Pelléas Perfection From Rouen

(NOTE:  This was published in 2021, but correcting a typo forced the current date.)

One night this past February, seized by my endless insomnia, I stumbled onto - and then stayed up all night - watching Éric Ruf's incredible production of Pelléas et Mélisande from the delayed feed from Rouen that day. Since that night, I literally cannot count the number times I've watched since. Easily a dozen. This Rouen production, along with Vienna's current one, is perhaps the best I've ever seen.

First, not that it should matter, but physically, this is just about the most attractive casting  since Richard Stilwell and Frederica von Stade over 40 years ago.  Like Richard and Flicka, these kids are ideally suited to their roles, vocally and dramatically. Additionally, strange as it sounds, there is an almost Shakespearean quality to Ruf's austere unit set, adding yet another level of mysterious drama to an opera that already is filled with it.

Nicolas Courja is among the most complex, conflicted Golauds in memory, matching his more celebrated equal, Simon Keenlyside in the Vienna production. If I were forced to chose between them . . . well, I could not, and so won't.

Golaud is almost always a bit gruff from the get-go, but Courja, youthful and almost crazy handsome, plays the role much younger than we're used to seeing it, which creates an element of reality where, with the brothers closer both physically in age, and in manner, makes Mélisande's love for each entirely believable. Courja's Golaud is gentle, loving and kind to Mélisande. The way he looks at her, touches her - he is the personifcation of love. I cannot recall a Golaud I can say that about, ever, not even Simon's.  All of that loving kindness makes his turn-around all the more remarkable. It's an enormous dramatic payoff as serves to intensify his rage and violence . . . his emotional unhinging becoming all the more believable . . . and terrifying. We see before us a man who has descended into complete madness from rage and jealousy.  Courja's delivery of the text, and his physical actions come from the very soul of Golaud. He is brilliant.

As the title lovers, Adèle Charvet and Huw Montague Rendall quite simply took my breath away. They look and act like teenagers, particularly Rendall who appears to be no more than 18 at times, and moves both athletically and gracefully like a physically fit kid. Not often can we say that about any opera singer.  The same holds true for Ms. Charvet.  Of course, none of this "they look great" business would matter if they could not sing these roles, but, blessedly, this is not even remotely the case. Vocally, they're close to perfection, with Rendall probably taking a slight edge, and top honors for the best singing in an evening that is absolutely filled with great singing.

Jean Teitgen and Lucile Richardot as Arkel and Genevieve, albeit with far less to sing, were the equal of the three central characters. Teitgen in particular makes the most of his scenes, and his most famous line, Si j'étais Dieu, j'aurais pitié du coeur des hommes" (If I were God, I would have pity on the hearts on men) with an old man's broken hearted weariness. The sentiment and its delivery are devastating. I could feel his words in my soul.

The staging on this unusual unit set is never shy of incredible.  Rich in visual symbolism - with its enormous, stage covering fishing net, the grotto, the pond/stream with its enormous stones surrounding it, which the lovers move across . . . all of it is tremendous to behold.

The murder of Pelléas, always one of the most chilling in opera, is, in its way, as horrifying as Siegfried's, and the shock and terror of this opera I've known and loved over half a century now still causes me to let out a gasp in any production (well, most of them).  But here? Wow.  No matter how many times I've watched it now, I cannot stop my hand from flying upward, instinctively covering my mouth.

Reinforcing all of this is the Rouen house orchestra, under the extraordinary Pierre Dumoussaud.  Together, they give a reading of Debussy's score that matches the best of any I've heard from an opera house orchestra, and better - by far - than most. Dumoussaud imbues every note - every phrase of Debussy's masterpiece with understated conviction that always serves the drama perfectly. His players respond in kind throughout with gauzy, dreamy, powerful, textures that transport one directly to the heart of this story. This extends to the interludes which, each time, serve perfectly in heightening the sense of drama and tragedy.

This Pelléas should not be missed by anyone who loves the opera. For those who think you don't like it, if you can handle French subtitles, this may be the one production that could well change your mind.

