The New Arts Season

Are you like me, do you get a little thrill when you see the September preview of the new Arts Season in New York? The New York Times publishes this special feature every year at about this time and it always gives me a little jolt of excitement and anticipation for what is coming up in the world of theater, dance, music, fine arts, and film. I make a mental wish list of what I would see if I were in New York in the upcoming season. And then I plot how to get there!

Well, it may or may not happen this time, but I still make a list of my favorites. And, of course, there are new arts season previews to read about in every city. I will be scouring my sources for what is coming up in L.A. But I do have a soft spot for the New York arts scene. Maybe because my mother took me there when I was a teenager to see the Broadway production of "Funny Girl" with Barbara Streisand. The experience left me with a life long love of Broadway. So here goes, my top ten things to see in New York this fall and winter, if I am lucky enough to get there!

I read this fascinating book on Harold Pinter and Antonia Fraser last year

Theater

1.  Betrayal by Harold Pinter is being revived on Broadway this fall. It stars Daniel Craig, Rachel Weisz and Rafe Spall and is directed by Mike Nichols. "Betrayal" premiered in London in 1978 with Penelope Wilton (from "Downton Abbey") and Daniel Massey as the married couple Emma and Robert. In 1980, Blythe Danner and Roy Scheider played the married couple on Broadway with Raul Julia as Jerry, Robert's best friend with whom Emma has a long-term affair. Do you remember the film with Jeremy Irons, Patricia Hodge and Ben Kingsley? I loved it. The story moves backwards chronologically and ends with the beginning of the affair. The play examines different levels of betrayal in life as well as the ways people can damage each other and love each other at the same time. It is the sort of deep and intense topic that I love to see in a play combined with witty and literary dialogue. Harold Pinter is considered one of the great playwrights of the twentieth-century and won the Nobel prize for literature. An opportunity to see this play with an incredible cast and talented director would be thrilling.

2.  Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett is also being revived on Broadway this fall. It stars Ian McKellan, Patrick Stewart, and Billy Cruddup. "Waiting for Godot" will play in repertory at the Cort Theatre with No Man's Land, another play by Harold Pinter. Putting these two plays together in repertory is interesting since Pinter was hugely inspired by Beckett as an artist. This theatre season seems to be the season of Harold Pinter!

Dance

3.  The world premiere of Shakespeare's The Tempest by the American Ballet Company is set to the music of Sibelius. I saw an excellent production of this play in London a few years ago and would love to see it adapted into a ballet.

"Swan Lake" by the New York City Ballet
Photo via here

4.  Swan Lake by the New York City Ballet. I have seen this one before and would definitely see it again. The production by the New York City Ballet is one of the best you will ever see.

Art Exhibitions

Photo via here

5.  Vermeer, Rembrandt and Hals: Masterpieces of Dutch Painting from the Mauritshuis at the Frick Museum will include Vermeer's "Girl with a Pearl Earring" and 14 other works from the Royal Picture Gallery Mauritshuis. I will see any exhibition at this exquisite jewel-box of a museum, but this one is a must! It has been traveling around the country while the Mauritshuis is being renovated and this is the last chance to see it in this country.

6.  The Armory Show at 100: Modern Art and Revolution at the New-York Historical Society Museum. This exhibition revisits the famous 1913 Armory Art Show on its 100th anniversary. In 1913, the International Exhibition of Modern Art came to New York and introduced the American public to European avant-garde painting and sculpture. It included bold innovators from Cezanne to Picasso. This exhibition will examine the ways that the 1913 Armory show influenced American culture, politics, and society. It would be interesting to compare the reactions of the Americans and the Europeans (the French and the British) to this avant-garde art. I wonder which group was more shocked?

7.  Chagall: Love, War and Exile at the Jewish Museum examines the artist's personal and artistic response to the suffering he observed in Europe from the 1930's to 1948. This covers the years leading up to the war as well as the actual war years. The Jewish Museum is another wonderful, small museum  that I always try to visit. I saw a beautiful Pissarro exhibition there a few years ago.

Literature

The Morgan Library and Museum
Photo via here

8.  Edgar Allan Poe, Terror of the Soul at The Morgan Library and Museum. This exhibition explores Poe's poetry and fiction and how his work influenced writers such as Dickens and Nabokov. There are many events planned around this show such as screenings of films based on Poe's books as well as readings of his work by other writers. Paul Aster is one of the writers involved in these events. The Morgan has had fabulous exhibitions on writers in the past, such as Charles Dickens and Jane Austen. It would be so much fun to see this Edgar Allan Poe exhibition around Halloween!

Music

Cafe Carlyle

Photo via here

9.  There are many wonderful Cabaret performances in New York. I love the ones at the Cafe Carlyle. It is such a special part of the New York music scene and I try to go whenever I am there. This place is just filled with history. Woody Allen plays the clarinet at the Carlyle on Monday nights. I would love to go to one of Steve Tyrell's shows. He performs there every December.

