1. We move with eyes shut and ears stopped; we smash walls where doors are waiting to open to the touch; we grope for ladders, forgetting that we have wings; we pray as if God were deaf and blind, as if He were in a space. No wonder the angels in our midst are unrecognizable.
2. I wanna sing that Rock and Roll.
3. You can't always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you just might find you get what you need.
dkz
Saturday, January 22, 2011
Weisheitslehre
Vienna outside my window, the now-familiar blend of chilly and gemütlich. I have an unexpected few minutes to myself thanks to Captain Vere's hoarseness; he'll bring a soothing Starbucks up to the Indomitable and her crew on the sixth floor and mark his way through Britten's exhortations. From down the hall float the bell-tones of the choirboys readying for a different world two floors below and two centuries earlier. No other singers populate the coaching rooms this morning, but most of them are here in the house; between Finisterre, Aguasfrescas, and the Weisheitstempel, nearly everyone in the company is rehearsing.
Next week and next month spread out before me, each translated into its own Excel document. Flute, Boheme, Romeo; Billy Budd on stage, Figaro not yet, Dutchman pretty soon, the false lull before the opera ball, the onslaught of March and April (American readers, brace yourselves: all of the Ring plus Elektra, Parsifal, Ariadne, and Arabella in fewer than eight weeks. Side dishes include, but are not limited to, Anna Bolena and Aida). Pianists' hours to count, vacation requests to track, next week's coachings to plan. The newest Excel sheets, labelled 2011-2012 and brightly color-coded, lie patiently ignored near my right elbow.
I'm staring out my window down the Mahlerstrasse, at the statuary lining the top floor of the Hotel Bristol. The ship is heading into battle. The adversaries are plotting. Smart people are coming up with plans, some of which might be good. The children are counseling us to be steadfast, patient and wise.
bedenke dies: kurz, sei ein Mann.
As if on cue, it starts to snow. This city surely knows its theater.
dkz
Next week and next month spread out before me, each translated into its own Excel document. Flute, Boheme, Romeo; Billy Budd on stage, Figaro not yet, Dutchman pretty soon, the false lull before the opera ball, the onslaught of March and April (American readers, brace yourselves: all of the Ring plus Elektra, Parsifal, Ariadne, and Arabella in fewer than eight weeks. Side dishes include, but are not limited to, Anna Bolena and Aida). Pianists' hours to count, vacation requests to track, next week's coachings to plan. The newest Excel sheets, labelled 2011-2012 and brightly color-coded, lie patiently ignored near my right elbow.
I'm staring out my window down the Mahlerstrasse, at the statuary lining the top floor of the Hotel Bristol. The ship is heading into battle. The adversaries are plotting. Smart people are coming up with plans, some of which might be good. The children are counseling us to be steadfast, patient and wise.
bedenke dies: kurz, sei ein Mann.
As if on cue, it starts to snow. This city surely knows its theater.
dkz
Saturday, January 8, 2011
desert
A ritual in an era run amok: a face separates itself from the crowd, a weapon vomits, grief explodes, people across the world open their veins to the words, the voices, the endless live updates streaming into their various receptors, jonesing with the same addicted response to information that probably led to the violence. Arizona radio spits the horrible story through my computer into this Austrian evening, and I break out the Ritter Sport Dunkel Vollnuss and start clicking my mouse. Funny that I avoided going to a blues club to hear MtMn tonight because I felt uncomfortable with the idea of being in a bar. Here I am downing shots of "analysis" with that same old drunkard's head, knowing what a bad idea it is but unable to turn down the next hit.
There's the Safeway at Ina and Oracle on my screen, the flat streets of Tucson still familiar. 30 years ago I would take Greyhound down to the U of A to visit my first love, later I drove down with MtMn to hear him play at the El Conquistador. I never wanted to come to Arizona; we moved right before my junior year in high school for my dad's job and it felt like a tragedy from the beginning. I saw guys with buzzcuts overturn the Muslim Students Association information table on my campus during the hostage crisis. I saw men with guns in their holsters walking through the streets of downtown Phoenix (only concealment was illegal). I was in graduate school when the car salesman turned governor slashed the university's budgets by thirty percent and said in a press conference that the newspaper was using microwaves to read his thoughts. When I got my Fulbright, we rode out of town in our Volkwagen Golf with the windows down and all of our possessions in the back seat. I let my bare feet hang out in the scorching air and ate potato chips as MtMn drove, and I knew I'd never live in that unnatural place again.
