About Bernstein's Mass

The revival of Bernstein's Mass at a venue where it saw its 1971 world premiere has been touted as a grand event by the Kennedy Center, a cultural monument celebrating half a century of its own existence. The work's description as a "piece for singers, players and dancers" clarifies that it is not a traditional mass, which usually comprises six parts: Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, Benedictus and Agnus Dei. I had not seen or heard Bernstein's piece before its anniversary night on Thursday, and decided to look at it with an open mind, without extensive research ahead of the performance. I expected to be surprised and in some ways I was.

Photo: Scott Suchman

The piece opens with a fairly modern sound as the priest comes on the stage and greets the faithful who are praying quietly in the pews. The audience is looking into a church setting from the view one would get from behind the altar, facing the choir at the far end. As the stage turns dark, the light comes from lamps high above that look like Chinese lanterns, while a percussion instrument makes a tinkling beat that brings to mind sounds from Puccini's Turandot. This brief introduction is followed by a more or less traditional Kyrie Eleison, as in any Catholic mass. Bernstein's Kyrie was particularly beautiful, auguring good things to come. The solo Simple Song switches to a tune more akin to Broadway than church, despite its psalmodic verse. The repetition of "lauda, laude" made me squirm, but Will Liverman's interpretation uplifted the uninspired verse.

The harmonized chorale, reminiscent of the great masses of the past, was sublime as were all the other parts performed by the Heritage Signature Chorale. The dancers swaying back and forth on the stage did not add value to the performance, but were not intrusive either. They seemed rather like spirits swirling around the church, or perhaps in the parishioners' minds?

The first real surprise came with the appearance of the "street chorus," representing ordinary people who express their anger at a God who does not seem to hear their prayers for peace in the chaotic world. They taunt the priest, ridicule his homily and interrupt the mass. Coming in from all sides of the stage as well as the auditorium, they look and act as if they have just walked out of Bernstein's famous West Side Story.  Several stand out with gorgeous solo numbers, a mixture of rock, jazz and blues styles, notably soprano Meroë Khalia Adeeb, performing artist-singer Curtis Bannister, Mexican mezzo-soprano Sishel Claverie and bass Matt Boehler, among others.

Photo: Scott Suchman

The orchestral meditation brought back contemplative calm and a return to the order of the Latin Mass.  Liverman sang Gloria in his best voice of the evening. Mass continued with the remainder of its traditional parts, interspersed with Broadway-style solo and choral numbers, and dancing.  A boy soprano sang a wistful aria, much like a shepherd boy at the opening of the third act of Puccini's Tosca. It was hard to imagine what could have offended so many Catholics, at least until the Mass was performed at the Vatican for Pope John Paul II.

After so much - maybe too much - of a good thing, fatigue kicked in.  By the time Mass arrived at the Lord's Prayer, Liverman sounded course and I don't think it was intentional. 

The ambitious work then takes another new turn, a surprise one could say. As the priest prepares the congregation for the communion he is hit by a personal crisis of faith. He interrupts his prayer and smashes the chalice with wine, which represents Christ's blood, lamenting the wrong color of the blood. He is aware that "half of the world is drowned and the other is swimming in the wrong direction" as he had noted earlier, and he can do nothing about it. So he now mocks his congregants. 

One gets a distinct feeling that Bernstein's inspiration was exhausted by that point. The scene which was supposed to be revolutionary, and that probably angered the faithful at the premiere, turned into a real drag. Instead of inspiring compassion, the quasi-operatic episode did nothing more than cause mild annoyance and urgent desire for a swift conclusion, which comes only after the faith of the congregation is reaffirmed. When the roughly two hours of performance without intermission closed with spoken words "The Mass is ended," without the traditional "go in peace to love and serve the Lord," all everyone wanted to do was rush to the nearest restroom.

Artists who worked with Bernstain cite limited time to complete the piece in time for the opening. The latter part of Mass reflects some of that pressure. The composition which flows with ease in the first half, despite switches between various genres, becomes more and more strained in the second half. The work would have benefited from extra time for revisions. Some of the most popular operas we enjoy today came to us in their second or third version.

Photo: Scott Suchman

Since Bernstein did not set out to compose a liturgical work, but as the subtitle says "a theater piece," was it really necessary to include all the parts of the Latin mass, albeit in an abbreviated form?  Bernstein's work was commissioned by Jacqueline Kennedy, a Catholic, for the opening of the Kennedy Center in 1971, at the  time when the U.S. was mired in the Vietnam War. There was a strong anti-war sentiment in the country and in the world. Many people could not reconcile their faith with the news from the front. Bernstein's Mass addressed some of that confusion, but according to him, the piece is a "celebration of life." 

The question surrounding the revival of a 50-plus old work is: how relevant is it today? The US has just come out of the protracted war in Afghanistan, is still under the shadow of Covid pandemic, climate change is wreaking havoc worldwide, and the  political divisions seem overwhelming. When the priest says "half of the world is drowned and the other half is swimming in the wrong direction," it resonates with the audience who privately thinks the same. And even though the critics have panned some of lyricist Stephen Schwartz's pithy lines, I could not agree more with "half of the people are dead and the other half are not voting."