Gardens

The High Line
Photo via here

10.  Though not part of any arts calendar, a walk on the High Line in New York is a special treat and almost a necessity after all the indoor arts events. The gardens are lovely and it is a wonderful place to see the art of landscape design.

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Art

In placid hours well-pleased we dream

Of many a brave unbodied scheme.

But form to lend, pulsed life to create,

What unlike things must meet and mate;

A flame to melt -- a wind to freeze;

Sad patience -- joyous energies;

Humility -- yet pride and scorn;

Instinct and study; love and hate;

Audacity -- reverence.  These must mate,

And fuse with Jacob's mystic heart,

To wrestle with the angel -- Art.

-- Herman Melville

It is inspiring to see what is going on in the art world in a place like New York City. And, fortunately, most cities have exciting new arts calendars at this time of the year. Fall always kicks off the best of the best in theater, film, music, dance, and art exhibitions. It is a feast for the senses and a great time to celebrate the arts. What arts events are you looking forward to this fall?

Russian Music Under The Stars

Pianist Lang Lang at the Hollywood Bowl

Music under the stars and dinner alfresco.  Summer is not officially summer here in Los Angeles until we go to the Hollywood Bowl.  This open-air concert venue is a beloved Southern California tradition.  On Thursday night we dined alfresco, eating a delicious meal with our friends.  Afterwards we sat back and basked in the gorgeous music coming from the Los Angeles Philharmonic, under the direction of Gustavo Dudamel.  We anticipated an exciting performance by piano virtuoso Lang Lang.

Conductor Gustavo Dudamel 

The classical program was all Russian.  Lang Lang played Prokofiev's Third Piano Concerto and it was electrifying. After a standing ovation, he returned for an encore and played a beautiful piece by Liszt.  In  the second half of the program, the orchestra played "Pictures at an Exhibition" by Mussorgsky which was very beautiful and haunting.

I learned that the impetus for "Pictures" came from the death of Mussorgsky's close friend, the artist Viktor Hartman, who died unexpectedly in the summer of 1873.  A memorial of Hartman's art work was organized and "Pictures" preserves Mussorgsky's visit to the exhibition.  The work presents the pictures connected by a series of "Promenades," during which we hear Mussorgsky walking through the gallery from artwork to artwork.  Amazing!  We were hearing the footsteps of the composer visiting the art exhibition of his dear friend.  I felt transported by the magnificent sounds we were hearing that night at the Hollywood Bowl.

It was a fabulous summer evening under the stars --  delicious food and wine, wonderful friends, and thrilling Russian music. A summertime treat that will be a treasured  memory.  

Photos from The Los Angeles Times

Sublime Noise

In 1910 E. M. Forster wrote in the novel "Howard's End, "

" It will be generally admitted that Beethoven's Fifth Symphony is the most sublime noise that has ever penetrated the ear of man."

I will give him that, but on Sunday I think I may have hear the second most sublime, Beethoven's 7th Symphony, played by the Los Angeles Philharmonic and conducted by Gustavo Dudamel at the Walt Disney Hall in Los Angeles.

I am certainly far from an expert on classical music, but I can definitely express my emotional reaction to this piece. During the second movement, I felt a surge of emotion that brought tears to my eyes and could only be described as feeling that I was in the presence of greatness.  Greatness in terms of the music, the conducting, and the musicians. Something brilliant and profound was happening on the stage of the Disney Hall.  And as E.M. Forster wrote about Beethoven's Fifth, I would say about Beethoven's Seventh, while listening to it "The passion of your life becomes more vivid."  (By the way, that line alone  makes me so want to go back and reread "Howard's End," one of my very favorite books!)

This feeling continued until the end, and I felt the entire audience shared my bliss.  The experience was inspiring and I left realizing I need to listen to more classical music.  My first choice is to go to concerts and hear it live, which I do whenever possible.  But  I am also determined, as a New Year's goal, to listen to the music of the great composers at home.  Last night I played Beethoven's Fifth to remind myself what Forster was talking about.  And I listened again to the Seventh.  How wonderful it was to have the music coursing through the house.

By the way, this goal of mine to listen to the music of the great composers should be easier now that Anthony Tommasini, music critic for The New York, has started a series of articles addressing the question:  Who are the 10 greatest classical music composers in history?  He will focus on Western classical music.  So I will anxiously await his conclusion and excitedly read the articles he writes along the way.

He made a good point in his article "The Greatest" in The New York Times on Sunday when he noted that four of the possible ten that he chooses --  Haydn, Mozart, Schubert, and Beethoven --  may all have worked in Vienna during a period of roughly 75 years, from 1750 to 1825.  He asks "What was going on in that town at that tine to foster such awesome creativity"?   I wonder the same thing.   Today, he wrote his second column of the series addressing that question, "The Big Four of Vienna."

I also find it interesting that Sunday's performance at the Disney Hall, which also featured a piece by John Adams and a symphony by Leonard Bernstein, was simulcast in 450 movie theaters in the United States and Canada.   These screenings were heavily attended, according to Mark Swed of the Los Angeles Times.

I am inspired!


Photos from Los Angeles Times