San Francisco Opera Summer Miniseries, 2013

From July 1 through July 5 we were in San Francisco for a summer out-of-town miniseries: Cosi Fan Tutte, Gospel of Mary Magdalene, and Tales of Hoffmann. We were lucky enough to be able to book a room at the Inn at the Opera, and--perhaps because they recognized us as returning patrons--we were given a much larger room than we had ever had before, on the top floor, facing the street. Getting from the airport to the hotel was a better experience, too. The day we arrived, BART went out on strike. Gambling that it probably would, I made airport shuttle reservations in advance and was surprised to discover that the round trip for two, with door-to-door service, was only $20 more than it would have been on BART. Since using BART involves trundling our bags a half-mile to or from the station, I'll definitely opt for the easier route from now on. Monday night's Cosi was sung adequately, with a cast ranging from excellent (Philippe Sly as Guglielmo) to lackluster, but the concept was what made it memorable. It was updated to 1914 and set in a Mediterranean resort town. The audience was constantly reminded that hostilities were about to break out. At the very end of the opera, instead of reuniting with their original fiancées, Ferrando and Guglielmo join up with the army for real. Perhaps they were thinking it would only be a couple of months--enough time to teach the girls a lesson? At least, that's what I took from the conclusion. Incidentally, some reviews of the production (actually a revival) were enthusiastic, but the Chronicle called it "unpredictable." Nicola Luisotti received very low marks for letting the tempo drag through the second act. Tuesday's performance was Mark Adamo's Mary Magdalene, actually commissioned by the SF Opera. It was a disaster. The fundamental problem, I think, was the utterly banal libretto, compared to which The DaVinci Code reads like Shakespeare. When Adamo tried for sublimity, he fell painfully short; when he tried for humor, as in the joking among Yeshua's male disciples at his bachelor party (!), it was so embarrassing I squirmed in my seat. Add that the plot itself is preposterous and the music an ungainly blend of dissonance and Steven Sondheim. We left after the first act. Again, I've been reading the reviews; while some disliked it, others thought Adamo's work was profound. I think they were responding to the political correctness. Hoffmann redeemed everything else. I was disappointed that Natalie Dessay, who was originally supposed to sing all four of Hoffmann's women, only took the role of Antonia and was not particularly distinguished in it. However, Matthew Polenzani as Hoffmann and Christian Van Horn, singing Lindorf, Coppelius, Dr. Miracle, and Dapertutto, arrestingly carried the lengthy performance; but, like the Chronicle reviewer again, I would say the standout member of the cast was mezzo-soprano Angela Brower, who sang the Muse/Nicklausse. Though Hye Jung Lee as Olympia was exceptional, too--it's amazing that she can go from Madame Mao in Nixon in China to a role that demands such perfect vocal precision. I also admired the sets, which drew on the work of the Symbolist painter Leon Spilliaert. This was a much better production than the Met's Live in HD version of two years ago. Apart from seeing operas, we had a nice lunch on Tuesday with Jeanne and Norm, catching up on family news. We planned to get together again on the holiday to watch a Fourth of July parade in one of the small towns near Antioch (Jeanne assures me it's comparable to Butte's parade) but missed connections, thanks to a problem with my cell phone. For Christmas, if not before, I'm going to treat myself to the latest make of I-phone if it can work with T-Mobile. We also visited our favorite haunts--lunch at Pompei's Grotto on Fisherman's Wharf and shopping and lunch at the Ferry Building. Sale merchandise at Nordstrom's and Macy's was unremarkable, though I did pick up a pair of Max Mara jeans, originally $225, for $60. Our most exciting discovery was a small French corner restaurant, Chez Maman, in the Hayes Valley--terrific food and inexpensive prices. When I first saw the listing for the 2013-14 SF Opera summer season, I had decided not to go--they're offering Traviata and Butterfly, both of which I've seen too many times lately, along with Showboat. I am not one of those who believes in blurring genre lines between opera and musicals, so my immediate reaction was "if I want to see Showboat I'll attend the local high school production." After enjoying Hoffmann so much, though, I decided to subscribe for next year. Who knows--they may do something just as compelling with the Verdi or Puccini next time. As for Showboat, the libretto, at least, is less clichéd than Adamo's.

