The Arts in NYC

I’m a bit of a dork when it comes to really big machines. As far as I’m concerned, few things on the planet are as awesome or beautiful as a powerful and intricate piece of machinery: the bigger the better. So naturally, I find it really cool that someone else would think of the mac-daddy of all big and powerful machines, the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, as art.

Starting next year CERN has plans to set up an artist in residency program, where artists and scientists will have the opportunity to, as one CERN representative put it, “[explore] the absolute boundaries of the known world [together].” Featured above is artist Josef Kristofoletti’s three-story-tall (and incredibly, only 1/3 scale) mural representation of the LHC’s ATLAS particle detector, painted directly onto the ATLAS headquarters building.

In fact, CERN scientists have become known for their own creativity ever since a rap song on the LHC created at CERN hit over 6 million views on YouTube. Check it out below.

So much for the idea that science and art don’t mesh. For more info click HERE.

What a terrific performance! I hope you all enjoyed this as much as I did. the Met Opera is such a wonderful place. Did you realize that you were attending what is sometimes regarded as THE best opera in the repertoire at one of THE premiere opera houses in the WORLD!! The costumes and sets were great, the singing was splendid, the orchestra was fantastic and the pacing of the opera was, I thought, really wonderful. The action MOVED (as a comedy should) but there were some very tender moments when Mozart’s music was allowed to breathe. I will post some pictures later, but for right now, I wanted to share an email I received from a gentleman sitting just in front of me! We started talking and it turns out he was a language professor from Staten Island College (CUNY) and he had a particular theory about how the final moments of Cosi should be staged:

Dear Professor Smaldone,

It was a pleasure to meet you at the opera. Here is Chapter 12 of my THE BLESSED HUMAN RACE, which is about why I think Fiordiligi should wind up with Ferrando.

George Jochnowitz

Chapter 12
Reconsidering Così Fan Tutte

“This world is a comedy to those that think, a tragedy to those that feel,” said Horace Walpole. Così fan tutte is certainly a comedy. Its librettist, Lorenzo Da Ponte, was a man who thought; its composer, Mozart, was without any question a man who felt. Da Ponte was a genius, but Così fan tutte is performed and loved today because the greatest of all geniuses, Mozart, gave us its music—music that at times is comic, at times light, but at other times passionate and profound.

Così fan tutte means “so do they all,” with tutte (all) in the feminine. What is it that they all do? Don Alfonso, the cynical baritone who organizes the practical joke that forms the plot of the opera, thinks he knows what all women do: they are fickle. To prove his point, he persuades the heroes of the opera, Ferrando and Guglielmo, to leave their fiancées, return in disguise, and steal the hearts of Dorabella and Fiordiligi away from the men they are engaged to marry.

This is the kind of nasty plot that is typical of the comedies of the 17th and 18th centuries, a plot involving disguise and deception, in which the reality of human emotion is denied and mocked. Contemporary audiences generally dislike comedies of this period—after all, there is more feeling as well as more humor in an I Love Lucy program.

The early scenes of Così fan tutte are standard 18th-century comedy. Guglielmo tells us his beloved is perfection, the phoenix: “La fenice è Fiordiligi.” Ferrando thinks it is his fiancée: “Dorabella è la fenice.” Neither the music nor the words suggest men in love; what we hear instead is fun and energy.

Ferrando and Guglielmo, who have been teased by Don Alfonso into going along with his gag, pretend to leave for war. They come back wearing ridiculous disguises and proceed to woo the ladies. It is not clear at this point which gentleman is after which lady, but the way they go about showing their love is by pretending to commit suicide. They are “saved” by the maid, Despina, who disguises herself as a doctor and cures them with a giant magnet. All in good fun.

In Act I, there are solo arias, duets, trios, sextets, and a chorus. One thing is missing: there are no love duets. Nowhere in the opera does Ferrando sing a love duet with Dorabella, nor does Fiordiligi ever sing a duet with Guglielmo. Why should they? They don’t love each other. If they did, it would break the mood. There is no place for love in 18th-century comedy.

