Category Archives: Art, Theatre, & Film

The Two Towers, Panto, And Relaxing

So I saw The Two Towers yesterday.

Maybe it was the crowded theatre with the bimbo in front of us; maybe it was the killer headache that slowly crept up on me throughout the three and a half hours of total viewing time; maybe it was any combination of things.

I didn’t enjoy it very much.

Wonderful cinema, oh yes; spectacular battle sequences; epic; stunning design work, too. Smeagol was a triumph; the Ents were perfect. And yet… and yet. There was something missing. And I’m not talking about the first chapter of the book version, covered in the first film, or the last few chapters, which Jackson appears to be delegating to the third film.

I know it’s all about war; I know it’s about the Fellowship divided; I know it’s all about despair and loss of hope and the darkest before dawn, etcetera. I found the pacing irregular, and the editing extremely choppy. I thought I went in with decent expectations. I mean, I don’t aggrandize much any more; I’m very good at remaining immune to hype, and not working something up on my own, however much I might play at doing so.

I readily admit that I intend to give it another chance, mainly because I can’t believe I didn’t enjoy myself. It must have been a fluke, a freak alignment of stars or something.

Amusing side note: my parents saved the last full-page ad for The Two Towers in the Toronto Star for me, a lovely full-front shot of Miranda Otto as Eowyn. At least, I think it was for me. I’m not sure; my husband thought she was rather attractive.

My disappointment in holiday spectacle did not carry through to the incredibly hilarious pantomime version of Robin Hood that we saw today in Toronto, thank goodness. Live comic theatre is in short supply, and live comic theatre done by theatrical professionals from the Shaw and Stratford Festivals is a real treat. Any show where the audience consists of fifty percent children, who are encouraged to cheer the hero and boo the villain, is a fun show in my books. My parents used to take me to see such shows when I was a child, and this year my mother gave my husband and I tickets to see the latest in Ross Petty’s annual fractured fairy tales.

Damn, I miss performing. I miss attending quality live theatre, but having been on both sides of the curtain, I can say that this show, out of all the live shows I’ve seen in the past couple of years, induced vivid pangs of envy that I didn’t think I could feel. I wanted to be up there. I wanted to be singing, dancing, and making people laugh. Having spent the last three days reading one of my Stratford fiftieth anniversary books from cover to cover, I was ripe for the homesick feeling; I set myself up, really.

After dinner tonight I’ll settle down with the soundtrack to The Two Towers (which is brilliant, and which stood out even through my vague feelings of disappointment) and a nice lavender bath. It’s time to relax again. Which means, of course, that I can’t pick up yet another Stratford book, or I’ll just mope some more.

Christmas At Home

Well, we woke up on Christmas morning to over ten centimeters of snow, so I feel right at home. The drive from Montreal to Toronto was surprisingly good, which should have alerted us right off the bat that a bad storm was looming. (The drive was made infinitely more exciting by four or five unmarked mix tapes donated by Tass, including a seasonal compilation marked only ‘Here I am — Rock Me Like A Candy Cane’, which featured the inimitable juxtaposition of the thrash metal rendition of Silent Night with the innocent Christmas Scat from The Muppet Christmas Carol.) After a dull brown December, though, seeing drifts of white everywhere on Christmas morning is rather aesthetically pleasing. The Weather Channel assures us that the 8 degrees C on Monday and Tuesday will take care of things, much to the grim pleasure of the Torontonians.

I love Christmas with my family; there’s always what amounts to a library under the tree, hidden by pretty paper and sparkly ribbon. The tree this year is a surprisingly effective six foot tall fig tree, wrapped with a single strand of white fairy lights, since their seven-month-old Maine Coon Cat is still at the shiny-things stage. (Despite this clever attempt to protect all things Christmas-y, he tried to climb the fig on Christmas morning, because he could see his new foam rubber ball nestled in the leaves.) As for what kind of library was under said tree, my parents each received three or four books, and this year my husband tore the wrapping off The Art of The Fellowship of the Ring, the hardcover volume of developmental art that he discovered in a bookshop not long ago, which kept him busy for well over an hour. I received both books written on the fiftieth anniversary of the Stratford Festival that I had wanted, as well as the recently released Glenn Gould: A Life in Pictures and the new Anne Rice in hardcover, to offset all of that high-brow Canadian culture. Plenty of chocolate and a new polar fleece dressing gown rounded out my major gains. I’m set for the rest of the winter, now.