Why I Won't Ever Visit OSF Again

On Saturday, May 11, we attended the Rogue Theater's production of Richard III, directed by Cynthia Meier, with Joseph McGrath in the title role. It was a challenging play for a small community troupe to undertake, even one that performs one Shakespeare play on a yearly basis. Overall, the acting was good, although some of the cast members were not comfortable speaking in blank verse. McGrath handled the part well but did not bring out the psychopathic charm of the character as convincingly as he could have. That was especially obvious when he courted Lady Anne, my test for a great Richard. If the actor playing the role seems visibly to mesmerize Anne, so that her surrender becomes credible--perhaps because she is subconsciously attracted to him to begin with--I'll suspend my disbelief. That takes immense skill on the part of both actors; they actually have to get inside each other's heads. McGrath seemed to browbeat Anne rather than seduce her. On the other hand, his asides to the audience were delivered winningly enough to create rapport, so it was by no means an inelegant performance. Reviewers liked the cabbages. Every time Richard succeeded in offing another of his victims, he brought out a red cabbage, set it on the block of wood that served as the throne, and chopped it in half, smirking as he did so. By the end of the play the floor was strewn with shredded cabbage. In order to reduce the script to manageable length, Meier cut passages that didn't advance the action, such as the long dialogue between Clarence and the two murderers, so this device was a substitute for on-stage execution. To me it was gimmicky, but it was the sole element that didn't work. All in all, this production was much more gripping than anything I've seen at OSF in quite a while. It was performed in Elizabethan costume and the set design replicated an Elizabethan stage. At OSF the play would probably have been set--where? Maybe in the Nixon White House. At any rate, there would have been enough distracting modern parallels drawn to keep an audience from really perceiving nuances of characterization. The straightforwardness of the Rogue version allowed me to assess the conception of Richard even while the play was going on; in other words, the dramatic tensions were foregrounded, something not often done at OSF. I was so intrigued by the production that I reread the whole "Wars of the Roses" tetralogy over the past week, viewed the first half of the 1993 BBC offering on YouTube along with clips from the Olivier and Loncraine films, and skimmed critical studies available on JSTOR as well as the psychoanalytic reading advanced by Janet Adelman in Suffocating Mothers (1992). When a theatrical experience sends me on a mini-research project, it has hit home. From now on, then, I've decided to take more advantage of the local stage scene and forego these out-of-town excursions. The Rogue has enough of a serious following to offer Shakespeare without reaching out to teenagers and tourists.

CAMWS 2013

The 109th annual meeting of the Classical Association of the Middle West and South in Iowa City, April 17-20, was probably the most surreal professional meeting I've ever attended, although that was not the fault of the organizers. Let me begin by mentioning that we were flying home from Rome on Monday, April 15 and were waiting in the Atlanta airport for our flight to Tucson when I happened to walk past a monitor tuned to CNN on my way to the restroom. This was just after 3:00 p.m., so we learned of the Boston bombings while they were still breaking news and watched the initial reports as we ate an early dinner in an airport restaurant. After getting home, I had just one day to unpack, pack another suitcase (borrowed from Ron, as my cheap Italian suitcase fell apart after enduring the final flight--thank goodness for the cintura!) and put my presentation and materials in order before leaving for the conference on Wednesday. I had the weather report on while I picked out my meeting outfits, and that was how I found out that a huge snowstorm was bearing down on Denver, where I had to change planes for Cedar Rapids. So I scrapped my raincoat in favor of my Lands End winter jacket--good thing, as it was raining and cold in Iowa too. But I get ahead of myself. As the plane touched down in Denver, the snow started falling--lightly at first, but by the time I arrived at the next gate, thicker and faster. There was a whole gaggle of classicists at that gate, including the governing structure of CAMWS--Peter Knox, the current President, and Monica Cyrino, the President-Elect. It soon became clear that our plane was not going to leave on schedule. In fact, planes were being cancelled right and left, including the next flight to Cedar Rapids after ours. We kept being told, however, that first the plane was still on its way in and second that a crew had to be found--upshot was that two hours later we were the ONLY flight scheduled to leave from that terminal. Maybe the airline felt it could not get away with stranding the key members of the CAMWS executive committee. Be that as it may, we did finally get off the ground after waiting more than a half hour for de-icing. Miracle on top of that, the limo service was informed of the delay and picked us up without a problem. Arrived in Iowa City just in time for dinner and the welcoming reception to follow, so I didn't miss anything. Others were not so lucky. All through the meeting we kept hearing of people stuck in Chicago and unable to preside or deliver their papers. I myself had to stand in for a presider who could not make it and also read a presentation for an absent presenter. The paper was not e-mailed to me until a half hour before the session began, and I had to spend the break between sessions printing it out. The author crammed in all the references she had originally included on the handout, so the presentation ran a good twenty minutes--luckily, it was the last one in the session, but the audience was squirming by the time I finished reading it. Meanwhile back in Boston the hunt for the bombers was going on, and on Thursday night the climactic series of events began to unfold. I came back to my hotel room after the WCC reception, turned on the TV before going back down to dinner, and was mesmerized. Kept the television on and finally ordered room service. Friday, while Boston was closed down, conference attendees were following the news on their smartphones--as soon as a session ended, the electronic devices came on. Including mine. After lunch with Lily Panoussi, the sessions on the Iowa campus and the reception afterward, and even just before the banquet, I was checking whenever I could find Wi-Fi. I will say that I managed to forget about everything during the banquet itself, which was lively and stimulating, with Jim McKeown delighting the audience as master of ceremonies and Peter Knox giving an utterly deadpan riff on the APA's decision to change its name because "philological" no longer made sense to the general public. Since the banquet was now included for the first time in the registration fee, many more younger scholars were present: the energy in the room was palpable. When I finally decided to call it a night, I learned that the surviving suspect had been captured and the Boston nightmare was over. My own paper, delivered the next day, went well enough, and Jim May told me at the Consulares Luncheon that he agreed with it, which is good to hear if you're doing Cicero. In the afternoon I took advantage of a sunny day--the only one during my stay there--to walk around and see a bit of Iowa City. A local crafts store tempted me because they had some very unusual and clever pieces, but I really did not want to pack anything else home after bringing so much stuff back from Rome. In the evening I decided once again, after more television, to stay in and rest up for the flight back to Tucson, since the combination of conference and real-life drama had been unusually draining. It's not very often that reality becomes gripping enough to intrude on the closed world of an academic meeting, and I hope it doesn't happen again.

