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By the way, he didn’t say it: “There’s a sucker born every minute.” But it sounds good.

Thinking about television, entertainment in general, I got to wondering if it is really any different than in the day of P T Barnum (Phineas Taylor, 1810-1891). Good Connecticut boy, born on the fifth of July. Son of an innkeeper, avers to hard work, ingenious, scheming. He wrote his own memoirs well before his death. He even served two terms in the Connecticut legislature, and was mayor of Bridgeport.

Maybe the people were more naïve, but with the way we have passively gobbled the phenomenon of so-called “reality” television, I think we shouldn’t give ourselves too much credit for sophistication.

Barnum was the first truly successful “humbug,” con artist, an itinerant showman who was keenly aware of opportunity.

He moved to New York and acquired a building on Ann Street which became “Barnum’s AmericanMuseum.” You know the Ives song “Ann Street”: Quaint name, Ann Street, width of same, ten feet, but business! Both feet. Rather short, Ann Street.

One of his “exhibits” was a woman named Joyce Heth. She was alleged to have been George Washington’s nurse. A blind, mostly paralyzed slave. Never mind that her billed age was 161. All the right buttons were pushed: patriotism, extremity (in this case, longevity), the freak factor. She died in 1838 at age 80.

“General Tom Thumb” the world’s littlest person. (Not.) Queen Victoria was impressed. I prefer Ravel’s “Petit Poucet” any day.

A “Feejee mermaid.”

Yet, amid all these garish tricks, he managed to find and import a true artist, the “Swedish Nightingale,” Soprano Jenny Lind (Johanna Maria Lind, 1820-1887). She toured all over America in 1850, singing with her trademark coloratura (agility) and charisma, earning herself and Barnum the biggest fortune of any of his schemes. She was paid $1000 a night for 150 nights. But she was an “exhibition” too, a circus act if you will.

Eventually rivals and other hucksters would merge their efforts into what is still called the Ringling Brothers, Barnum and Bailey Circus.

It’s not like he was completely amoral however. He gave generously to many social causes, and had progressive views for his time, on the subject of contraception, for example.

Think for yourself people, and try to evaluate what you’re seeing, being given, hearing, reading. Don’t just swallow it.

© 2014 by Frank Daykin, for Innovative Music Programs

 

 

Some days, words just don’t cut it. Therefore, images, from one of my favorite twentieth century artists, Paul Klee (1879-1940).

“Art does not reproduce the visible—it makes visible.”

“Myself is a dramatic ensemble.”

© 2014 by Frank Daykin, for Innovative Music Programs

 

You know you’re in trouble when the “B” players in your opera outshine the stars. That was the case in the recent brief run of Andrea Chénier at the Metropolitan Opera.

Now I’m not one of those lamenters who constantly evoke some “golden age” of singing, which is usually mythical anyway, a product of the built-in forgetter we all have. I believe that now is all we have, and that the voices need to be cast with care. This is incredibly difficult to achieve in a house like the Met, where decisions are made as many as five years ahead of time, which is an eternity in vocal terms, and where the house is inappropriately large.

The opera, set in the French Revolution and Terror immediately following, is by Umberto Giordano. Premiered in 1896, during the heyday of verismo, which means “truth,” the title role has been a vehicle for the likes of Gigli, DelMonaco, Tucker, Bergonzi, and Corelli. For me, verismo indicates not only a style of opera, but a specific vocal weight and color, shot through with charged emotion.

That quality is what was lacking here. However, Argentinian tenor Marcelo Alvarez actually won me over, once I got used to his essentially lyrical sound (not in itself a bad thing to have!) instead of the heavier more impassioned sound I hungered for. It’s just that the music isn’t strong enough by itself, unless the singers are really chewing the scenery with their voices. It’s the kind of opera that really doesn’t even need staging: one could just face the footlights and bellow, if the quality was good, and get the points across.

Patricia Racette, the soprano lead, on the other hand, has been getting bad advice from her agent, or is greedy, or I don’t know what. She has increasingly been singing roles that are way too heavy for her (Tosca? Cio-Cio San?), and that are all over the place in terms of vocal heft. I even heard her Carmen (!) at the now-defunct City Opera. (I know, some soprani have tried it in the past, with the keys raised, but this was in the mezzo key.) At that performance, an opera neophyte whom I had taken turned to me and (about Racette) uttered the charmingly direct “Where’s the beef?” As Maddalena in Chénier, Racette was not up to the demands of the part, even skewing horribly sharp and/or flat on climaxes. Sometimes it sounded as if she was both at once.

