Category: Sarasota

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: Movies, Music & Charleston

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Movie recommendations:  Before the holidays, we saw several of the Oscar contenders and I would recommend them all.  This is a season of men, all of these films portray famous or infamous males, all but one no longer here.  I’ve listed the films in order of my preference.

Imitation Game.  Alan Turing was a genius and his codebreaking achievements secret for many years.  Benedict Cumberbatch is wonderful in the starring role although I’ve since read in a New York Review of  Books article that the portrayal of Turing is skewed and that he was not quite as freakish or nerdy as the film makes out.

The Theory of Everything.  No question, Eddie Redmayne as Stephen Hawking is simply stunning.  Hawking’s accomplishments coupled with the sweet and bittersweet love between him and Jane make this film refreshing and a joy to see.

Foxcatcher.   We lived in the Philadelphia suburbs when these events happened and so it was essential to see the film.  A lot of wrestling scenes and a bit slow, but Steve Carell gives a creepy and compelling performance as John DuPont.

Mr. Turner.  I didn’t love this film, but found it worth seeing.  Turner communicates mostly by grunts so there is not much in the way of meaty dialogue and the narrative arc is shallow to almost non-existent.  Nonetheless, you get a sense of Turner’s place in the artistic society of the time.

This Week’s Book

Charleston by Margaret Bradham Thornton.

This first novel draws strongly on the author’s own experiences.  Thornton grew up in Charleston, she edited Tennessee Williams’ notebooks and he is referenced in the novel, and the main character spends a lot of time doing historical research.  The book is a testament to the pull of the South and the history and charm of Charleston (readers who know Charleston’s streets and sights will be more engaged) and Charleston society.  It’s a familiar plot–girl attached to boy, girl re-encounters a past love, and girl must decide whether her heart lies with the new love or the old.  But there is a surprise twist which I won’t divulge.  I would characterize this as a pleasant diversion, a bit like indulging in a slice of Lady Baltimore cake on a summer afternoon.

Sarasota Spot

We continue to be impressed with the cultural offerings in our area.  The Music Mondays series charms, informs and delights us with conversation and performance from a different artist each week.  And last Thursday’s Sarasota Orchestra concert was over the top.  Put together a masterful rendition of Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No.4 given by pianist, painter, composer Stephen Hough, add in Elgar’s Enigma Variations (all 14 of them) under Anul Tali’s expressive conducting and you have a wonderful evening!  We enjoyed it as much as or more than some San Francisco Symphony concerts!

Tidy Tidbits: Women, Film & Cheese

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Book of the Week:  O My America! Six Women and their Second Acts in a New World by Sara Wheeler.  This is a delightful romp through the 19th century with six middle-aged women, each of whom re-invented herself in the United States and either published a book about her experiences or journaled extensively.  Wheeler is primarily a travel writer who was prompted to write this work by her own anxiety about turning 50 and her uncertainty about her identity at this stage of life.  She not only researched the travels of Fanny Kemble, Fanny Trollope and four other women most of us haven’t heard of but, an English woman herself, she followed in their footsteps over the course of several years traveling in the South, New England, Colorado, the Midwest, and lastly, California.  None of her “girls” as she calls them had an easy time of it, but they persevered and her wry comments about them and herself add a distinctive personal note to these accounts.  I found the descriptions of Oakland and San Francisco in the 1870’s particularly intriguing given my familiarity with that region.

Movie of the Week:  We went to see Selma and I highly recommend it.  Whatever you might think about the film’s portrayal of President Johnson (accurate or slanted), it is a powerful and grim reminder of the events of 1965 and extremely relevant given the ongoing national discussion about race and the police.  I was a teenager when these events took place and while I knew about them at the time, they happened far away and did not impinge on my daily life.  Seeing them on the screen was chilling—that we put up such barriers to allowing people to vote and inflicted such brutality on innocent individuals.  Unfortunately, there are some states today enacting legislation to again make it more arduous to register to vote.  See it!

Music Scene:  Rich and Brandon Ridenour are a father and son music duo.  Father Rich is a pianist and son Brandon, a former member of the Canadian Brass, is a trumpeter and composer/arranger.  They are also lively personalities with a wry sense of humor.  We heard them in conversation and performing their versions of Rhapsody in Blue, Chopsticks and a meld of Simple Gifts and Amazing Grace.  For Rhapsody, Brandon alternated between the trumpet, the piccolo trumpet (or baby trumpet as they called it in their household), and the flugelhorn (or pregnant trumpet).  Upcoming concerts include Sarasota later in the spring.

Local Discovery:  We made our first visit to Artisan Cheese Company on Main Street in Sarasota recently and it’s a treasure!  The cheese mongers are all women and their selection is modest in size, but carefully chosen.  We went home with a creamy Camembert, perfect Roquefort, and a new-to-us cheese from upstate NY (specifically Cazenovia, near where I grew up) called Lorenzo.  It is a semi-hard mild cheese and a counterpoint to the other two.  I foresee regular stops at this shop.

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!