Arts and recordings

In the upcoming year, I'll be sucking up the arts in the Bay area in grand style. The new season starts in August, and I've gotten subscriptions for the American Conservatory Theater, the San Francisco Symphony, the San Francisco Opera, and Cal Performances in Berkeley. I also renewed my membership to San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, which I'm able to walk to at lunch whenever a certain tristesse requires, say, Rothko. Highlights include

• Sweeney Todd at A.C.T.
• a new opera of The Little Prince (in Berkeley but joint with SF Opera)
  
• hell-yeah Rheingold at SF Opera (will I see the complete Ring over the next years?!?)
• two Mark Morris dances at Berkeley (including Hard Nut again; I imagine I may end up going twice; why oh why did I not go back to King Arthur again? Paul: when something in the world moves you that much and doesn't do damage to your body, pursue and seize it!)
• my FAVORITE PIECE OF MUSIC EVER, Das Lied von der Erde, with the man of the mane Thomas Hampson, at SF Symphony
• the world premiere of Philip Glass's opera Appomattox
• and much much more!!!

I hereby pledge to write something about each of these performances, whether it be just a paragraph of impressions or a complete review. Look for the first one (of Sweeney Todd) in early September!

In other news, I've begun making rather low-tech recordings of my new piano. I originally recorded a couple Shostakovich preludes for my friend D., who has fond memories of one in particular and has always been extremely encouraging to me. Recording is a fun but painful challenge; how many fumbles are allowed? Too few, and the recording is lifeless, electronic, mechanical. Too many, and the recording is embarrassing, pointless, unenjoyable. For the time being, it seems fun to keep these recordings casual and email them out to whoever is interested.

To that end, if you would like to receive these occasional recordings (in <5mb iTunes AAC files) or have a special request, please send me an email at pgmccurdy at yahoo!

Weepies

I've got a case of the weepies, and listening to Chrysothemis at the end of Elektra is not helping.

It was an emotional weekend. There was much progress on the instruments (notably on Moszkowski, Beethoven, and Rachmaninoff), but also a good deal of old-fashioned escapism. Well, there was some new-fangled escapism, too, but more on that later.

Let us say: Saturday morning I put on a movie and was drawn in and then completely destroyed. Anthony Minghella's Truly, Madly, Deeply -- what love and grief! As a film, perfect. As a story, perfect. I cried, tasting that strange salt for the first time in several months. I buried my face in my hands in the shower. And then had to share my emotion with the largest tear of all. Black-topped clouds still covered the horizon, making floating countries of the far-off hills. But the sun was bright and warm, and people were already swimming and surfing.

Listening now to Flamand profess his love. How lucky I do not have Zerbinetta and the Composer here with me! I would be in ruins!

Auntie's visit

These have been busy times. My aunt and I had a wonderful visit. Quickly:

On Tuesday night we had a quick ride back from the airport and dropped her things off in my humble abode. We two indecisives tried to decide on dinner; I suddenly had a flash of memory of the restaurant Home, which sits just at the gate of the Castro. Californian down-home eats would be a perfect transition for the Southern stomach. We drove home and stayed up late talking. I worried about my snoring, being only a few feet away.

Wednesday we ate at Louis' overlooking the Sutro Bath ruins, then coursed through Sea Cliff and ogled Robin Williams's house on the way to the Golden Gate Bridge. We crossed in fairly clear skies and stopped on the other side to take in the view. The dome of the Palace of Fine Arts shone. We traveled north, through Mill Valley, and up and then down into Muir Woods, which provided relief from the cold San Francisco winds. We came out to the coast and traveled south high above the water's edge, though the road wasn't as scary as I had remembered. We stopped in Sausalito, grabbed some fish, and then went up into the Marin hills for more spectacular views of the Golden Gate. Across the bridge again to the Palace of Fine Arts, which is looking great after its recent restoration. The unnaturally green water was full of fish and ducks and turtles. From the gorgeous dome to Lombard Street, which was full of appreciative, smiling visitors, and up Telegraph Hill to Coit Tower. A drive through Chinatown, a stop at Trader Joe's for seductive cheap eats, and we stopped by B.'s and visited with him and his own visiting friend, L. There was some small, lively, interesting debate about etiquette and politeness, as well as insight into the world of orchestral musicians.

Thursday morning we had bagels and cream cheese and drove the short thirty blocks to the Japanese Tea Garden in Golden Gate Park. We strolled around and had jasmine tea in the center. We walked down to the Conservatory of Flowers (pictured above) and checked out the orchids and special exhibit of carnivorous plants. They made us hungry, so we drove over to the Haight and ate Ethiopian at Massawa. We drove home and changed clothes for the recital in Berkeley, then picked up B. and L. I was in a bit of a tizzy -- we were running late, and I wasn't sure how supportive L. would be of our amateur strivings. Indeed, there was a small debate in the car on the way there about playing for fun versus playing for money, which I'll probably write about in the next weeks. We had a very cozy Thursday crowd, our rushed Beethoven and Mozart came off nicely, the Mendelssohn was exciting, and B. sang some beautiful Pergolesi arias.

Friday morning we went back to Louis' for breakfast (auntie's request -- she must have liked it!). It was foggy, but no matter since we were headed to the warm Sonoma valley. We stopped in square downtown, which was lovely, and got some wine advice from the visitor's center. We went to Benziger winery, got a tractor-pulled tour of the fields and cave, and tasted some delicious wine. Auntie was afraid my sips had rendered me unable to operate a motor vehicle, but we made it back to the city safely and did some serious walking around the Embarcadero and Pier 39. We ate at Scoma's; her fish cakes were pretty tasty, but otherwise the restaurant was a bit of a disaster. (They didn't even attempt to disguise the fact that they are an overpriced Red Lobster. The pasta and vegetables were straight out of my own boxes and frozen foods!) For dessert we got a dozen of the mini donuts I'd told her about (Auntie: 3, Paulie: 9), and we braved the cold evening winds to check out the one or two sea lions still lounging about.

Saturday morning we woke and drove to the airport and, alas, Auntie returned to her nice new house on the hot and humid Ala-damn-bama-Georgia border. Which probably felt pretty good after the arctic winds of the San Francisco summer.

Pictures from our visit are here.