Welcome to Bizzaro Twins, where I’ll blog about my twin passions: Opera & Comics! You can read more about the blog and about me in the About section at left, but if you like Comics and/or Opera, this may be the place for you! Expect talk about a diverse range of both subjects, and links to great free online resources too!
Hope you enjoy, and feel free to jump in with feedback and suggestions!
SebaSM Comics are still Vancouver-themed this week, focusing on the nature side of things… Click the images to see this week’s updates!
The 100th SebaSM Comic went up on Tuesday this week, kicking off a bit of catch up on my trip to Vancouver! Click here to start with this milestone comic! 😉
I missed my weekly update last week because I was out of the country, but I did have two normally scheduled SebaSM Comics during my trip, and two more new comics this week too!
Today’s update is Bizarro Twins appropriate, since it’s vaguely inspired by Donizetti‘s Lucia di Lammermoor, which I saw this week at the Metropolitan Opera. Not based on any of the big iconic moments really, just some old school relationship stuff as seen through a 21st century lens, of course…
Here’s a clip from the Met’s production in a previous season with Natalie Dessay:
Well, I’m back from Vancouver, but on one of my last days there I saw a work-in-progress dance performance by local company 605 Collective at the Vancouver International Dance Festival. which I enjoyed, but after a mostly electronic soundtrack, I was surprised that the piece ended to the tune of Enrico Caruso singing this aria from Bizet‘s 1863 Pearl Fishers opera:
Probably the best known piece from this opera, but if you want to see the full picture, it’ll be receiving its first Met Opera production in 100 years in the forthcoming 2015-2016 season:
Since I’m in Vancouver for the week, I’ve been thinking about my favorite Vancouverite cartoonist, Angela Melick of Wasted Talent!
Copyright Angela Melick
This is kind of like New York last week, nasty winter suddenly giving way to mild spring… Though we don’t have the same sort of majestic natural setting… One stereotype I’ve formed about Vancouver thanks to Angela is the importance of extreme outdoor sports… so will bust out my hiking boots! Or walking boots at least…
Maybe she’s the only Vancouverite cartoonist I know, actually… But you can see her depiction of her town by looking through her Vancouver tag!
So I’m in Vancouver, Canada for a week, and considering the last opera I saw was the Canadian Opera Company‘s performance of Semele at BAM last week it seems fitting to discuss their forthcoming season, which, fittingly, features the world premiere of a Canadian Opera!
In October, COC will give the world premiere of Barbara Monk Feldman‘s short 2010 opera, Pyramus and Thisbe. It’s based on a tale from antiquity so the COC is presenting it alongside two short, similarly classically themed, pieces by the grandfather of opera, Claudio Monteverdi: a scena for three voices and an aria, which is the only fragment to survive from his second opera, L’Arianna, performed below by Italian soprano Anna Caterina Antonacci:
Here’s hoping I can make a return trip to Canada for this interesting early opera/premiere opera combo!
Just ne new SebaSM Comic this week, and one dummy illustration since I’m traveling today! Off to Vancouver for a week, but there will be normally scheduled Tuesday / Thursday updates in the meantime!
Tonight I’m going to see Händel‘s 1743 opera Semele, which I adore, at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in a production created by La Monnaie in Brussels and the KT Wong Foundation. It’s being performed by the Canadian Opera Company in a reprisal of their performances in the 2011/2012 season, with Canadian soprano Jane Archibald resuming the title role.
Looks pretty crazy, right? The key to this unusual production is the KT Wong Foundation, devoted to fostering dialogue in the arts and education between China and the West, which approached Chinese artist Zhang Huan with the idea of directing an opera. His inspiration was a 450 year old Chinese temple he bought and wound up using as the centerpiece of the production (watch it being assembled at BAM here).
Three Heads Six Arms by Zhang Huan in Florence, 2013
KT Wong has several videos about the project on Youtube and it’s certainly an interesting one! Besides performances at Brussels and Toronto, the show was also taken to Beijing (where it was censored, natch)
Now, as a first-time opera director, Chinese person unfamiliar with Western opera, and a fancy-shmancy artist, Zhang is not beholden to opera’s sacred cows and has taken a pretty radical approach. Besides the weirdo stage elements, he’s omitted some of Handel’s music (a capital offense in my book) and inserted several anachronistic Chinese elements. So some weird hybrid of baroque opera and modern performance piece which I’m admittedly having a hard time preparing myself for… I’ve seen reviews run the gamut from negative to glowingly positive, so we’ll see which what side I’ll land on…
In any other situation calling this concurrent production of Semele at the Seattle Opera the more traditional one might seem strange, but heck, this is just old school in comparison! Opera News seemed to like this one a lot more, at least…
It’s great to see Semele performed by a smaller, regional companies, and if Zhang Huan’s production spurs renewed interest in this very deserving opera, than that’s a good thing!
The stage maquette for Semele by Zhang Huan at La Monnaie
And for no other reason than because I like their Digital Archive, here is a set maquette from La Monnaie!
Ack, SebaSM Comics update at night, sorry!
Got two more comics this week, and unlike previous weeks I don’t shoot myself in either of them! Though there are guns pointed at me…
Enjoy the amazing perspective in this panel, that’s as good as it’ll get from me… 😛
Another big anniversary this year is the 150th anniversary of the publication of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland! What better way for us to celebrate than with Unsuk Chin‘s opera Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland? Below, the Mad Tea Party scene performed by the Seoul Philharmonic:
The Los Angeles Philharmonic celebrated this sesquicentennial with a staged performance in collaboration with the Los Angeles Opera. This was the work’s belated LA premiere, since the LA Opera was one of the original commissioners of the piece, which ultimately premiered at the Munich Opera Festival in 2007.
Photo by Lawrence K. Ho for Los Angeles Philharmonic
The reviews I’ve read have been excellent, which is pleasantly surprising as I’ve heard mixed things about the opera with its bristly, modern musical language and elliptical, playfully obtuse libretto by David Henry Hwang.
The production, by English director Netia Jones, matched that darker tone by animating illustrations from British satirist Ralph Steadman‘s 1972 edition of the book. Jones has used this technique with the LA Phil before, animating Maurice Sendak’s own Where the Wild Things Are illustrations for a performance of Oliver Knussen‘s operatic adaptation of that work.
At any rate, an interesting recent development is that the Royal Opera House in London has commissioned a sequel opera by the same team of Chin and Hwang, based on Through the Looking Glass! This is scheduled for the 2018/2019 season, so I wonder if that will add fire to the second wind that Wonderland seems to be having…
Bizarro Twins 