Something significant happens in Act II. The young women do not recognize their disguised lovers, but there is a different thing they recognize. They know which of the two they prefer: neither prefers her finacé! Dorabella will take the dark one: “Prenderò quel brunettino.” Fiordiligi likes the blond one, “il biondino.” Dorabella, the mezzo, has chosen Guglielmo, the bass. Fiordiligi, the soprano, likes Ferrando, the tenor. The situation at the beginning was all wrong. Can a mezzo ever wind up with a tenor? Ridiculous.

Not too much further into the second act, Guglielmo and Dorabella sing a duet, “Il core vi dono” (I give you my heart). It is the first male-female duet in Così fan tutte. We can hear the hearts beating in the words and in the music: “Perche batte batte batte qui?” (Why is it beating beating beating here?). In literature, when we say two hearts are beating as one, it is merely a figure of speech. In music, we hear it; we feel it; we know it has to be true. This love duet is one of the most beautiful in all opera. But it is more than that. It is also the most convincing. The music has taken us from the coldness of comedy to the warmth of love.

When the women fall in love, they become real. Each has her own personality. Dorabella has given in to her passion. Fiordiligi cannot come to terms with her emotions. Her great second-act aria, “Per pieta,” is filled with doubt and turmoil. When Fiordiligi finally surrenders to Ferrando, it is not because she is fickle. She has found the great love of her life. She tried to be loyal to Guglielmo as long as possible, but she failed. Besides, Guglielmo never deserved her loyalty, nor did Ferrando merit devotion from Dorabella. Both men had casually agreed to play Don Alfonso’s game. The initial pairings were wrong from the start.

Don Alfonso has won his bet. He makes Guglielmo and Ferrando sing after him “Così fan tutte,” to the notes E F A D E. We heard almost the same theme in the overture: E F A D G E, a sequence of half notes, marked andante. It is neither a light nor a comic melody. Rather, it sounds solemn, almost ominous. Is that the appropriate music for asserting that women are fickle and love is a joke?

At the end of the opera, the disguises are taken off and the lovers are married. Who marries whom? The libretto does not say. The silence of the text suggests that we go back to the beginning: Ferrando with Dorabella, Guglielmo with Fiordiligi. That is the way the final scene is usually staged. It is in keeping with the comic mood of the opera, the traditions of the times, and probably the intentions of the composer and librettist.

Once in a great while, the final scene is done differently, and the women get to marry the men they have fallen in love with. That is the way it ought to be. We know, because the music has told us so, that Fiordiligi loves Ferrando and Dorabella loves Guglielmo. We know, because the music has told us so, that their love is real. We know that if they went back to their original fiancés, the men would forever resent the women for their betrayal, and the women would hate the men for the cruelty of their joke.

If women are indeed fickle, why should Fiordiligi and Dorabella show loyalty to their original fiancés? If women are capable of true lasting love, then why shouldn’t they stay with the men they love? The answer usually given is that the opera isn’t about real people, that it is a comedy not to be taken seriously. The problem is caused by Mozart’s greatness. He was too good a composer; his music has too much feeling to go with such a silly story. The title, Così fan tutte, says that women’s emotions are not real. Mozart’s music proves that the title is wrong.

What do you think?

See you soon. Have a great weekend.

ES

A couple of times a year, I visit my grandmother’s Jewish Association for Services for the Aged (JASA) senior center and I entertain her and the other seniors with my piano playing. I am asked to play Classical, and Broadway, but the the thing I am asked to play most often is always Klezmer.

For this reason, when I starting reading the New York Times article entitled “Lifting Spirits With Music Passed Down Through Generations“, I was immediately interested.

This article details the story of Dave Levitt, who has also been performing for the elderly Jewish community since he was a young boy. He is now continuing this life path as a music specialist working the Jewish Home Lifecare’s daytime program in the Bronx.

Levitt is determined to preserve the Yiddish language and art of Klezmer music. I think this is incredibly admirable and important. Too many languages and music styles have been neglected over the years and eventually lost. Besides my personal connection to Levitt’s cause, I feel that any effort at preserving art is incredibly important and extremely worthwhile.