The snow was still flying out there when we went to bed, and weatherpersons were predicting a final day’s total accumulation of around twenty-five centimeters. I’m glad; there’s something just odd about a Christmas with no snow. Oh, sure, I’ve had my share of snowstorms in Montreal this fall, throughout November and the early part of December, but I don’t think I could ever live somewhere where it doesn’t actually snow at Christmas. I know, I know, there will be plenty of the stuff throughout January and February. I will be thoroughly sick of it by the time March rolls around. Just think, though, about the quality of light that snow creates. One of the reasons November is usually so dull is because it’s overcast and the bright green of the leaves and grass has faded through rusts to browns. The overall effect is rather depressing. As soon as it snows, though, the light is brighter, refracting through millions of individual snowflakes, bouncing around and creating a warmer, clearer glow.

We still have to brush it off cars, and wade through it to get to the bus stop, and jam hats down over our hair to protect our ears from blowing ice and wind. I know. Overall, though, it’s not so bad. It’s the dampness that creeps into your bones and makes you miserable. There’s a difference, after all. If it would just snow for a week leading up to Christmas, then stop, I’d be happy…

Memorial Concert Review

Well, wasn’t I wrong about last night’s concert.

At the NaNo meet yesterday afternoon, a friend told me that he regretfully wouldn’t be able to make it to that evening’s memorial concert for my orchestra’s conductor Andres Gutmanis, who died in an accident three months ago. “That’s okay,” I said without thinking about my words, “no one else is going.” My words had a visible effect; he looked chagrined. I attempted a casual explanation including the weather, the travel time to the West Island (which is usually an issue to which I am ruthlessly unsympathetic; I lived there for years, and it is, in fact, ridiculously easy to get there, and not as time-consuming as people seem to think), and the fact that I myself wasn’t very hyped for it. So, if there were a concert of mine to miss, this would be the one.

I was very, very wrong.

Two of my friends showed up after all, one who I had known was going to try to make it, another who was a very pleasant surprise. (You have my heartfelt thanks, Nika and MLG, and coffeeing afterwards was lovely too!) They were treated to an absolutely phenomenal evening of music, an evening which surprised even me.

We opened with the Albinoni Adagio, which I usually find maudlin in any recording and unmoving when we play it, but which was so perfect in last night’s performance that it moved me to tears. (It takes two hands to play the cello; wiping tears away is difficult.) There was a guest trio which played selections from Stravinsky�s Pulcinella suite, and they were incredibly talented. Then we played the Mendelssohn, and glory be, we sounded good; I almost enjoyed it. There were more guests performing single songs, vocalists and violinists and George Doxas, Andres’ fellow music teacher from LPHS. To draw the first half to a close we then played the terribly, terribly dramatic Handel Prelude and Fugue, and again, we were impressed ourselves by the precision and the sweeping drama of it all.

After the intermission — oh, this was part of the treat. George Doxas had brought along his twenty-five piece big band, and they proceeded to play swing and jazz for half an hour. It changed the mood and galvanized the orchestra, sitting in the first couple of rows of the audience, into a very correct, dead-on rendition of the old-world folk song The Lonely Maiden, played in Andres’ own arrangement. It’s a slightly creepy traditional Eastern European melody, and utilises a particularly odd technique called col legno, which means hitting the string with the stick of the bow instead of drawing the rosined hair across it to produce vibration. The result is a muted, clipped, percussive sound that most people have never heard. The problem with it is that it’s practically impossible to get thirty people to hit the string simultaneously, to achieve a clear unified note. Last night, we did it.

And the finale was an encore presentation of the first movement of Beethoven’s Symphony no. 1, which was our most successful piece performed at the Canada Day concert last July. Under Nancy’s direction, we had refined it to a precise yet wild machine that couldn’t be stopped once it had begun. Again, it was the best performance we had given of the work to date.

So we began with a show-stopping number, and we ended with one as well, which, as I have been taught in essay-writing and speech-giving, is the best way to ensure that your audience will remember you. My husband tells me that it has been the best show we’ve done so far, and he’s been to all four I’ve played with this group. So evidently I was wrong when I said that this would be the concert to miss. It was, in fact, one of the best presentations of musicians from all over the island of Montreal.

I don’t know what our conductor-status is at the moment, but if Nancy were to remain as our leader, I would be more than happy. She’s fantastic in rehearsals, and she was clear and focused during performance. It would be a shame to pull her out of the viola section – the gods know violists are in short supply, and good violists are even harder to find! – but she’s terrific up there on the podium. I won’t know for another two weeks; I have the next two Wednesdays nights off. That’s nice, but after such a successful concert I’m even more enthusiastic about orchestra than usual, and almost three weeks is an awfully long time to wait to get back into the swing of things. And even then, it’s only for one night before we break for Christmas. Ah well. I shall go to Archambault to purchase new music to keep me busy during the time off.

Memorial Concert Reminder

Ouch.

