Dinner And Opera

Last night was a big one in our annual calendar, opening night of the Opera Theatre of St. Louis season. This is our 40th or 41st - we've lost track. One of the delightful features is that it takes place on a suburban university campus, set up for picnic dinners before the performance. We usually do that and leave a bottle of wine on the table for intermission.

The first production was La Traviata. It's an old chestnut but we've never heard a better performance. Violetta was sung by the spectacular young soprano Sydney Mancasola. She worked her way up from the chorus to the foot lights, giving the role an emotional intensity that's hard to match.

Afterwards, the company invites the audience for a glass or two of prosecco under the picnic tent. I got a shot of General Director Timothy O'Leary, who will leave us after this season. He's been here for 10 years and has brought OTSL to ever greater heights.                

Philip Glass

Last night at the American premier of Philip Glass' opera The Trial, based on Franz Kafka's discomfiting novel. At a reception after the performance, the composer was flanked by Opera Theatre of St. Louis' General Director, Timothy O'Leary, and librettist Cristopher Hampton. Not the greatest picture but I was using my little Olympus under a tent with ordinary light bulbs. 

Glass is something of a hero to me. I wrote recently about encountering the early Stravinsky ballets. A few years later, I read about Glass and heard Music In Fifths, Music In Changing Parts, North Star and the Dances. It smashed my concept of what music could be as throughly as did The Rite of Spring. Then Mrs. C and I attended the performances of Einstein On The Beach and The Photographer at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. And then the trilogy of movies with Godfrey Reggio, the searing Koyanaasqatsi, Powaqqatsi and Naqoyqatsi. And others operas, including Akhenaten, about the ancient Egyptian monothesist, and Satyagraha,  set in the time the young Gandhi lived in South Africa. It's a minority opinion, but I think the latter is the greatest opera of the 20th Century.

So it was a pleasure to hear his newer work and to see him again. He recently turned 80 and looked a little frail. I hope he keeps writing and writing.