Of course, because life is hilarious, those ten years in Arizona were also joyous and irreplaceable, filled with good fortune and generosity. My husband, my dearest friends, the accidental beginnings of my beloved profession, my first chances to travel and live in Europe, all of these gifts were given to me there, could only have come from that place. MtMn and I discovered our kinship on drives and hikes in the mountains and deserts. The wild landscape is printed on me, lives on in our choice of American home, our little house slowly taking shape in the Texas hills surrounded by similar scrub and crowned by the same endless sky.
That's the country I love, despise, and long for. Freedom's yin and anarchy's yang, Mars and Venus, strip malls and fruited plains, the romantic tug of those poles - who isn't attracted and repelled by the epic New World? Of course terrorism has always played a part. My hometown celebrates every year the failure of middle America's favorite terrorist, Jesse James, to rob the local bank. It floored us once - has it really been almost a decade? - to be attacked from outside, but from inside we expect it even as we drop to the ground keening, again, and again.
Someone walked up to an elected official at a public event outside that Safeway, put a gun to her head, and fired. He shot other people as well, and there was at least one other gun in the crowd. Clearly the congresswoman was targeted, clearly her death was, to the gunman, worth the inevitable additional injury that would follow. I can taste in my memory the early January air of Tucson, dry and cool, probably a note of mesquite or cedar, certainly warm with sunshine. I imagine that right before the air split in two, people were buying their Saturday groceries so as to leave Sunday free for church and football. They loaded their food (plenty to feed their families) into their trunks, started their cars, and turned on their radios to listen to whatever voices would confirm the truths they already held to be self-evident.
dkz
There's the Safeway at Ina and Oracle on my screen, the flat streets of Tucson still familiar. 30 years ago I would take Greyhound down to the U of A to visit my first love, later I drove down with MtMn to hear him play at the El Conquistador. I never wanted to come to Arizona; we moved right before my junior year in high school for my dad's job and it felt like a tragedy from the beginning. I saw guys with buzzcuts overturn the Muslim Students Association information table on my campus during the hostage crisis. I saw men with guns in their holsters walking through the streets of downtown Phoenix (only concealment was illegal). I was in graduate school when the car salesman turned governor slashed the university's budgets by thirty percent and said in a press conference that the newspaper was using microwaves to read his thoughts. When I got my Fulbright, we rode out of town in our Volkwagen Golf with the windows down and all of our possessions in the back seat. I let my bare feet hang out in the scorching air and ate potato chips as MtMn drove, and I knew I'd never live in that unnatural place again.
Of course, because life is hilarious, those ten years in Arizona were also joyous and irreplaceable, filled with good fortune and generosity. My husband, my dearest friends, the accidental beginnings of my beloved profession, my first chances to travel and live in Europe, all of these gifts were given to me there, could only have come from that place. MtMn and I discovered our kinship on drives and hikes in the mountains and deserts. The wild landscape is printed on me, lives on in our choice of American home, our little house slowly taking shape in the Texas hills surrounded by similar scrub and crowned by the same endless sky.
That's the country I love, despise, and long for. Freedom's yin and anarchy's yang, Mars and Venus, strip malls and fruited plains, the romantic tug of those poles - who isn't attracted and repelled by the epic New World? Of course terrorism has always played a part. My hometown celebrates every year the failure of middle America's favorite terrorist, Jesse James, to rob the local bank. It floored us once - has it really been almost a decade? - to be attacked from outside, but from inside we expect it even as we drop to the ground keening, again, and again.
Someone walked up to an elected official at a public event outside that Safeway, put a gun to her head, and fired. He shot other people as well, and there was at least one other gun in the crowd. Clearly the congresswoman was targeted, clearly her death was, to the gunman, worth the inevitable additional injury that would follow. I can taste in my memory the early January air of Tucson, dry and cool, probably a note of mesquite or cedar, certainly warm with sunshine. I imagine that right before the air split in two, people were buying their Saturday groceries so as to leave Sunday free for church and football. They loaded their food (plenty to feed their families) into their trunks, started their cars, and turned on their radios to listen to whatever voices would confirm the truths they already held to be self-evident.
dkz
Thursday, January 6, 2011
Epiphany
There is a version of "We Three Kings" that is burned in my aural memory; It was a sixties-era Firestone Christmas album, the Ray Conniff Singers or the Norman Luboff Choir, back before I knew enough to recognize the Ost in those names. They poured on the sound in the third verse and I thought it was thrilling. I can still hear that, and still remember a time when the kings' day was the end of our Christmas holiday. Austria still observes these old rhythms; last night there were people out on the town just to enjoy Vienna's Christmas lights one more time.
