Ahead of the composer’s centenary tribute from the Proms, the Guardian profiles the life and career of influential, dissident virtuoso Gyรถrgy Ligeti whose work informed the likes of John Cage, Karlheinz Stockhausen and Radiohead, and rather infamously used by the director in 2001: A Space Odyssey to frame pivotal moments without the artist’s full permission, Stanley Kubrick opting not to use the work commissioned for the soundtrack and using public domain classic orchestral arrangements instead. 2001 is by far not his lasting legacy, having created many evocative and innovative works, like an arrangement for one hundred metronomes, but his plexiglass Ehrengrab (1923 - 2006) in Vienna’s Central Cemetery looks as if it could have been fashioned from the original Monolith. Read more about the progressive compositions of Ligeti at the link up top. Below is one of his final works, the 2003 reworking of the Hamburg Concerto with distempered tuning.
The premiere work for then virtually unknown composer Igor Stravinsky debuted on this day in 1910 at the Palais Garnier, performed by the company Ballet Russe to critical acclaim, immediately solidifying him through this collaboration with choreographer Michel Fokine as an international figure in operatic productions and orchestral virtuoso. Staging, set and costume designs were quite phenomenal but the music alone was enough to propel Stravinsky’s career, The Firebird (see previously) tells the hero’s journey of protagonist Prince Ivan, based on the folktale, who becomes lost during a hunting expedition, loses his party and strays into the enchanted realm of the malevolent wizard Koschei the Immortal, kept deathless by keeping his soul in a pin in a magic egg. Ivan captures but spares the life of the Firebird, who is both boon and curse for her captors, who offers a feather as a token of gratitude to summon her aid in a moment of dire need, which comes when the prince confronts the wizard.
Preview performances given at a couple of other venues earlier in the week, the B-movie, schlock horror musical—see previously—by Richard O’Brien opened on this day in the experimental space, “upstairs,” at the Royal Court Theatre in Chelsea, under the direction of Jim Sharman, renowned stage producer for his earlier work on Jesus Christ Superstar and Hair. The show ran for seven years, approaching three thousand performances, and the original cast whom crossed over into the 1975 cinematic adaptation included the starring roles of Tim Curry as Dr Frank N Furter, Patricia Quinn as Magenta the Usherette and O’Brien himself as Riff Raff.
Beginning a six week run at the top of the US singles charts on this day in 1969 with a medley of two musical numbers composed for Hair, the release by the group the 5th Dimension went on to be certified platinum and ranks as according to Billboard as one of the greatest numbers of all time. The genesis of the eventual recording came after producer Dayton Burr “Bones” Howe was reunited with his lost wallet and invited the finder—a cab passenger who was involved in the production of the musical—was invited to a show in gratitude and raved that the introductory song “Aquarius” would complement and complete the titular sequence with its refrain. Purportedly leaving the Age of Pisces (Jesus fish), current or hence according to reckoning, some astrologers have derided the lyrics as premature and uninformed in terms of sun-signs, pointing out that Jupiter aligns with Mars multiple times annually and the Moon is in the seventh house daily.
if the engine jumps the track: another in a series of derailments—thankfully this time with no fatalities—yields some amazing photographs but a few beer or two, via Super Punch
katkhakali: the dance of the ‘speaking hands’ about the myth of Kali and Travancore, a 1981 Soyuzmultfilm short
peepshi: a complete guide to deconstructing Easter candies for festive onigiri
Set in Montana but giving a fictionalised recounting of the Altamont Free Concert, the musical by Gรกbor Presser, Anna Adamis and Sรกndor Pรณs—based on the novel of the same name by Tibor Dรฉry—An Imaginary Report on an American Rock Festival premiered in Budapest on this day in 1973. The production team portrayed the plot of a young Hungarian couple that defected to the West with themes violating taboo subjects of homosexuality, illicit drug use and the war and the Holocaust to the Department for Agitation and Propaganda as a criticism of hippie culture and were granted permission to go on with the show. Resonant among its target audience, many musical numbers became hits and the musical (see also) toured throughout Eastern Europe.
