| The roar of the crowd
September 29, 2009 at 5:00 pm
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| 'Opening Night at Symphony,' Russell Sherman, the Discovery Ensemble, Boston Musica Viva, and the Bostonians
I wasn't there, but the opening-night dissatisfaction with the Met's new Tosca was widely reported.
BRAVOS AND A BOUQUET: Retiring BSO principal harpist Ann Hobson Pilot deserved both. |
Has the New Incivility reached the Metropolitan Opera, or have American opera lovers simply acquired enough confidence to boo a production they hate? I wasn't there, but the opening-night dissatisfaction with the Met's new Tosca was widely reported. James Levine, who conducted, got the best reviews, though the maestro missed the next performance four days later because of a herniated disc that, it's been announced, will require surgery. In between, he was in Boston garnering cheers at "Opening Night at Symphony." Even Russian keyboard superstar Evgeny Kissin was cheered, though his facile celebrity performance of Chopin's Piano Concerto No. 2 was an emotional void. His encore, one of Liszt's breathtaking expansions of Schubert waltzes, Soirées de Vienne, had at least some visceral energy, though a bizarre sense of Viennese rubato (those unmarked expansions of note values). Sporting her own impressive technical bravura, Ann Hobson Pilot, the BSO's recently retired principal harpist of the past 40 years, returned as a guest artist to play the premiere of a concerto John Williams composed in her honor, Of Willows and Birches. One movement evoked the melancholy of Psalm 137 ("We hung our harps upon the willows"), sounding more Chinese and Debussy-like than Hebraic; the other suggested more a jazzy, Ravel-like syncopation than Robert Frost's American-pastoral "Birches" ("One could do worse than be a swinger of birches"). It was, however, a terrific showcase for Hobson, and pleasant enough without ever taking us anywhere. And Hobson deserved the bouquet and the bravos. (She'll repeat the Williams this Saturday, October 3, on a more various and adventuresome BSO program for which, following Beethoven's Fourth Symphony, she'll also play Debussy, Ravel, and Elliott Carter.)
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| Crimson green
September 29, 2009 at 4:49 pm
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| Banned director Jafar Panahi on Iran's vicious circle
"In the summer before the revolution [against the shah], if you asked someone if there might be a revolution, an optimistic person would say, maybe in a century."
A few weeks before he arrived in Montreal in August to serve as president of the jury at the Festival des Films du Monde, Jafar Panahi was in a Tehran jail. When he and members of his family paid their respects at the gravesite of Neda Agha Soltan, the young woman killed during the recent demonstrations against the disputed presidential election, they were arrested by police. Panahi was released the same day. Undaunted, in Montreal he continued to show his support for the protesters. At the festival's opening ceremony, as he and his fellow jurors were announced and made their way on stage, they sported long green scarves — the color of the Iranian resistance.Panahi gets away with this in part because he is a world-famous filmmaker in a country where such things still matter. His The Circle won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival in 2000; his Offside won the Silver Bear in Berlin in 2006. Both films were banned in Iran (which in recent weeks has become more noted for nuclear-weapons testing than for filmmaking); after Offside, morever, Panahi was forbidden to make further movies. His auteur stature, however, has allowed him to speak his mind. So far. Tell me about the green scarves.
I brought them here from Tehran and asked the jury if they would wear them, and they accepted. The color doesn't stand for any person or party. It's a symbol of hope. It's a symbol of resistance to the government — resistance and basic rights. For four years, I haven't had the right to make a movie. I felt that since they no longer let me make movies, I should to go to film festivals and there express my feelings.
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| Review: Capitalism: A Love Story
September 29, 2009 at 4:48 pm
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| Moore of the same: Capitalism fails to make a prophet
In his new film about the Wall Street meltdown, Michael Moore — surprise! — denounces capitalism and its exploitation of the working class. Not that he's above doing a little exploiting himself.