Gifts arrived from afar yesterday, perhaps in honor of the old trio. Our niece contacted me over Google Chat to discuss an unexpected and exciting job offer that will take her to the job she wants in a city that excites her. A dear friend on Skype rejoiced over her rehearsals of a brand new role, one I helped her learn (if anyone helps this brilliant lady learn anything). And I sat in a cafe with a new, serendipitous acquaintance who unwittingly handed me part of myself I had misplaced. I see how overblown that looks as I write it, and yet it's the truth, unlikely and miraculous.
Holiday over, we all return to counting the days, simple stepping forward, freed from the dramatic arc of the two great holiday stories. Today we throw out the tree and put the cards away. I gather my gifts around me and step out into ordinary time, eyes on the sky.
dkz
Gifts arrived from afar yesterday, perhaps in honor of the old trio. Our niece contacted me over Google Chat to discuss an unexpected and exciting job offer that will take her to the job she wants in a city that excites her. A dear friend on Skype rejoiced over her rehearsals of a brand new role, one I helped her learn (if anyone helps this brilliant lady learn anything). And I sat in a cafe with a new, serendipitous acquaintance who unwittingly handed me part of myself I had misplaced. I see how overblown that looks as I write it, and yet it's the truth, unlikely and miraculous.
Holiday over, we all return to counting the days, simple stepping forward, freed from the dramatic arc of the two great holiday stories. Today we throw out the tree and put the cards away. I gather my gifts around me and step out into ordinary time, eyes on the sky.
dkz
Saturday, January 1, 2011
Fêtes galantes
Christmas Eve, before we came home and lit the candles on our own little tree, we were guests at two wonderful gatherings.We ate lobster and rolled turkey leg, red cabbage with apple and tender sweet potatoes, tarte tatin and almond mousse. The violist and the flutist turned businesswoman sang in harmony as they lit the candles and their adult sons listened. The pianist and flutist wore evening dress and stealthily pressed gifts into people's hands. We talked about movies and politics and holidays past with the actor, the actress, the students, the young engaged couple, the still-bereft companion of the famous conductor, the doctor, the Austrians, the Hungarian, the Swede, the ex-New Yorkers. We walked home through the icy streets full of light and slept late.
Christmas Day we looked at our computer screen saw our parents, our brothers and sisters, nieces and nephews. We talked about the perfect gifts, the mouths of babes, the irritating habits, the surprising step forward, the overindulgence, the joyous pause, the good chocolate, the beautiful snow. We missed each other and looked on each other with undisguised pleasure.
The work week: Don Giovanni, Il barbiere di Siviglia, Die Fledermaus. Italian and German, tragedy, comedy, a stage of people from all over the world singing music from three centuries. The famous guests on New Year's Eve added a Gershwin duet to the Strauss, and the Philharmonic played it with their old-world sound and made it belong to the waltzes and polkas, Imperial Vienna letting loose at the club, and I marveled at the short step from Broadway back to the Ringstrasse.
Champagne flowed and firecrackers exploded across the city, and we ate goulash soup after midnight in a house full of musicians and translators and children visiting from various foreign universities. We waltzed on the icy flagstone: the woman who lost her sister, the singer-actress who is changing professions, the couple brand new in a second marriage, the man pulling out of depression, the law school graduate, the proud new apartment owner, the budding romance, the gracious hosts. We toasted the auspicious date, four times one, and Vienna was still partying when we called it quits.
As I write this, our dear ones in the US are probably heading towards sleep, having also rung in the New Year with drink and dance, music and cheer, joy and sorrow. To think on each of these people and the roads they have walked only in the last year is to stand amazed and reverent at the complexity of this human life. Babies were born and lives drew gracefully to a close or ended suddenly. Long illness was endured with and without patience, dramatic accidents were survived. Love flared up suddenly, it was fought for against brutal odds and was strengthened in victory, it was lost. People spoke their first fragments of words, learned to read, made up stories, rushed home with news, laughed, lied, apologized, joked, argued, wept, promised, sang, shouted, spoke too soon, should have said more. Mistakes were made in foreign tongues! Friends did great work, went to school, lost their jobs, got new ones, didn't try hard enough, beat the odds, prayed unceasingly, walked the dog, didn't take care of themselves, cooked at home, lost the weight, got new shoes, cut their hair, shaved their heads, took the vows, took the long way home, didn't fix what wasn't broken, pushed a little harder, tried to relax.
