On Failure—Or Not

Well, the work of this morning was supposed to be to tell you about failure, since Lady, Mr. Fernández and I had not so much been to the opera last night as we had been Igorred.

As in Prince Igor, the opera by Borodin that the Metropolitan Opera is putting on for the first time in nearly 100 years. So we went, all of us, to the broadcast at the Metro Theater. The broadcast (or rebroadcast, in this case) is absolutely better than actually going to the Met, since try eating popcorn at the Met! Oh, and another small advantage—you can see the singers, without having to shell out 300 bucks…..

“How long will this last,” asked Lady, who was attending for the first time. Four hours, I told her, wildly over-exaggerating, or so I thought—it actually clocked in at 4 and a half hours, and that was without the curtain calls (we scrambled out of the theater to grab the last bus home).

Well, it was a thing to have done to one—the first act alone came in at an hour and forty five minutes, and half of that was spent in a long hallucinatory scene set in a blaze of poppies (12,500 artificial, spring-loaded poppies—so loaded since the dancers were energetically crashing their way through the famous Polovtsian Dances {well, famous to all but the computer, my little red-squiggling friend….})

You see, Prince Igor, a twelfth-century figure, has made the fatal mistake of going off to fight the Cuman / Polovtsian tribes, despite having received a blazingly clear message from the heavens that it was a damn fool thing to do. OK—not so blazing, since the celestial tidings came in the form of a solar eclipse. But what sort of operatic moron goes off to war right after an eclipse? Hellooo!

Well, the predictable happens, but does Igor pick himself up, dust himself off, and get back to the world of the living—which in this case is to be a prisoner? Although not, since his captor seems to be a perfectly splendid man—and a khan, no less—who insists on treating him as a guest, even to the point of offering him one of the Polovtsian maidens. Oh, and he suggests that they go off and conquer all Russia together. Quite a reasonable offer, given that look—Igor isn’t bringing to the table much clout in the way of bargaining.

Right—so while Igor is moping around refusing to escape (since he’s a prince, get it?  And escaping, you see, is for the less exalted than he—therefore he’ll just sit around being operatically moody, which will draw out the opera…)

Now where was I?

Right—Igor is moping, but his wife’s brother? He’s having a great old time, stealing maidens from their havens by night and plotting to overthrow his brother-in-law by day. While all of this is going on, the khan attacks and—guess what!—the city falls. So now it’s one chicken salad wrap, two large coffees, one bag of popcorn with some illicit-but-oh-so-good Coca-Cola (suck it up, Bloomberg! Hah!) later, and now we’re in the fourth act / fourth hour—which is a scene of utter devastation!

Well, let’s go further—utter devastation, social ruin, economic collapse, and a profound, vast, bleak spiritual wasteland, from which no one will escape.

The Russians just love this stuff….

Igor, it seems, has now decided to escape, presumably so that he can come back when it’s entirely pointless (except, of course, to be in the final act). Obviously, being treated as the honored guest of the khan is insufficiently hair-shirted, especially when there is now the devastated city which he once ruled to mope about in. So there he is, Russianly catatonic, contemplating his and his city’s ruin, when two old souses come upon him, and decide to ring the bell, and get the citizenry (in this case the Chorus of the Metropolitan Opera—handy, hunh?)

Well, the wife is happy to see him, but Igor? Unlike all the operatic characters who are told not to speak to their loved ones but cannot, Igor ignores his beloved, so steeped in grief is he. So now it’s the crowd’s turn—very useful, since the chorus is now on overtime, and you might as well use ‘em—and soon they’re dancing about and tossing Igor in the air like a fraternity prank.

At last—and I do hope nobody in the audience last night was afflicted with hemorrhoids—Igor spins off, and lurches around for a minute or so in what appears to be a near-psychotic break. Then he takes hold of himself, goes to a crate and begins to lug it to the side. Gradually, the others join in—moving the rubble to the side, beginning the process of cleaning up.

“That was it?” asked Mr. Fernández, puzzled about how he had passed the last five hours of his life. The steppes of Russian, you see, are slightly chillier than Hollywood.

So I thought about it all this morning, over coffee. And it’s a curious thing, the need of my country—despite having experienced it several times—never to have admitted defeat.

Let’s face it—we lost Vietnam. And Iraq? Afghanistan? Even our war on drugs? The American dream?

Yes—we’ve been attacked. But have we ever experienced the devastation of a ruined landscape / countryscape, coupled with the bitter taste of knowing that another nation has invaded and conquered? Have we gone through what so many nations around the world have endured?

