Category: Music

Tidy Tidbits: Opera & Books

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The Oscars

While not surprised, I was disappointed that Boyhood did not win best picture, but very pleased that Patricia Arquette got an award for her marvelous role in this film.  As one article I read pointed out, the award winners are more and more divorced from what the American public goes to see.  Compared to American Sniper, which I haven’t seen, millions more people saw that than went to view Birdman.

Sarasota Scene

As part of the Sarasota arts smorgasbord, we sampled two Sarasota Opera productions last week.  The theater is small and there is an intimacy not found in San Francisco or New York.  Tosca was very good and The Golden Cockerel a beautifully staged production of an infrequently sung work by Rimsky-Korsakov.  The sets were lavish, colorful, and the equal of any opera we’ve seen anywhere.

Footnote

I finished Galgut’s Arctic Summer and enjoyed the rest of this novel.  It is based on Forster’s diaries, letters, and biographies and one appreciates his reluctance to consider himself a writer and Forster’s struggle bringing to birth Passage to India.  I remember being puzzled by that book when I read it many years ago and much preferred his Howards End.

 On the Road

I will soon be on my way to Asia so have loaded up my Kindle with novels and memoirs and a few other nonfiction books.  I always enjoy the Wall Street Journal’s weekly column, “Five Best,” and last week’s was books about spinsters.  I knew of Winifred Holtby and enjoyed the Masterpiece Theater presentation of her Testament of Youth some years ago and so I now have her novel, South Riding, downloaded and ready to go.  I also decided that it is time to re-read Jane Austen’s Persuasion for the third for fourth time as it is my favorite of all her works.  It too was cited in the column along with that Barbara Pym classic, Excellent Women.

Tidy Tidbits: Sarasota Music Scene

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We’re discovering a wealth of culture here in Southwest Florida!  The Sarasota-Bradenton area has a seemingly infinite array of music and theater opportunities.  In just the past two months we’ve taken advantage of several.  One Sunday November afternoon, we attended a string quartet chamber concert featuring members of the Sarasota Symphony.  It turns out that this symphony, previously with the bland name of  Florida West Coast Symphony,  has been around for more than 65 years and is the oldest in the state!   On the anniversary of Pearl Harbor Day, we heard the full orchestra with a guest conductor and pianist in a symphony of American music including a work by Samuel Barber along with Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue.  A patriotic, but not overdone afternoon.  Before the holidays, we were delighted with the Asolo Repertory Theatre’s production of that classic, South Pacific.  With the heightened awareness of black-white tensions in several US cities, this performance was timely for sure.  It is part of the theater’s  5-year American Character project, now in its second season.

This week, we discovered the world of the Sarasota Institute of Lifelong Learning (SILL). As someone whose job on the other coast was all about lifelong learning, it’s fun to be able to take advantage of someone else’s programs.  SILL has been in existence for 44 years and we are signed up for Music Mondays.  Twelve weeks of conversation and performance related to many aspects of music!  Week one featured the composer Theodore Morrison whose latest work, Oscar,  an opera about Oscar Wilde’s trial, will be performed in Philadelphia in February.  He was joined by the countertenor understudy for the role of Oscar who sang several aria excerpts for the audience.  The host of this program, June LeBell, is dynamic, knows her stuff, and kept up a lively pace.

Before the week is over, we’ll be at another SO concert—this one conducted by the new and exciting Anu Tali.  Can’t wait to see this female conductor in action!