Rome Journal III - Of All the Joints in All the World

I have to record an amazing encounter in an incredibly funky bar--not the usual Italian bar but a classic American one. Yesterday afternoon, after I had finished everything I needed to do at the AAR library and thanked the staff, Ron and I went out to run errands and have dinner. The errand running is worth a mention by itself. Ron is worried that my suitcase (cheap Italian one picked up years ago to hold extra purchases, and pressed into service because my expensive Rick Steves carry-on broke)will not make the return journey--it's already lost a handle and the wheels are coming loose. At the very least, he urged me, get a wrap-around strap. Where do you find such a thing in Trastevere, and how do you ask for it? Well, I remembered the word for "belt": "cintura." And I knew "suitcase": "valigia." As for where, I tried a hardware store: "cerco una cintura per la valigia." Amazingly, the proprietor knew what I was asking for, and from a box above the register he pulled one that works perfectly. That will never happen again, under any circumstances. Purchases made--soap, two mystery novels for the plane--we had a really nice dinner at a trattoria right on the main street and decided on a limoncello after dinner to top off the evening. On the corner of Via Mameli there is a storefront, and through the plate glass window you can see a bar with stools, couches and small tables. We thought it was attached to the restaurant next door, but there's no connection--it's a separate place called the Big Star, and though it doesn't serve limoncello, it offers six beers on tap, good inexpensive wines, and atmosphere. The sound system is amazing, and a fantastic collection of jazz CDs lines the walls--together with posters of Billie Holiday, Dizzy Gillespie, and other jazz greats. That's it. The whole place is tucked in between that restaurant and a veterinary clinic, and it can't be much larger than our apartment. Most astonishing of all, we were enjoying the music and drinks when another couple walked in. The woman looked at me and said, "Marilyn Skinner?" She was a former Classics major at the U of A, one of my students, and now she and her partner are running a private tour-guide service in Rome, where she uses her Classics background to give in-depth lectures on the ruins. I've run into ex-students in some very odd places, but I think this incident sets the record for coincidence. Today was really nice, too. First I had coffee with Anna Jackson, who is a professor of English at the University of Wellington in New Zealand, but also a published author currently writing a cycle of poems where she speaks in the voice of Clodia Metelli. Jeff Tatum, a colleague of hers at Wellington, introduced her to me by e-mail. If nothing else, she's consulting a team of experts--Jeff is the world's authority on P. Clodius Pulcher, and, given my own work on Clodia, there isn't much we can't tell her about that rather strange pair of siblings. In the afternoon, we saw the Ara Pacis, housed in the new and apparently still controversial museum designed by Meier. Lighting allows excellent photography. Sadly, the Mausoleum of Augustus is still next door, forlorn and locked up. I doubt it will ever be opened to the public, at least in my lifetime.