‘I know about defeat,’ I thought, remembering four or five auditions that I completely choked. Each time it was the same—the disbelief of being gob sacked in the psychic solar plexus, the wailing of despair and frustration, the shame of calling friends and family and announcing that, yes, once again, I had failed. Reader—some things repetition does not make easier.

“We thoroughly enjoyed it,” said the tourist yesterday, handing me ten bucks for the organizations I support by playing Bach suites in the café. The story, you see, has a happy ending—I’m playing better than I ever have. More importantly, I’m playing in public, enjoying it, and tackling the solo suites without having the aid of another musician (often a pianist) to bolster me. It’s just the instrument and I.

People drift past, off to the bathroom. Often, I shift to another point in the bow, to allow them to pass. The parrot squawks. People take photos—shooting a red flash of light into the middle of a sarabande. Casals was right—a café is excellent practice for a developing musician, whatever his or her age….

Did it come easily? No. But if it came at all, it came from the devastated landscape of failure. And if I had denied that I had failed? If I had fallen for the rationale—perhaps real but not true—that no gringo could land a job with a Puerto Rican orchestra?

There are times, I decided, when you need devastation, failure, dirt in the mouth. That’s the only landscape from which to travel to other, better places.

Enter Susan, who wrote a comment on yesterday’s post, saying that she’d not heard of the French countertenor, Philippe Jaroussky. ‘Hmm,’ I thought, ‘how can that be?’ So I turned to YouTube, and came by chance on the clip below.

However many decades it took this bear of little brain to figure out his instrument, it took Jaroussky only a couple of years to go from starting to sing to conquering the world of song. And why shouldn’t he? He’s young, mouth-wateringly cute, and the voice?

But as you can see below, it’s the completely natural—and funny—way he approaches his music that carries the day. He has not, it looks, travelled the same paths that I have trod, at least not in music.

I rejoice for him, as I rejoice for the failures that—bitter as they were—led me onward to a world of such joy….

Christmas Lethargy

Full disclosure—at this time of year, I completely don’t want to do anything.

It could be a leftover all of those years in school—why don’t adults get the breaks that kids do? Aren’t we supposed to be in charge? What kind of saps are we to be out working when our kids are vegging at home with their video games? Shouldn’t we reinvent child labor?

Right—so now you know my state of mind. What you may not know is that I’ve spent four hopeless hours looking for anything to write about. And what have I found?

Problems, dear Readers, with the Olympic torch, which according to The New York Times has gone out four dozen times and once had to relighted with a plastic disposable lighter, instead of the “official backup flame.” The story went on to say…

But perhaps the low point in what has seemed less like an Olympic torch relay than an exercise in ineptitude and misfortune came earlier this week when one of the runners carrying the torch to the Sochi Games had a fatal heart attack while attempting to walk his allotted distance, about 218 yards.

Right—that would be unfortunate, but given that fourteen thousand people are participating as torch bearers, little problems are bound to crop up.  Oh, and the torches…well, here more of The Times:

Russia’s torches were manufactured in Siberia at a reported cost of $6.4 million by KrasMash, which usually makes submarine-launched ballistic missiles. It is not everyone’s favorite just now, but it cannot be sent to Siberia, because it is already in Siberia.

“Any normal person will have at least a few questions,” Mikhail Starshinov, a member of Russia’s parliament, was quoted saying in October by The Moscow Times, in an article titled “Veteran Bobsledder Set Alight by Faulty Olympic Torch.” “Why were 16,000 produced? How much does each torch cost, and is this price appropriate? And finally, why don’t they work?”

Reasonable questions that anyone might have—but can I make a post of it? Combine it with some other story about the Olympics? I drift over to the New Day, which has an interesting story coming—as they so often do—right out of a Walmart Supercenter. Because it turns out that somewhere in Broward County, Florida, a Walmart employee shot up a coworker’s car. Why? Because she got awarded Associate of the Month, and not he. Here’s the info:

"Definitivamente parece inusual que alguien pueda estar furioso hasta el punto que puede dispararle al vehículo de alguien solo porque esa persona recibió un premio", dijo Keyla Concepción vocera del alguacil. "Obviamente sintió que era injusto que ella recibiera este premio", agregó.

(“Definitely it appears unusual that somebody could be furious to the point that he could fire at the vehicle of that person just because she had received an award,” said Keyla Concepción, spokesperson of the marshal. “Obviously he felt that it was unjust that she received the award,” she added.)