Now, about that “B” role. Olesya Petrovam a Russian mezzo, made her Met debut in the opera-stealing role of Madelon, who offers her only remaining grandson to the cause, knowing he will certainly be cut down. This was a “wow” moment. As was Zeljko Lucic’s Nemico della patria.

Maybe the casting director(s) need to be taken to the Conciergerie.

© 2014 by Frank Daykin, for Innovative Music Programs

 

What a range! And obviously, what an ability to work with diverse larger-than-life personalities. From Bette Davis (Best Actress Oscar) and Henry Fonda in Jezebel; Merle Oberon and Laurence Olivier in Wuthering Heights; Davis again in The Letter; Greer Garson (Best Actress Oscar) and Walter Pidgeon in Mrs Miniver (also Best Director and Best Picture); Davis again in The Little Foxes; Myrna Loy, Frederick March (Best Actor Oscar), Dana Andrews in The Best Years of Our Lives (also Best Director and Best Picture); Olivia de Haviland (Best Actress Oscar) and Montgomery Clift in The Heiress; Audrey Hepburn (Best Actress Oscar) and Gregory Peck in Roman Holiday; Charlton Heston (Best Actor Oscar) in Ben Hur (also Best Director and Best Picture); and all the way up to Barbra Streisand (Best Actress Oscar, but a tie with Katherine Hepburn for The Lion in Winter) in Funny Girl.

The legacy of director William Wyler (1902-1981), the “bona fide perfectionist.” Born in France to Alsatian Jews. Worked for a while as a shirt seller in Paris. Related to Universal’s Carl Laemmle through his mother’s family. Emigrated to Hollywood. Both his wives were named Margaret. Convenient for when you’re calling that name out in the throes of passion.

All told, fourteen of his actors won Oscars, out of a record thirty-six of his actors being nominated.

According to anecdote, noted violinist Toscha Seidel (famed for his lush tone, and who made his career in the studios of Hollywood movies) told Wyler: “Mr Wyler, you do not vibrato by shaking your leg.” The director wanted a more visually demonstrative expression of the player’s emotion.

Wyler himself was quite pithy: “I made over forty Westerns. I used to lie awake nights trying to think up new ways of getting on and off a horse.” “It’s eighty percent script and twenty percent you get great actors. There’s nothing else to it.” And “Stills belong in the lobby, not on the screen.”

So, dust off your Netflix subscription, stop binge watching House of Cards, and spend some time with a legend or two.

© 2014 by Frank Daykin, for Innovative Music Programs

Sir Henry Wood had the most inelegant way of expressing things that were perfectly normal. At a rehearsal of the Tannhäuser overture, when the much-used special sets of orchestral parts Sir Henry had devised in order to prevent constant page turning became difficult to keep on the stands, he exclaimed: “Me private parts! Must have ’em sewn up!” In fugal passages he exhorted the orchestra to “pull out your subject with vigour.”

 © 2014 by Frank Daykin, for Innovative Music Programs

 

Maybe it was the omnipresent, overly talked to death Oscar telecast of last week. I found myself thinking about where the material comes from for these movies. Best original screenplay. Best adapted screenplay. There we go. Adapted. Novels, right? Plays?

Did you know that a great many classic films have a short story as the basis for the script? Just imagining how to flesh out the focused smaller length of a short story got me going.

Here’s a short list: (Film/Story/Author): All About Eve/The Wisdom of Eve/Mary Orr. Guys and Dolls/The Idyll of Miss Sarah Brown/Damon Runyan. The Heartbreak Kid/A Change of Plan/Bruce Jay Friedman. It Happened One Night/Night Bus/Samuel Hopkins Adams. It’s a Wonderful Life/The Greatest Gift/Philip van Doren Stern. Psycho/The Real Bad Friend/Robert Bloch. The Last Time I Saw Paris/Babylon Revisited/F Scott Fitzgerald. 2001: A Space Odyssey/The Sentinel/Arthur C Clarke.

Wouldn’t you like to investigate the original story and see how and where it diverges?     Sometimes the short story is just too short, or lacks dialog, so much has to be invented, “opened up” as they say.