So yes, Bernstein's Mass is as relevant today as it was half a century ago. It is an impressive piece, worth seeing at least once in a lifetime. With a few revisions, it could have been so much more. As it is, the mix of genres praised by Berstein fans sometimes feels more like a mishmash of material that needs good editing. If you have ever looked at maximalist home decor, you will have seen some rooms packed with eclectic styles working so well together that you would want to be invited to tea there, while others seem as cluttered as a storage room. Bernstein's piece in the end reminded me of some of the less successful attempts at maximalism. If he had had the opportunity to make the work more cohesive with a few strategic cuts, reworking some of the weaker segments, adding gravitas to others,  Mass could have been a real magnum opus. As it is, at least for this reviewer, West Side Story remains Bernstein's most successful work.

White Horse Can't Save WNO's Staid Carmen

Carmen is a typical femme fatale: a woman who brings misfortune to the man who falls in love with her. She is also wild, untamable and somewhat mad. A contemporary stage director always faces a dilemma of how to present all of Carmen's traits to the new audiences without making her look stereotypical or ridiculous. Then there is the question of wether to stage the opera in its traditional setting or transport it to a different time and place. For the Washington National Opera's 2022 season gala, art director Francesca Zambello opted for the safer traditional route, reviving her 2006 production, first shown at the Royal Opera House in 2006. 

The problem with reviving a well-known production, which can be seen in its entirety online, is that it inevitably invites unfair comparisons. The ROH performance is almost impossible to match as was painfully obvious from the get-go in Saturday's WNO performance. 

The singer portraying the passionate gypsy has to exude sensuality while trying to avoid the exaggerated hip-swiveling or overtly sexual gestures that could put off a contemporary viewer.  Few are able to achieve that and it seems that Zambello went for one of currently best known and most popular American mezzo-sopranos, Isabel Leonard. An accomplished singer with a beautiful voice, Leonard has been an excellent interpreter of the roles that suit her, such as Nico Muhly's Marnie, reportedly written with her in mind. But it is hard to understand why anyone would want to cast the beauty known for her cool and polished demeanor in the role of a bedraggled gypsy, who washes her legs in a bucket at a town square.  Of course, a brilliant actress can pull it off, but for Leonard it seemed like too big a stretch.

Isabel Leonard in role debut as Carmen at the Kennedy Center,  photo by Scott Suchman

The acclaimed mezzo was wise to leave off the exaggerated come-hither gestures that could make her more funny than sexy. But if she had not informed Don José that she was dancing for him, no one would know she was dancing.  Her gypsy was more of a petulant child than an independent woman, holding on to her freedom. There was no dark, brooding quality to the prediction of her own imminent death. 

Lenard's voice is versatile, but does not reach deep enough into the Kennedy Center's cavernous Opera House. (This was evident a few years ago when she sang Rossini's Cinderella at the same venue). Even for a patron sitting mid-parterre it was at times hard to discern what she was singing, which makes one wonder how much could be heard in the last row.

To make matters worse, her sound did not blend well with tenor Michael Fabiano's. He sang Don José in a powerful voice that filled the house. One could further question the chemistry, or a lack thereof, between the two protagonists, but if we assume that Don José was manipulated, rather than loved, the tenor who portrays him has more freedom in approaching the role.  Some artists choose to play an ardent lover who gradually becomes embittered and finally crazed. Fabiano's José seemed to harbor a dark side to his character from the start. There was more anger than tenderness in his pivotal aria "La fleur que tu m'avais jetée."  By the closing scene he was a raving maniac, but since his interpretation lacked a development from a naive lover to the madman, it was hard to sympathize with his ultimate pain. 

Ryan Speedo Green's Escamillo lacked the electricity and sparkle surrounding a celebrity bullfighter. The real-life horse he rode onto the stage did not help. Despite Green's robust bas-baritone and adequate singing, once he got off the horse, he acted more as a priest than a heartthrob.

As José's fiancée Micaëla, Vanessa Vasquez impressed with her beautiful voice, but not with acting.

Evan Rogister led the orchestra with aplomb, including the gorgeous prelude to Act III, that starts with a lovely flute tune and expands to other woodwind. But Rogister did not exert the same control over the chorus, whose members were not always in sync.

For some pizzazz in the otherwise unexceptional production, Zambello added a cloud of smoke coming out of the cigarette factory, suggesting a fire in Carmen's workplace. In addition to the afore-mentioned horse, whose two brief entrances created significant excitement in the audience, a Spanish Easter-procession float passed by the bullfighting arena before the fatal encounter between Carmen and Don José in the last act. 

Overall, Saturday's gala performance of Carmen seemed like a successful final exam of a college drama class, in which all the students did well and got an A. But the Washington opera has to do better than that. If the company opts to go the traditional route, it must find the interpreters who will give the old production a new life, and keep in thrall even the people who have seen Carmen many, many times. If the right artists for a traditional Carmen are not available, the production should be changed to suit the ones that are. 

In 2018, ROH's premiered a new production of Carmen that was nothing short of revolutionary.  The title character stepped onto the stage out of a female gorilla suit, in short hair and androgynous clothes. She was neither sexy nor seductive. One could describe her as playful; she even winked at the audience after her staged death. The set consisted of a huge black staircase, with masked characters, dressed in black and white, dancing up and down the steps. The dialogues were replaced by voiceover narration. The minimalist production was more akin to a Broadway musical than a 19th-century opera and not to everyone's taste, but it attracted young audiences and amused the older ones, tired of seeing more of the same.

