In my previous post, I complained a bit about the lack of reasonably priced ticket opportunities to see the Orchestra and a lack of young folks. In the run up to attending this performance, however, I learned that seeing the Cleveland Orchestra at Blossom is a family tradition for families all over the Northeast Ohio area; that’s a serious perk of living near Cleveland. Growing up in the middle of nowhere Indiana, there was never an opportunity to see something as special as the Cleveland Orchestra. It’s definitely something I’ll be taking my son to in the future. The acoustics at Blossom are admirably suited to listening to the Orchestra, from any vantage. At Severance Hall you sit inside the music, at Blossom it washes over you.

I really enjoyed the Meet the Musicians panel; hearing from Frank Cohen (clarinet), Amy Lee (violin), Stephen Rose (violin) and Paul Yancich (timpani). Frank in particular was charming and had some great stories to relate about growing up attending orchestral performances. All of the musicians spoke a bit about upcoming performances and their thoughts on the pieces and being part of the orchestra in general. When it was time for questions I asked if any of the musicians could expand on their forays into playing in non-traditional spaces, like the Happy Dog or in Ann Arbor, MI. Amy Lee has been active in that area and mentioned that some orchestra members have been trying to find a place to play on their night off during their upcoming trip to New York City, but were having difficulty finding a venue that would be cool with it. That’s really stupid of you, New York.

Our box seats were top notch (of course), and the chance to kibitz as the more musically knowledgeable asked Leila Josefowicz questions during the intermission was an added bonus to what had already been a wonderful evening. Post-intermission was spent on the lawn with dozens and dozens of families and the sounds of Anton Bruckner’s 9th Symphony. It was a perfect evening for classical music. Many thanks to the Cleveland Orchestra for the invitation.

Concert Preview

I didn’t do a lot of homework on any of this before going, but I did see that there was a concert preview about 20 minutes before the concert preview started. My friend & I, braving the ridiculous weather, arrived just after the beginning, but I learned enough from the lecturer that I felt that I had something to hold on to and look for while listening to the music. I’m not a classical music aficionado by any stretch, so I’m hoping to use that ignorance as a strength in writing this. I felt that the concert preview was imperative for someone, like myself, who is unfamiliar with the music but wants to learn more about it. The preview was held in the Reinberger Chamber Hall at Severance Hall, a beautiful room filled with amazing woodwork.

The Performance

The actual performance began shortly after the preview ended. Our tickets were high up in the balcony, but when you’re listening to an orchestral performance, I don’t think where you sit is that important. What is important is that you’re actually in the venue when the performance starts. I had ducked out for a moment to get a quick drink and in the interim missed the beginning. Then I found out that you’re not allowed back in once the music has started. Thankfully a helpful usher led me to a very high door and snuck me in so I could see a great majority of Toshio Hosokawa’s Woven Dreams. Watching the orchestra was like looking at a slide under a microscope, lots of organic movement in concert.

The next piece, Bartók’s Piano Concerto No. 2, was (naturally) less dynamic to watch, instead the great acoustics of Severance Hall made it seem as if the music was welling out of the very air. This piece was my least favorite of the evening, although I don’t have any real reasons why that’s the case.

I really enjoyed the second half of the program. Toru Takemitsu’s Garden Rain was well named, each instrument in the heavily-muted brass ensemble were raindrops in the shower. The evening finished with Bartók’s Music for Strings, Percussion, and Celesta, which I was looking forward to for its Hungarian folk music influences. I was not disappointed. I know that Cleveland has a strong Hungarian immigrant population (I’d never heard of paprikash before I moved here), and it was kind of neat to know that the performance I heard was almost 75 years to the day that it was first performed.

A Suggestion

I think there were a couple hundred empty seats in Severance Hall for this performance, and that’s a shame, because every concert that the orchestra puts on deserves to be delivered to a packed house. I also noticed that the age of the crowd tended toward the far side of middle aged. I think it would be great if Severance Hall altered their ticket prices a bit to attract a younger crowd. The cheapest regular admission tickets are $31, which is cover to a rock show and a night of beers for a lot of my friends. Extending the student discount to anyone under 30 would be a great way to get a younger crowd (many of which I know would like to experience orchestral performances and learn more about art music (a term which I find very troublesome)) to fill the empty seats and build a younger base of concert-goers for the future. I certainly know I would have gone to see the orchestra a few times in my 20s if I knew I could have picked up a ticket for $10 whenever a performance was upcoming.

