Archives for October 10, 2013

I thought you might possibly enjoy taking a peek at two short excerpts from the libretti for The King’s Man and Danse Russe, my two most recent operatic collaborations with Paul Moravec, which are being produced as a double bill in Louisville this weekend by Kentucky Opera.

The first number, “I Was Born on a Sunday,” is an arietta from The King’s Man that is sung by Benjamin Franklin, who is attempting to explain to William, his illegitimate son, why he is at one and the same time a “Puritan prig” (in William’s contemptuous phrase) and a carefully discreet sexual libertine:

FRANKLIN I was born on a Sunday

In the shadow of an angry God,

Baptized on the day of my birth

Into a gray, Puritan life

To save me from the fires of hell.

They believed that a child born on a Sunday

Must be a child of Satan.

This was my youth,

From the Puritans of Boston

To the Quakers of Philadelphia:

From same to same,

Gray to gray,

Hard work, cold baths,

Hatred of the joys of the flesh.

Damn it all!

God damn it all!

No God of love

Would make such a place,

Cold as ice,

Sharp as a knife,

No joy…

No life.

The second is the reprise of “Astonish Me,” a comic waltz that is sung by Sergei Diaghilev, Igor Stravinsky, Vaslav Nijinsky, and Pierre Monteux moments before the curtain goes up on the 1913 premiere of The Rite of Spring.

The title of the number is the scandal-courting Diaghilev’s oft-quoted two-word explanation of what he expected out of his artistic collaborators. He actually said it to Jean Cocteau, not the makers of The Rite of Spring, but I allowed myself the artistic liberty of extracting the phrase from its original context and using it here:

DIAGHILEV What’s the worst they can do?

They can hiss,

They can boo,

And I’ll laugh

And I’ll say,

Vas te faire enculé!

So…

ALL Astonish me!

We’ll pull all the stops out

And make the welkin ring!

Astonish me!

They’ll call all the cops out

To stop The Rite of Spring!

MONTEUX Let them do what they please!

STRAVINSKY Let them try! Let them dare!

NIJINSKY Let them stand on their seats!

MONTEUX Let the orchestra blare!

DIAGHILEV Let them tear up their programs

And tear out their hair–

ALL And their chattering neighbors

Will wish they’d been there!

DIAGHILEV If we must,

We’ll flee.

STRAVINSKY Even take to sea.

DIAGHILEV But I guarantee–

You’ll astonish me!

ALL Astonish me!

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.

BROADWAY:

• Annie (musical, G, closing Jan. 5, reviewed here)

• Matilda (musical, G, nearly all performances sold out last week, reviewed here)

• Once (musical, G/PG-13, reviewed here)

OFF BROADWAY:

• 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 OFF BROADWAY:

• Natural Affection (drama, R, closes Oct. 26, reviewed here)

• Philip Goes Forth (drama, G, not suitable for small children, closes Oct. 27, reviewed here)

CLOSING SOON IN ASHLAND, OREGON:

• My Fair Lady (musical, G, closes Nov. 3, reviewed here)

CLOSING SOON IN NIAGARA-ON-THE-LAKE, ONTARIO:

• Our Betters (comedy, PG-13, closes Oct. 27, reviewed here)

• Major Barbara (drama, PG-13, closes Oct. 19, reviewed here)

CLOSING NEXT WEEK IN SPRING GREEN, WISCONSIN:

• Antony and Cleopatra (Shakespeare, PG-13, closes Oct. 20, reviewed here)

• Dickens in America (one-man play, G, too demanding for small children, closes Oct. 19, reviewed here)

CLOSING NEXT WEEK OFF BROADWAY:

• The Old Friends (drama, PG-13, closes Oct. 20, reviewed here)

“A perfect critic looks at every poem on its own terms, but not all terms are equal.”
William Logan, “Against Aesthetics” (The New Criterion, Sept. 2013)