Original Art Sundays (Thrusday) No. 262: MN Opera: The Fix

I have never had a happy relationship with sports. I was uncoordinated, socially awkward, and I got beat up regularly in gym class, to the point at which I saw the phrase "gym class" as an oxymoron.
The only sports at which gave me any degree of pleasure were the solitary sports, particularly swimming.
Despite this, I developed some very small skills at basketball and baseball.
In the 1980s, I also developed a fascination with the work of independent filmmaker John Sayles, whose film Eight Men Out dealt with baseball in a very different way than most plucky sports films. Sayles' work dealt with baseball's first, and possibly biggest, scandal, as did the MN Opera's newest production.
With this framing the event, I was intrigued to attend the newly commissioned work The Fix, staged by MN Opera. The work did not disappoint.
Warning: spoiler abound below.

Based on the 1919 World Series, which was thrown by the Chicago White Sox, The Fix concentrates on a few primary characters: "Shoeless Joe" Jackson, his wife Katie, his teammate "Chick" Gandil, and sports writer Ring Lardner.
The opera brings out multiple aspects of the story, not the least of which is owner Charles Comiskey's cheating his own players of earned bonuses. This is the catalyst that leads the players to consider throwing the game. Someone is being paid exorbitant sums for their work. Why aren't they?
I would have liked to see this aspect of the story played up more. It does come across, just not as strongly as I thought it might have.
Joe is cast as the most moral of the lot, the Chicago Black Sox, as the team came to be known after the scandal was made public. Once Joe agrees to taking the bribes, the fix is in. Pitcher Eddie Cicotte hitting the first batter with a pitch. This is the signal that cinches the deal. The eight players are throwing the World Series.
However, this sits badly with the team. Four games in, down three to one, Joe declares, "it's hard to play bad." Inspired by Joe, the Sox win the next two. It's only when Katie's life is threatened that the last game of the series is thrown.
This series was also unusual, in that it was a nine game series, not the usual seven.

Commissioner Mountain Landis,
performed by Christian Zaremba

The following year, the Sox make it to the Series again. Katie has been Joe's guiding light, and at her urging, Joe, not the sharpest tack in the drawer, goes to attorney Alfred Austrian and confesses, after signing a waiver of immunity.
A trial ensues.
A young fan, desperate to continue admiring his hero, was the first to say the now classic phrase, "say it ain't so, Joe!" 

Katie and Joe- quick sketch

Despite a not guilty verdict, newly appointed baseball commissioner Mountain Landis rules the involved players barred from professional baseball for life.
This effectively ends not only the players' careers, but writer Ring Lardner's as well. Larnder, now an alcoholic and stricken with tuberculosis, happens on a member of the Eight, who tells him of a chance meeting with Joe, now a dry goods store clerk. Joe is hollow and drab, lacking the fire of the one thing besides his marriage that gave his life purpose- playing ball.
Like all MN Opera productions, this is brilliantly staged. The stands, populated by static marionettes, are the backdrop for the whole opera. The team name, with the word "white" replaced by the "black" at a pivotal moment, is stark, as are the shots of the eight offending players.
Mobile set pieces create locker rooms, speakeasies, interrogation rooms, courtrooms and storefronts with fluid ease.

Urgency and inevitability dominate the production. The questions of how one does right after being wronged, how one does right after doing wrong, and how one lives with the consequences of their actions are presented starkly. The end offers a redeeming moment, the shining possibility of once more playing the game for the sheer joy of it.

Ring Lardner

Joshua Dennis does a powerful and sensitive turn as Shoeless Joe, while Jasmine Habersham gives dignity and conviction the role of his wife Katie. Wei Wu also stands out as Joe's buddy "Chick". MN Opera resident artist Kelly Margraf is both aggressive and vulnerable as Ring Lardner. Artist alum Christian Zaremba brings bombast to the role of Mountain Landis, reminding me alternately of Christopher Walken and the Daredevil villain The Owl in his bearing.
The work makes effective, but not cliched, use of its historical framework. Nuances of Prohibition and flappers enhance the atmosphere.
I went into this one with some apprehension. Not being much on sports (see above), I had difficulty imagining the emotional possibilities and opportunities this story could present. I didn't think it would engage me.
The Fix moves well and engages on many levels. Setting, libretto, score and performance are all strong. The opera runs through March 24. You are eagerly encouraged to attend!