And everywhere, everyday, in every place, people extended their hands to each other and offered themselves, a miracle, common and nearly invisible, holding the whole wild party together.
dkz
Christmas Day we looked at our computer screen saw our parents, our brothers and sisters, nieces and nephews. We talked about the perfect gifts, the mouths of babes, the irritating habits, the surprising step forward, the overindulgence, the joyous pause, the good chocolate, the beautiful snow. We missed each other and looked on each other with undisguised pleasure.
The work week: Don Giovanni, Il barbiere di Siviglia, Die Fledermaus. Italian and German, tragedy, comedy, a stage of people from all over the world singing music from three centuries. The famous guests on New Year's Eve added a Gershwin duet to the Strauss, and the Philharmonic played it with their old-world sound and made it belong to the waltzes and polkas, Imperial Vienna letting loose at the club, and I marveled at the short step from Broadway back to the Ringstrasse.
Champagne flowed and firecrackers exploded across the city, and we ate goulash soup after midnight in a house full of musicians and translators and children visiting from various foreign universities. We waltzed on the icy flagstone: the woman who lost her sister, the singer-actress who is changing professions, the couple brand new in a second marriage, the man pulling out of depression, the law school graduate, the proud new apartment owner, the budding romance, the gracious hosts. We toasted the auspicious date, four times one, and Vienna was still partying when we called it quits.
As I write this, our dear ones in the US are probably heading towards sleep, having also rung in the New Year with drink and dance, music and cheer, joy and sorrow. To think on each of these people and the roads they have walked only in the last year is to stand amazed and reverent at the complexity of this human life. Babies were born and lives drew gracefully to a close or ended suddenly. Long illness was endured with and without patience, dramatic accidents were survived. Love flared up suddenly, it was fought for against brutal odds and was strengthened in victory, it was lost. People spoke their first fragments of words, learned to read, made up stories, rushed home with news, laughed, lied, apologized, joked, argued, wept, promised, sang, shouted, spoke too soon, should have said more. Mistakes were made in foreign tongues! Friends did great work, went to school, lost their jobs, got new ones, didn't try hard enough, beat the odds, prayed unceasingly, walked the dog, didn't take care of themselves, cooked at home, lost the weight, got new shoes, cut their hair, shaved their heads, took the vows, took the long way home, didn't fix what wasn't broken, pushed a little harder, tried to relax.
And everywhere, everyday, in every place, people extended their hands to each other and offered themselves, a miracle, common and nearly invisible, holding the whole wild party together.
dkz
Thursday, December 30, 2010
music to end the year by
1. Stevie Ray Vaughn, "Crossfire"
Let's start this last post of 2010 with a guitar god and a serious groove. Stevie Ray has become my surprising workout partner ever since I doled out the Euros to Femme Fitness on the Kärtnerring, embracing the sad reality that I need both serious cardio along with some impact reduction on my poor knees. Texas Blues takes my mind absolutely off my joints and puts it right into a spirit of work and sweat. Stevie Ray makes all that grime seem pretty easy. Maybe he can teach me to grind that hard and stay that chill.
2. Some Orchester with a conductor, "Wiener Blut"
OK, just saw my spelling error, but I'm so pleased with it. Check out the remarkable small string ensemble at the beginning, which FWM just lets them play. The concertmaster sat with me at last year's Christmas party and told me all about playing for Karajan, Kleiber, Levine. The principle cellist played the Giovanni recits with me, he's the one whose grandfather was hired by Mahler to be in the Philharmonic. This clip is from a concert they played last summer during which they also played the Star Wars theme, totally worth checking out on YouTube for the various facial expressions alone.
This week they are all rehearsing for the New Year's concert, set to be broadcast all over the world tomorrow. I got invited to a rehearsal but was turned away at the Musikverein by the Phillies' administration. So was the conductor's wife. There were hoards of tourists trying to talk their way into the hall. The Philharmonic guy told me to come back the next day, when maybe, just maybe, he'd let me in, but only if I promised to hide behind one of the larger pillars so that other people didn't ask questions about why I'd been allowed in. Somewhere, Gustav Mahler is clutching his skinny chest and rolling his eyes.