Thanks!

I had a great time, enjoyed listening to and learning about the music, ogling the beauty of Severance Hall and seeing a side of Cleveland that was well-renowned but unknown to me.

You do not consist of any of the elements — earth, water, fire, air, or even ether. To be liberated, know yourself as consisting of consciousness, the witness of these. If only you will remain resting in consciousness, seeing yourself as distinct from the body, then even now you will become happy, peaceful and free from bonds. You do not belong to the brahmin or any other caste, you are not at any stage, nor are you anything that the eye can see. You are unattached and formless, the witness of everything — so be happy.

Astavakra Gita as translated by John Richards

Great thanks go to Robert Millis & his documentary The World is Unreal like a Snake in a Rope, a trailer of which you can see below.

Much respect also to Matt Wascovich & Scarcity of Tanks for being the draw. Their newest album, Bleed Now, is fundamentally awesome.

I collect stuff, not a lot, but stuff nonetheless. It used to be baseball cards, then Tolkien books, then good science fiction in general and now beach glass, good movies, and local music paraphernalia. I used to collect things as if the things themselves were precious. Benjamin would call this the aura of the art object. He posits that original works of art have greater value than reproductions. That’s the kind of reason that people go for mint first editions, signed copies, &c. There’s nothing wrong with that. I would still love to get my mitts on a first edition Starship Troopers with the awesome dust-jacket, but my collector’s criterion has changed over the years.

I no longer collect things as if the things themselves were precious, I collect them because of what they contain. So now when I’m at Half-price Books, and I see a hard cover of LeGuin’s Lathe of Heaven with the original dust-jacket cover art, I don’t care that its just the book club edition, I care that it is hard-bound and therefore more durable than my paperback version. The durability matters because it protects what is really important about the book, the story itself. So I’ll pick up an Asimov omnibus and get rid of my ancient paperbacks (which are worth more than the omnibus) because the omnibus will last longer.

I don’t mind that my Egon Schiele came from All Posters or that the Death of Marat in my bathroom (which never fails to make me act disgustingly smug) came from the same. If my art selections are considered a collection, I have what I have because I like it, not necessarily for its extrinsic value. I try to collect experiences, emotions and moments of communication now, not every last edition of the Lord of the Rings. (Although if you want to hook me up, I won’t complain).

On 13 May 2010, I went to the Front Room Gallery for John G‘s Caveman Diaries 7 ‘zine release; Megachurch‘s album release & show with Clan of the Cave Bear and Swindlella. Great crowd, great exhibition by John G, and great music. Unfortunately I forgot my earplugs. Fortunately, I got my mitts on CMD7, the Megachurch album (which I forced Mikey, Dan & Brian to autograph) and music from Cave Bear & Swindlella (whose Christmas CD is bonkers).

This post only took a little over a week to come together. I wish there was a faster way to get HD video up to YouTube, but there isn’t. Rock on, guys. Seven video playlist is below.

The Paul EP - Sun God/This Moment in Black History Split 12"

• Big Purple Records
• Smog Veil Records
• Snax Records

• Sun God
• This Moment in Black History

Cool shit happens when you work together.

Here are some resources for the production:

• You can watch the dress rehearsal live here.
• Falstaff program
• Follow Carl the Opera Chicken at his blog.
• Some photos of the production.
• Opera Chicken on Twitter (follow the hash #operacleveland)

6:31PM – True to Shakespearian tradition, the performers come to the stage from the audience, and don their costumes in front of everyone. Non of the performers are miked, so it is important that they have a powerful enough voice to fill the 3000 seat State theater.

7:16PM – Here’s the Falstaff libretto. I can’t record any video because Opera Cleveland has no agreement with the orchestra to do so. I also just missed a great silhouette shot. Uploading more pics to Flickr as we speak.

7:24PM – Dude Falstaff is trying to get with two girls at once without them finding out. Nice try. Women aren’t that dumb.

7:30PM – Props backstage have their own particular spots:

That’s Valerie, the stage manager:

Dressing rooms for the soloists:

7:34PM – All my photos are here. Here’s a shot where you can see the translated libretto up top.

First Intermission.