Well, something to know. News flash—the guy, Willie Mitchell, is available to any of you employers out there!

(One wants to know—does he still have his gun? And was he packing in the store?)

Right—and from there I read that Ricky Martin has no plans to marry, but if he did, he’d do it in Spain. Well, that seemed like something I should know about and who, by the way, gets to be Ricky’s boyfriend? Is there an interview, a competency exam, a competition? If so, I’m screwed because beyond being married myself (and famously faithful to Mr. Fernández), here’s Rick and Carlos together:

Wow! And what this proves, Dear Reader, is that seriously rich and beautiful people very easily hang out with…

Not worth finishing that sentence!

Right, so what about Yahoo? Anything there?

Well, I can tell you that the archbishop of Minneapolis, John Nienstedt, announced that he won’t be ministering publically until he’s cleared of charges of putting his hand on a boy’s bottom during a photo shoot after a confirmation four years ago. But Nienstedt  says he always puts his hands in specific places. So who knows?

Right, then it was time to take the religion quiz, since I had to prove that I, an atheist, was more knowledgeable about religion. And guess what? I got a 92—which I’m calling an A—and the average is 85.

OK—it’s clear. It’s now 2 PM, I’ve wasted four hours and produced nothing, which is not good because what am I gonna tell my shrink tomorrow, when he asks—as he always does—how much time I’ve spent vegetating? It’s one of the signs of depression.

Right—fallback. Check out the stuff I’ve sent myself during my middle of the night munchies run. And there I came upon Noah, who I remembered dimly from 3:52 AM (when I sent it to myself).

OK—829 words! I’m outta here!

Olympic Hypocrisy

Wow—wonderful what this blog can do! True, I had to keep harping about it, and I do apologize to any reader who may have gone a bit crazy, hearing my rants over and over. But admit it, dear Readers: Aren’t you glad we kept up the pressure? Because now we have it from a new-found friend, no less than Vladimir Putin himself, that the Winter Olympics in Sochi will be… OK, here’s The New York Times itself:

Speaking at a meeting with leaders of Russian winter sports federations, which was also attended by Thomas Bach, the president of the International Olympic Committee, Mr. Putin said Sochi would be fully tolerant. 

Oh, and the name of this article? Putin Says Sochi Welcomes Gays!

Guys?

Look, I have lived over half a century, and I’m hard pressed to think of a more blatantly false and outrageously self-serving statement. And memo to Putin? Gay people, generally speaking, are not fools. So if you think this statement gets you off the hook, think again.

The question, of course, is who is more turpid—sorry, computer, but I looked it up, and Nabokov used the word too—here: Putin and his heinous laws that criminalize even talking about homosexuality, or the Olympic Committee, which sat around and watched Putin enact these laws without raising a word of protest. Then, of course, things got hot, so the Olympic guys had to go and put pressure on the Russian president to make this ridiculous statement.

Well, this was not the only news about LGBT issues in the Times, today, because Frank Bruni had a story about Paul Singer, a billionaire Republican who gave a pot of money to Mitt Romney, but who is also giving money to the Human Rights Campaign. Why? Well, Singer among other things has a gay son—and a gay son-in-law. And he thinks support for gay rights is not incompatible with the Republican Party. Here’s what Bruni has to say:

In Singer’s view, gay rights are consistent with a Republican philosophy of individual liberty, and gay marriage is “an augmenter of social stability, family stability and stability in raising kids.” In other words, it’s conservative.

Nor is Singer the only Republican to join with the HRC—there’s also Daniel S. Loeb; here’s what he has to say:

As we witnessed in its successful campaign to advance marriage equality in the United States, HRC is a uniquely effective organization that achieves what it sets out to do.

Right—so what’s the campaign about? Well, the HRC has decided it’s time to act globally and support the organizations in other countries that are struggling to advance the causes of LGBT folk. Here’s what Singer has to say about the campaign:

“Every day around the world, LGBT individuals face arrest, imprisonment, torture and even execution just for being who they are,” said Paul Singer.

And guess what? The situation is getting worse around the world, just as it’s getting better in the United States. And why is that? Because we are exporting our bigotry around the world, as evangelical Christians have given up on the domestic market. So what have people like Scott Lively done? They’ve run down to Uganda and over to Russia to stir up hate and urge draconian laws.

Which makes it all the interesting what Bruni says:

It (the campaign) intends to name and shame American religious zealots who sponsor antigay campaigns abroad. So Republican money may wind up challenging a constituency within the party. (We’re most definitely not in Kansas anymore.)