davy and goliath: smaller AIs recom-mendations on how to hack a more dominant one—see previously from AI Weirdness
girl with the pearl earring: whilst the original is on loan as part of a comprehensive Vermeer exhibition, the Mauitshuis is displaying a set of reinterpretations—see previously
Accompanied by an original score by Edvard Grieg that includes two of the most recognisable pieces of classical music, “In the Hall of the Mountain King” and “Morning Mood,” Henrik Ibsen’s Peer Gynt, chronicling the journey of the titular protagonist from his home in Norway to Egypt and back again, premiered on this day in Oslo (then known as Christiania) in 1876. A social satire struggling with modernism with both pastoral and surreal portrayals of characters and calamities as our dissolute anti-hero comes to understand the consequences of his actions and the nature of responsibility—regardless whether or not accepted, its underlying message is echoed succinctly in the line: “If you lie; are you real?”
The farce, “The Cage of the Mad Women,” by playwright Jean Poiret portraying the comedy of errors that ensues when the son of a Saint Tropez night club operator and his gay boyfriend invites his fiancรฉe’s conservative parents to meet their future inlaws had its debut this day in 1973 at the Thรฉรขtre du Palais-Royal, running for over eighteen-hundred performances. After being adapted as a Franco-Italian film—a trilogy ultimately, in 1978, it became a musical with book by Harvey Fierstein and music by Jerry Herman, with later cinematic premiere as The Birdcage in 1996.
In a rather satisfying coincidence, this day in 1983 marks the the expiration of the monopoly for the manufacture of safety matches (Zรผndwarenmonopol) in West Germany when the rights were acquired by Swedish swindler, Ponzi scheme architect and racketeer Ivar Kreuger—the Match King who’d fit in perfectly with contemporary grifters and fraudsters—in 1930 with a loan of five hundred million Reichsmark to the Weimar Republic, whose bonds extended through World War II and finally lapsed—and the titular stage play by Ayn Rand (previously), inspired by the death of Kreuger († 12 March 1932—usually performed as Woman on Trial. The lover of industrialist Bjorn Faulkner (Kreuger’s analogue, whom Rand became obsessed with though was quite a questionable pillar to uphold) is accused of his murder and the author’s intent to dramatise the conflict between conformity and individualism leaves the verdict unresolved and invites the audience to decide. The courtroom setting is artistic license as most likely Kreuger committed suicide facing the prospect of bankruptcy once accounting manipulations were revealed, paying investors dividends from their own money. One year after its premier in Los Angeles, the production team took it to Broadway in 1935 and saw a revival in 1973 under the title “Penthouse Legend.” Meanwhile it was adapted into a film in 1941—which was not a commercial or critical success—and a 1989 Bollywood version called Gawaahi (Testimony), which might be worth seeing.
Considered among the finest adaptations of the Scottish play with production and development deferred for six years after learning that Orson Welles directed his own Macbeth in 1948, Akira Kurosawa’s (previously) transposition of the plot of Shakespeare’s masterwork to feudal Japan (่่ๅทฃๅ, Kumononsu-jล—literally the above title but released in English-speaking markets as Throne of Blood) premiered in Tokyo on this day in 1957. Under contract to produce three samurai movies (jidaigeki—period, costume dramas) for Toho studios, Spider Web Castle was originally slated to go to director Ishirล Honda, best known for his 1954 kaiju classic Godzilla but Kurosawa ended up making the trio of films. His 1960 The Bad Sleep Well was informed by Hamlet—though not a direct correspondence—and Kurosawa’s final work Ran, which is based off of King Lear. Throne of Blood in turn influenced Roman Polanski’s adaptation of Macbeth and the death of Taketoki Wasizu (the Lady Macbeth analogue) inspired the death of the mother of the titular Carrie in the 1976 horror classic.
Once (and yet) regarded as an assault against navigation devices and by turns an assault against proper punctuation and orthography (see also here and here), we appreciated learning about the selective preservation afforded to a number of thoroughfares, parks and venues (with a short biography) of London via our trusted flรขneur. Making note of the non-possessive exceptions that make the rule—as opposed the exclamatory figure of speech used in stagecraft to break off from the audience, “O happy dagger!,” we’re also introduced to a colourful term ‘anorak level tube apostrophe history’ to describe and prescribe the changing style to sibilant endings. Anorak, chiefly a Britishism, incidentally refers to an enthusiast dedicated to the point of obsession with a very niche subject—first to describe fans of pirate radio who would charter crafts to go out to visit the boats, whom like trainspotters, were often unfashionably but appropriately attired in parkas.