"I am not queer, I'm disembodied" - Luca Guadagnino's Queer

I am not queer, I'm disembodied.

This is line is spoken twice in Queer, Luca Guadagnino's most masterful film to date.  It's also his most controversial, which, all things considered, is as it should be. 

Based on William S. Burroughs, equally difficult novella of the same name, my first encounter with an adaptation of it was, of all things, the 2000 opera by Erling Wold I heard in 2001.  While for many - most actually - opera is perceived as a fussy, stuffy old-fashioned romantic entertainment, the fact is, from Monteverdi to Wagner, and Mozart to Messiaen (and beyond), opera has always been at the forefront of pushing the boundaries of theatre and the performing arts. By its very nature of singing everything, opera exposes us to techniques and possibilities not typically found in film or spoken theatre. Internal dialogues, monologues along with allowing for two, three . . .  or twenty voices - all singing at the same time - to be understood, if not by our ability to make out every syllable of every word (and usually sung in a language foreign from our own) but by the expression and emotions laid bare in those words and wed by composer to score.  This was almost singularly unique to the world of opera, but would eventually extend, obviously, to offshoots like operetta and musical theatre.  

Wold's opera is fascinating and moving, but very different from Guadagnino's film treatment which in it's own way is rather operatic. 

While I was fully engaged in the story, it was nonetheless impossible for my mind not to wander, back a few times to other films that may for others not seem to have a connection but for me most definitely did.  Principally, Darren Aronofsky's The Fountain, and Ken Russell's Altered States  - and while I tried to push each out of my head, I could not unsee relationships between all three films that . . . frankly delighted me in a weird way.  (Full disclosure: as one who in youth had a fascination - and my own relationship to altered states of being or conciousness, stories exploring heightened, out-of-body experiences are among my favorites.)

It's no secret Daniel Craig is one of my favorite actors going back to his screen debut as the angry, abusive Sgt. Botha in The Power of One.  Every performance, every character, since has emerged fully formed, equally brilliant and with an emotional and physical range that is staggering. An actor's actor, really. And so this gift extends to his inhabiting - body and soul - the character of Lee in Queer.  I don't like Lee.  Not at all. I feel pity and, not just a little rage for him, for the way he blasts through his life: annoying, in-your-face, talking over you, getting what he wants by any means necessary. But there's more, and it's raw. He does not like himself, or his life. His addictions allow him to disguise this self-loathing and fear as bravado. Everything about Lee pissed me off. I've known plenty of Lees throughout my life. But here's the sad truth of it' I have been - and believe most humans at least to some degree - have also been Lee. At some level. This what makes this character so difficult to watch yet impossible to turn away from. (Argue amongst yourselves how wrong I am. I'll wait.)

That difficulty of self acceptance, of not truly believing one is worthy . . . or good enough, is crippling, paralyzing (words I've come to know intimately on other levels these last years). Okay, I said I don't like Lee. But I can say this - I love him. Those are two vastly different things. My not liking  him means I wouldn't want him as a friend - not for long (I've had such friends), but my loving him means, I care about what happens to him, that I'm willfully going along on his journey which, as much as it angers me, also breaks my heart.  Craig puts all of this into his depiction of Burrough's alter ego, and the screen explodes with life whether he's putting on his hat, pouring a drink, or getting ready to give a blow job. The intensity of his inner grief, his desperate cumpulsion for love masked by casual, noncomittal sex - all of it is masked by the show. It was impossible for me not to feel all of this down to my marrow.  

Equally impressive is the glassy, outwardly less volatile performance of Allerton by Drew Starkey. Some consider Allerton the antithesis or complete opposite of Lee: younger, less needy, more socially acceptable, not as loud, but I think that's wrong. It's his own mask, covering his inner fears and needs every bit as much as Lee's own camouflage. Each is, regardless of the outer shell, mirror reflections of the other. Allerton's need to, but inability to commit to Lee.