Michael Fabian and Isabel Leonard as Don José and Carmen, photo by Scott Suchman

Post-Covid Washington may be less receptive to radical innovations in a beloved operatic piece.  The audience responded warmly to the unimaginative staging and interpretations, at least during the gala evening, which created its own excitement.  

In an effort to bring people back to live performances, opera companies worldwide offer packages that are most likely to please their patrons and keep them entertained. If it takes bringing a white horse to the stage, so be it. But ultimately, only excellence and creativity will keep the genre alive. 

WNO's Carmen runs at the Kennedy Center Opera House through May 28. 

Washington National Opera Returns to Stage With Mozart's Opera Buffa

After a two-year hiatus caused by the pandemic, the Washington National Opera has returned to the stage. It was not a spectacular opening Saturday night in the Kennedy Center's Opera House, with a grand opera and hundreds of performers, but rather a Mozart piece for six soloists and a small chorus and orchestra in a smaller hall. Così fan tutte is ranking third of the three operas Mozart wrote with Italian librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte, and many consider it no more than a fluffy comedic piece with a ridiculous plot. But there is more to this rom-com than meets the eye.

For me Così fan tutte is worth seeing for many reasons, perhaps first and foremost for its unique and unforgettable terzetto "Soave sia il vento."  My first encounter with the languidly sad melody was in the movie based on Edith Warton's book The House of Mirth. It haunted me all the way home and the next day to a music store to get the complete opera in a CD set.

The story of two pairs of naive and romantic lovers brought down to earth by their elderly friend is silly if you take it literally. Young soldiers Guglielmo and Ferrando are madly in love with sisters Fiordiligi and Dorabella respectively and are convinced of their fidelity. The elderly and experienced Don Alfonso contends that all women will succumb to flirtation if given a chance, and that Fiordiligi and Dorabella are no exception. He persuades the younger men to accept a bet, which could turn lucrative for him if he can make the girls accept new lovers within a day of their fiancés' absence. Alonso enlists the help of the girls' maid Despina to ensure his victory. According to the deal, Ferrando and Guglielmo will pretend they were called to war and will sail away on the waves of the heavenly aria "Soave sia il vento"  (let the wind be gentle), sung by Fiordiligi, Dorabella and Don Alfonso. They will then immediately return dressed as Albanians (that's the really preposterous part) and try to seduce each other's girlfriend (if you can believe that a mustache and strange clothes can make a man entirely unrecognizable). Don Alfonso triumphs with Despina's help and the lovers, now taught a lesson, reconcile.

Ferrando and Guglielmo, photo by Scott Suchman

The title Così fan tutte suggests, as Don Alfonso claims, that all women are unfaithful or prone to deceit. You could hear patrons on Saturday comment that it is "not a very feminist" opera and that it reflects the attitude of men towards women in Mozart's time. But any serious Mozart connoisseur knows that the composer had too much respect and admiration for women to portray them as weaklings. His heroines are bold, intelligent, devious and determined not to be victimized. Think of Pamina, Donna Anna, Susanna. They are manipulative if they need to be, and they teach their men a lesson. Queen of the Night is bloodthirsty in her drive for revenge against ex-husband. 

Contrary to the title, which quotes Don Alfonso, the opera makes gentle fun of human failings in general, not only women, and calls for the need to lower one's expectations from a relationship. As such, it is a good lesson to prospective couples today who plan to marry with a set of expectations from the future spouse.  

Yes, a story about couple-swapping, and women falling for ridiculous disguise and false declarations of love may seem frivolous, but it's a story that challenges traditional notions of strength of character and honor. Fiordiligi is trying very hard to deny her desires, considering them shameful, and vows to be strong "like a rock immovable against the winds and tempest ("Come scoglio"), but in the end her softer side prevails. The younger sister Dorabella doesn't even try to resist the declarations of passionate love. And what of the men? Mozart makes fun of their weaknesses too: their excessive pride, braggadocio, easily shaken trust, naïveté ... 

To make the plot more realistic, opera houses have resorted to modern adaptations with various success. The settings have been transferred from the old Naples into different places and periods, from the 1950s Coney Island to some phantasmagorical place in a future era. The last production I saw in Washington was set in contemporary America. Fiordiligi and Dorabella were admiring their boyfriend's pictures on smartphones, and their lovers returned disguised as tattooed, leather-clad and chain-adorned bikers. Instead of drinking hot chocolate from fine china, the girls sipped their lattes from plastic cups. Presented in the Kennedy Center's spacious opera house, the set seemed a little too minimalist, not to say empty. The writer of the English surtitles replaced the original lines with a few puns on local themes, which drew hearty laughs without hurting the original text, sung in Italian.

The WNO's new production was conceived much better.  First, it was placed in a smaller and more intimate Eisenhower Theater, ideal for this quasi-chamber piece.  There was no attempt to transplant the opera into a contemporary setting. The simplified decor by Erhard Rom was warm and accogliente and just ornate enough to provide the right background for the lovely period costumes, designed by Lynly Saunders. Occasionally, a drawing of the god of love with his arrow, or a couple of love birds, or some funny message popped up in the background to draw audience's laughs.   