Well, it’s an interesting world presenting itself today: Republicans supporting LGBT issues, and our new buddy in the Kremlin. Is it that I have the cynical blood of journalism coursing through my veins? Because I’m back to suggesting this….

Get going, Readers: download your print-ready image here at no cost, and order your label sheets (in an appropriate printing size) here! (Suggested brand; $6.68 per 100 labels is not bad!)

La Guerre, Jean-Claude!

Whew—what a relief!

News flash—according to Laura Mills of the Associated Press, Jean-Claude Killy, Chairman of the International Olympic Committee Coordination Commission, is “fully satisfied” that the draconian Russian laws that impose sentences for anyone—even a straight person—who speaks out for the rights of LGBT folk….

…those folk who are getting treated like this: 
 


OK—those are the LGBT folk in Russia, and that’s what happens to them when they try to speak up and protest. But that’s OK—because now, Jean-Claude Killy has determined that what you just saw “doesn't violate the Olympic charter's anti-discrimination clause, and pronounced Russia ready to host the 2014 Winter Games.”

Yeah?

Well, the same article quoted above has a different point of view, in this case from the head of the Human Rights Campaign:

"If this law doesn't violate the IOC's charter, then the charter is completely meaningless," HRC president Chad Griffin said in a statement. "The safety of millions of LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender) Russians and international travelers is at risk, and by all accounts the IOC has completed neglected its responsibility to Olympic athletes, sponsors and fans from around the world."

So what’s going on? Well, in Russia, Putin has a problem: his government is racked with corruption, his election was a dubious affair, and there isn’t much of the transparency that people would like to see. What to do? The old, old story—find a scapegoat, knock off a few heads, and whip up the masses with nationalism and the Mother Church. Which is exactly what he’s done—making the issues of LGBT community into a foreign poison going against sacred Russian values. And not just the LGBT community—remember the Pussy Riot?

Right—so where we once had witches, we now have gay people. Nothing new here.

And nothing really new about the Olympic Commission, either.

For all the talk about how the Olympics are devoted to bringing together young athletes to an international forum to foment good will and sportsmanship—well, can we say it at last?

It’s about money.

And when there’s an unpalatable government that pops up in a place where it had been decided the games would be, what does the International Olympic Committee do?

Remember the 1936 Olympics? By good fortune, Jesse Owens won—which was one in the eye for Adolf Hitler—but if he hadn’t, it would have been a complete international public relations coup for Hitler. As the Sochi Olympics are supposed to be for Putin.

It’s obvious—these games are the most expensive in history; according to the BBC, and may end up costing 50 billion bucks, thirty-billion of which has been stolen in fraudulent construction schemes. And where is all that money coming from?

Or—to ask another question first—where is all that money going to? According to critics of Putin, businessmen close to…guess who.

Jean-Claude Killy dominated the field of skiing in the 60’s; he now is busy assuring the world that all is OK in Russia, and that “the IOC doesn't have the right to discuss the laws that are in place in the country hosting the games, so unless the charter is violated we are fully satisfied."

Well, Jean-Claude may have hit one too many rocks tumbling down those mountainsides, because according to Keith Olbermann, in the clip you see below, all may not be so fine in the marketing department. For it seems that Gerhard Heiberg, a gloomy Norwegian—they tend to be, you know—isn’t liking what he’s hearing, especially from his US and European sponsors. Have a listen:

Right—you know, Heiberg may know a thing or two. Because if gay people can risk getting the shit beaten out of them in Russia—as well as Uganda and Jamaica and a host of other countries where homosexuality is an invitation to a death wish—gay men and women can absolutely walk into their local supermarket.

Walk in with stickers….

Stickers like this….

Feel free to save this image and print on 2.68" x 2" stickers (15 per sheet @ less than 20 bucks for 100 sheets)!

Opening Night Gets Heated

It was, apparently, a noisy night at the opera.

I pondered in this blog several weeks ago whether I should sign an online petition asking the Metropolitan Opera House to dedicate its opening night—a more-champagne-than-beer night out—to the cause of LGBT rights.

There were good reasons to sign the petition. First of all, Anna Netrebko, the Russian-Austrian soprano at the top of the field, and Valery Gergiev, the Russian conductor, were singing and conducting. And both, to some degree, were supporters or perhaps friends with Vladimir Putin, the Russian president who signed into law draconian laws against even speaking about homosexuality. More to the point, neither artist had condemned these laws. Oh, and the opera to be performed on opening night? Eugene Onegin, by that most lavender composer, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky.

