Attending the Metropolitan Opera House to see Tosca was an experience that I never had before. It was a very rewarding experience, because I had the chance to relate material that I learned in my music class to my understanding and analysis of the opera. There were many aspects of the opera and opera house that I enjoyed. For example, The Metropolitan Opera House was very grandiose and elegant, with six floors of audiences watching the opera. The audience was elegant themselves, because everyone had on business attire, so I didn’t see anyone wearing jeans that night. The way everyone was talking during the intermissions was like nothing I’ve seen before, because usually, especially at movie theaters are excited, talking loudly, and all over the place. The calm mannerisms and soft tones of politeness was a first-timer for me, and I believe that is partly due to the “proper” attire everyone had on that night. During the intermissions, I discovered that food prices downstairs were extremely expensive. I saw people having dinner on the upper levels of the opera house, and noticed how finely dressed they were. The food didn’t even look like it was worth a few hundred dollars, but then I found out the people eating dinner weren’t watching the opera; they came just for the dining experience. I was amazed at the sight of the people that were there that night, and couldn’t even believe that they were spending so much money.

The stage was the biggest stage I have ever seen, and the costumes, lighting, and orchestra was grand. My seat was in the eighth row right in front of the stage, so I got to see everything, from the expressions on the character’s faces to the details on the costumes.  The conductor for the orchestra was standing right front of the audience facing the stage, watching the characters and lip-singing the libretto as well. The orchestra was on a lower level than the audience and conductor, blocked off with glass windows so the audience couldn’t see them and the stage at the same time. I was really curious to know what kind of instruments I was hearing, because during the first half of the show, it was difficult to know if I was hearing a harp or a piano, a French horn or a clarinet, a violin or other string instrument. So during the second intermission, I went to the where the conductor stood, and looked down to see what kind of instruments were being played. To my surprise, I saw a big harp, a small drum set (most likely a tympani), clarinets, trumpets, the flute, the oboe, a French horn, and several violins and violas.

I hope to see more operas in the future!

Bonjour, tout le monde!

On our class visit to the Museum of Modern Art, I was very interested in the René Magritte exhibition, titled, “The Mystery of the Ordinary” and features his works from 1926-1938. Magritte was one of the famous Surrealism painters whose work pointed out the inconsistencies in language and visual representation, characterizing the surrealist movement. The art of the time period that the exhibition focuses on featured violent interpretations and innovative ways of thinking about reality and society.

“An object encounters its image, an object encounters its name.”–René Magritte

The idea that Magritte puts forth in this quote is evident in many of his paintings. One work that captured my attention was titled, “La Clef des songes,” (The Interpretation of Dreams). In the painting, images are paired with words that appear to have no correlation to the image, all except the panel in the lower right hand corner. There, Magritte painted a suitcase and below it, he writes, “the valise,” which is both a French and English word for suitcase. The other panels are all paired with non-sensical words that do not accurately describe the object above them. This interesting juxtaposition of language and image is one of Magritte’s signature ideas: words are constructed by society to describe objects, but the objects do not describe the names. We can name the object “the horse” to be “the door,” and the object would still be the same. (Also interesting to note: this painting is the same one that appears on the cover of the text, “Way of Seeing” by John Berger that we read for class.)

“An object is not so possessed of its name that one cannot find for it another which suits it better.”–René Magritte

Another work that attracted me is one that points out the distinction between painting and sculpture. Entitled, “L’évidence éternelle” (The Eternally Obvious), it depicts five parts of a woman’s body in separate canvases. The message behind the work was that this series of five paintings were blurring the lines between painting and sculpture, since it calls to our attention the use of the 3rd dimension outside each individual canvas. Seeing this work brought to my mind our trip to the Rox Gallery to see the exhibit, Delusions, where one of the photographs featured two nudes with lampshades over their heads (Regretfully, I don’t have a picture). In that work, the artist was bringing up the idea of the nude being an object if the face is covered, since it eliminates any special or distinctive properties. Magritte’s “L’évidence éternelle” reminds me of it because in four of the five canvases, the person is unrecognizable, but if seen as a whole, the five canvases form one picture of a unique person.

