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About Last Night

Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City

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Archives for February 20, 2004

TT: I’m Paris, she’s Nicole

February 20, 2004 by Terry Teachout

Once I wake up, I’ll catch up, but it’s already been drawn to my attention that OGIC and I crashed a very nice party. According to the Literary Saloon:

In this week’s issue (of 19-26 February) of Time Out NY Maureen Shelly offers a literary weblog overview (the article is apparently not available online.) The weblogs she features are: the Literary Saloon, Bookslut
(“a favorite among young writers”), Maud Newton
(“covers a stunningly broad range of literary news”), About Last Night (“offers a more sophisticated take on the book biz”), Beatrice
(“Hogan maintains a civil tone in his critiques, thereby upping his credibility factor”), and the registration-requiring Publishers Lunch.

Needless to say, all the aforementioned blogs are to be found in “Sites to See,” along with plenty of others that are no less deserving of your attention. We admit to being especially pleased, though, to share space with Supermaud, if only because she promised to go see the Milton Avery show at the Phillips Collection in Washington this weekend, then come back and tell us all about it. She’s so cool.


Oh, yes, in case you were wondering, I haven’t opened my mailbox yet. I can’t get up the nerve. Nor have I caught up with my blogwatching. But I will, once I get another chunk of the Balanchine book written, not to mention a full night’s sleep, which I need most desperately. Right at this moment I feel like Leon Trotsky, post-axe.


See you Saturday.

TT: The czar done gone

February 20, 2004 by Terry Teachout

I reviewed the Manhattan Theatre Club’s production of Regina Taylor’s Drowning Crow and Primary Stages’ production of Terrence McNally’s The Stendhal Syndrome in this morning’s Wall Street Journal.


The first was horrible:

According to the program, “Drowning Crow” was “inspired by” Chekhov’s “The Seagull.” Nothing wrong with that, except that what Ms. Taylor really means is “adapted from,” which is another thing altogether. To be sure, the characters are all black and the action has been relocated from Czarist Russia to the Gullah Islands of South Carolina, but otherwise “Drowning Crow” is a near-direct transposition of “The Seagull,” partly recast in slam-poetry English but with large chunks of dialogue left untouched. “I liberally sampled from Chekhov,” Ms. Taylor said in a New York Times interview. “Other times, I just riffed.” (I know a better word.) The result–not to put too fine a point on it–is bizarre, with the characters alternating between jive and translatorese to no obvious purpose or good effect….

The second was a winner:

Mr. McNally has neatly bookended his chief theatrical preoccupations in the titles of the two one-act plays that make up this double bill, “Full Frontal Nudity” and “Prelude and Liebestod.” The second and more substantial half is about a bisexual conductor suspiciously reminiscent of Leonard Bernstein (Richard Thomas), his unfaithful but loving wife (Isabella Rossellini), the sourpuss concertmaster of his orchestra (Michael Countryman), a male groupie (Yul V

TT: Elsewhere

February 20, 2004 by Terry Teachout

Hilton Kramer finally made it to PaceWildenstein’s Rothko: A Painter’s Progress, the Year 1949:

Anyone who’s made a close study of Bonnard’s paintings will have no trouble finding traces of the French master’s aesthetic in the pictures that have now been brought together in the Painter’s Progress exhibition, which focuses on the year 1949. This was the year in which Rothko perfected his own mastery of the paintings he called “dramas,” which most of us regard as some of the most beautiful abstract paintings in the entire modern canon.


It has been admitted that Bonnard was an unlikely figure to influence any painter associated with the Abstract Expressionists, who prided themselves on their independence from the School of Paris. And it goes without saying that Rothko never acknowledged the debt. Yet, as D.H. Lawrence once said, “Trust the tale, not the teller of the tale,” meaning, of course, that a writer’s or artist’s work must be judged on the basis of what it is, not on the basis of descriptive claims. Unless prompted by Rothko, I doubt that any visitor to Rothko: A Painter’s Progress would regard this beautifully installed exhibition as a show of “dramas.” But thanks to what we now know about Rothko’s interest in Bonnard, this exhibition turns out to be an even richer experience than it might otherwise have been….

Read the whole thing here. The show is only up through Feb. 23, so if you didn’t go when I wrote about it last month (and if not, why not?), don’t delay.