Typically, as soon as I solve one health problem, another crops up. Now that I have new glasses and have miraculously solved my mysterious low-grade perpetual headache, my back has begun acting up once more. It’s becoming more and more difficult to move around; lying on the floor is pretty much the only way to ease it. Good thing I have those new glasses so I can get a clear view of the ceiling.

I don’t know what it is — I’m doing a lot of computer work and cello playing, sure, but that’s no different from my activities of the past two years. Is it the weather, the cold-to-warm-to-really-cold spells we’ve been having? Am I developing arthritic symptoms in my spine that respond to seasonal change?

The osteopath hasn’t done much for it the past two times I’ve seen her; evidently I shall have to really stress the pain and the precise location for her next time I see her in late December. I thought I had done so during the past couple of visits, and for the rest of the day things seem all right, but a day or so later the pain creeps back. I’d go back to her sooner, but that financial thing’s in the way again. I’m just trying to take it really easy and watch how I sit, how I carry things, and so forth.

Speaking in passing of my cello, in case I missed you in my e-mail announcement (or if you have no clue who I am and are in the Montreal area next Sunday!), here’s the concert announcement:

I know, it seems like only yesterday that I did a concert, but it’s that time once again…

This Sunday, December 1 at 7.30 PM, the Lakeshore Chamber Orchestra and guests will be presenting a program called “Tributes to Andres” in honour of our conductor who died in an accident almost three months ago. Included in the program are a dramatic Prelude and Fugue by Handel, Albinoni’s Adagio, and selections from Mendelssohn’s first symphony and the Beethoven symphony we played at the Canada Day concert that Andres enjoyed conducting so much. We will also be playing an intriguing arrangement of a Latvian folk song, arranged by our late conductor himself.

The concert will take place on the West Island once again, at St. John Fisher church in Valois (which was the venue we performed at last January). The church is located at 120 Summerhill, corner Valois Bay Avenue, in Pointe-Claire.

Tickets are $10 per person, children 18 and under are admitted free.

Both the 204 bus and the 203 bus from the Dorval station pass nearby (for the 204, get off at the corner of Belmont and Broadview; for the 203, get off at the corner of Valois Bay and Belmont); a map is always useful too.

This concert is going to be packed with people paying their last respects, so if you’re planning on coming I advise getting there early so you’ll have a seat!

Chamber of Secrets response

Quickie review of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets:

1. Geez, I’m glad I don’t go to Hogwarts. Big snakes. Screaming roots. Willow trees that think playing Whack the Student is a jolly time.

2. I so wish I went to Hogwarts! Or at least lived in that world.

Good film – well-paced, good acting, good dialogue, fabulous new set designs. If asked to compare it to the first in the series, I’d say apples and oranges. The first one established the world and characters. This one plunged right in and didn’t really explain anything, expecting you to have read the books, or at least have seen the first film. I like that. Why waste time re-introducing places and people?

I will see it again. Not, however, at the Paramount, although since the copy of the film we were watching snapped (right before the exciting bits) we got vouchers for a complimentary movie ticket, so it’s sort of like we saw it for free; thirteen-fifty is just too pricey. I did it for The Chamber of Secrets on opening night, and I’ll do it for The Two Towers premiere, but that’s all. Any subsequent viewings will be done elsewhere.

Tomorrow, we paint the bedroom. Updates as events warrant.

Meh

Bad, bad sleep last night. On the other hand, there’s only one more sleep until we see The Chamber of Secrets on Friday night.

Good rehearsal, though. Take that, Handel. And the conductor finally suggested that the celli play every second note of those pesky sixteenth-note legato runs in the Mendelssohn.

Got an e-mail from Ceri this morning talking about her NaNo project, which alas, like me, is on hold til tomorrow, since both of us work today. She said that tomorrow she would “write like the dickens”, which I found highly amusing in the NaNo context. I can just imagine a Victorian editor saying, “Quantity, Charles, not quality! Accidental quality is acceptable.”

Renewed

Yesterday, quite simply, sucked.

Oh, the day was horrid. Evil was afoot in my life. Things went from bad to worse.

I did not blog, I did not write; I did not practice. I did, however, buy funky new shoes.

I shall not depress you all, however, with gloomy details. Instead, rejoice, for today was a wondrous day!

Highlights include an hour and a half of brilliant cello, where I spiked that irritating Handel quite nicely, thank you very much; a terrific wrap sandwich made with thick slices of ham roast and Monterey Jack cheese, toasted under the broiler; leaps and bounds of progress on freelance work; and a satisfying few thousand words added to my novel count.

A rest is as good as a change. Voila. I am renewed.

And I have new funky shoes. Go me!