Together these damaged souls journey to the Ecuadorian jungle to explore the possibilities of what they could mean to each other, by having the full ayahuasca experience. There, the hallucinogenic effect of the drug allows them to move into another realm, but for one of them it's an experience that goes too far. 

Guadagnino in interviews during Queer's festival runs stated that the story is not about an unrequited love, but about two people deeply in love, but "not in sync with each other. It wasn't a story about someone trying to convince somebody else to love him back, it was about the possibility within the impossibility.  Got it? Yeah. That is a load and a half to wrap one's head around . . . at least for my tiny brain. And I love that. 

The young writer, Justin Kuritzkes, is a name unfamiliar to me, but his screenplay here is already the work of someone who knows their craft. Moving from the introspective  to the outrageous and equally adept at blending comedy, sensuality and tragedy with near seamless ease, I look forward to anything else he may give us in the future. He certainly gave the cast of Queer, plenty to chew on and make memorable enough that anyone who sees it will have pieces stuck in their craw for the rest of their lives. 

Guadagnino brings back cinematographer Sayombhu Mukdeeprom whose work in Call Me By Your Name was brilliant, but here is allowed to go into another realm. Visually, Queer is as impressive as anything I have seen in Sci-fi or fantasy in years. 

While the rest of the cast has less to do, every one of them are brilliant.  I did not know Jason Schwartzman (who  I love) was even in this movie, and it took me a moment - and hitting pause to freeze frame, wondering thinking, "is this? before Googling the cast. Bravo, Jason!  Similarly, Lesley Manville (who I know chiefly from some excellent Brit TV series)  was entirely unrecognizable - and spectacular as Dr. Cotter.

I haven't gone into the story much - I don't like giving or getting spoilers, and don't know how to write a synopsis without giving it all away. At least not heere. I will, however, say the film explores and expands Burrough's story considerably more, reaching much further than than his incomplete novel.  In that regard, Guadagnino and Mukdeeprom have the luxury (or take the liberty) to deliciously shoot their movie through with magnificent symbolism and weirdness that explores Burrough's actual life as much as it does his alter ego, Lee's. Sometimes those symbols can feel out of place, confusing - which is good. Unless, of course you don't like that sort of thing.

Finally, while this is a story about two gay men (and a bit of Mexican gay culture in the 1950's) I don't think it's a gay movie"  But, this is most likely how it's been labled and will be seen by most Americans. I don't like that dividing line between gay and straight culture. I never have. It's the same problem I have with preconceived notions  of what is masculine or feminine - what defines a man or a woman. Having said that, I can see a backlash against this film as being . . . well, too queer.  

As for me, it's just Queer enough and one of the best films of 2024.  

NEVER GONNA SNOW AGAIN - Everybody loves Zhenia . . . and so do I

There is no denying that movies have always played an enormous part in my life. Hell, my life IS a movie (aren't all of ours?). I like to think I keep up with the latest and best, even (or especially) if they're not the biggest grossing, blockbuster megahits, but when a film by a director I love, making the types of movies I adore, goes five years without my even hearing of it . .  . I am humbled like ya read about. And so it was when Małgorzata Szumowska (with co-director Michel Englert)  of Elles . . . In the Name of the Father, and The Other Lamb popped up as a recommendation I was excited - and then saw its release date - 2025, and could only ask, how the hell did this happen?  

Enough about me. 

While considering the possibility that most of my friends would probably hate this movie (hate's a strong word, but sadly probably accurate. Maybe not. I hope not) Never Gonna Snow Again, is the type of film that within the first seven minutes I knew was going on my All Time Favorites List. 

