Friday Photo (A Bit Early)

At the grave of Hector Berlioz (December 11 1803 - March 8, 1869).

His wives Harriet Smithson and Marie Recio are also buried here.

October, 2018

 

Friday Photo

 

At the grave of Charles Garnier

Architect of the Opéra Garnier, Paris

October, 2018

Friday Photo (At the Grave of Korngold)

It's a bit difficult to find. Look for the tree.

Hollywood Forever Cemetery, Los Angeles

April, 2023

His gravestone is overgrown.

Hollywood Forever Cemetery, Los Angeles

April, 2023

Friday Photo (At the Grave of Jonathan Gold)

Food writer Jonathan Gold's headstone, with his name and "Tacos Forever" engraved

Hollywood Forever Cemetery

Los Angeles, CA

April, 2023

 

Friday Photo

 

At the grave of Mel Blanc

Hollywood Forever Cemetery

Los Angeles, CA

April, 2023

Friday Photo

At the grave of Vaslav Nijinsky

Cimitière de Montmartre, Paris, France

October, 2018

I assume that my music- and ballet-loving friends can identify the role, though this sculpture is amateurish compared to the photos of the dancer in this role, which capture Nijinsky's intensity and total identification with the role. It's one of the great mysteries of the 20th century that there's no known film of Nijinsky dancing - I just find it so hard to believe that it never occurred to anyone to point a camera at him. Perhaps there's footage waiting to be found in a Russian archive, or attic.

Friday Photo: At the Grave of Nadia and Lily Boulanger

Montmartre Cemetery

Paris, France

October, 2018

Friday Photo

At the Grave of Gabriel Fauré

Cimitiere de Passy

Paris, February, 2019

Friday Photo

At the Grave of Claude Debussy

Cimitiere de Passy

Paris, February, 2019

I was on my way to the Palais de Chaillot and saw a sign for the cemetery, so I went to look for the graves of Debussy and Fauré.

Hamilton in Chicago

Grave of Alexander Hamilton

Trinity Church, Manhattan NYC

Photo by Lisa Hirsch

Last week in Chicago I finally got to see Lin-Manuel Miranda's Hamilton, the most acclaimed musical of the last several years. 

I liked the show; the songs are good and the words are very clever. There's more music than talk, giving Hamilton a somewhat operatic air, although it's not through composed in the fashion of modern operas (well. most operas since Wagner). The actors were excellent; I liked the staging and choreography and costumes a lot.

I had asked on Twitter whether I should get to know the score before I saw the show, and the responses I got were about evenly divided, so I winged it. This was a mistake: there are a lot of words in the show and they come at you very fast. I probably caught about 75-80%, not nearly enough for a show with complex characters and an intricate story to tell. My error, for sure.

Unlike nearly everyone I know who has seen Hamilton, I was not blown away by it. For one thing, the amplification of the singers and the orchestra of eleven was extremely wearing, even though it was done about as well as it can be (no distortion, volume under control). 

Still, when singers are amplified, you lose directionality and dimensionality: there's a homogenizing, flattening effect and. you can't tell where the voices are coming from. This means that when singers' voices are similar, you can't tell who is singing, a real problem in a show like this. It also sucks when a full-orchestra crescendo is done by turning up the volume, not to mention, why amplify such a tiny ensemble? And...why is the harpsichord effect on the pit keyboard so terrible?

I also think the show has a couple of dramaturgical mistakes:

1. Act I really should end with the Battle of Yorktown number. It's a big number, it's an up number, it sounds like the end of an act....but the show goes on for two more numbers, inexplicably. (A friend tells me that Miranda has commented on why the Act ends when it does.)

2. Act II ends with a quiet number that is one of the weakest numbers in the show, musically and dramatically. It's possible to end a music-theatrical work quietly; I can think of an opera or two that ends like this, but....this only works with a really strong number. The last number isn't that.

So, it was fun to see; I'd see it again on TV or in a theater broadcast or on DVD....but I'd glad I didn't pay Bayreuth prices to see this, as excellent as the cast is and as original as a hip-hop musical about the US Founding Fathers with a multiracial cast is.

Friday Photo

At the grave of Baudelaire

Cimetiere du Montparnasse

Paris, October, 2018

Friday Photo

At the graves of Hector Berlioz, Harriet Smithson, and Marie Recio

I got a smile when I told the florist that the single rose I'd bought was for Berlioz.

Soulève ta paupière close

Qu'effleure un songe virginal;
Je suis le spectre d'une rose
Que tu portais hier au bal.
Tu me pris, encore emperlée
Des pleurs d'argent, de l'arrosoir,
Et parmi la fête étoilée
Tu me promenas tout le soir.

O toi qui de ma mort fus cause,
Sans que tu puisses le chasser,
Toutes les nuits mon spectre rose
A ton chevet viendra danser.
Mais ne crains rien, je ne réclame
Ni messe ni De profundis:
Ce léger parfum est mon âme,
Et j'arrive du paradis.

Mon destin fut digne d'envie:
Et pour avoir un sort si beau,
Plus d'un aurait donné sa vie,
Car sur ton sein j'ai mon tombeau,
Et sur l'albâtre où je repose
Un poëte avec un baiser
Écrivit: Ci-git une rose,
Que tous les rois vont jalouser.

-- Theophile Gautier

Friday Photo: At the grave of Johann Peter Salomon

Westminster Abbey

May, 2014

Friday Photo: At the grave of Muzio Clementi

Westminster Abbey

May, 2014

Friday Photo

Parish Church and Graveyard, Battle (St. Mary the Virgin)

May, 2014

At the Grave of Richard Wagner

Bouquet from Wagner Society of Northern California

Haus Wahnfried, Bayreuth

The urn containing Cosima Wagner's ashes is buried in the mound of Wagner's grave as well.

At the Grave of the USS Arizona

The USS Arizona sank in shallow waters just off Ford Island, Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, early on December 7, 1941. A bomb dropped by a Japanese plane from a great height penetrated the ship's armor, exploded, and set off a tremendous explosion in the Arizona's forward magazine. 

Nearly 1200 sailors and marines died in the attack. The remains of about 900 of them are entombed in the Arizona's hulk.