The singers portraying the two couples were young and convincing. Soprano Laura Wilde was adequately serious and tormented as the elder sister Fiordiligi. She offered a solid rendition of her central aria "Come Scoglio" and sang beautifully throughout. Mezzo-soprano Rihab Chaieb was easily the most irresistible Dorabella I have ever seen, in both looks and voice. She was flirtatious and charming, or naive and silly as the situation required, all without exaggeration. Tenor Kang Wang stole the show for me with his radiant voice and ardent mien. I can see him rule the stage in the future when he masters more nuance to suit Ferrando's various moods. His dynamics never seemed to move more than a notch or two from the forte, and after many arias it sounded like more of the same, no matter how beautiful it was. Baritone Andrey Zhilikovsky's charmed with his warm simplicity as a friend as well as a lover. 

Don Alfonso and Despina in one of her many disguises, photo by Scott Suchman

I first saw Ana María Martínez eight years ago as Carmen in Santa Fe. She was good but not memorable, perhaps because one expected Carmen to be a mezzo. She pleasantly surprised me as the shrewd, but fun-loving maid Despina. Her comic gestures were never overdone, and she was a delight whenever she appeared on the stage.

Legendary Italian bass Ferruccio Furlanetto was a bit of a disappointment as Don Alfonso. I remember him as an impressive Philip II in Don Carlo, but in the role of Don Alfonso, other singers seem to have much more fun. Furlanetto seemed bored and his don was more of an old curmudgeon in need of funds than an elderly gentleman, seeking to help the younger generation. Even so, Furlanetto's powerful voice and presence tended to dominate the stage. 

The opera is a string of melodic arias, with their moods ranging from giddy to dramatic to serious. Most of the mood transitions take place in the second-act garden scene, when falsely ardent lovers, in this production dressed in what looked more like Indian than Albanian garb, court and win each other's fiancee. The women's defiant attitudes gradually soften, while the men become increasingly miserable as they see their loved ones fail them. The conversion takes its course and, unfortunately, sooner or later viewers reach a point of saturation despite the beauty of singing.  For many, the opera starts to drag as is obvious from how many mobile phones come out. No matter which way the work is repackaged (in some cases producers create additional background action) that scene feels too long for an average opera goer, particularly the one who is not convinced the story has any value in the first place. 

Ferrando and Fiordiligi, observed by scheming Don Alonso and miserable Guglielmo, photo by Scott Suchman

Stage director Alison Moritz has made her best effort to enliven the garden scene in the WNO production, making Dorabella bolder than usual in accepting her new lover. Moritz also tampered with the finale. I wonder if anyone else noticed or whether it was my imagination, but it seemed that once the couples swapped partners, the new pairs remained together even after the deceit had been unveiled. In other words, Fiordiligi stayed with her erstwhile sister's fiancé Ferrando, while Dorabella continued to cling to Guglielmo, formerly Fiordiligi's boyfriend. In the classic version, each returns to their original partner. Did Moritz want to simplify the confusion, or make the women appear less flighty, or did I get something wrong? 

Japanese-German Conductor Erina Yashima, currently assistant conductor of the Philadelphia Orchestra, received a warm applause in her important US operatic debut.  

WNO opened this first night of its post-Covid season with the Ukrainian national anthem as has become customary for many cultural organizations worldwide.

The last performance of the new production of Così fan tutte is scheduled for March 26.

Reading in the Time of Covid

During last year's restrictions, I thought the best way to spend leisure time was reading. In the normal times I would have loved to have that much time to tackle a growing pile of books next to my bed. But 2020 was an abnormal year that stretched everyone's nerves to the point of snapping - not only with the pandemic, but also with the craziness surrounding the US presidential election and the aftermath. So I could not concentrate on any serious book. Only after the inauguration and the early 2021 vaccination campaign, tensions began to ease, and I was again able to read more than just news headlines. So here is a potpourri of the works I've read in the past year and a half. 

I don't recall in what order I read the works, so I will start with the most memorable: a shortish novel by Syrian writer Khaled Khalifa, titled Death is Hard Work. The summary, which said the book is about three siblings taking their father's dead body for burial through conflict-ridden Syria, was not at all promising. I expected more of the newspaper-style chronicling of the atrocities in the war-torn country. But instead of dwelling on the horrors of war, Khalifa's novel offers a portrayal of a disconnected family, further estranged by the political conflict. The head of the family is charismatic rebel leader Abdel Latif al-Salima, respected and perhaps even loved by his community, but feared and avoided by his children. The outwardly strong authoritarian figure is plagued by a  tragedy from his youth, which could have been avoided if he had had the necessary strength to act on his conscience.  He makes his three adult children promise they will take him across conflicted country to his native village to be buried next to his sister.  They never quite understand why it is so important to him, but feel that their promise is sacred and must be fulfilled. 

Abdel Latif's two sons and a daughter are as different from each other as can be, and feel no familial bond either with their father or with one another.  During the travel, confined in a van with the decaying corpse, the estranged siblings examine their lives, each painfully aware of past delusions and ultimate inability to take control of their destiny.

