Have I mentioned how much I love living in L.A.?
TG and I were reading the paper last week when they mentioned a ‘concert performance’ of Wagner’s “Tristan & Isolde” at the Disney Hall, with video from Bill Viola.
I’ve been a fan of Viola’s video art for years, and last year we saw his show at the Getty – ‘The Passions.’ It seemed nicely in synch with Wagner.
And yes, I know that when I talk about and criticize the Romanticism that prefers death to mundane life, I’m definitely talking about Wagner. Sometime I have to do something on the politics of art…
But we saw the article, and grabbed two tickets to Friday’s performance of Act One.
We’re fond of Disney Hall for our own reasons (we got married there) and have been to a few concerts there this year.
But this was the doozy, the champeen, the winnah.
Damn.It was amazing; I don’t think I’ve heard an orchestra play Wagner better; the singers were amazing, and the video backdrop was interesting, until the very end when it became transcendental. In case you think it’s the rube in me saying this, here’s the review:
So the journey that began over the weekend had all the promise of a glorified workshop at premium prices. The singers were not the stars (Ben Heppner and Waltraud Meier) who will appear in Paris. There was little attempt at staging. Viola’s videos had to compete with the Disney Hall architecture, which does not make screens easily visible to all, and with bleeding illumination from orchestra stands and spotlighted singers. It was Salonen’s first time with the score, Viola’s entrance into the world of opera.
But “Tristan” — the once famously unsingable opera about a love so potent it can be realized only by the removal of all obstacles, those of the physical world, those of life itself — stretches to the breaking point everyone who confronts it. Any performance that doesn’t try too much fails before it starts.
The Philharmonic tried too much. Everything that should have worked, worked. Everything that shouldn’t have worked, worked. If the “Tristan Project” is not the greatest moment in the orchestra’s history, I can’t imagine what was.
After we stood to applaud, TG and I just sat in our seats in awe.
I know that High Art is a bit of a boondoggle in this society; that edifices like Disney Hall are in part responsible for the decline of our cities.
But somehow – there’s a part of me that thinks that when they’re done right – when the hall works and the music isn’t mediocre – they become boons instead.
The concerts will be held this weekend as well (I’ll be gone, TG threatens to go, and I hope she does).
The fully staged opera, directed by Peter Sellars, will premiere in April of next year in Paris.
I’m going to start saving my money now.
“Have I mentioned how much I love living in L.A.?”
Thats a new one.
I think the Disney is the Guggenhiem of the west. But I can’t go there. So tell me, how is
it inside?
Did you go in a limo? 😉 Sorry, couldn’t resist.
Sounds like a great concert. How many hours did it take you to drive there through L.A. traffic?
There’s a few liberals we need to “arm” in the art world, so by all means please write something about the politics of contemporary art!
For example:
-Why the cutting edge in the creative community is exclusively a liberal one?
-Strategies of transgression are the means that have become the end, rote and formulaic…
-How much of the official artworld has become hyperinstitutionalized, how universities and museums have merged cultures and why this is scary (first reason: the funky edge is neglected for institutional favorites… second reason: museum agenda has been slicing history close to the bone, blurring the distinction between modern and contemporary … which leads to the third reason: not virtual but defacto insider trading…
-How the Franfurt School dominated the art dialog and provided a backdoor access for a Marxist agenda?
-How antiMilitary antiAmericanism took root in the museum/university complex
-What’s up with the pathetic intellectual stagnation of a triumphal half century long PostModern period that is impossible to question seriously by and large?
-How the “New” has been intellectually scrubbed away and therefore how everyone is comfortable with the fact that nothing substantially innovative has occured for more than a decade or more, depending on your point of view.
Whew! I know you can do it! You have the stage and you can talk to Red states about the haps in the Blue.
oh yea, how the Getty is a terrible design and why you think the Disney Hall is not so good…
_Tristan und Isolde_! I am consumed with fierce envy. 🙂
AL — I’d be interested if you could flesh out what you mean when you say that “edifices like Disney Hall are in part responsible for the decline of our cities.” There were protests when Disney hall opened saying that the (very largely private) money should have been used instead to “help the poor”.
As a fellow Angeleno of similar bent and political leanings to yours, I have less and less patience with the protestors who say that any ostentation is immoral when there are “real needs” to be met. I’m not going to say that these types of projects are necessarily keys to revitalizing a city, but let’s face it — if a city has no (or few) amenities, people with choices (who are the ones who really pay the taxes) are not going to stay. I think LA still has a dearth of good public spaces, and would be a better city for everyone if we had more.
Steel Turman: The inside of Disney Hall is as visually stunning as the outside. The acoustics are incredible as well. Reviews say that the new organ may be the best in the world, but I haven’t heard it yet.
BD: When I go to Disney Hall, I just take the subway and get off one block away. No muss, no fuss.