheingold?
TZ: It’s an altogether new production, which I have been working on for the past four years. I have been preparing for the time when the company is ready to do something monumental, which requires an extraordinary level of excellence and commitment. If you look at the landscape right now in North America, there are very few companies producing Wagner on a high level: The Met, San Francisco, Chicago, Seattle, Toronto, maybe Washington. From the marketing department to the orchestra to the production and technical abilities of the company, to do something so grand is a daunting undertaking. It’s like saying to an athlete, “You are going to the Olympics.” The training is at a different level. The nutrition is at a different level.
The opera we are putting on right now (January 2020), Richard Strauss’ Salome, isn’t Wagner, but it’s close. Strauss was a disciple of Wagner. Salome has a similar style and other requirements. You need a large orchestra capable of handling very technically challenging music. You need dramatic singers who can overcome that sort of orchestration, and you need production elements on the highest level supported by the technical ability to make everything work flawlessly. It takes years to build a company that can manage all of those things.
Das Rheingold is using the same production team as Salome. I’m going to direct. My colleague, Erhard Rom, is creating the set projections. Mattie Ullrich is creating the costumes. We are very excited about the production team.
How do you describe or characterize the stylistic elements, which the Atlanta Opera is bringing to productions like Salome and Das Rheingold?
TZ: This style is something we have been bringing to our audiences in the hope that they will appreciate what we’re doing. With productions such as Eugene Onegin, Dead Man Walking, Silent Night, Madama Butterfly, and La bohème? — all pieces we’ve done here with the same team — the term we use to describe this style is ‘timeless mythology.’
One of the things that I think functions as a cliché or trap for opera productions is when the first thing the audience asks is, “What time period is this?” or “What is the location?” I think that’s a cop-out. If you’re thinking, “I am going to do Eugene Onegin in 1982 in Soviet Russia,” that’s where the idea ends. It will never match what the composer had in mind because the opera was written in the 18th century. And the production will be dated because 1982 might be interesting right now, but, in 20 years, it might not be so interesting; it won’t feel organic.
In “timeless mythology” you are abstracting the time and creating a mythological world. When you’re watching Game of Thrones or Lord of the Rings, you never ask yourself, “What time period is this?” or “Is that an 18th- or 19th-century gown the princess is wearing?” Instead, you are immersed in the story, the characters, and the psychology of the characters. That’s an important word for me and my team: psychology.
The most fascinating thing about great operas is the psychology of the characters and the relationship between them. That’s what opera does so well, because music and the human voice allow you to penetrate a psychological world in a way mere words do not allow.
::::
Does this strategy represent a conscious attempt to break from tradition?
TZ: I’m not inventing anything new here. I’m not trying to be the world’s greatest innovator. We believe that opera is a combination of all the art forms: It is theater as much as it is music. It’s the voice as much as it is design. Projections and scenery and costumes and makeup — all of those art forms are coming together to create a magical evening at the theater.
Opera is primarily storytelling. It’s universal. It’s about humanity. It’s supposed to move you emotionally. I get a little worried about psychological theories, Freudian theories, Jungian theories, whatever. At some point, that kind of discussion distracts from the fact that opera is the most emotionally powerful art form you can imagine.
We’re not trying to cerebralize anything. We’re trying to strip away distraction and focus on the human character in a way that brings forward the music and the human voice. Salome is a great example. When Oscar Wilde wrote his play, his departure point was the Bible, but he didn’t write a biblical story. More than anything else, Wilde wrote a story about forbidden love, obsession, phobias, and all the things that were on Oscar Wilde’s mind, which also happened to be on Richard Strauss’ mind, which happen to be on our minds today.
Think about forbidden love taken to extremes, such as necrophilia and incest. Think about Wilde and his struggles in his own time. We’re dealing with these struggles in our time with issues related to LBGTQ. The point is, I don’t care about the biblical setting of this opera. If you’re focusing on that, you’re missing the point. All of the operas we are doing are going in that direction: What is this story about? What is this character about? Not what a dress in 1882 should look like.
How does this conceptual strategy apply to the remaining 2020 productions, Porgy and Bess and Madama Butterfly?
TZ: Porgy and Bess is a very successful production by Francesca Zambello who is one of our frequent collaborators. She runs the Glimmerglass Festival at the Washington National Opera. The production has traveled extensively in America from Chicago to Seattle to New York, and it will be done in Washington immediately after Atlanta. The cast is fantastic. Morris Robinson and Kristin Lewis who sang the opera in La Scala a couple of years ago. When it was presented in Atlanta in 2005 and 2011 to sold-out crowds, the Atlanta Opera Chorus was such a force of nature that when the Opera Comique in Paris decided to do Porgy and Bess, they chose the Atlanta Opera Chorus to perform with them all over Europe. Not to mention the fact that the story takes place in the South, not far away from us, in South Carolina.
