Okay, when I said in the last entry that I was typeless, I didn't mean it would take me two full weeks to update. But I have been working like a maniac, and when I haven't been working I have been out and about, and when I haven't been out and about, I have been trying to sleep. Stress, however wasn't allowing for much of that. When it came time to set our clocks back, I said, "Oh great, an extra hour to toss and turn."

Still, the last three weeks have held numerous details I should tell you about. Pour yourself a glass of wine--this is gonna take a while.

Opera:
On November 1, Mark Fox and I went to the Met to see La Boheme. I've seen this Zeffirelli production many times, but this was by far the most enjoyable performance I've been to. The ensemble singing was great--it really felt like these guys had a real bond among them, and it really felt like Rodolfo and Mimi were truly in love. Marcelo Alvarez was the best Rodolfo I've heard live--strong voice, hit every note, able to sing softly without fading away, and didn't overplay the emotional bits. Plus a very nice couple relieved Mark and I of our standing room tickets by offering their $150 orchestra seats on the aisle when they left at intermission (who would leave!?!?).

The following week, cloaked in our post-election depressions, Mark and I again took our places at standing positions numbers 6 & 7 in the orchestra of the Met. It was a double bill that night--two short operas that were written at the same time (1890) and have been performed together all over the world for over 100 years: Mascagni's Cavalleria Rusticana and Leoncavallo's Pagliacci. Both were staged by Zeffirelli--whose Boheme I love and whose Carmen I hate. Well, I thought his staging of Cavalleria Rusitcana was boring and dull. He has a formalist streak, so in parts--such as the Easter procession up the church steps--the staging was lovely, but the rest of the opera just felt like dead stage. Anyway, this is an opera I had actually never before heard. The music is absolutely lovely--lyrical and extremely accomplished. Oleg Kulko--whose voice I likewise had never before heard--was terrific.

If our luck was good for getting second act seats at Boheme, we must have been gods on this night: some fabulously rich people--rich enough to pay top dollar and leave halfway through--bestowed their parterre box seats on us. The face value of the tickets? $295. Each. From this privileged vantage point we took in the famously passionate, hard-working Pagliacci. The clown, the traveling show, the tears, the murders, the famous arias--all arrived at our box with enthusiasm and were received in kind. Whether I loved Zeffirelli's production because I wasn't fidgeting at my standing stanchion, or if it was simply great staging, I cannot say. But I do know that when Canio kills Nedda at the end, it is as shocking as if you didn't know it was coming. Go buy the Domingo recording.

Dance:
My subscription to BAM this year was pretty much a bust. Of four performances, I hated one, disliked one, barely liked one, and loved one. I already wrote about the first two; here are the next two:
Ballet Preljocaj. This is classically-inspired ballet that behaves more like bad modern dance. I loved Preljocaj's piece for City Ballet a few seasons ago, but this sprawling, messy, undisciplined piece called Near Life Experience just couldn't reign itself in. Parts of it featured great dancing--well-constructed choreography well-executed--but those moments have been blotted from my memory by the self-indulgent nonsense of a whole dance company unspooling huge balls of string and dancing around with wine glasses stuck all over their bodies. 'Nuff said.

Thank god for Pina Bausch. I've gone to 3 or 4 of her company's performances at BAM over the 12 years I've been in NYC, and some have been better than others, but all have been competent displays of intelligence and theater--always a good combination. This is theatrical dance--the dancing always serves the thematic or emotional tenor set by the theatrical aspects of language, sets, lighting, costumes, facial expressions, evocations of memory, references to literature, the use of many different musics, bright red lipstick, super high heels, stillness, repetition, and endurance. No pure dance here. This piece, called For the Children of Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow, is no less sprawling in it's scope than the Preljocaj mess I just wrote about, but it knows what's doing at all times. Jerome Robbins wrote: "Each ballet must create a strange and totally new world. Each must be unique and different. Some are like places in dreams, bizarre, absurd, frightening and heavenly; but each offers a vision of some aspect of life. Each ballet is governed by its laws of behaviour, relationships and morality, and it is the privilege of each ballet that these laws possibly stand well outside our own conscious recognitions. But each world must be true to its own laws, and it is up to the choreographer to convince and continuously assure us of their validity. One must feel safe and secure in the strange logics of behaviour. An audience, liking or disliking the world presented, always knows when the subject is felt with conviction. A choreographer fails when he lacks this conviction, or doesn’t strive for any, or is unable to reach into his own deep felt beliefs. Then he will fumble, twist away embarrassedly, and try frantically to cover his deception." Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch passes this test; Ballet Preljocaj does not.

Food:
Take two of my favorite things in the world, Italian food and sushi, and smash them together and what do you get? Bar Tonno. Paula and I ate at their looooooooooooong narrow bar and can say that we've been to heaven and back. We got rolling with a fancy bottle of wine: Chianti Classico Riserva Rancia. Then we got to ordering food: horse mackeral served with pickled turnips (I LOVE root vegetables!), smoked sea salt, and ginger oil. Anchovies with eggplant. Sardines with artichoke. Amazing raw diver scallops with lemon and chives. A cooked dish: stewed octopus affogatto--a spicy tomoatoey sauce over the tenderest octopus ever to pass these lips. We also had burrata--a cheese like a soft mozzarella with a ricotta-like interior--very gooey, and very good. For dessert I played it safe with homemade biscotti. Come visit me and we'll go again!

On one recent night Marc Murphy and his Landmarc saved my life with a perfect, rare shell steak at 11.30pm. I ate it with the chef himself and then joined him and his front-of-house managers at their table for an encore glass of wine. It was a simple, healthy antidote to a very late night at work.

Oh yeah, one night Laura and Paula and I ate at 'inoteca. I think we liked it, but in retrospect it's either totally forgettable, or I am even more stressed out than I thought--'cause I can't even recall what we ate...

Wine:
Being overworked and overstressed leads to one thing--a list of expensive wines at my suggestion:
Leyda 2001 Carmenere (Chile)
Vendemmia 2000 Barbaresco (Italy)
Chateau Fonbadet 1999 Pauillac (France)
Varaldo Fantasia 4.20 2000 Langhe (Italy)
All red, all good. Sorry, I don't do winespeak, except to say that the Pauillac tasted like delicious leather.

Music:
I cannot listen to the new American Music Club CD. It's unlistenable. Sorry, Mark Eitzel, I wanted to love it.

Jesus Christ Superstar has been getting me through my post-election blues. Current favorite lyric: "What then to do about Jesus of Nazareth? Miracle wonderman, hero of fools."

On a happier note, my iPod just did something amazing. I'm playing 3000 songs at random, and it played The Killers' All These Things That I've Done immediately followed by Roxy Music's Virginia Plain--same feel, same guitars, same shaky forward-in-the-mix vocal. A perfect DJ moment for my little electronic friend!

Well, back to my wine. I just ate some really disgusting--but quickly delivered--Chinese food. My fortune from the cookie: Your emotional nature is strong and sensitive. Thank you. Thank you very much.