Rome Journal II - Trekking around Trastevere

Two weeks have passed since my last posting, and we will be leaving this coming Monday. Time to take stock. We did not get down to central Rome as often as I would have liked, but we have spent the time profitably visiting some of the lesser known museums and getting to know Trastevere very well. The only classical collection we saw apart from that at the Palazzo Massimo was the statuary at the Museo Barracco. The Museo was closed for many years, so my recollection of the pieces is rather dim, but I thought there had been more than were on display. The organization of the collection is chronological--the collector wanted to have examples of statuary illustrating all phases of Greek sculpture from the archaic age through the Hellenistic. Unfortunately, most of the examples were Roman copies of Greek originals. I'm not sure what purpose is served by showing two duplicates of the Doryphoros. That said, however, I noticed three different objects, all unique iconographically as far as I know, with the same subject--hermaphrodites. In a limited collection, three unusual pieces on the same theme (obviously a questionable one in the late nineteenth century) raise an eyebrow. I can't help thinking of the Warren Cup, especially since one of the items, a marble relief of a dancing hermaphrodite, reminded me instantly of a better-known image of a dancing maenad. We also saw the Brueghel exhibition at the Bramante Cloister, the collection of Renaissance art at the Palazzo Corsini, and the Raphael frescoes at the Villa Farnesina. In passing, let me mention that the "Corsini cup", a first-century CE silver cup from Arezzo on display at the Palazzo, has handles quite similar to those of the Warren Cup. One wonders about these nineteenth-century private collections. The really interesting thing we've been doing, though, is exploring Trastevere. There are an amazing number of small shops tucked around corners selling one-of-a-kind things--sandals made to order, clothing designed by the owner, antiques--though, again, buyer beware--and foods of all kinds. To top it all off, not one but two English bookshops, one new and one used. I have to tell about my experience in the used bookshop. Went there by myself late Saturday afternoon and was greeted by a British lady--not the shop manager, but someone who was watching the premises while he went out to buy cigarettes. When I said I would wait for him, she immediately introduced me to her puppy Nell, a three-month-old Jack Russell. While Nell proceeded to investigate the premises, finding things to drag around, her owner and I had a great conversation about books, especially Donna Leon mysteries. The shop is called Open Door, and it's right on Via Lungaretta--although they don't post their hours, it has indeed been open every time I've passed it. This trip, then, has been an introduction to Trastevere, which I had never really gotten to know before, despite staying on the Gianicolo so often in past summers. When I was living alone in one of Franco's apartments, Saturday evenings and all day Sundays were pretty dull. If I had caught the bus to Trastevere I could have done some shopping even in the evenings. So I wish I had known about the district earlier, but, in any case, I'm glad I've had the chance to visit now.