Original Art Sundays (Friday) No. 256: THAIS: MN Opera!

I come and go on Disney stuff. I love the animation and the storytelling is always well-crafted, but sometimes the unsubtle subtext is too creepy for words.
Now and then, however, they get it just right.
There's a number in the animated Hunchback of Notre Dame that sends chills through me. The self-righteously pious Judge Frollo is confessing his obsession with Esmeralda.

His torment and the imagery around sensuality and obsession just captivate me. I found that number to be the best part of that morally haphazard outing.

Spoilers abound from this point on. Read at your own risk.

Pre-show warm-up sketch

This was on my mind as I arrived at Media Night for THAIS. Jules Massenet's 1894 interpretation of Louis Gallet's novel, Thais tells of a sensuous performer, the title heroine, and the Cenobite monk, Athanael, whose obsession with her leads him to attempt the salvation of her soul. Set in Egypt during Roman occupation, the work poses numerous challenges. Staging is complex, costuming is challenging, and most significantly, the title role has a reputation of being one of the most difficult to sing. The roles, especially said title role, are also physically demanding, to the point at which one is exhausted watching the work!
I'm pleased to report that Minnesota's own Kelly Kaduce more than rose to the occasion, in every sense. Her rendition of every theme was achingly beautiful and her physical approach to the role was spot on. I regret that the circumstances of sketching during a dress rehearsal (AKA Media Night) are not conducive to portraiture, so my hasty scrawl does not do her beauty justice.

Lucas Meachem's turn as the obsessed Athaneal was equally moving and profound.  He bought a torment and love to every aspect of the story, from the initial obsession and violation of Cenobite isolation to reform Thais through his own ambivalence as he adopted secular splendor to encounter Thais in that world.
Athaneal's insistence on wearing his hair shirt beneath his camouflage of golden robes, courtesy of the impresario Nacias (also obsessed with the titular heroine), speaks volumes as to who he is and who he must be. The key to drama is the absolute and irrevocable change in values of a character. In that sense, both the principals are classic examples of good drama. Consistent with late 19th Century morality plays, one change arrives too late, as Athaneal learns the converted Thais is dying and resolves that he was wrong to change her soul at the cost of his life.

Thais reflects, in every sense, on the nature of true beauty.

The morality of this work is clearly a challenge for a contemporary audience, as it seems to put piety and the will of a Deity ahead of a woman's self-determination. Perhaps this is a flawed or incomplete reading of the work's complex text. Athaneal truly believes he is putting Thais' best interests at heart as he fights aggressively for her conversion. But isn't conviction true of all zealots? 

Thais dreams as the classic Meditation is exquisitely played.

Once again, MN Opera is remarkable in its staging. Use of transparent/translucent curtains, an angled bed with an impassioned painting on it (!), and delicate use of rains of rose petals and silver shards serve to make the production visually lush. I'm struck by the innovative staging at every new work. Lorenzo Cutuli has earned accolades for this design and its execution. He won the International Opera Award for set design in 2014. If there's justice, he will win again for THAIS. MN Opera is blessed to have him on this production.

As Athaneal and Thais cross the desert to reach the nunnery that is to be her new home, the set is alarmingly sparse. There is only a shiny mound. It took me a minute to realize that the mound was a pile of broken mirrors.

I must write of the impassioned and beautiful dancing that dominates this production. As one of my colleagues from the Black Hat Collective remarked, it felt more like a ballet in spots. This is a compliment. The play within a play model provided wonderful opportunities to explore movement and music. This production took full advantage of them, to my delight.