| Capitalism: A Love Story | Written and Directed by Michael Moore | with Michael Moore | Overture | 127 minutes |
In his new film about the Wall Street meltdown, Michael Moore — surprise! — denounces capitalism and its exploitation of the working class. Not that he's above doing a little exploiting himself. I dare you not to dab an eye as the young son of a cancer victim loses his composure when his mother relates how her husband's employer, Wal-Mart, collected $1.5 million in insurance from a "dead peasant" policy they took out on him without his knowledge.How dare they! It gets you worked up! But exactly what point is Moore making? What should we be angry about? Are we supposed to see that poor cancer victim as the logical outcome of a capitalist system that turns labor into commodities? What does that have to do with home foreclosures, unemployment, big executive salaries, and the bailout? And what the hell are derivatives? Moore admits that that last item has him stymied too. But he argues that the concept has been made incomprehensible so that "they" can do what they want — like throwing people out of their jobs and their homes while sucking in billions. And who are "they?" Bernie Madoff, certainly, but Barney Frank? Moore joins Lou Dobbs and every other right-wing talking pinhead in denouncing the $700 billion bailout, and though I'm no expert in the matter, I think had not something like that been done, most of us would now be picking fruit for a living.
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| Beauty in the beast
September 29, 2009 at 4:16 pm
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| Dinosaur Jr. are much happier people now
"When J switched to guitar [from drums], he wanted to feel that same power. and the only way he could do that was to be, like, super loud. . . ."
"Can you hear me? This is getting super loud."I'm speaking with Dinosaur Jr. drummer Patrick "Murph" Murphy — well, not speaking with him so much as waiting for the noise to subside as he sits in the back room of Berlin's Astra club waiting for the opening band to finish their soundcheck. There's something appropriate about the interruption, though — for better and sometimes for worse, Murph and the rest of Dinosaur Jr. have allowed the sheer noise of rock to do the talking. The brainchild of Joseph "J" Mascis, Dinosaur Jr. rose from the ashes of Amherst hardcore weirdos Deep Wound. When Mascis switched from the oompa-loompa martial constraints of punk drumming to the blitzkrieg roar of his Jazzmaster, he dragged fellow Deep Wounder Lou Barlow into the bass chair and recruited Murph from fellow hardcore outfit All White Jury. Despite their tangled roots in hardcore, Dinosaur Jr. were destined to forge their own road, thanks not only to the mopy drawl of Mascis's new batch of tunes (inspired in part by his Cure and Wipers records) but also by his dictum to his new bandmates that this outfit was going to be loud. "There's a certain power and intensity when you're hitting drums," says Murph. "When J switched to guitar, he wanted to feel that same power, and the only way he could do that was to be, like, super loud and play at an incredibly high volume. Lou and I were just like, 'Yeah, that makes sense.' "
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| Crash proof
September 29, 2009 at 3:57 pm
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| Arms and Sleepers are more than just a hard drive
I've never trusted music that's too engineered, too perfect. Headphones on the drummer and a hundred tracks running off a laptop? Most bands practice and practice to get things just right, but it's that threat of the unexpected that makes a show worth seeing.
UNPLUGGED "We've only had a few small glitches," says Mirza Ramic (right, with Max Lewis). "Well, one time the power went out at a show in Florida, but there's nothing we could do about that." |
I've never trusted music that's too engineered, too perfect. Headphones on the drummer and a hundred tracks running off a laptop? Most bands practice and practice to get things just right, but it's that threat of the unexpected that makes a show worth seeing. Live at Folsom, Krist Novoselic clocking himself with his own bass, the Russian roulette you play any time you go to see a friend's new band — surprise and disaster can strike at any time. And oh, how our lizard brains crave those moments. The digitally enhanced duo Arms and Sleepers — Max Lewis from Boston and Mirza Ramic from Portland, Maine — don't make it that easy. You pretty much know what you're getting into at one of their shows: syrupy slow jams with jittery, atmospheric backdrops played along to big, abstract video projections. Melodies wander in and out, but they do so like clockwork. You're seeing essentially the same thing every time; it drifts by unchanged, like a ride at Epcot. It works every time too, and there's little room for error. But when the music is this good, I don't think I even mind. "We always think ahead and have back-up plans at our shows," says Ramic over a Gchat connection as the band are en route to a date in Norfolk, Virginia. "Thus far we've only had a few small glitches. Well, one time the power went out at a show in Florida, but there's nothing we could do about that."
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| Photos: Sunny Day Real Estate at House of Blues
September 29, 2009 at 12:19 pm
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| Sunny Day Real Estate and the Jealous Sound , live at HoB on September 28, 2009
Photos of Sunny Day Real Estate plus Jealous Sound at the House of Blues in Boston
Photo: Carina Mastrocola
Jealous Sound | House of Blues | September 28, 2009
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