restingmotion

Three Decembers: A Journey

Saturday evening I attended a performance of Jake Heggie's Three Decembers produced by Opera Fayetteville.  Although I have heard of Heggie, I am familiar with his work in name only.  I have not been to any performances or sought out any recordings, and I intentionally went into this performance blind.  I must say that although I cannot say the work is beautiful, the performance was powerful and touching.  There is an easy lyricism to the music, and it was beautifully sung and acted. The performance perfectly captured the sadness of the characters and the frustrations and loss of this family, bound up in their own stories, and unable to express their love for each other. 

 

 

Three Decembers is based on Terrence McNally's play Some Christmas Letters with some inspiration from Ibsen as well. The set was minimalist, befitting an opera that revolves primarily around the interior world of the three characters: famous actress Madeline Mitchell, and her two grown children.  Set as a series of letters and interactions between the children and their mother, the story is really about the often tenuous nature of relationships and the way the stories we build around ourselves define us and enslave us.  In the opera we hear and feel the yearning of the characters, but also their bitterness and we feel the constraints of the walls they build around themselves, walls they are unable to cross.  When some of those walls are shattered, they must rebuild, but they don't necessarily cross through the rubble to the other side.

 

Opera Fayetteville is a young opera company in Fayetteville Arkansas with a two-fold focus:  on providing performance opportunities for young opera singers in the early stages of their careers,  and performing contemporary operas in English.  I am happy to learn about this organization, and I was happy to have attended a performance.  I am sure there are other interesting companies doing interesting work across the country, but this is where I happened to be.

 

Yes, I went to Arkansas. I went to Arkansas to hear an opera I knew nothing about, in a production by an company I also knew nothing about.  And I had a marvelous time.  I went on a lark.  I heard about the opera because George's first cousin twice-removed, Jacob Scharfman was performing in the role of Charlie.  I went because I like contemporary opera.  I went because I've always been interested in going places to see and hear new things.  I went because I had a free weekend.  I went because, although I don't know Jacob well, his late father was someone I counted as a close friend in our youth, and although our lives had drifted, I still wanted to support Jacob in this endeavor.

 

I went, and I didn't tell Jacob I was going.  Partly this was just because I've been struggling through the shallows in the last 5 or 6 months, and am only just beginning to find my way back into the deep waters.  Partly this was because I was distracted and I forgot until it was too late, the timing was too close. This was precisely because I don't know Jacob well, and I would only be there in the middle of production when the would be working, and I did not want to impose a sense of obligation, a sense that something extra was needed to meet with some distant relative through marriage that he didn't even know. Maybe this was the right choice, maybe it was wrong; I simply don't know. 

 

I do know that Jacob is a good actor as well as an excellent singer.  I do know that the audience felt the raw power of emotion when his character, Charlie, was cradling one of the shirts belonging to Burt, his partner, who had recently died of AIDS.  I recalled that same feeling, known to all who have suffered a profound loss, of doing the same with George's sweatshirt.  It brought tears to my eyes, and not only mine. But I also saw a young Jacob, only a senior in college when his father died almost four years ago, loss and pain etched on his face.  It takes talent and guts to channel that pain and turn it into art. 

 

Perhaps that was a bit voyeuristic, that hidden knowledge.  But it was a joy to see this young man shine, to see this moving story told by three marvelous young talents.  It was good to simply be there, to see and hear this performance, to see good work being done by good people in diverse places.  It was good.

The Uplifting Effects of Allowing Oneself to Grumble

Grumble, grumble, grumble.  Sometimes minor annoyances seem to take on a life of their own.  It is not that they can't be resolved, its not even that they even ruin your day.  Sometimes, when too many things come undone, one simply wants to grumble.

 

 

 

My knees hurt. They have hurt for a week.  No actually, only my left knee has been painful for a week, my right knee just started acting up yesterday.  I barely got my 10,000 steps in, but I did; 10,012 to be exact.  10k steps is a pretty low-activity day, but I've done worse, far worse.

 

The fluorescent lights in the kitchen are not working.  I don't like them, but they are there, and the kitchen is dark without them,  I bought new fluorescent tubes.  Then I had to buy a 6-foot ladder so I could reach the fixture to replace them,  I don't know how I managed to move from New York with two step-ladders and without our previous 6-footer, which was far better made than the one I bought yesterday.  But there you have it.  The past is the past.  No point in fretting over it.

 

Before my back surgery I was afraid to climb up on ladders as my balance was very poor.  In fact I am still pretty nervous about ladders.  But up I went anyway, and I'm glad I did.  I replaced all four bulbs and the fixture still doesn't work.  It must be either the ballast or something in the switch.  Time for professional help, which is timely as the bulbs in the ceiling fixture in the master bedroom just burnt out again, for the second time in less than 60 days.  It uses halogen bulbs that are none too cheap.  Something is wrong there as well.  How convenient that my electrical issues have so conveniently aligned their petty revolts.