7:40PM – Debbie did a sketch of some of the costumes:

Falstaff Opera Cleveland Trivia – circa 150 lighting cues in the production.

7:53PM – Debbie here. Intermission’s over. I just asked the costume guy how the women are able to breathe so loud in apparently tight corsets. He tells me that their structure actually supports the lungs and diaphragm from below, making it easier to sing loud.

7:55PM – Alice has sent a messenger to dude Falstaff telling him to meet her secretly. “But I have another message for your worship!” Meg’s husband is seldom home.

8:10PM – Adam here. I just remembered that I saw a production of Die Zauberflöte when I was in college. So this isn’t my first opera. I really like the spare set-design, lots of plain wood.

More Falstaff Cleveland Opera Trivia: The stage area and proscenium at the State Theater are the same size at the Metropolitan Opera in NYC.

8:19PM – Scene change! I have a feeling this pig is about to make his appearance:

8:26PM – I was wrong. The pig that appeared was Falstaff.

8:34PM – Everybody in this production is obsessed with who is doing or trying to do whomever. The stage is full of people. And the plot just thickened! About damn time Verdi/Shakespeare.

8:46PM – Second Intermission is almost over. Finally got a good silhouette shot.

8:59PM – Looks like most of the action is on Twitter, but I found Kevin Cronin’s post about this at RealNEO.

9:05PM – I just realized that every tweet I send is also ending up as my Facebook status. Woops.

9:21PM – This production has some nice deep notes to it. A tapestry of a nymph being chased by a satyr was very apropos, and having Falstaff wear horns at Herne‘s Oak makes a double point about cuckoldry and masculinity.

9:26PM – The baby-sitter alarm is about to go off, so I’m going to wrap this up. This production was great fun to watch, with just the right amount of ornament, costuming and set design to make a non-opera aficionado enjoy themselves. The plot is fairly light and comedic, the singing has been outstanding as far as I can tell, and the ending appears to be wrapping up quite nicely. The stuffed pig finally made its appearance too. I had a great time. If you decide to come on down to watch it yourself, I’m sure you will to.

Plus. the cast gets fairly close to naked at the end of the production.

I’ve certainly changed my mind: now I think they do what they do in the manner they do as a natural product their collective cerebral cortices. I recently finished watching Sergei Eisenstein’s Ivan the Terrible I and II, and totally wigged to see Mastodon use clips from that film in their video backdrop. I had to Ask MetaFilter for guidance regarding other films that were used in it.

Whenever I make it to a metal show, I just get a reinforced sense that I will always fundamentally be a metalhead. The surging sea of humanity inevitably drenches me in other people’s beer and other people’s sweat. The concept of personal space is obliterated. People tend to much more self-conscious at indie shows. Anything more than an arms-crossed head-bob seems vastly out of place.

Mastodon played the entirety of Crack the Skye and bits of Blood Mountain, Leviathan and Remission. Here’s some video of the first song they played: Oblivion.

While I was in the store I determined that Pete Gulyas doesn’t see his job so much as shopkeeper but as a curator. This isn’t the place to go if you like digging through hundreds of records looking for one gem hidden among them. The chaff has be pre-winnowed at Blue Arrow, and every piece of vinyl you pick up will be a gem with its own particular lustre.

Apart from spinning records, there’s a few spinning racks of pulp novels, some indie-Cleveland clothing, cool jewelry and sundry other items, none of which are merely garnish. There’s a little stage with some turntables spinning store stock and I was glad to see that I made a good turntable purchase when I noticed that Blue Arrow uses an Audio-Technica. I even got a line on some places to hunt for speakers locally, and Pete said he hopes to broaden his stock offerings to include speakers, et cetera once Blue Arrow is a bit more established.

I forgot to ask him if he’s going to hunt for rare vinyl for people or stock stuff that might be slow to sell, like the 180g Neptune album I’m currently listening to, but I’m planning to lay more of my hard earned cash down on Waterloo at the 2nd Annual Record Store Day next Saturday. The two-hundred yards of Waterloo that holds the Beachland, Music Saves and Blue Arrow Records is like a giant candy store for music junkies.

You can read and see a bit more about Blue Arrow Records here:

• Cleveland’s Blue Arrow Records and Books is all about vinyl: Shop Talk
• Meet Your Newest Neighbor on Waterloo: Blue Arrow Records
• Lou Muenz photos