Then it occurred to me, the 2005 movie “Brokeback Mountain” was adapted from a short story in the New Yorker by Annie Proulx. I remember ordering a reprint of the story so I could read it. It’s much gentler and more interior than the movie. Interior is hard to portray. However, I believe it is a worthwhile endeavor. I wish movies were more subtle, but then I’m weird.

© 2014 by Frank Daykin, for Innovative Music Programs

 

Once upon a time, there was grandeur in conducting, especially the British gentlemen: Hallé, Beecham, and Barbirolli. London-born “Sir John” was actually descended from a Venetian father and a French mother, in the great British tradition of musical geniuses from “elsewhere.” He always regarded himself as a “Cockney.” He became a freelance cellist in London during his youth. During WWI, he Anglicized his first name because the sergeant couldn’t pronounce the Italian.

He performed in the premiere of the Elgar Cello Concerto, but not as soloist, “merely” a member of the London Symphony.

Barbirolli (1899-1970) was Toscanini’s successor as conductor of the New York Philharmonic from 1936 to 1943. He treated New Yorkers to the premiere of Walton’s Façade, as well as a healthy amount of contemporary music, a lot of it British. He left during WWII because of union rules that conductors must be American citizens. He changed flights at the last minute, with actor Leslie Howard, whose plane was shot down.

Barbirolli saved the Hallé orchestra from dissolving in 1943, and remained its conductor for the rest of his life. Hallé was a wealthy industrialist who founded his own orchestra in Manchester in 1857. Can you imagine, say, Mark Zuckerberg founding an orchestra? Its survival was always precarious, despite the wealth behind it. In some seasons, only two concerts were played. Today, the organization continues, having expanded to youth orchestra, chorus, and community outreach programs.

Elgar, Delius, Vaughan Williams—you would turn to Sir John for a truly stylish “innate” interpretation. His Mahler, Sibelius, and even Schubert are still admired, via recordings. He insisted on exhaustive preparation, perhaps narrowing his total repertoire, but serving the music wonderfully. Neither did he disdain lighter repertoire, often programming Lehar and operetta excerpts.

There are over 38,000 (!) recordings/videos available, including rehearsal footage, so get thee to ThyTube!

© 2014 by Frank Daykin, for Innovative Music Programs

 

I guess it was a child containment strategy. Funny what you remember. Unfortunately, in my case, I remember way too much when it might be better to let some of it go.

The second house I lived in was built by my father for my mother, brand new, in 1960. Perry, Ohio, carved out of a corner of a 16 acre field that wasn’t used for much of anything, across US Route 20 from the main 500 acre farm.

It was a one story ranch, but had a full basement. Down there was the “playroom,” a euphemism for a concrete floor surrounded by a high plywood “fence,” painted a sickly light green, with a gate, the latch of which was out of the reach of inquisitive kid fingers.

Once you were in there, you were in there until someone came and got you. The hot water heater and furnace hummed nearby. There was, however, a television, probably the first one ever sold commercially. Black and white of course. Pre-cable.

I had my books and my stick horse from Romper Room and my imagination. And that TV.

It brought me the cartoons and Captain Kangaroo. That’s when I first saw the name or names “Hanna-Barbera.” I thought it was a person: Hanna Barbera. Hard-hearted Hanna, the vamp of . . .

Tom and Jerry chased each other inanely for 17 years, beginning in 1940. What I was seeing were the reruns.

Then The Flintstones were on in prime time. I was allowed to go to the “showy ostentatious” house of our nearest neighbors, the Douteils, who had a color set, to watch the Flintstones and the Wonderful World of Disney. Mrs Douteil made popcorn, which was forbidden at home. When they moved to Florida, it was awful.

So, thank you Joe Barbera, for peopling (and animaling) my basement childhood. Huckleberry Hound. Pixie and Dixie. Augie Doggie. Quick Draw McGraw. Yogi Bear. Snagglepuss. The Jetsons. Lippy the Lion (and Hardy Har Har). Touché Turtle. Wally Gator. Magilla Gorilla.

Joe Barbera (1911-2006)

© 2014 by Frank Daykin, for Innovative Music Programs

 

I guess I first saw them on “Maude,” circa 1972.

“What I didn’t know is that when I said my lines I was usually walking down a flight of stairs and no one was even listening to me. They were just watching my breasts precede me.”

Yeah, those. I’m not even sure why a gay boy was so fascinated with them. They didn’t produce a sexual response, more like fascination. The only other pair I had ever seen was my mother’s, and maybe a girl in sixth grade who took two guys and me to a house near the schoolyard. Flash. Yawn.