 

 

One of the master bathroom sinks detached from the cabinet.  It was an undermount sink that was apparently simply glued to the granite, which I am not convinced is correct, but which nonetheless needs repair.  Moises was standing next to it on the counter when it fell.  Needless to say, he was a bit startled.  I located the company that installed it originally, and am now waiting for them to email me the contract I need to sign before they will agree to come out to fix it.  And waiting....  If I don't hear from them by this afternoon I will have to call them again.  In the meantime, I am using the other sink, the one I continue to think of as "George's sink" even though I am well aware he will not return to reclaim it.  Whatever happens, the master bedroom and bath with return to normal and there will be both light and water. 

 

And very simple pleasures, like putting a puzzle to rights, take on a joy that far exceeds the effort involved.  One of these days my grandson will figure this puzzle out, and he will be amazed at how simple, and obvious it was all along.  And I will lose the pleasure of watching him trying to sort it out, and the pleasure of putting it back to rights.

 

 

Overall I am feeling far more hopeful, despite my grumbling.  Or is it because of my grumbling?  They are all minor things, these annoyances.  Yes, there is always much to do.  Yes, things always go wrong or break or change in some unanticipated way.  But I am growing stronger, and not just in my ability to do things, but in my ability to not do, to go with the flow.  What will be done will be done, and what is not, well, its ability to annoy me will fade with time.

 

 

 

 

 

Overlapping Stories

I've been lost in a story, lost in a stories actually, intermittently layered through a busy few days.  The story is Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff, a novel that I have been savoring, often slowly, rolling it around in my mind  in secret stolen moments much the way one savors a truffle, letting the sensation slowly coat the taste buds, and imprint itself into memory; at other times reading greedily, hungrily, offended at the daring of the world to intrude. 

 

It is the story of a marriage, in one sense, and of all marriages in another, although of course specifics will vary, and one may be even driven to think "no! no! This is not me! I do not know people like that!", except that, if one is this reader, one finds, the more she gets into the book, the more she does in fact know people exactly like these. Perhaps less extreme, perhaps less archetypical, but perhaps not, because we also all have hidden selves, hidden darknesses, hidden voids waiting to be filled. 

 

The novel is a story of a relationship in which each person becomes whole through the relationship with the other, "in they came integers, out they came squared", while at the same time never really knowing the other. It is told in two sections, Fates, and later, Furies, just as a relationship is built upon two distinct and separate points of view.  In order to begin to understand either, or the relationship as a whole, you must read both.  It is a difficult technique, and it is done well.  The book may be too literary for some, the characters too much the embodiement of their stories for others, but the novel itself is fabulous, written in beautiful prose, often stormily ambitious,  often raw with pretention, as are the characters, as are each of us at some point in our lives although we may prefer to think not.  It is a story of passion and deception, betrayal and loss, and ultimately redemption.  It is a book that is not always easy to read, although it draws the reader in deeply, but also not easy to forget.

 

This weekend I also went to a concert, part of the Knoxville Symphony's pops series.  The concert was a performance of the music from Fantasia and Fantasia 2000, with the relevant film segments shown on screen while the music was performed. It was, of course, wonderful. I remembered seeing Fantasia when I was quite young, and I wondered as I watched and listened, about my lifelong love of music, and about my propensity to read stories into music..... was Fantasia at the root of this propensity, or did it simply open a new door to an already imaginative child who loved to read, loved stories, loved music, giving her a new way to create new worlds within her imagination? 

 

 

I have to admit that I had never seen Fantasia 2000.  It was visually stunning, and modern, and I would have loved to share it with my grandson.  (Note to self, this may be something to watch and share with family.)  There were, in fact, a couple of pieces from this newer film that made no sense to me and with which I struggled.  Oh they were clever and beautiful and I understood the stories they told, but they jarred with my own internal representation of the music.  Perhaps my own preferences and tastes were too far shaped by that earlier magic. And perhaps seeing and sharing again, with a younger generation, will create new insights, new memories, and open yet other doors.

 

 

It was also the weekend of my grandson's school play, The Music Man, Jr. version.  So very ambitious for a small elementary school. So joyously performed.  Each year, the school production grows better, each year the children shine a little brighter.  

 

So many temptations. So many escapes.  So many versions of ourselves to be found each of them, in the way the magic of story carries us away and shows us something of the world, our own history in it, and the way our own perceptions grow and are formed. So many opportunities to escape the routine and share something magical with others.   

 

Stories interleaved with stories.

 

Book Cover: Lauren Groff Fate and Furies, courtesy of Amazon. here.

Fantasia Live photo courtesy of Knoxville News Sentinel, here.