Fatima ruminates over her adolescent belief that she was beautiful and desirable because she had many marriage offers. By now divorced, she is painfully aware that her former husband always despised her and married her only to elevate his social status through the connection to her father.  The youngest son, Bolbol, understands that fear has turned his life into a complete failure. In the past, he did not have the courage to marry the only woman he had ever loved because she was Christian, and in the present, he lives in fear that his father's rebellion will cost him his job in the government-controlled area. The eldest son, once cocky and boisterous Hussein, becomes taciturn during the journey. After delivering the corpse to the remaining relatives in father's native village, the siblings separate to rush back to their own lives with no intention of ever seeing one another again. The father's body, delivered in a terrible state of decay, had to be buried in the nearest available place and that was nowhere near his sister's grave.

Despite its relative brevity (cca 190 pages), the novel had the same impact on me as the comprehensive classic family sagas, such as The Buddenbrooks or The Thibaults. The conclusion reveals Abdel Latif's painful secret and the reason why he wanted to be buried next to his sister.  The determination to atone for his failure to save her makes him more humane in the eyes of the reader, though not in the eyes of his children. Although the conclusion is well-founded and logical, it is not predictable, and it made this novel a real treasure for me! I am so glad I found it.

I also joined an online book club last year, which I had sworn I would never do. I did it not to discuss books as much as to get an idea what new publications are out there that might inspire me to read again. The first listing I came across, the award-winning Trust Exercise by Susan Choi, was wasted on me, except that it gave me an idea where the contemporary fiction might be heading: toward complicated writing that needs to be deciphered and explained to be understood. The characters change names and faces as we move along, making it hard to identify with any of them. Sometimes you don't know who they are and where they come from. Once stripped of these special effects, the plot boils down to a condemnation of child abuse, a worthy cause to be sure, but why be so convoluted about it?

The next few books of the month at the Vox book club, including a vampire trilogy, were never going to make it to my bedside table, but then came Akwaeke Emeze's The Death of Vivek Oji, which sparked interest. I had seen it at my local bookstore and was wondering whether it was worth reading, so the book club gave me the necessary nudge.  It was worth it.  The book is a classical tale of parent-child disconnect, but what made this one especially interesting was the context in which ancient Nigerian traditions and superstitions push against the contemporary trends and western influence. It was a good insight into the increasingly diverse world we live in and a revelation that similar social changes take place everywhere, not just in the west.  I also learned about the so-called Niger-wives, foreign women who marry Nigerian men and settle in Nigeria. The title character's mother is Indian. The description of his waist-long black hair made me wonder whether it was curly like his father's, or straight and slick like his mother's. What also makes this book a compelling read is the suspense that keeps you on edge from the very first page till the end, when you learn how Vivek died. 

Perusing through used books in a thrift store some months later, my attention was drawn to the only name I recognized: the more famous Nigerian writer, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. I had been thinking of getting Americanah, but Half of a Yellow Sun at 50 cents could not be passed up. And what a fortunate find! Everyone growing up in the Balkans has heard of very slim individuals being described as "coming from Biafra." The phrase was inspired by news media images of emaciated children, dying from starvation in the area that fought for independence from Nigeria. I had forgotten all about Biafra until Adichie's book, which looks at its history through the eyes of different people.  

One reason that may have contributed to my enjoyment of the book is that I read it immediately after Douglas Stuart's highly acclaimed Shuggie Bain. While the novel about an alcoholic mother and her three children living on the outskirts of Glasgow is well written, it is so depressing that I had to take long breaks in between chapters and ultimately struggle to finish it. The misery of the people, relentlessly pounded in your brain, page after page after page, desensitizes it to the point where you can't feel any compassion. The title character, the youngest of the three siblings, is additionally "different" from other kids and therefore the most vulnerable, and clinging to his mother the longest. But the book is more about his mother Agnes than about him. Instead of sympathizing with the victimized children and unfortunate parents in the impoverished Thatcher-era coal mine areas, the unending ugliness coming at me from every page alienated me from every character in the book and made me think: surely even the poorest and most helpless people have some happy moments every now and then in their lives. Critics seem to think differently, and the book has received nothing but praise.  Hardly anyone dares to admit they did not like it, except some Glaswegians who fear the book is giving the Scottish city a bad reputation.

I also combed through my own library, knowing there are books in it I have not yet read. One of them is a collection of writings from the Boka Kotorska area (an Adriatic Sea bay not so far from Dubrovnik) collected and lovingly presented by my friend Slobodan Prosperov Novak, a great linguist, literary researcher and top authority on Croatian literature. The 300-page book contains mostly poems, but also folk tales, letters and articles and from the Boka region, written between the late 15th and early 19th century.  The most surprising piece I came across was a letter written to U.S. Congress in April of 1782.  Signed by Warta (one word only and does not sound like a Slavic name) the letter appears to be in response to a message sent to the writer by members of Congress. The author praises the revolution against the English rulers and advises congressmen to avoid modeling their government after Plato's Republic or Thomas More's Utopia, which he says are unviable, but to create a new type of monarchy. Instead of placing on the throne a real person, the letter writer suggests they should make their king from oak to ensure his longevity and worldwide admiration. This strange, metaphoric letter ends with wishing the U.S. lawmakers success and their young country long-lasting independence. It is dated April 15, which is four days before the Netherlands recognized the United States, the second country to do so after Morocco. 