Closing this day in 1972 after just seven performances to relentlessly panned reviews and confused audiences, the futuristic rock musical by George W George and Peter Hall—featuring a cast that included Raul Julia and Irene Cara—this flop tells the story of outcasts living on an asteroid (Ithaca) set a millennium from the present time. The protagonist (Julia) pilots a clam-shell shaped garbage scow christened with the title name collecting space junk but that was the only clear aspect of the convoluted narrative, the synopsis contained in the programme not helping to clarify what was going on. Listen to an original cast demo tape here of one of the fourteen musical numbers of the two act play.
The title of John van Druten’s theatrical adaptation taken from the first lines Christopher Isherwood’s 1939 Goodbye to Berlin (see previously) that goes on “…with its shutter open, quite passive, recording, not thinking” opened on Broadway in the Empire Theatre on this day in 1951. Also made into a film just over a decade before the second stage adaptation (which this play largely informed, though set primarily in Isherwood’s rented room rather than the night club) starring Shelly Winters as Fraulein Sally Bowles,van Druten’s work did not garner universal praise from critics, prompting the famous three word review from New York Times drama desk editor and playwright Walter Kerr: “Me no Leica.” Yes and the Buggles also recorded the song “Into the Lens (I Am a Camera)” in 1980 from the same quote.
Wildly successful, with the award-winning musical reprised for subsequent productions in London (Dame Judi Dench playing the original Sally Bowles in the West End version and Jane Horrocks, “Bubble” from Absolutely Fabulous in the 1993 revival) and New York and a 1972 cinematic adaptation, Cabaret, with music and lyrics by John Kander and Fred Ebb with book by Joe Masteroff and based on Christopher Isherwood’s semi-autobiographical accounting of the end of the Weimar Republic and the Jazz Age in the early 1930s, Goodbye to Berlin, had its Broadway premiere on this day in 1966 at the Broadhurst Theatre. Chiefly narrated by the club’s Master of Ceremonies, whose numbers depict the privation, chaos and upheaval of the interbellum times and the impending catastrophes to come with the Nazis gaining political power.
Friend of the blog Nag on the Lake treats us to a unique operatic interlude in “Duetto buffo di due gatti”—that is, a comic duet for two cats, which consists of miau sung in two parts with piano. Often performed as a concert encore, some credit Gioachino Rossini, who composed The Barber of Seville and dozens of other operas, but authorship is uncertain. More at the link above.
Beginning its second Broadway revival on this day in 1980, the 1947 Lerner and Loewe collaboration about two American tourist travelling the Scottish Highlands on a game-hunting vacation and stumble upon an enchanted village that does not appear on their map. Named after the Lowlands bridge, Brig o’ Doon, in Robert Burns’ “Tam o’Shanter,” the companions, eligible bachelors variously portrayed by Gene Kelly and Cyd Charisse and in a 1966 television adaptation Robert Goulet and Peter Falk, learn that the local minister had asked God to intercede to protect the village from the modern world (not sure that the congregation was consulted on this), and now Brigadoon only appears on appears for one day every century and should any citizens every leave, the miracle will be broken and the village will disappear forever. The musical comedy Schmigadoon! is a modern parody and homage with lost backpackers finding themselves trapped in a Golden Age stage production.
permission, Stanley Kubrick opting not to use the work commissioned for the soundtrack and using public domain classic orchestral arrangements instead. 2001 is by far not his lasting legacy, having created many evocative and innovative works, like an arrangement for one hundred metronomes, but his plexiglass Ehrengrab (1923 - 2006) in Vienna’s Central Cemetery looks as if it could have been fashioned from the original Monolith. Read more about the progressive compositions of Ligeti at the link up top. Below is one of his final works, the 2003 reworking of the Hamburg Concerto with distempered tuning.