Usually, just to try to keep balance, I try to find some aspect of a production that was wanting. In MN Opera's current production of THAIS, there is none.  Every facet of the work is impassioned and professional.
Go. I cannot offer any stronger encouragement. This production is beyond language. It will fill and devastate you. THAIS runs 3 hours and 11 minutes, but I was so sorry when it ended.
It is at the MN Opera May 12- 20.

Next: back to the Graphic Memoir.

Original Art Sundays No. 254: Rigoletto

Let me begin with a confession. I have committed a stupidity of immeasurable proportion.
From the drive to Ordway Center, through the performance, and for a couple hours afterwards, I had it stuck in my head that Rigoletto was by Mozart.
Oh, I knew better, and I had the program in front of me to correct my error. But it was just one of those dumb things. Perhaps I was thinking about how wonderful Marriage of Figaro was a few months ago. Perhaps NPR was riffing some Mozart earlier in the week and it got stuck in my head, a little ear worm. Whatever the rationale, I had this stupidity riffing in my mind. Rigoletto, by Mozart.
Let me correct myself, as I write about the MN Opera's performance of Rigoletto by Giuseppe Verdi.
Let's say it again. Rigoletto by Giuseppe Verdi.
And me being an Italian. Oh, the shame, the perfidy.
I hope this absolves me of all mea culpability.
Ahem.
Please note that there will be spoilers.
As the story is centuries old, I don't think it's much of an issue.  My sketches from Media Preview night accompany my remarks.

Pre-opera warm-up

MN Opera does not disappoint. While not as engaging as the aforementioned Mozart work, Rigoletto was well staged, expertly sung and played, and ran an emotional gamut in which the whole was larger than the sum of its parts. Olafur Sigardson took a marvelous turn in the tragic title role, the court jester whose daughter is prey to the Duke. Matt Boehler's performance as the assassin Sparafucile offers an emotional gamut, from the cold precision of the profession to a stubborn pride in his work bordering on the comic- "I'm an assassin, not a thief." I regret that my sketches of him in the role were not up to my standards, and will not be shared.
As has been noted repeatedly in the 267 years (!) since its debut, Rigoletto is an unrelenting work. The arias fold into one another almost seamlessly, offering little respite for performer or audient. It's to the credit of the ensemble that the work remains vibrant throughout its two and a half hour (plus) running time. The story is very much the stuff of soap opera and high drama, consistent with other Victor Hugo works (it's based on a Hugo play). It's over the top and it remains real life, though couched in a fiction.
Sidebar: my favorite Hugo work of those I know, The Man Who Laughs, was adapted for stage six times, three of them as musicals, but was never an opera. So it goes.

Joshua Dennis as the Duke

Even in light of the sometimes over the top plot, the issues the story raises are still sadly relevant. A man with immense power who is willing to destroy anyone who ridicules him, who vows to take whatever women he chooses- sound familiar? Sadly so.
Joshua Dennis brings a fire and torment to the role of the Duke, taking it beyond the dimension of the harrasser or the abuser. That's in the character, to be sure, but Dennis's interpretation shows the intricacies that drive a man to such acts, with depth and precision but without apology.

Gilda and Rigoletto

The interplay between Marie-Eee Munger's Gilda and Olafur Sigudarson's Rigoletto is impassioned and heartbreaking. Both bring an earnest, deep sense of loss and yearning to their roles.
The sets were consistent with those of Dead Man Walking, in that they made effective use of digital lighting for textures and of a multi-tiered set, used more sparingly here.  I somewhat prefer the mobile proscenia of Figaro, but I recognize that it's not right for every production.
The glowing animal masks of the bandits in the forest during Act II were noteworthy, a treat for the eyes.

Rigoletto in repose, defeated,
chiding the cowards who abandoned him to
this fate.

The ultimate tragedy of the narrative plays with devastation.
Rigoletto holds his daughter in a pieta pose. Though overused to the point of cliche, it's very moving here.
There's an inevitability to this ending. I was reminded of a line from one my favorite rock musicals, Phantom of the Paradise: hearts are broken and the bad guys win. Sometimes that's life. Much as we would like it to, good does not always triumph. Is it wrong that our art sometimes reflects that? I think not, else this work would not have endured.