3. Luciano Pavarotti, "Di rigori armato il seno"
I heard this opera often in the last few days, all the same Schenkerei as at the Met (the black-clad orphans, the super-gay hairdresser, ad infinitum). I never heard the Pav sing this part live, but I thought of him this week and just wanted to hear that voice again.
4. Ella, "Mr. Paganini"
And if you can't sing it, you simply have to SEEpmiddlybiddendeedendop. Heaven, heaven, heaven. "Round Midnight" is also on this clip, and I hope you are looking forward to health and joy round about that time tonight.
Happy New Year, y'all. Guten Rutsch. Schau ma moy.
dkz
Let's start this last post of 2010 with a guitar god and a serious groove. Stevie Ray has become my surprising workout partner ever since I doled out the Euros to Femme Fitness on the Kärtnerring, embracing the sad reality that I need both serious cardio along with some impact reduction on my poor knees. Texas Blues takes my mind absolutely off my joints and puts it right into a spirit of work and sweat. Stevie Ray makes all that grime seem pretty easy. Maybe he can teach me to grind that hard and stay that chill.
2. Some Orchester with a conductor, "Wiener Blut"
OK, just saw my spelling error, but I'm so pleased with it. Check out the remarkable small string ensemble at the beginning, which FWM just lets them play. The concertmaster sat with me at last year's Christmas party and told me all about playing for Karajan, Kleiber, Levine. The principle cellist played the Giovanni recits with me, he's the one whose grandfather was hired by Mahler to be in the Philharmonic. This clip is from a concert they played last summer during which they also played the Star Wars theme, totally worth checking out on YouTube for the various facial expressions alone.
This week they are all rehearsing for the New Year's concert, set to be broadcast all over the world tomorrow. I got invited to a rehearsal but was turned away at the Musikverein by the Phillies' administration. So was the conductor's wife. There were hoards of tourists trying to talk their way into the hall. The Philharmonic guy told me to come back the next day, when maybe, just maybe, he'd let me in, but only if I promised to hide behind one of the larger pillars so that other people didn't ask questions about why I'd been allowed in. Somewhere, Gustav Mahler is clutching his skinny chest and rolling his eyes.
3. Luciano Pavarotti, "Di rigori armato il seno"
I heard this opera often in the last few days, all the same Schenkerei as at the Met (the black-clad orphans, the super-gay hairdresser, ad infinitum). I never heard the Pav sing this part live, but I thought of him this week and just wanted to hear that voice again.
4. Ella, "Mr. Paganini"
And if you can't sing it, you simply have to SEEpmiddlybiddendeedendop. Heaven, heaven, heaven. "Round Midnight" is also on this clip, and I hope you are looking forward to health and joy round about that time tonight.
Happy New Year, y'all. Guten Rutsch. Schau ma moy.
dkz
Friday, December 24, 2010
Erleuchtet
We haven't had a tree in years, probably due to a combination of non-Christianity and laziness. We haven't collected ornaments, no garland, no star. Christmas is a fun holiday in our house, don't get me wrong, but it has always centered around friends, meals, and gifts. The decorations of our childhoods haven't made it into our home. I always love going back to the Midwest, especially to my sister's house where the decorating is especially perfect, abundant and detailed but not tacky at all. Her house is gorgeous at Christmastime. Even this, which should ignite both artistic feeling and sibling rivalry, has not inspired me to get off my Yuletide butt.
Well, Vienna, another score for you, delivered at a crucial moment. Just when you're treating me like we're in an extended foreign language version of Mean Girls, you serve up a Christmas miracle: I dragged my first Weihnachtsbaum home on Tuesday.
For weeks, there were no trees to be seen, and I imagined that one must have to go far out of the center of town to find them. Turns out that they just show up late. As in, less than a week ago, Vienna was suddenly full of trees, little knots of trees every few blocks. The whole town smells like pine. There's more. Not only did I go to a Weihnachtsmarkt to buy ornaments, I got MtMn to go with me. I imagine this will be his only such sojourn, but he did it for me: big husband points. We had to walk by tons of crap, but there were treasures to be found: beautiful honey from about an hour outside of town (German word learned: beekeeper = Imkermeister), and six handpainted glass ornaments. I realized even as I bought them that someday I'll be handcarrying a box of decorations onto a plane when we move back to the states. Either that or we'll have to take a boat.