–Joanna Huang

Complexions was the first ballet performance I’ve ever been to! I was really excited! I always wondered how a ballet show would be like. I was really curious how it would turn out from seeing the videos in class. I wondered if it was going to be similar to the videos. I was surprised how strict they would be that we couldn’t even take pictures. I didn’t know that they would be that strict. I really liked how I was in the front though.

As the music started, I was surprised by the outfits. It was tight clothing that I could see the muscles of the dancers. I was glad we went over some of the performances in class. I realized that as they danced, their muscles were emphasized and I realized that it was part of the dance. That was one of the main points. I was interested in the second part of the performance which was the one with no music. I felt like it was tap dancing. Also, the parts when they stomped their feet were cool. I never knew ballet could be like this.

My favorite part was the last part. I really like how they wore clothing that people would wear these days. Also, they had music with lyrics. I didn’t know if that was allowed but I was excited. The upbeat music with the dance and lyrics was perfect. I clapped along to the dance. It was fun to watch and it told a story as the dancers danced to the lyrics.

I’ve noticed or felt that the parts all had to do something with love. Maybe, I was the only one who felt like that. Also, I really loved the passion of all the dancers. They danced and acted and their face showed how much they loved what they were doing. I even felt that their sweat helped with their dancing as they showed their passion. It was a realyl interesting performance and I’m grateful that I had a chance to see it.

Last Thursday, I just wanted to take myself out, and walking up from our school, I hit tenth avenue, and discovered this art gallery called the Taglialatella Galleries. No, forget the complicated name of the place. The artwork was amazing! Take a look at the piece shown below. Its Mickey Mouse! 

This piece was done by someone called Mr. Brainwash, and is a stencil and mixed media piece on paper. There are old sections of newspaper behind MickeyMouse, and he’s standing smack in the middle of history. I thought this was really a piece of art. Mr.Brainwash is trying to tell us, the viewers, that times are changing, from an era of black and white to one with color. Not only that. Mr. Brainwash is also telling us that modern times and icons like Mickey Mouse are allowing us to forget the times of the past. Because Mickey Mouse is standing in the middle of the newspaper articles, it’s not that visible and our attention is just on Mickey. Maybe if he would get out the way, we would be able to catch up on some of that history. 

Mr. Brainwash also had this piece below exhibited at the gallery:

Mr. Brainwash calls this piece Einstein, but its stencil and mixed media on canvas. His vivid use of colors and overlapping segments in his artwork shown here suggests a message: people are constantly changing with times, and are acquiring more rights and freedoms.  Science, technology, and innovation are causes and byproducts of these constant changes and human evolution. Whether positive or negative, change has to happen, and we have to learn how to accept it and adapt to it. That is what makes the piece so cool to look at: its creative, original, and unique.

Now, as far as I understand, an artist has a meaning behind the art, because the artist starts off with an idea. I’m not sure why Mr. Brainwash is calling himself Mr. Brainwash. One reason could be that the center of his artwork ( like Mickey Mouse) or objects in his art in general (like in Einstein) are brainwashing the public. Of course, that’ll remain a mystery, like the man behind Mr. Brainwash himself.

On November 18, the Alexander String Quartet was visiting Baruch College in preparation for two upcoming concerts they were going to have. My history class was invited to watch the group perform. It was my first time going to Baruch’s performing arts centers. The performance was taking place in the Engelman Recital Hall. Though it wasn’t a very large venue, I found it to be a very comfortable place to be.

Though I’m not too big on classical music as a whole, I always found it fun to watch the performers themselves, at least on a professional level.  I found classical musicians to give a different feeling, when performing, compared to say pop or jazz. musicians There seems to be a lot more structure and formality behind classical music that works its magic on its performers as well.

The quartet was made up of two violinists, a violist, and a cellist. One of the violinist took the lead role for the majority of the performance, although each musician had his moments of glory. They played famous quartet compositions that were supposed to help us better understand the time period we were studying. After the performances, we were given time to ask questions. I was able to learn a lot about quartets in general because they were very knowledgeable on the history of quartets. Performing famous pieces and arranging/composing there own, It was a very enjoyable experience. However, I was only able to sneak one picture in because my professor did not want us to use our phones.