Klezmer and Yiddish are very historically important to the Jewish people and I appreciate Levitt’s role in continuing these traditions.

I very rarely get the chance to sit down and read the newspaper anymore. However, every Saturday morning I make a habit of sitting down to eat breakfast with both the New York Times and The Bergen Record(a local paper) in front of me. I will usually read the Sports sections first, skim through the Comics, possibly glance at the front pages, and as of late I will peruse the Arts. I look forward to this treat all week and find it extremely relaxing, but as current exhibit at the New Museum called “The Last Newspaper” has started to make me think….How long before newspapers become obsolete and fall by the wayside? Newspapers have been around since the early 17th century and have served as one of the primary ways people learn information. Besides informing the public about the current events occurring in the world around them, newspapers have served as a medium for artists to get their messages across. Not only that, but the physical properties of newspapers(as well as what they represent) have made them an artist favorite in terms of using them within works of art. Some artists known to use newspapers are Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns. The exhibit addresses various aspects of newspapers both physically and metaphorically. An explanation of the exhibit that I read describes it best(albeit in a grandiloquent manner)”The artists in this exhibition continue the exploration of the newspaper, but their focus lies in the ideological rather than the purely physical properties of the daily press. They use the newspaper as a platform to address issues of hierarchy, attribution, contextualization, and editorial bias. By disassembling and recontextualizing elements of the newspaper, such as the construction of graphics and text, the artists on view take charge of and remake the flow of information that defines our perception of the world. At its simplest, the artistic impulse that largely informs this exhibition is one of reaction and appropriation; the newspaper provides a stimulus and is itself incorporated into the final artwork.”With the instant gratification addicted society we live in and the ever progressing technology, the tangible newspaper may soon be running its last issue. People can now get all the news and information they could dream of online. Additionally with the popularity of blogs, anyone can play”reporter” and dispense information just by typing away at their desk. Although publications are now putting their newspapers online, I wouldn’t feel the same reading about the latest news buzz while staring at my wonderful Macaulay issued Mac(not allowed on the Sabbath anyway). I don’t know about you guys but for me there is just something special about the smell of fresh ink in the morning.

Link Explaining “The Last Newspaper”

A review of the exhibit

In in 79 AD, the city of Pompeii, located near modern-day Naples, was destroyed and buried by a volcanic eruption from Mount Vesuvius. This eruption buried Pompeii under 4 to 6 meters of ash and pumice, and it was lost for over 1,500 years before its accidental rediscovery in 1599.

Since Pompeii’s discovery, much attention has been give to ensuring that the city’s remains continue to stand as monuments to history. However, apparently this attention has not been enough.

Earlier today, according to a New York Times article, two more walls of Pompeii have collapsed. “Critics say that the government has been remiss in overseeing and financing basic maintenance at the fragile site.”

Pressure is now being placed on the overseers of Pompeii to better care for the city’s remains. Hopefully increased restoration work will be done so these ruins will continue to stand for years to come.

It would be tragic and ironic if the remaining architecture crumbled now while a volcano could not destroy it hundreds of years ago.

Recently, I came across a Youtube video that amazed me. It features the talents of two Irish dancers, Peter Harding and Suzanne Cleary who are known collectively as Up and Over It. In this video, you can see the duo “hand dancing”. To create this, they spent five days working with film director Johnny Reed and then spent another five days rehearsing the skit. The whole film took two hours to film although this video is only 2 minutes and 20 seconds long.

According to the dancers, they are “reinventing Irish dance” by adding electro pop music. Hand-dancing, however, is also not new for Irish dancers because they often learn their dance steps with their hands by beating on their laps or chests. This is how they practice before shows.

I love this video because it appeals to multiple senses. The beat is kept in time although the dancers rarely look at each other. However, they are still partners because they interact with one another. At the same time, I love the background and the choices made by the director because it appeals to my visual senses. I find myself constantly looking back and forth between the background and the dancers. Both are equally as impressive.