It's been called uncategorizable - which is, of course, my favorite genre. An oddly perfect blend of hypnotic art film, surrealist drama, magical realism, painting arms-length psychological portraits of its characters, in a beautifully darkly comic, homogenized society that appears sterile on the outside, but really is a jumbled, gooey mess inside. The name of recent film legend David Lynch pops up  in a number of other reviews, and while I wanted to resist doing so here, I can't. Lynch's influence - intentionally or not - can be felt in numerous scenes and sequences, motifs and effects, even as Szumowska stays faithful to her own style.  Have no fear, the director is not copying Lynch, but one feels that a school perhaps is more formally developing here.  I'm all for it.  Oh, and while never preachy (the opposite of it in fact) there's also not the so subtle message about climate change, nuclear disasters, and such. Yeah. 

During a hypnotic opening sequence we watch Zhenia, a young masseur, wandering the woods carrying his massage table, as he crosses from his native Ukraine into Poland to begin a new life. At immigration headquarters, Zehnia seems to bypass the teeming crowds proceeding directly in the office of the ancient, powdery looking, skeptical head office. We learn Zhenhia was born on April 26, 1979, in Chernobyl - seven years to the day before the disaster. This detail is the key to Zhenia's story. To his personality. To his gifts. A man of few words, his answers to the officer are vague, and when asked, "What languages do you speak," he offers only a confident,"all of them."  It is during this interview we first witness Zhehnia's gift (and no, I'm not going to spoil it) and the story proper (such as it is) begins . . . to the glorious strains of Shostakovich's Waltz No. 2. Yeah. It's that kind of movie. 

We don't know how long Zhehnia has been in Poland, but clearly long enough to haved establishd a career as a well-loved, highly sought masseur in a gated community of prejudiced, uptight, upper-middle class families. These wonderful folk exist miserably in their godawful, near identical cookie cutter McMansions of gleaming white. To indicate the pretentiousness of its residents, Szumowska employs a brilliant motif; the doorbells of each home. Whenever Zhenia presses one of them, classical melodies chime away, each more nearly unrecognizable than the last: there is the aforementioned Shostakovich Waltz, the opening of Mozart's Eine Kleine Nachtmusic, and so on. 

Zhenhia's clientele have lonely, messy lives, each with a great, desperate need he alone can heal. The lonely alcoholic wife of an uncaring business man (with such annoying children); the terminal cancer patient and  his wife who've tried every possible cure who now place their last hopes into Zhenhia's beautiful, magical hands; the lonely, the dramatic, melodramatic drunk whose pathetic life revolves round her trio of beloved, but gassy bulldogs; the angry widow whose only joy stems from attempts to humiliate Zhenhia (who is, by the way, impossible to humiliate).  I can't not mention one of the hateful children in particular; a dead-eyed MDMA-making teen genius with secrets of his own. 

Szumowska's narrative, like her camera, flows dreamlike through the film's episodic vignettes, a blurry past, and shadowy forests, all which further establish Zhenia's otherness.  As so many Poles see Ukrainians only as interlopers, undesirables, and cheap labor, it's fascinating to see this young charismatic character cross that line into a not-quite Messiah-like presence makes him stand apart both from other Ukrainians and the Poles. You're not like the others seems to be the consensus by all. It is not mere coincidence Zhenia is a massage therapist; with his unusual gifts, and ease of manipulation of mind and body, there is a delicious paradox at work within the man himself.

As Zhenhia we are treated to an absolutely brilliant, screen consuming performance by Ukranian/British actor Alec Utgoff. Some may remember the actor from the hit Netflix series Stranger Things, and more recently Arkady Pashkin in a handful of episodes of Slow Horses.  In Snow, however, Utgoff shows his chops to devastating effect and it's impossible not to succomb to the magic that he infuses into Zhenhia.  It truly is a performance of magic. Sadly, despite rave reviews, the film (not surprisingly) tanked at the box office sending Utgoff back to much smaller roles in film and TV series. His performance here shows he can carry the weight of a big film on his shoulders and I can only join others moved by his Zhenia in the hopes of that happening soon. 

Never Gonna Snow Again is not a movie for everyone;  its narrative moves slowly, without a lot of dialogue and everything is revealed in almost voyeuristic glimpses. Watching it was like staring intently at a great painting of, say, Hieronymus Bosch. At first glimpse it's difficult for the eye to take in everything before it, confusing even, but . . . the longer you stare, the more amazing it appears as it unfolds. And, oh my, is this movie amazing.