TT: Almanac

February 20, 2004 by Terry Teachout

It rained.

The hour is an enormous eye.

Inside it, we come and go like reflections.

The river of music.

Enters my blood.

If I say body, it answers wind.

If I say earth, it answers where.


The world, a double blossom, opens:

Sadness of having come.

Joy of being here.


I walk lost in my own center.


Octavio Paz, “Concert in the Garden”

TT: I’m home again, I think

February 20, 2004 by Terry Teachout

Not only did I get up at 4:30 yesterday morning, but I didn’t go to sleep prior to that time (hence it would be closer to the truth to say that I got out of bed at 4:30 yesterday morning). There followed hours and hours and hours of travel, on the ground and in the sky, at the end of which I somehow managed to get to Maria Schneider’s Hunter College concert on time. It was worth it, absolutely.


I’m too tired to go on at length, but the centerpiece of the evening was the world premiere of “Concert in the Garden,” a new piece Schneider wrote for her big band plus Gary Versace on accordion and Luciana Souza on vocals. The title comes from a poem by Octavio Paz (see above), and the music is a Messiaen-like tapestry of idealized bird calls–a full-fledged piece of jazz impressionism, unusually rich and involving.


After the intermission, the band played a revised version of Bulerias, Soleas y Rumbas, premiered last January at Lincoln Center, an occasion about which I wrote as follows in my Washington Post column:

Jazz at Lincoln Center has never done anything more important than commissioning this piece. It’s no secret that Schneider is the foremost big-band composer of her generation, but this powerful large-scale work, in which she blends jazz and flamenco with the skill of an alchemist, is so good that I hesitate to limit its significance by calling it big-band music, or even jazz. It is as tightly woven and emotionally compelling as a symphony, and I think it ought to be seriously considered for next year’s Pulitzer Prize in music. For that matter, I’m damned if I know why Schneider hasn’t received a MacArthur Fellowship. I can’t think of anyone in jazz–or any other art form–who deserves it more.

This time around, Schneider added a flamenco dancer, La Conja, to thrilling effect, and the piece itself was even more impressive on second hearing. If you missed it, the Maria Schneider Orchestra will be going into the studio in a couple of weeks to record a new album, on which Bulerias, Soleas y Rumbas will figure prominently.


Warning: Schneider is no longer selling her CDs in stores, so to buy this one, you’ll need to go to her Web site and sign up. Do it now–and while you’re at it, mark your calendar for March 18, April 29, and June 17, the three remaining performances in the Maria Schneider Orchestra’s Hunter College concert series. I really, truly flew all the way back from Smalltown, U.S.A., just to hear this one, and I’d do it again in a heartbeat. Next time, I’ll make sure I don’t have to.

Terry Teachout

Terry Teachout, who writes this blog, is the drama critic of The Wall Street Journal and the critic-at-large of Commentary. In addition to his Wall Street Journal drama column and his monthly essays … [Read More...]

About

About “About Last Night”

This is a blog about the arts in New York City and the rest of America, written by Terry Teachout. Terry is a critic, biographer, playwright, director, librettist, recovering musician, and inveterate blogger. In addition to theater, he writes here and elsewhere about all of the other arts--books, … [Read More...]

About My Plays and Opera Libretti

Billy and Me, my second play, received its world premiere on December 8, 2017, at Palm Beach Dramaworks in West Palm Beach, Fla. Satchmo at the Waldorf, my first play, closed off Broadway at the Westside Theatre on June 29, 2014, after 18 previews and 136 performances. That production was directed … [Read More...]

About My Podcast

Peter Marks, Elisabeth Vincentelli, and I are the panelists on “Three on the Aisle,” a bimonthly podcast from New York about theater in America. … [Read More...]

About My Books

My latest book is Duke: A Life of Duke Ellington, published in 2013 by Gotham Books in the U.S. and the Robson Press in England and now available in paperback. I have also written biographies of Louis Armstrong, George Balanchine, and H.L. Mencken, as well as a volume of my collected essays called A … [Read More...]

The Long Goodbye

To read all three installments of "The Long Goodbye," a multi-part posting about the experience of watching a parent die, go here. … [Read More...]

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