Then came a contemporary Croatian book Dark Mother Earth by currently the most exciting Croatian writer, Kristian Novak. I read it in the excellent English translation by Ellen Elias-Bursac, which is available on Amazon, unlike Novak's newest and best book Ciganin, ali najljepši  (Gypsy, But the Fairest of Them All ), which has not been translated yet and one has to ask why. Meanwhile, Dark Mother Earth displays all of the writer's best qualities, except for a somewhat banal opening. It would be a pity if that opening made someone put the book aside, because once you get past it, the work is mesmerizing. A young boy living in the Croatian backwaters north of the capital Zagreb, is haunted by nightmares, or so we think, until we learn that his seemingly unreasonable fears are inspired by the true evil around him. Adults only whisper about the crime in their midst, but pretend not to see. The boy's childhood memories fade once the family moves to Zagreb, but deeply buried dark visions resurface when least expected, and affect his behavior. They follow him to young adulthood, but having forgotten their origin, he is not aware what prompts him to act weird, until he delves deep into his past to free himself.  Extraordinary book and highly recommended.

Linked loosely to the same part of the world, is Tea Obrecht's Tiger's Wife, which was widely praised as a first book by a young author in America when it came out in 2011. Obrecht is an immigrant from former Yugoslavia, but the book did not seem to go well with her fellow expats who could not recognize any of the "folk stories" in it.  Tigers do not normally appear in the folklore from the Balkans, but the author may have used the exotic animal to underline the uniqueness of the woman in the story. I read the book because someone gave it to me, explaining that I knew the man who had married Obrecht's mother. Is this a good reason to read a book? Who knows. After a somewhat dull beginning, Obrecht's "folk legends" brought the book to life. True, they do not have much to do with the region. Perhaps that's exactly why credit must be given to the author’s imagination. Obrecht has written another book since, titled Inland, but somehow I am not tempted to read it.

My greater ambition: to finish Alex Ross's grand opus Wagnerism during the Covid-induced paralysis was a total failure. The main reason was my inability to concentrate on any reading last year, but knowing much about Wagner already had an effect too. Do I really need to know what every single European intellectual, no matter how obscure, said about Wagner? Ross is to be commended for this scrupulous study of Wagner's influence on the world during and after his lifetime, but I enjoyed his earlier book The Rest is Noise much more. About a third way through, Wagnerism was put aside and I have not yet been tempted to take it up again.

Among the new titles coming out this fall, I have noticed a new, never-before-published book by the 20th-century feminist icon Simone de Beauvoir. Apparently, Beauvoir and lifelong partner Jean Paul Sartre had decided this manuscript was not worth publishing, but her descendants thought otherwise. I am more inclined to trust Beauvoir and Sartre. Having read Beauvoir's novel She Came to Stay before and during Covid (yes, I actually did do some reading in 2020) I was bored to tears with tedious "intellectual" conversations that are all but meaningless today. Supposedly based on her own "open" liaison with Jean-Paul Sartre, this work of fiction tackles a ménage-à-trois comprising a sophisticated middle-aged Parisian couple and a young provincial girl whom the two have taken under their wings. The younger woman gradually takes over the man and ruins the once solid relationship between the intellectual equals. The only way to get rid of her is to kill her. Blah. Beauvoir is best known for her non-fiction work The Second Sex, a study of the treatment of women throughout centuries. 

The new publication, titled Inseparable, is due in the book stores any day now.  It deals with Beauvoir's lifelong friendship with a woman, and perhaps she has some insights to offer into how that works.  But if it is anything like She Came to Stay, the book may topple the avant-garde icon from her pedestal. 

I have read a few more books in the past months that are not worth mentioning.

If you have any good ones to recommend, please make your comments bellow. I am looking for something that will really knock me off my feet. 

Kentucky Unfried

After a year and a half of short car trips only, it seems best to test the waters of post-Covid air travel gradually. For me, a non-stop one-and-a-half-hour flight to Louisville, Kentucky was it. Why Louisville, everyone I told about my trip asked. Why indeed? Apart from the relative proximity, Kentucky was one of only three states I had never visited and, I admit, I was a little curious about the people who keep electing the same turtle-looking senator term after term after term. Louisville turned out to be an excellent choice. The weather was perfect, and the city had a lot to offer, but...

Louisville is home to world-renowned Kentucky Derby Horse Race

... if you are inclined to spend less than a week in Louisville, make sure you visit between Thursday and Sunday. The city sleeps the rest of the week, which means most of the museums, shops and cafes are closed, there are no tours and the streets are generally deserted. It is hard to tell whether the pandemic has something to do with it, or the Kentuckians take seriously the finding that working too much is a health hazard.

Barge on the Ohio River

Cruises on the Ohio River run only on Saturdays, the Visitor Center and the Speed Art Museum work Wednesday through Saturday, and a top historical attraction, the Conrad-Caldwell House Museum, opens only on weekends.