Rome Journal I - Apartment

It's Easter Sunday, and I'm writing this blog from our apartment in Rome, where we arrived last Monday. The weather has been chilly and rainy, which means that we haven't been walking around as often as I would have liked. Primary purpose of my visit, of course, is to work at the library of the American Academy, but with our problems settling in I've only been able to get there once so far. I hope to make much more progress on the Catullus bibliography next week. It is wonderfully convenient to have access to articles and reviews in numerous obscure Continental journals at first hand instead of ordering them through Document Delivery. In the meantime, getting used to the living conditions has not been easy. Our apartment is on the Gianicolo, with access right at the corner of Via Fabrizi and Via Garabaldi. It's a five-minute walk to the AAR if you take a shortcut up the Scala Iacobucci, and, in the other direction, it's a five-minute walk down to Piazza S. Cosimano. However, at the time I booked the place through one of those rental services, I did not know that Via Tiburzi, on which it's located, is a privately owned paved footpath leading from the upper to the lower Gianicolo via several flights of stairs. The path is gated at both ends and only residents have the gate code. Consequently the property is extremely safe, but it's also very difficult for Ron to get up the stairs to the bus stop at Via Dandalo. While the ad for the apartment did have pictures of the stairs, there wasn't any mention of how many or how steep there were. We didn't find out until we arrived, and of course the rent had already been paid. The flight leading down to Trastevere is not that bad, though, so we have been managing. And in addition to two supermarkets in the vicinity, there is also a large farmer's market in Piazza Cosimano every morning, including butchers and fish sellers. The fish, which according to the signs comes from the gulf of Gaeta, is as fresh as I've had in a long time, and the meat is excellent. We've been eating very well. While the apartment has been newly refurbished, it's actually an older one-story house wedged in between two other large apartment buildings. I suspect it was thrown together hastily and by someone who couldn't be bothered wiring it to code--if there is such a thing as electrical code in Italy. The landlord, Guido, obviously hasn't owned it for long and doesn't know that much about its infrastructure. On the first night, as we were cooking dinner (very tired after three long flights), we plugged in the microwave and blew a circuit. All the lights went out, leaving us with just two small flashlights. Guido was very helpful and came right over; he showed us the circuit box and got the lights working again. We didn't realize, however, that the short had knocked out both the heat and the hot water--not until the next morning when we woke up freezing. We thought the main problem was the heat, but we actually had to restart the hot water heater, then wait until the water warmed up before the radiators started working. In the meantime, Guido has supplied us with a brand-new microwave, and he's refunding one day's rent for our inconvenience. So everything has been worked out to our satisfaction. We did not go to St. Peter's for the new Pope's homily and Easter services. Having been to St. Peter's once or twice with Pat Johnston just for an ordinary Sunday mass, I was well aware of what a mob scene it would be yesterday and today, and we both decided we didn't need to experience that much history. Anyway, we heard parts of the homily on the Sunday news. Since Pope Francis said something in his sermon about not fearing new things, the commentators are now breathlessly sure that he's open to all sorts of fresh experimentation. I doubt it, but we'll see.

Cruise to Southeast Asia--Final Post

At Bangkok, we disembarked and were transferred to the Millennium Hotel overlooking the Chao Phraya River. Bangkok was immensely crowded, and not just because of Chinese New Year--it teemed with traffic, shops, and pedestrians (see picture). We had two days to look around before flying to Cambodia and Angkor Wat. On the first afternoon, we visited three Buddhist temples, including the Emerald Buddha in the Grand Palace. The palace itself is an elaborate complex filled with monumental and exotic architecture. The next day was free time. While there was little to see on our side of the river, a boat service run by the hotel took guests across to a shopping complex that connected, in turn, to a square with taxis and tuk-tuks. The latter are open cabs attached to motorbikes. By this time we had run out of reading material, and after determining the location of Bangkok's one English bookstore, we set out via tuk-tuk to find it. It was on the fourth floor of yet another huge shopping mall in downtown Bangkok and had a nice, if somewhat limited, selection of British paperbacks. While there, we looked for gifts to bring home but finally decided on buying silks at the shopping complex across from the hotel, because most of the items for sale at this other mall were foreign-made. We flagged down another tuk-tuk and this time experienced what we subsequently found was a standard tourist rip-off. Driver claimed he did not know where our hotel was, then took us to the wrong hotel, etc. Finally got back, an hour and a half later and quite a few bhat out of pocket. The next morning we had to be up at 3:00 a.m. to catch an early morning flight to Siem Reap, Cambodia. Once there, we were immediately taken to the Bayon Temple, one of the several monuments dating from the 12th century Khmer Empire. It was indeed a fascinating place, but on the highest level of the temple I started to feel dizzy. Luckily, I was able to make it back down slowly and carefully without asking for help. By the time we got to the hotel, I knew I had suffered a sunstroke. Spent the afternoon in a darkened hotel room and so never saw Angkor Wat, although Bayon gave me a pretty good idea of what it would have been like. The next morning I was fine, and before our flight back we were able to explore a bit of Siem Reap, which--even though it was a common tourist destination--was very impoverished compared to Bangkok. We saw ruined and abandoned buildings that might have once been schools, evidence of the devastation under the Khmer Rouge. Of all the places we saw, Siem Reap was historically and culturally the most illustrative. At the airport, incidentally, there was a bookstore with an even better selection of paperbacks than I had found in Bangkok, as well as inexpensive silks and other gift items. One of the books I picked up there, Paolo Bacigalupi's The Windup Girl, is my current entertainment reading. It's a dystopian science fiction novel set in a futuristic Bangkok. Because I visited the city, the surroundings it pictures, though distorted, have a real immediacy. That was a good conclusion to our Southeast Asia trip. We flew out the next day from Bangkok and made it back home without incident. Looking back, I would say the cruise was a fine learning experience, but not a dream vacation. Ron isn't sure he wants to go on any more cruises--perhaps he's right. There are better ways to see the world.