Adrienne Barbeau was born in Sacramento in 1946. She worked as a gogo dancer in certain mob-owned clubs in NYC in the late 60s. She was in the chorus of “Fiddler on the Roof,” then graduated to the role of Hodel, Tevye’s daughter. Bette Midler was her “sister.” Then her big break as the first Rizzo in “Grease” on Broadway. Tony nomination.

Poulenc, via Apollinaire, has the breasts of his Thérèse float out of her blouse and up to the klieg lights as she desexes herself and becomes Tirésias. They’re usually staged with one red and one blue helium-filled balloon.

I saw “Escape from New York” in 1981, having lived there only two years. Another Barbeau classic. Escape was not an option for me. I remember going with some guy I picked up on the steps of the Metropolitan Museum. We weren’t compatible “that way,” but friendly. Each of us was more fascinated with Kurt Russell, as I imagine Goldie Hawn is.

“Swamp Thing.” “The Fog.” “Creepshow.” Getting the idea? Barbeau was getting typed as the cheesy but sexy horror girl. Her then husband was director of all those, and “Escape,” John Carpenter.

“Who cares if I won the race, as long as I bounced when I ran?”

“There are two enormous talents on that woman,” said one waggish critic. He was not alone.

She did do the high-grossing Burt Reynolds comedy “Cannonball Run,” aptly or ironically titled.

If you read her book “There Are Worse Things I Could Do,” you’ll see how engaging and well-adjusted she is, despite all the objectification, including me. She gave birth to twins at age 51, by her second husband Bill Van Zandt, joking that she “was the only one on the maternity floor with an AARP card.”

She continues to work, guesting on numerous tv series, releasing a folk music album, hosting talk shows, etc. And she has teen boys. When will they see a pair bigger than mom’s, and natural? In Hollywood, that’s unlikely, as the craze for artificial enhancement of every body part shows no sign of abating.

© 2014 by Frank Daykin, for Innovative Music Programs

 

Most of us never pass a day in remembrance of Theodosia Goodman of Cincinnati. I’m here to partially correct that.

If you’re a die-hard silent movie buff, you may be on to me. Theda Bara “The Vamp,” star of stage and the early American silents. Born July 29, 1885, in, yes, Cincinnati, Ohio.

My stepmother, Virginia, born in Ohio in 1918, had vivid recollections of going to see those flickering flicks: Cleopatra, The Lure of Ambition, Unchastened Woman, The Stain, A Fool There Was, and on and on. Aren’t the titles great? Virginia grew up poor, and I’m certain the siren song of these and other movies provided at least the possibility that there could exist something beyond Unionville, Ohio.

Bara made 40 films from 1914 to 1926; unfortunately the nitrate stock caught fire in 1937 and we don’t have much surviving footage. Only six complete films exist.

Naturally, like so many of them, Bara never made the transition to talkies in 1928. She was one of the first “sex symbols” in a somewhat prudish climate. Her costumes, in particular, were revealing.

For those of you New Yorkers or New Jerseyans who are reading, the bulk of her films were shot in Fort Lee, NJ, then the epicenter of the new movie industry. There was no George Washington Bridge, no traffic jam scandal, and no trans-Hudson tunnels. One took the ferry to get there from Manhattan.

Actresses were promoted with all kinds of fake background stories, the more exotic the better. Theda’s included her being Egyptian, French and Scottish. What a stew. Even her name was said to be an anagram for “Arab Death.”

I’ll admit, it takes a rather inordinate amount of patience to sit through these artifacts today, when for instance TCM has one of its brief silent features. For me, it worked best in venues such as New York’s old Thalia theater on the Upper West Side, where we’d sneak down from the nearby Manhattan School of Music. There, you sat in a black box, total immersion, the screen was larger, and somehow it pulled you in. Also, there was live piano accompaniment, very authentic, usually provided by one of our classmates.

I think it best to try to understand the material from the viewpoint of someone who had never seen anything, rather than patronizingly analytical from our “jaded” present. Peer into that melodramatic face and divine the expressive content. It is an exercise in asynchronous empathy.

They called her the “woman with the hungry eyes,” and with that pre-programming, Im sure you will see it too if you’re patient.

“I know things that Theda Bara’s just startin’ to learn/Make my dresses from asbestos, I’m liable to burn.”

© 2014 by Frank Daykin, for Innovative Music Programs