Conrad-Caldwell House Museum in Old Louisville  

Louisville is the only city I have visited that does not have hop-on-hop-off tours. The closest thing is the City Taste Tour, run by a local entrepreneur, and sold out weeks in advance. Another company that offers tours is Trolley De'Ville, but it seems to specialize in catering to groups. I have not seen any individual tickets for sale online and no one answered the phone. I did find out that you can book a trolley tour for $414 for an undetermined number of people.  The most popular bourbon distillery tours can cost over $1,000 and the cheaper ones are impossible to get into. If they are available, that information is hard to find online. And any information about Louisville online is unreliable.

For example, a free circular bus Lou and Lift offers the following information: 

"The 4th Street bus travels 4th Street, from Churchill Downs to the Galt House, and circles around Fourth Street Live! entertainment district by taking 5th Street northbound and 2nd Street southbound. Weekday 7 a.m. – 7 p.m. • Saturday 10 a.m. – 6 p.m. Silver signs indicate stops for the 4th Street LouLift."

The silver signs I saw included a number to call for information, but all I got was a recorded message. After waiting for half an hour for the bus to appear, and getting no answer on the phone, my friend and I learned from a regular bus driver that the free circular bus has not run for more than a year because of Covid. So how hard was it to put that information online or on a recorded phone message?

One of the best things that is always available and at a short notice in Louisville is a walking tour provided by a local history buff David Dominé. It's fun, at $25 it's affordable, and you really learn something you did not know about Louisville: that Tom Cruise attended high school there, that the Happy Birthday song was composed there, that local witches whipped up a dangerous storm in 1890 after their beloved tree was cut down, and that they caused a new one to grow from its stump. Dominé has written several books on Louisville ghosts and said he lives in a haunted house himself.

Witches's Tree, a tourist attraction in Old Louisville

The Muhammad Ali Museum is closed only Mondays and Tuesdays so it is likely to be open during a short visit. Even if you are not a boxing fan, the museum is a must for young people to learn about Ali's path from a celebrity boxer to human rights activist. I saw enough of Ali on TV in my salad days, but did not remember he was from Louisville until I landed at the Louisville Muhammad Ali International Airport.  

The Muhammad Ali Museum

One of the rare institutions in Louisville that are open seven days a week is the Kentucky Derby Museum. It would be a real shame if it weren't. After all, that's the #1 attraction in Kentucky and makes the city famous worldwide. 

Another thing doable at any time in Louisville is crossing the Big Four pedestrian bridge over the Ohio River into Indiana. Not much to do there except grabbing a cool drink and fried food, and watching the Louisville skyline from the Indiana bank of the Ohio River.

Big Four Bridge, Louisville

                    

Of course, you can always take a self-guided tour of the old city and admire the grand Victorian mansions, each boasting its own individual variation of the period architecture.

 

 

Downtown Louisville is also attractive. Not to be missed is the historic Brown Hotel with its elegant dining room on the second floor. Of course, the gift shop was closed when we visited on a Tuesday. Further up on the way to the river is 4th Street pedestrian area with pubs and eateries where you can have pizza or sample traditional local barbecue.

The up-and-coming East Market District, also known as NuLu, is home to small art galleries and a growing number of fancy restaurants and indie boutiques. We ate the best-ever hamburger and a fine Cuban sandwich, with a side of mouth-watering grilled Brussel sprouts, at The Grind Burger Kitchen Grille and had world-class espressos in several new coffee shops. The nearby area is home to the Slugger Field and popular Angel's Envy bourbon distillery. The tours fill up well in advance, so unprepared as we were, we could not get in. The downside of NuLu is its size. Places of interest are dispersed over a large area, surrounded by a network of major roads and highways. It takes long walks - too long under the mid-day sun - to get from one point of interest to another in NuLu. 

Not so the adjacent Highlands area. Its main drag, Baxter Avenue, is packed with shops, pubs, restaurants, karaoke bars and cafes that keep it busy day and night, especially Thursday through Saturday. Baxter Avenue may be flanked by cemeteries, but there is nothing somber about it. The locally-owned shops offer hand-crafted goods, indie fashion, books and artisanal breads. Unlike gentrified hubs in other U.S.  cities, central Louisville avoids mass-produced goods sold in chain stores such as Madewell, Gap, Zara, H & M, Urban Outfitters or TJ Maxx. The Louisville Zoo, with camel rides and a splash park, is also located in Highlands.  The Cave Hill Cemetery draws visitors who want to see the final resting places of boxing champion Muhammad Ali and founder of Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant chain Colonel Harland David Sanders. Sister Patty and Mildred Hill, who composed the Happy Birthday song, also are interred there. Residential streets off Baxter Avenue are worth checking out for elegant homes and manicured gardens. 

Louisville seems to be a perfect place to live: with just over 600,000 inhabitants it's not too big, it's beautiful, it has good public transportation and a surprisingly large number of performing art venues for a city of its size. On our last evening in Louisville, we were treated to a free performance of Pinter's Shakespeare in Love in Central Park, just two blocks away from our B & B.

Local people did not seem any different from us here in Washington D.C., but I think I figured out Mitch's secret: he makes sure the elections are held Monday through Wednesday when Kentucky goes to sleep.

Arts and Culture in the Post-Covid Era

Sometime in May Washington area's music organizations started selling tickets for tentatively scheduled live summer concerts. The first sales went very much like the early offers of Pfizer and Moderna vaccines. You had to get your computer ready ahead of the appointed start of the ticket sales and jump in as quickly as you could into the organization's website. The battle for a seat, or rather seats since individual tickets were not available, was as fierce as the battle for a vaccine in January and February. The experience reminded me of my youth in former Yugoslavia, where often we had to line up and fight for our share of coffee, tooth paste, toilet paper or some other scarce commodity.