As the pencil lines were so light as to be almost invisible in the last piece, I tried a simple inversion and was pleased enough with the results to post them.
Rigoletto runs at the MN Opera through March 31. You have three more chances.
Go.
You will be glad you did.
Next opera: Thais.
Next art: back to the graphic memoir. Big works are like that. They take a while.

Original Art Sundays No. 263: Dead Man Walking

Opera season is well upon us again. I was graced to attend Media Preview Night of MN Opera's new production of Dead Man Walking. According to the advance blurbs, this is the most staged modern opera (though there is scant explanation of the criteria for that assertion).
This production had its minor flaws, but was devastating in many ways.

Sister Helen Prejean, on a proscenium. Clouds and crucifix.
Effective use of lighting effects for clouds.

While the performances were all exemplary, the staging stole the show. Canny and effective use of lights, projected backgrounds and digital effects over a sparse multi-leveled set offered impressive versatility. The last opera I attended at MNO, The Magic Flute (I did not make it to Preview Night for that one- a shame, as it was delightful), relied on more traditional sets, with scenics set on rollers for versatility. Quite apropos for a more traditional piece.
In this case, the majority of the piece was set inside a prison. As such, the palette was primarily grays, with costume and lighting offering little relief. Given the subject matter, some relief is necessary. Here, it comes as the aforementioned kinetic staging.
Many cautions were given to attendees about subject matter. The story was filmed many years ago, and there's a well-read book, so I'm not too worried about spoilers here. The opening rape scene was staged subtly, given its content. Still, I winced. The coarse language didn't trouble me. It rarely does if appropriate to the story. The character of the accused Joseph DeRocher (sung with depth and precision by Seth Carico), offered spiritual counsel by Sister Helen Prejean (ably played and sung by Catherine Martin), plays the scene with brutality and lack of reserve. But somehow, despite my cringing at the scene, it has a reduced impact overall.

An attempt to capture the moving "light bars" of the cell block on paper.

One of the most compelling scenes used overlapping linear patterns to simulate cell and prison bars. The inmates moved about them with an urgency that echoed a captive state.
A note about drawing this opera: I usually do a fairly direct setup, trying to be as unobtrusive as possible. I clip a book light to my sketchbook and fill my lap with the most necessary tools, the rest of my drawing kit at the ready.
This night, it all went south.
My book light slipped from my grasp and broke. This left me drawing in relative darkness. It's been a while since I practiced the Zen of blind drawing, and the results were simply horrid. To top it off, probably due to frustration over the turn of events, I kept dropping my favorite inking tool. In selfish terms just of drawing, the night was an unmitigated disaster.

DeRocher's mother.
The only decent drawing done during the preview.

But it's a poor workwoman that blames her tools. After getting a bit of rest, I regrouped and reworked most of the key pieces, from memory and from whatever reference I could gather. I decided to try to work fast, as I would have had to in the original circumstance, and to use the same tools, in an attempt to preserve the integrity of the drawings. I like to post the drawings done during the preview. It probably doesn't matter to anyone but me, but it seems right.
There's a reason I use markers for this sort of work. They encourage speed. I did cheat a bit and spend a bit more time on the straightedge work. Also, I used small Bristol boards rather than Canson sketchbook paper, and worked in French grays rather than the cool grays I used on site.  I stuck to my commitment to allocate no more time for the reworks than I had at the actual preview.

DeRocher's moment of surrender

This opera, this story, is driven by core emotions: rage, sorrow, random and scattered moments of joy and hope, and the possibility of forgiveness. While it would have distracted, there were times I yearned for a close-up, just for the emotional impact.
Even without that option, there were ample moments of emotional clarity. The one drawn here was a moment of silence following a profound and bitter self-realization.
The sparse moment in both score and libretto served well. Terrence McNally (libretto) and Jake Heggie (music) made wise decisions around these issues. While there were several chaotic scenes of cross-talk, rage and grief, many of the principals had moments of clarity, reflected by the reduction and absence of sound.
Sometimes people listen more closely if one talks more softly.
A word on performance dynamics: when I began attending preview nights, there was a stated rule against applause and audience reaction, as it is indeed a rehearsal.

