# Greg's Big Weekend



## guythegreg (Jun 15, 2012)

Well Friday a few minutes before I left I saw the link in a previous post to the Gruppen show here in NYC that same night. I printed it off and went and had penne vodka at the local Slopperie, (no, that's not its name) and afterwards hopped on the 6 train to 59th street. I had been by the Armory once before, since I used to work in an office building on 59th between Lexington and Park, and it's in that area. So I toddled up there, making conversation with a lady who seemed to be heading the same direction and (i found) was actually going to the show. 

I don't know if anyone here has ever been to the Armory, but if you imagine the Great Hall at Pemberley, only with wheelchair access and taxis zipping by, you'll be pretty close. My companion zipped off to the bar as I made my way to the Box Office. They did actually have an extra ticket that had been returned, at only a little more than twice what I had been prepared to pay, and in I went. While we waited for the doors to open, I sat and made conversation with a NICE old lady who loved opera and raved about Die soldaten, which she said was at the Armory not too long ago. She said, "But my seat was so bad, I didn't even know the soldiers had pig faces until I saw the picture in the paper the next day!" lol. Well, there go we all, if we're lucky.

Past the ticket taker, there were men in formal wear and ladies in Marie Antoinette costumes standing here and there like statues. I thought they were statues, some of them, but I was probably mostly wrong, since they all showed up to play the chorus for Don Giovanni.

Inside the armory proper (after you get past the "great hall at Pemberley" section, I guess) it's just an enormous building with a curved roof, about three stories up, and nothing between the floor and the ceiling. There was room for an audience of about 2000 in all. The best seats, a few hundred, were disposed circularly around a central podium just large enough for a few people to stand on it. Trisecting this circle, outside it, were three small orchestra stages, and between these stages were three stands of seats. There were quite a few other spaces occupied by instruments, but those three stages were the main ones. The audience sections were lit in bright red, and the orchestra sections in vibrant blue. My seat was a pretty good one, not too far from the front of one of these outer audience sections.

The first piece was to be Pierre Boulez' Rituel in memoriam Bruno Madera. It was described as played by eight groups of instruments, group 1 having 1 instrument, group 2 two, group 3 three instruments, etc. Percussion was a separate matter, and each group was to have its characteristic percussive accompaniment.

As it began, I noticed there was very little dissonance. And a lot of amen chords. Come to think of it, it sounded very much like bad Christmas music. I did note the different groups of instruments playing at various times, without percussion, and when the guy in the seat next to me said, "This is Gabrieli," I confidently assured him it was not, pointing out the different groups of instruments that were playing separately, just as it said in the program. The piece ended, and I had much more positive feeling about Boulez than I had ever had before. It had been a pretty stupid piece, but it was listenable, and I was thinking I might read up a bit on Boulez and see what else he had composed at this time of his life.

Then the Boulez began. It was more enjoyable than the Gabrieli, but still, honestly, in years to come, when the secret diary of Pierre Boulez is unearthed and it is discovered that the heavy lifting, in terms of deciding what instruments will play what notes and when, was done by his six-year-old son, no one will be surprised. Alan Gilbert looked more than a bit ridiculous, up on that central podium, pointing sharply first in one direction and then in another, giving instructions from which one could see no result, getting results for which one had seen no direction, pointing one way and getting sound in another. I had an almost overpowering urge to start singing, "It's a Long Way to Tipperary," and let security drag me out. Of course I would have missed Gruppen, but that's not why I didn't do it.

Nevertheless, the spatial effects were pleasing. The idea of giving each group of instruments its characteristic percussion capability was good. I couldn't help thinking that Traviata, done with the soloists, orchestra and chorus disposed around a central audience, with added percussion, would be a very interesting and worthwhile experiment.

Then we had the Finale of the first act of Don Giovanni. It's never been an opera I liked, and this in-the-round presentation, almost with audience participation (the chorus ambled around between the sets of seats, flirting with the audience, and much of the action occurred on the steps and passageways to the audience seats), did nothing to help me overcome that feeling. The drama was not heightened, the "breaking of the fourth wall," or whatever theater experts call it, was just kind of irritating, well, if it had been Simon Boccanegra, who knows. I might have loved it. Pass on.

Gruppen! Here we go. Well, I cannot claim that a six-year-old could have written it. It was effective, in a way, memorable (although I can't actually remember much lol), and not unpleasant, and that's more than I can say for Don Giovanni, for myself. It was of complex construction. The orchestration was at times dense, at others simple. I really can't tell you what I heard; silences, not walls but volumes, amphitheaters of sound, drips, drops, crackles, buzzes, and then from time to time orchestras, too. I had no urge to sing. I would say it was about as pleasant as listening to 16th-century madrigals. Not something I do on purpose, but if it's on the radio, I'll listen.

I did feel a bit of a fool afterwards - I mean, I could have had another ticket to the Paris Opera Ballet, for what I spent on this - but as Mr. Bennet so properly remarks, what do we live for but to be sport for our neighbors, and to laugh at them in our turn? And honestly, I would have felt worse if I had not gone. It's worth the money, not to wonder and feel left out. I was part of the Event. And you know, it wasn't Gruppen that made me feel silly for having gone, it was the Boulez and the Mozart.

And I made the right call last week - the woods are not a carpet of dead leaves, but there is a steady trickle of leaves, from the sky. In many places you can't put a foot down without stepping on freshly dead or dying leaves. Some of the trees have not turned at all, some have half-turned, and others are all yellow. And the weeds are burnt up three-quarters of their lengths - not burnt black, but brown. Withered. Summer is on its way out, at least in these woods.

Wish me luck - tonight it's Le Corsaire, described on the radio advertisements as a "comic" ballet. good grief. Well, we'll see.


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