There were good reasons not to sign the petition. First of all, it was mere coincidence that the two Russian artists were appearing in a gay Russian composer’s opera that opening night; the Met was hardly endorsing or even acquiescing to homophobia. Second, the opening was in New York, not in Moscow—the Russians weren’t making any money off this one. Third, the Met has never endorsed any cause in its 130 year-plus history. And, look guys, we’re not the only game in town. In the last 130 years, there have been a LOT of atrocities. The Met could have devoted every performance to a different cause, and still not be done with them….

So I didn’t sign, but 9,000 others—including Mr. Fernández—did. And yesterday evening, the opening night took place. And was Netrebko in good voice? Did Gergiev conduct with a toothpick, as he has been known to do? How was the staging, or the lighting?

Well, readers of The New York Times this morning won’t be able to tell you. What they will find is the story with the headline: Gay Rights Protest Greets Opening Night. Here’s the Times’ description of the event:

Michelle V. Agins/The New York Times
Sister Lotti Da, passing out leaflets, was among the demonstrators in front of the Metropolitan Opera on Monday.

After the lights dimmed for the Metropolitan Opera’s Russian-themed opening night gala on Monday evening, the first solo voice that rang out in the house was not of a tenor or soprano, but of a protester criticizing the recent antigay laws signed by President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.

“Putin, end your war on Russian gays!” a man shouted in the vast auditorium, which was packed for the black-tie gala opening of Tchaikovsky’s “Eugene Onegin,” before turning to two of the evening’s Russian stars: Anna Netrebko, the popular Russian diva, and Valery Gergiev, the artistic director of the Mariinsky Theater in St. Petersburg. “Anna, your silence is killing Russian gays! Valery, your silence is killing Russian gays!”

Was it true? I had looked it up, and discovered that Netrebko had issued a watery statement of support—not mentioning the laws or Putin or homosexuality, but valiantly coming out and stating that she supported equality for everybody! Wow, talk about living on the rim of the volcano! Brave move, Anna!

OK, so what about Gergiev? Here, the water is murkier; in an article from March of 2009, The New York Times said: 

“I don’t know of any case in musical history, except maybe for Wagner and mad King Ludwig of Bavaria, where a musician has been that close to a powerful ruler,” Richard Morrison, the chief classical music critic of The Times of London, told me.   

And it may be that, in Russia, you have to be a politician to be a musician. Gergiev’s passion was to rebuild the Kirov—which had a fabled history—into a glittering opera house. And to do that, he needed swagger, and the nerve to say to politicians what he said to Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin. Here’s The New York Times again:

Gergiev arrived with Irina Arkhipova, a great singer already advanced in years. Representing the Bolshoi, she had one overriding mission — to obtain financing for the Glinka competition for young singers.

Recalling the meeting, Gergiev emphasized his persuasive bluntness. “The prime minister had 15 minutes, in between Chechnya war meetings,” he recalled. “Arkhipova ate 10 minutes talking about the Glinka competition. She wanted $10,000. I saw that the next person was waiting outside the door for his meeting. It was my turn. I said, ‘Viktor Stepanovich, if you don’t give $10 million now to each theater, both will be lost.’ The most upset person was her. She thought she would lose her $10,000. I said, ‘You don’t know that the salaries are so pitiful that the only ones who can survive are those who work in the West.’ He said, ‘Where am I supposed to get $10 million?’ I said, ‘It’s the money you spend in one hour in Chechnya.’ He said: ‘It’s nothing to do with Chechnya. Why do you speak of it?’ I said: ‘The money disappears. It wasn’t you who built these opera houses. It is a glory of the nation. You should come see. And maybe first the Bolshoi — they are in even worse shape.’ He at some point shockingly realized that I was telling him directly and openly what was going on. We spent one hour extra there. The prime minister immediately gave $10 million together to the two houses. A very Russian story.

In the same interview, Gergiev says that Russia is a big country—you need a loud voice to be heard. And you need to get into bed with some unsavory characters, because an enemy in the Kremlin is far worse, and more powerful, than an enemy in Washington. In short, that $10 million for the Kirov—now called the Mariinsky—doesn’t get given to a guy who protests human rights abuse.

According to Anthony Tommasini, the Times’ music critic, it was not the best of nights at the opera—not the least because the director pulled out at the last minute, and was replaced by Fiona Shaw, who had never directed at the Met, and who anyway was directing elsewhere at the time.