A Spectacular Die Tote Stadt From Frozen Boston

Erich Korngold's Die Tote Stadt is one of the best known underperformed operas in the repertoire. More popular in Europe than the U.S. Die Tote Stadt made a rare appearance last night at Symphony Hall in a blazing debut at by the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Boston Lyric  Opera, and the packed house the braved  the single digits temperatures were rewarded with the type of unique warmth only great art can provide.

I had been looking forward to the pairing of Christine Goerke and Brandon Jovanovich in this opera, so naturally disappointed when the tenor had to bow out shortly before due to illness. I'd heard, and very much liked British tenor, David Butt Philip  a number of recorded performances, but hearing him live for the first time was one of those unexpected pleasures you dream about. From his entrance through the moving finale, Mr. Philip's voice shone with a heldentenor ringing brilliance, but also possessed a delicious warmth that had me - literally - on the edge of my seat. Rare is the last minute replacement who can create so vivid and haunting a character as Paul, but we heard and saw just that last night . 

His work clearly was inspired by his "other half" in this tale, soprano, Christine Goerke whose performance was simply (or not so simply) magnificent. Marietta is a complex character offering vocal and dramatic challenges, but Goerke's performance while gloriously natural and spontaneous, also revealed - and revelled in - the preternatural world of Paul's deceased wife, Marie.  Goerke's Marietta also brought out the darker moments chillingly, responding brilliantly to both the real and dream worlds inhabited by Paul. 

Korngold gives Paul and Marietta a diverse range of scenarios from flirtatious and playful (though playful is not an adjective that remotely describes Paul) to ecstasies both passionate and dangerous. Ms. Goerke and Mr. Butt Phillips electrified the audience throughout.

Karen Cargill was luxury casting as Briggita, proving the adage, "there are no small parts."  She was joined by the elegant Frank of Elliot Magore, whose beautiful voice was, unfortunately at times drowned by the enthusiasm of Maestro Nelsons and the band. The excellent company comprising Marietta's theatrical troupe featured vivid, energetic performances from Amber Monroe, Elisa Sunshine, Neal Ferreira, and Joshua Sanders that brought the troupe to life.  

Korngold's score is a miracle of sound and effects making huge demands on a huge orchestra. The complexities of sound which shift between scenes of realism bending to trancelike delirium are ever breathtaking offering both sheer excitement and breathtaking pathos. It's nearly impossible to consider Die Tote Stadt premiered (simultaneously, in two cities) when the composer was but 23 years old. He'd begun working on it at age 19, but had to stop after, you know, being drafted to fight in WWI. 

Andris Nelsons chose Korngold's opera as one of the works to celebrate his tenth anniversary with the company, and we can only say thank you, Maestro!  It was absolutely clear how much Nelsons adores this work as he lavished every moment of it with passion that could sometimes overwhelm the singers. Indeed, there were several moments my ear strained to make sure I was hearing them.  How fortunate we were to be blessed with a cast where, aside from those few times, were able to ride on that enormous cloud of sound. Adding to the gorgeous aural tapestry were the beautiful contributions of the joined choruses from Tanglewood Festival and Boston Lyric Opera Choruses, and the always delightful boys from St. Paul's School Choir.    

At its heart, Die Tote Stadt is ultimately a tale of loss and acceptance, and while its score is a circus of sound, running the gamut from the carnival-like to hauntingly melancholic, the libretto (written by Korngold and his father, collectively under the pseudonym "Paul Schott")  provides the composer a text that allows its characters - and us - to explore how death, loss, grief and acceptance affects each of our lives. That's a lot to ask from an opera, but the young Korngold delivered. Big time. 

At its conclusion there were few dry eyes around me, as the spell remained unbroken of what we'd all just witnessed, blessed with what felt like an eternity of silence before an ovation of madness ensued. Yeah , it was one of THOSE nights.