Terry Teachout's Blog, page 275

TT: A happy correction

I was wrong when I said the other day that Saturday's workshop performance of Danse Russe, the new opera that Paul Moravec and I are writing for Philadelphia's Center City Opera Theater, is an invitation-only affair. In fact, it's open to the public, so if you happen to be in Philadelphia at three p.m. and want to see what we're up to, you are hereby officially invited!

Admission is free, but you'll need a ticket to get in. For more information, go here .

TT: Almanac

"I don't think in any language. I think in images. I don't believe that people think in languages. They don't move their lips when they think. It is only a certain type of illiterate person who moves his lips as he reads or ruminates. No, I think in images, and now and then a Russian phrase or an English phrase will form with the foam of the brainwave, but that's about all."

Vladimir Nabokov, Strong Opinions

TT: So you want to see a show?

Here's my list of recommended Broadway, off-Broadway, and out-of-town shows, updated weekly. In all cases, I gave these shows favorable reviews (if sometimes qualifiedly so) in The Wall Street Journal when they opened. For more information, click on the title.

Warning: Broadway shows marked with an asterisk were sold out, or nearly so, last week.

BROADWAY:

• Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson (musical, PG-13/R, reviewed here)

• La Cage aux Folles (musical, PG-13, adult subject matter, reviewed here)

• Driving Miss Daisy * (drama, G, possible for smart children, closes Jan. 29, reviewed here)

• Fela! (musical, PG-13, adult subject matter, closes Jan. 2, reviewed here)

• A Life in the Theatre (serious comedy, PG-13, closes Jan. 2, reviewed here)

• Lombardi (drama, G/PG-13, a modest amount of adult subject matter, reviewed here)

• Million Dollar Quartet (jukebox musical, G, reviewed here)

• The Pitmen Painters (serious comedy, G, too demanding for children, closes Dec. 12, reviewed here)

OFF BROADWAY:

• Alfred Hitchcock's The 39 Steps (comedy, G, suitable for bright children, original Broadway production reviewed here)

• Angels in America (drama, PG-13/R, adult subject matter, closes Feb. 20, reviewed here)

• Avenue Q (musical, R, adult subject matter and one show-stopping scene of puppet-on-puppet sex, reviewed here)

• The Fantasticks (musical, G, suitable for children capable of enjoying a love story, reviewed here)

CLOSING SOON IN CHICAGO:

• Night and Day (serious comedy, PG-13, extended through Nov. 14, reviewed here)

TT: Almanac

"I believe that through discipline, though not through discipline alone, we can achieve serenity, and a certain small but precious measure of the freedom from the accidents of incarnation, and charity, and that detachment which preserves the world which it renounces."

J. Robert Oppenheimer, letter to Frank Oppenheimer (March 12, 1932)

TT: Snapshot

A rare video of the Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Jazz Orchestra playing Jerome Richardson's "The Groove Merchant" in 1968:



(This is the latest in a weekly series of arts-related videos that appear in this space each Wednesday.)

TT: Almanac

"People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes, and the most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome."

George Orwell, "London Letter," Partisan Review, Winter 1945

TT: Let's make an(other) opera!

If you follow this blog regularly, you know that Paul Moravec and I are working on our second opera, Danse Russe, which has been commissioned by Philadelphia's Center City Opera Company and will be premiered in April. It's a backstage comedy--we call it a vaudeville--about the making of Igor Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring. The four characters, accordingly, are Stravinsky, Sergei Diaghilev, Vaslav Nijinsky, and Pierre Monteux (who conducted the first performance of The Rite of Spring in Paris in 1913).

I haven't had anything to say about Danse Russe in this space since the initial announcement of the commission because I've been too busy writing the opera to write about it, but I'm delighted (and relieved) to report that the libretto is now finished and Paul has drafted all but one scene of the piano score. That's more than enough for Center City Opera to mount a workshop performance in Phildelphia next week.

On Friday, November 5, Paul and I will participate in a public discussion of Danse Russe at Philadelphia's Knapp Gallery. The workshop performance will take place the next afternoon. Attendance at the performance is by invitation only--it's a working session--but our Friday-night discussion is open to the public. To find out more and purchase tickets, go here .

Last week I was interviewed about Danse Russe at my New York apartment by Center City's Mary Knapp. Excerpts from that interview have just been posted on YouTube, and you can view them here. Mary edited her questions out of the video, but they were good ones. If I do say so myself, I think my answers will tell you quite a bit about what Paul and I think we're up to:

DE-ROMANTICIZING THE BLUES

" By now , the sounds and rhythms of the blues are so ubiquitous that they seem almost to be embedded in the musical DNA of the human race--in part because their origins have long been shrouded in what can only be described as romantic myth. Even when scholars with musical training write about the emergence of the blues, the results can be starry-eyed and frankly sentimental..."

TT: Almanac

"Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven on by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand."

George Orwell, Why I Write

TT: A reminder about tonight

In case you didn't happen to see the blog on Friday, Candace Bushnell and I will be chatting about the novels of Elaine Dundy tonight at seven p.m. at the Barnes & Noble on East Eighty-Sixth Street in Manhattan. For more information about our joint appearance, which is open to the public, go here .