Tommasini points out that street protests are one thing—protests within a theater another. Very true—if the protests had lasted long, the Met could have gone into overtime, and that, dear Reader, is something you don’t want to do. But the protesters left gracefully.

So let the Met off the hook on this one, guys. But the Sochi Olympics?

No frigging way….  

With Love from Mother Russia

OK, guys—time to exercise that dialing finger.

On June 30 of this year, Russian president Vladimir Putin signed into law a bill prohibiting the distribution of “propaganda of nontraditional sexual orientation.” What does that mean?

Welcome to Russia, where laws are made vague for a reason—to allow for selective enforcement and blackmail. But if that weren’t enough, there’s something else going down in Mother Russia.

Gay people are getting the shit beaten out of them.

Or perhaps a video may be more persuasive. But be warned—from the first seconds this clip is scary.

OK—disgusting and awful. But that’s in Russia, why should I get involved?

Well, a whole bunch of companies are sponsoring the Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, and guess what? The largest of these companies have departments that do nothing but burnish the company’s reputation. So that means that people get paid to read newspapers and keep abreast of what’s going on in the world. Which means that these companies have known about the draconian Russian laws and they have made a simple, though brutal decision: fuck gay people, let’s make money.

And what are the largest corporate sponsors? Here they are, with contact numbers provided:

P&G Contact Number:

Monday-Friday, 9 am - 4 pm ET:

(800) 742-6253, or (513) 983-3034 (outside the U.S. and Canada)

24 hours a day:

(800) 764-7483

Coca-Cola Contact Number:

1.800.GET.COKE

(800.438.2653)

Panasonic Contact Number:

1-800-211-PANA (7262)

Hours:

Mon-Fri 9:00 AM - 9:00 PM EST

Sat-Sun 10:00 AM - 7:00 PM EST

Samsung Contact Number:

1 (800) 726-7864

VISA Contact Number:

1-800-522-VISA

Here are Coca-Cola’s main products: Coke, Sprite, Minutemaid products, Bacardi mixers, Dasani water and Evian water. For the company’s website page of complete products, click here.

P&G? Wow, it’s almost easier to list what’s not their product. But here goes: Oral B, Crest, Gillette, Nice ‘n Easy, Clairol, Mach 3, Olay, Scope, Vidal Sassoon, Tampax, Joy, Pampers, Swiffer, Downy, Comet, Tide, Mr. Clean, Bounty, Febreze, Metamucil, Pepto-Bismal, Bounce, Vicks, Charmin, and Cheer.  For the company’s website page of complete products, click here.

Samsung is easy—all of their products are branded Samsung, including the Galaxy.

Panasonic, besides electronics, sells personal care products like shavers and blood pressure monitors.

And Visa? Well, maybe it’s time to switch to MasterCard.

Get dialing, guys…. 

More Than a Singer

It’s a nice thing to see—a guy get totally smitten by a woman in twenty minutes or so.

The guy is unknown, though that may change. The woman is famous, although in the rarified world of opera. He’s British; she’s American, from Prairie Village, Kansas. And they come together at a master class, where he is singing, and she is….well, mastering.

Blessedly, she’s nice about it, as a girl from Kansas should be. And so Joyce DiDonato met Nicolas Darmanin in London at the Royal Opera House, and listened as he made his way through a difficult aria of Rossini (right, point taken—are there any easy arias?)

And Darmanin does a good job of it. Then DiDonato gets to work, and at one point asks him why he repeated a phrase; “do you just like the sound of your voice,” she kids him. Well, he doesn’t deny it, and she says, “I just love tenors.”

She’s as sunny as a Kansas sunflower, and also funny. But when she takes a chance, as every teacher learns to do, she opens up a world for Darmanin. First, she prefaces it with a warning—she’s not a voice pedagogue, she doesn’t want to screw him up. But what does he think of his breathing?

In the next ten minutes, she has taken a good tenor and made him substantially better. And in Darmanin’s case, she has focused on technical matters. In another case, she takes on a mezzo, and focuses on character development. Again, she’s totally winning, saying at one point that generic opera is ridiculous. When does it get sublime? When a singer digs deep into his or her character, and really understands the role.

DiDonato, in the words of opera critic Rupert Christiansen, has “a sound so perfectly beautiful – so purely projected, so elegantly shaped, so intensely felt and delicately coloured – that adjectives such as angelic and sublime floated to mind.”