The first concert to line up for as the Covid restrictions eased in May was the National Symphony Orchestra's performance at the Kennedy Center, featuring Russian virtuoso pianist Daniil Trifonov. The immediate obstacle was logging into my account. The website kept rejecting my user name and password. If I tried to get in as a guest, I was able to move two seats into the shopping bin, but when I reached the payment page the frustration continued. The system automatically added a $50 donation to your bill, which theoretically you could refuse, but when you did, your seats disappeared from the shopping basket. My friend was trying simultaneously on her lap top with the same result. We concluded that only people who agreed to pay the donation could purchase tickets. By the time we figured that out, all the tickets were gone. 

I managed to obtain a ticket through a different channel and saw what had sparked the fierce battle for seats. Out of 2,500 the Kennedy Center filled only about 260.  

Kennedy Center Concert Hall, May 28, 2021, photo: Z. Hoke

The small group of patrons ushered into the concert hall spoke in hushed tones as if going to a funeral.  Kennedy Center President Deborah Rutter struck a cheerful note with brightly colored clothes, better suited for a summer lunch al fresco than a Friday evening concert. She thanked the patrons for coming, seemingly oblivious of the struggle they had gone through to win the honor.

On arrival to the podium, Maestro Gianandrea Noseda was so emotional that he cut  his greeting short. Overall, the event, with a drastically reduced orchestra as well as the audience, had the aura of a rehearsal rather than a real concert, but when the music started, the magic of yore returned.

The opening set was Four Noveletten, a rarely heard work by black composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor. U.S. music organizations are now including at least one piece by a black composer in every new program to make up for years of neglect of African-American talent. The Coleridge-Taylor piece and Haydn's Symphony No. 95 that framed Shostakovich's Piano Concerto No.1 were pleasant, fluffy and forgettable in the face of the powerful piece performed by masters such as Trifonov at the piano and William Gerlach with the trumpet. 

GianandrGianandrea Noseda conducting NSO's forst 2021 concert, Photo: Scott Suchman

The second NSO concert on June 3 was designed to entertain. Called "surprise", it did not reveal the program except to say that Maestro Noseda would engage with the audience. Perhaps that's why it was a little easier to get the tickets. I expected a list of popular short pieces by well known composers, but I should have given more credit to Noseda. In many ways, the event was more fun than a usual classical music concert because it comprised six pieces that were either written by little known composers or were obscure pieces by well known composers. Noseda was in a cheerful mood as he made the audience guess what the orchestra was playing. Again, he opened with a black composer, William Grant Still. I had never heard Still's Serenade before, but was able to recognize that the music was American. I even whispered to my companion: "sounds like old Hollywood." As it turned out, Still had written arrangements for Hollywood musicals. 

The program included another black composer, Washington D.C. native George Walker, with his Lyric for Strings. Richard Strauss, Samuel Barber and Ottorino Respighi were probably the best known composers in the program, while Still, Walker and Italian Giovanni Bottesini were lesser known. Bottesini, dubbed the "Paganini of the double bass" is credited with developing bass technique that has opened up people's eyes (or ears) to the instrument's versatility.  NSO's, principal double-bass Robert Oppelt was given the opportunity to shine in Bottesini's Elegy No. 1 for Bass and Strings.

Noseda also showcased the orchestra's clarinetist Lin Ma, bassoonist Sue Heineman and harpist Adriana Horne in Strauss's Duet-Concertino for Clarinet and Bassoon with String Orchestra and Harp.

The most exciting piece for me was the closing, Respighi's Gli ucelli (Birds) whose tune I recognized immediately and could hum along all its five movements, but could not guess what it was. Don't you hate it when that happens?

The NSO will perform in Wolf Trap later this month, introducing another rare piece, The Anonymous Lover by Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges from 1870, another black composer.  How I would love to be there, but I'll be away.  I will return to Wolf  Trap in July after a two-year absence. The tickets for the two concerts I plan to attend were sold in "pods" of two to eight. While the small audiences at the Kennedy Center concerts felt sad despite the obvious advantages (no rustling of cough-drop wraps, or patrons sucking at their water bottles right next to your ear) a smaller audience at Wolf Trap's Filene Center will be a blessing. For years I have eschewed the mass shows there, opting instead for a more intimate setting at the Barns. But this summer that option is not available.

Museums also are reopening to a reduced number of visitors and shorter hours. The need to secure timed passes eliminates the spontaneity of going to see art when you feel like it. After three years of waiting (nothing to do with Covid) and several letters of complaint, I managed to obtain passes for the National Museum of African American History and Culture for June 30. Who knows if it will be hot or pouring on that day, whether I will have a headache, or whether I will feel like doing something entirely different, but June 30 it is and I should count my blessings.

The pandemic has taught me lessons: not to take free museums in DC for granted, to feel privileged when I am able to attend a concert or visit a museum, and to prepare physically and mentally for the cultural event I am seeing. Arts and culture deserve our full attention and appreciation, which we often forget when they are easily accessible.