I assumed there'd be no local coverage of the Arizona Friends of Chamber Music's presentation Wednesday night of the Takács Quartet. But, surprise, here's notice from the Arizona Daily Star. (The accent is even going in the right direction!) It would be nice if chamber music, and I don't just mean our own concerts, were reviewed more often around here; more people might come to understand that it ain't just for snooty specialists.
Arizona Daily Star editor Bobbie Jo Buel used to say of Spanish words printed in the paper, "If they don't have the right accent, they're misspelled." If that applies to all languages, not just Spanish, then there's big trouble on the arts page today. About the worst mistake a newpaper can make, Bobbie Jo also used to say, is misspelling someone's name. Well, the preview of Tartuffe consistently refers to the playwright as "Moliére." The accent is backwards. Thus, the name is misspelled. Come on, folks ... it's not too hard to look these things up. If the reporter gets it wrong, two copy editors and a page proofer are in line to catch the error, but nobody seems to be consulting the basic reference sources ... or has seen the name in print often enough to know which way the accent goes.
According to the Star's preview of Arizona Opera's presentation of Verdi's Macbeth, "Revzen said the production sets a new standard for staging Verdi's most beloved opera." Does Arizona Opera general director Joel Revzen truly believe that Macbeth is "more beloved" than La Traviata, Aida or Rigoletto? Either the reporter misunderstood him, or I missed the paradigm shift.
In my review of Endymion, I have a passing reference to last season's Rogue adaptation of James Joyce's The Dead, which I wrongly attribute to Joe McGrath. (I should have known better; I saw and praised that production.) Rogue Theatre's Cynthia Meier gently reminds me: "And just for the record, as brilliant as my dear partner, Mr. McGrath, is, it was I who adapted and directed The Dead. Rogue that he is, Joseph would take complete credit for everything, and although his influence on the project was vast, I won't let him get away with this one." I apologize for this stupid error.
By the way, a couple of theater people have assured me via e-mail that they have never thought of me as a "nice guy." What a relief.
In the latest Tucson Weekly, my review of a stage adaptation of Keats’ Endymion:
Endymion, the handsome young Greek shepherd-king, has fallen in love with the goddess of the moon. To unite with her and achieve immortality, he must undertake a long journey through forests, into the underworld, to the bottom of the sea, through a 4,000-line poem by John Keats and ultimately through a two-hour adaptation of the Keats poem by The Rogue Theatre's Joseph McGrath.Read the rest here.
That adaptation opened last weekend, and McGrath has done a magnificent job of transforming the bloated poem into a successful theatrical piece, full of story, distinct characterizations, movement, the simplest of visual illusions and live music. Yet the play, like Endymion himself, does meander through a series of discrete scenes united only by the theme of love. Through much of the evening, you wonder how it can all possibly coalesce. The stories ultimately do hold together, if you're willing to make the connections yourself--that is, if you're willing to surrender to the genre needs of what might be called a picaresque romance, rather than be led beat by beat through a linear plot.
A most excellent musicological hoax: A fellow named Rohan Kriwaczek has gotten a reputable publisher to issue his Incomplete History of the Art of the Funerary Violin. According to a New York Times summary, it’s supposedly “a nonfiction account of a little-known genre of music that was condemned by the Roman Catholic Church and almost wiped out by the Great Funerary Purges of the 1830’s and 40’s.” Except that there was never any such thing as a funerary violin, and the Church conducted no such Funerary Purges. Too bad the hoax was exposed before publication; it would have been swell to see how many critics and musicologists got snookered, like the publisher. Read about it here.
James Reel's cranky consideration of the fine arts and public radio in Tucson and beyond.