She also is a complete professional—she’s canceled only twice in her life, when her father died. Even more remarkably, she once fell in the first act of an opera, broke her fibula, but carried on through the rest of the evening.

Well, this amazing woman has just performed at the Last Night of the Proms, and has included “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” in her pieces. And so—electronically, though not on stage—she has dedicated the song to all the gay and lesbians who have suffered rejection, and specifically to the Russian LGBT community, who are affected by Putin’s anti-homosexuality laws. Here’s what she wrote on her website:

There are well-intentioned parents, siblings, friends, strangers, communities, schools, as well as governments, that insist on trying to make homosexuals feel like lesser human beings, hoping for their silence, which is seemingly so much easier for their oppressors to bear. “These gays” are much greater human beings for having to look into the eyes of these misguided forces that try with all of their might to degrade them, and yet they audaciously stand up and say, “No. You listen: I am worthy.”  What a courageous, shining example of being true to yourself.  They deserve the applause and celebration for their valiant courage and for teaching us (if we’re strong and brave enough to learn) how to be better human beings.

Underneath the sunny personality, there’s a very sensitive person, a person who has had to struggle with her self worth. And it comes out in the second clip below—when she talks about silencing the self-critic.

It’s been seen 5,800 times on YouTube—but it should be shown to every conservatory student every day throughout their student career.

Thanks, Joyce!

A Gala and a Controversy

Moral dilemma, here—should I sign the online petition asking for the Metropolitan Opera to dedicate the season’s opening gala to the LGBT community?

Factors in the decision—the season opens this year with a performance of Eugene Onegin, by Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky. Right, so would dedicating the gala to the LGBT be a sharp stick in the eye for Vladimir Putin and the 430 legislators of the Duma who passed a draconian law outlawing even talking about homosexuality, much less getting down and…well, getting down? Somehow I don’t see it.

Nor is the Met’s choice of a Russian opera an endorsement of Putin and his law, given that the law is three months old, and the Met undoubtedly scheduled this years ago. You don’t run out and ask Anna Netrebko, whom the Associated Press called “the reigning new diva of the early 21^st century,” if she’s up for singing next week.

However, there is the fact that Netrebko is Russian, as is the conductor, Valery Gergiev. However, Netrebko came out on Facebook—that’s how it’s done, these degenerate days—with this statement: “As an artist, it is my great joy to collaborate with all of my wonderful colleagues — regardless of their race, ethnicity, religion, gender, or sexual orientation. I have never and will never discriminate against anyone.”

Well, good to know! It may not be a ringing denunciation of Putin and the wretched law, but it’s something.

Both Gergiev and Netrebko supported Putin in the past, but there’s no indication that they support the antigay legislation.

OK—but consider the fact that Tchaikovsky was homosexual, despite a two-and-a-half-month attempt at marriage—which left him drained and unable to compose. And though the Russian government is trying to deny that fact, Tchaikovsky mentions the fact himself in his letters. Here’s Wikipedia on the subject:

In any case, Tchaikovsky chose not to neglect social convention and stayed conservative by nature.[100] His love life remained complicated. A combination of upbringing, timidity and deep commitment to relatives precluded his living openly with a male lover.[101] A similar blend of personal inclination and period decorum kept him from having sexual relations with those in his social circle.[102] He regularly sought out anonymous encounters, many of which he reported to Modest; at times, these brought feelings of remorse.[103] He also attempted to be discreet and adjust his tastes to the conventions of Russian society.[104] Nevertheless, many of his colleagues, especially those closest to him, may have either known or guessed his true sexual nature.[105] Tchaikovsky's decision to enter into a heterosexual union and try to lead a double life was prompted by several factors—the possibility of exposure, the willingness to please his father, his own desire for a permanent home and his love of children and family. There is no reason however to suppose that these personal travails impacted negatively on the quality of his musical inspiration or capacity.

Well, we have a sad story, here—a gay man living in a troubled time. Russia then, and perhaps now, ran on “understandings,” according to one writer. The laws were on the books, but were they enforced? Well, you came to an “understanding” with whatever authorities you needed to and you were OK—until the winds blew in an unpleasant direction.

Another factor in the decision: the Met is not going onto Russian soil to do this gala—it’s taking place, of course, right at home in Lincoln Center. So it’s not quite like the Olympics, which will be taking place in Sochi, and which is expected to cost 12 billion.

There’s also the question of politics in art. It’s all very well to say that politics and music don’t mix, but in the past they certainly have, at least in some cases. Casals wouldn’t play in Spain for years, in protest of Franco. No one dared to play Wagner in Israel, until Barenboim did it—and he barely got away with it. 