There is exactly one tree on our block with electric lights on it, and I suspect they came from somewhere else, because I've seen no such thing in the stores here. Everyone I talk to at the opera puts candles on their trees. Maybe this is less of a fire hazard because the trees are fresh? I guess we find out tonight when we light ours. I do know that the smell of the beeswax along with the pine is, in a word, herrlich. The light twinkling off the ornaments just might be perfect.
Wednesday I went around work giving out present to colleagues, and everybody said the same two things: "Thank you" and "already?" Everything happens as late as possible, so different than stretching it out over a month. Yesterday almost nothing happened at work except gift-giving, plus a big company party in the afternoon. There was singing and a huge buffet and good conversation all around, and promptly at three everyone disappeared to finish the preparations. I was asking people about how they decorate their trees, and no one else had done it yet; that's for Christmas Eve. I found out that lots of my colleagues grew up hearing Bing Crosby and Perry Como.
Wednesday night I sat in the Loge for Rosenkavalier, which turned out to be an exercise in delicious disorientation. The same director did this production and the one at the Metropolitan Opera, which I assisted on several times. The sets vary a bit due to the different sizes of the two theaters, but the action/schtick on stage is almost exactly the same. That was the where-am-I entry point, watching a well-loved piece in a new place with new people but knowing everything that was coming. And then suddenly, beautifully, I realized I was not watching the opera, but watching a group of colleagues and new friends. Under a grey wig and spectacles is a sleepless young father whose second son came quickly in the middle of the night a few weeks back. My new recital partner and friend masquerades in breeches, sword at the ready. The elegant woman in ermine picked up her family at the airport today. This is the experience I've had in other theaters, other homes, shifting in and out of worlds at will. Vienna was warm and foggy and full of lights as I walked home, a little unreal, and I could enjoy the feeling of displacement all the way.
dkz
Well, Vienna, another score for you, delivered at a crucial moment. Just when you're treating me like we're in an extended foreign language version of Mean Girls, you serve up a Christmas miracle: I dragged my first Weihnachtsbaum home on Tuesday.
For weeks, there were no trees to be seen, and I imagined that one must have to go far out of the center of town to find them. Turns out that they just show up late. As in, less than a week ago, Vienna was suddenly full of trees, little knots of trees every few blocks. The whole town smells like pine. There's more. Not only did I go to a Weihnachtsmarkt to buy ornaments, I got MtMn to go with me. I imagine this will be his only such sojourn, but he did it for me: big husband points. We had to walk by tons of crap, but there were treasures to be found: beautiful honey from about an hour outside of town (German word learned: beekeeper = Imkermeister), and six handpainted glass ornaments. I realized even as I bought them that someday I'll be handcarrying a box of decorations onto a plane when we move back to the states. Either that or we'll have to take a boat.
There is exactly one tree on our block with electric lights on it, and I suspect they came from somewhere else, because I've seen no such thing in the stores here. Everyone I talk to at the opera puts candles on their trees. Maybe this is less of a fire hazard because the trees are fresh? I guess we find out tonight when we light ours. I do know that the smell of the beeswax along with the pine is, in a word, herrlich. The light twinkling off the ornaments just might be perfect.
Wednesday I went around work giving out present to colleagues, and everybody said the same two things: "Thank you" and "already?" Everything happens as late as possible, so different than stretching it out over a month. Yesterday almost nothing happened at work except gift-giving, plus a big company party in the afternoon. There was singing and a huge buffet and good conversation all around, and promptly at three everyone disappeared to finish the preparations. I was asking people about how they decorate their trees, and no one else had done it yet; that's for Christmas Eve. I found out that lots of my colleagues grew up hearing Bing Crosby and Perry Como.
Wednesday night I sat in the Loge for Rosenkavalier, which turned out to be an exercise in delicious disorientation. The same director did this production and the one at the Metropolitan Opera, which I assisted on several times. The sets vary a bit due to the different sizes of the two theaters, but the action/schtick on stage is almost exactly the same. That was the where-am-I entry point, watching a well-loved piece in a new place with new people but knowing everything that was coming. And then suddenly, beautifully, I realized I was not watching the opera, but watching a group of colleagues and new friends. Under a grey wig and spectacles is a sleepless young father whose second son came quickly in the middle of the night a few weeks back. My new recital partner and friend masquerades in breeches, sword at the ready. The elegant woman in ermine picked up her family at the airport today. This is the experience I've had in other theaters, other homes, shifting in and out of worlds at will. Vienna was warm and foggy and full of lights as I walked home, a little unreal, and I could enjoy the feeling of displacement all the way.
dkz
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