The same team that’s doing Butterfly did Salome and are doing Das Rheingold. We have great respect for the Japanese setting and style, but, at the same time, we are telling a universal story. A foreigner in a different country falls in love with a girl. Despite the differences between them, they find something that deeply connects them. Circumstances separate them, and heartbreak ensues. When you think about Puccini writing Madama Butterfly or La fanciulla del West or Turandot, he’s never been to Japan or the Wild West or China. He’s an Italian guy who was really interested in a universal tale that combines love, death, and sex — the things we love about opera.
What about the person who can hum all the arias from Madama Butterfly, but has never been to the opera? How do you lure that person into the Cobb Center to experience Madama Butterfly as it should be experienced?
TZ: Number one, you do it with the people who are starring in this production of Madama Butterfly, who will knock your socks off. Gianluca Terranova, who sings Pinkerton, is a world-class tenor who was here for Turandot, La bohème, and Carmen. He is one of the greatest singers of our time. Yasko Sato, who plays Madama Butterfly, is a Japanese soprano who has sung this role all over the world with great success. She embodies the character of Cio-Cio San. The character of Sharpless is sung by Michael Chioldi, an American baritone making his Atlanta Opera debut. He possesses a powerful voice and is very charismatic. Suzuki is sung by Katharine Goeldner, a mezzo-soprano who has sung the role at The Met and every other major opera house. The conductor, Carlo Montanaro, is an Italian who specializes in Puccini. I did La bohème with him in Seattle several years ago. He is so charismatic and musical and will be exciting for the orchestra to work with.
So, you have this incredible cast and this rich storytelling combined with modern technology, such as lighting effects, projections, and other visual effects, which let us get into the characters’ minds in ways we were not able to do before.
In contrast to traditional operatic themes, Glory Denied, the remaining production in the 2020 season, is about as topical as an opera can get.
TZ: We have a program for veterans, which started when I arrived. We did Soldier Songs, an opera by David T. Little, and Silent Night by composer Kevin Puts and librettist Mark Campbell, which is about World War I and the universal experience of being a soldier. Those two pieces paved the way for us to create an initiative for veterans supported by Home Depot, which, to date, has brought 7,000 veterans to see our shows free of charge. Every season 2,500 veterans get to see Atlanta Opera productions. On opening night for Salome, 750 veterans were in the audience.
Glory Denied continues this tradition. It’s about the longest-held prisoner of war, Colonel Jim Thompson, who was captured in Vietnam in 1964 and released in 1973. When he came back, his life was shattered. His family was broken. His wife was with someone else. Four children — he came back to a world that was completely different.
Michael Mayes, who starred in Sweeney Todd and Dead Man Walking, stars in a role he created. He is also co-directing the opera with me. He brings so much passion to his work. I think he’s one of the greatest singing actors of our time. It’s a small cast of four with an orchestral ensemble of 13 or so musicians. We open it on the weekend of Memorial Day, which is often seen as a holiday when you go to the beach and barbecue in the backyard, but originated as a day to honor our soldiers and veterans.
In what way does the 2020-21 season represent the next evolutionary step in the growth and development of the Atlanta Opera?
TZ: Next season is what we have been waiting for and building toward for seven years. In 2013, we did three rental productions, Faust, The Barber of Seville, and Tosca. We were a $5 million opera company. Today, the Atlanta Opera is a $10 million company. We’ve been in the black for the last four years, and we will be in the black this season. We are doing six productions, three of which are brand new, with a diversity of programming and a caliber of singers, conductors, designers, directors, and staff that can stand with any opera company in the world. We have an infrastructure, largely created over the last two years, which has garnered a level of support that allows us to accomplish our mission: We believe this major international city deserves a major international opera company. Jeff Roffman THE ATLANTA OPERA: Maria Luigia Borsi as Mimi and Gianluca Terranova as Rodolfo in the Atlanta Opera’s production of ‘La bohème.’ 0,0,1 LISTENING POST: Opera unbound "
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LISTENING POST: Opera unbound Article
Tuesday March 3, 2020 11:33 am EST
The Atlanta Opera‘s 2020-21 season reaches for next-level performance
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