Well, the Met is in an uncomfortable position. Prepare to be stunned, Readers, but opera is to gay men what softball is to lesbians. The LBT community might safely be snubbed, but the G? Tread carefully.

The good news? I’ve decided, no, I won’t sign the petition. But I have listened to the opera, and it’s a knockout….

Those Disrespectful Nails...

It was disrespectful, Yelena Isinbayeva said, to the country, to the host what Emma Green-Tregaro did.

What did Emma Green-Tregaro do, and why did it upset Isinbayeva?

Take a look….

This is, apparently, unacceptable in Russia, where both athletes are competing, and where president Vladimir Putin makes it illegal to distribute “homosexual propaganda," as defined below.

…information that can harm the spiritual or physical health of a minor, including forming the erroneous impression of the social equality of traditional and non-traditional marital relations.

Read closely; this doesn’t mean distributing “homosexual propaganda” to minors, it means—look, can I just call it HP? It’s Saturday afternoon, I’m lazy, and besides, writing out this “homosexual propaganda” nonsense makes my stomach churn.

So—distributing any HP to anyone would be illegal, even to an adult. And what happens if you do? You can be fined up to $30,000.

Right, and what else can’t you do in Russia, or in this case, Moscow?

Have a gay pride march for the next one hundred years. The clip below quite clearly shows what happens when you do.

Of course, that’s better than what happened in St. Petersburg—be warned, the blood is flowing in this one….



The situation for gay people is deteriorating in Russia; here’s what one writer, Masha Gessen, has to say:

Two things happened to me the same month: I was beaten up in front of parliament for the first time and I realized that in all my interactions, including professional ones, I no longer felt I was perceived as a journalist first: I am now a person with a pink triangle.

My family is moving to New York. We have the money and documents needed to do that with relative ease – unlike thousands of other LGBT families and individuals in Russia.

Gessen is a fighter, not a quitter. But she consulted a lawyer—could they go after her adopted son, since another law makes it illegal for gay people to adopt? The lawyer’s answer, “your answer is at the airport.”

Nor is that all. According to the Mother Jones magazine, a fake web site has been set up to lure gay men on “dates.” Here’s Mother Jones on the subject:

Led by notorious Russian neo-Nazi Maksim "Tesak" ("the Hatchet") Martsinkevich, the group has been using social media, primarily VKontakte (Russia's Facebook spinoff), to place fake dating ads to lure gay men. Once face-to-face with the men, group members interrogate and torture them, and a video of the encounter is put on YouTube. Here's one such video from late July. (Warning: The content of the video is disturbing.)

Disturbing? My word would be gut-wrenching.

Nor is it just in Russia—hate crimes are on the rise in New York City, where gangs are attacking gay people in broad daylight in places such as Madison Square Garden. Check out the video below.

What’s the worst thing?

Let me tell you a little secret. When I worked at Wal-Mart, there were two people who spent an hour or two reading the newspapers and listening to morning radio. It was called “corporate communications,” and the idea was simple—monitor the buzz and hit back when necessary.

If that was little Puerto Rico, do you think the international sponsors of this 50 billion dollar event being held in Sochi, Russia next year were unaware of this controversy? Here’s what one writer has to say:

"This piece of legislation worked its way up through the legislative system," Minky Worden, HRW's Director of Global Initiatives, told me in an interview (listen to the full interview below). "The International Olympic Committee, the United States Olympic Committee, the so-called top corporate sponsors -- Coca-Cola, McDonald's, Procter & Gamble -- these companies all, as [HRW] did, tracked the progress of this law."

"And because it is so clearly in complete violation of the Olympic Charter," she continued, "it's also clear to us at Human Rights Watch that if any of the major Olympic stakeholders who have a hotline to the Kremlin -- because the Olympics are very important to Putin personally, he has a deputy prime minister, [Dmitry] Kozak, who is tasked with making them come off perfectly -- that if any of the Olympic stakeholders, the sponsors who are literally paying for the Games, or the International Olympic Committee, the U.S. Olympic Committee or the other Olympic committees, if they weighed in on this, I don't think this law would have been signed by Putin or passed by the Duma. If they had leaned on [Russia] before the law was signed, it would not have been signed. That is absolutely true." 

Let’s head back up to the top. A Swedish athlete is dissing all of Mother Russia by displaying her rainbow fingernails?

Screw that—move the damn games to Vancouver, and I’ll start eating Big Macs again….