The father, in a moment of rage.

Now it appears the rules have changed. Not only was applause de rigeur between acts, but there were curtain calls. Not an inherently bad thing, just not what I expected, based on past experience.
Howard Boucher, father of the rape victim, was played with remarkable strength and vulnerability by Rob Asklof. His narrative echoes that of DeRocher in surprising ways: unbridled rage and fear, borne in both cases of a fear of redemption and forgiveness.
In marked contrast, Father Grenville (sung by Dennis Petersen) shows an intransigence which does not appear to resolve. His persona seems rigidly static through to the end.

Father Grenville

There's a weariness to the man, as though he's resigned to his failure to save those in his charge as prison Priest.
The internal logic of this is sound. Beyond a core of humanity, no two people are going to respond in the same way to such dire circumstances. Playing these reactions against one another is the core of story.
I came to the work with personal baggage, as one who was raised Catholic but no longer practices. A minor impediment to seeing the work objectively,  but one that deserves to be noted. I suspect that this work pulls on the strings of everyone's faith and upbringing. The issue of capital punishment touches on the one of the core questions of any society. Who has the right to take a life?
Despite my scattered misgivings, I found the production both professional and profound. There are performances scheduled for today, January 30 and the weekend of February 1 and 3. Tickets can be obtained here.
MN Opera is staging a strong season. Next up in mid-March, it's Rigoletto.
I look forward to drawing it.
Next: more of my graphic memoir, Sharp Invitations.

Original Art Sundays No. 106: A Night at the MN Opera

While there is a new story that's a half inch from being ready to post, something else came up this week that deserves our attention.
While attending MIX(more about MIX later this week, I hope), I talked to some members of the Black Hat Comics Collective, and joined them in an adventure this past Thursday.
We were invited to attend the dress rehearsal of the new production of the MN Opera Company, Silent Night. Since this is a world premiere, we were among the first to see a public performance. We were also privileged with a light sushi snack and a Q & A with the librettist, Mark Campbell, and the composer, Eric Simonson, beforehand.
Our responsibilities for being granted this honor were simple. We were to sketch the performance and to blog about our experiences.
This work will also be offered to the Minnesota Opera Company for their blog.
The work, based on a true incident from WWI, tells of three troops- one Scots, one German, and one French- who agree to a truce for Christmas eve, and find themselves unable to fight thereafter.
The music and acting were stunning in their beauty. I was moved to quiet tears more than once.
May I add that this was the first opera I've ever attended (besides Gilbert & Sullivan, which, according to my music history professor, doesn't count)?
Go see this! It's one of the most moving Christmas pieces I've ever seen. And even though it's not specifically about the holiday or the faith associated with it, it's one of the most reverent works I've seen as well.
Performances this coming weekend only, but this deserves to become a holiday tradition.

Here are my sketches.The medium is listed below each piece. This is most of my output from the two hour performance. I hope the emotional content and energy compensate for their crudity.

China marker

China marker

China marker of rear projection behind set

China marker, soldier's letter home

fine tip marker- "famous artists make worse soldiers!"

fine tip No. 5 Marker

No. 5 marker- the bagpipes

No. 5 marker- prayer and song

Brush tip marker- the next morning

"maybe it's time to bury all of them...."

Brush tip marker

brush tip marker

brush tip marker

brush tip marker

brush tip marker- "a silly way to die"

I was so honored to do this, and to work with the Black Hat folks, many of whom I know from MCAD (and some of whom I've taught and worked with in other respects). I hope to work more with them, and would love to attend the next operatic event!
Next week: the long promised Whalemule solo story.