I have a lot to say, but you will be spared because I’m making my television debut in the morning and, trust me, I need my beauty sleep. “La Cenerentola” was thoroughly enjoyable. A bit long, and I had to ditch plans to attend a chi-chi party, but it was a wonderful experience. I’m a Rossini fan and a complete devotee of fairy tales, so perhaps I went with some prejudice.
Cinderella is an interesting tale with plenty of permutations. I could go on forever on the value of such stories (Bruno Bettelheim’s Uses of Enchantment was seminal for me): I’m even a huge fan of Tanith Lee’s When the Clock Strikes that has Cinderella as a very bad lady.
This version puts gets a slightly religious spin, with the eyes of heaven taking pity on the plight of poor Angelina, La Cenerentola. The fairy godmother is a wise old man; the evil stepmother is replaced by a prideful stepfather; and the moral of the tale is that virtue and innocence always win out. There are some very funny moments and a marvelous use of moving backdrop that strikes me as inventive and bold.
After a few schedule changes, I wound up devoting my evening to Theatre 99, where we said goodbye — literally, if you were standing out in the hall before the second show — to iO Theatre Chicago, which had 40 percent of its five-person cast on stage for the final performance of The Reckoning. Half of that crew was improv star Jet Eveleth, who closed-out a strong festival run with a relatively low-energy performance. The topic was artichokes, and let that be a lesson unto us all: Don’t work with kids and animals, and never take a vegetable as your long-form improv subject.
Show No. 2: Frankenmatt, two very funny guys from Los Angeles. They also worked the long-form game, improvising a road-trip from Charleston to San Francisco. This was only the barest of plot-devices, though, as they spent most of their hour creating a dark comedy about alcoholic fathers and vomit monsters, playing stoners at a 7-11, and flossing llamas. They got big laughs.
Spoleto is getting a good ride in The New York Times, which tells me this is, as I said on a podcast a few days ago, a good year for festival programming. Better than some years … and much better than last. Although last year’s conjunction of the planets Weill, Brecht and Glass certainly got the Times’ attention.
“Good programming ‘doesn’t necessarily represent the tastes of the team doing the programming,’ said Emmanuel Villaume, the festival’s orchestra and opera director.
“‘There is an incredible entertainment value of ‘Monkey,’’ he said. ‘The music is an accompaniment for the visual effects. I won’t say more. People who know about these things say it’s a good score.’
And he quotes composer Damon Albarn (who is also lead singer of the British band Blur) saying please don’t pigeonhole “Monkey” as a circus:
“’Monkey,’ Mr. Albarn said, is a ‘new kind of thing.’
“And it is true: most operas do not have acrobats playing crustaceans in shopping carts juggling parasols with their feet, or extended fight sequences like Hong Kong kung-fu movies, or contortionists wrapping their legs around their heads. And most circuses do not have pit orchestras, a narrative or opera singers.”
I’d like to second that emotion that Spoleto is eminently affordable. Those who say otherwise just haven’t checked it out. Piccolo Spoleto has many, many, many, many free events. Even The Big Festival has tickets as cheap as $10 (either Cyrus Chestnut or Bartok’s Piano Concert No. 2, I can’t remember). Please. You can afford that. Well, maybe with gasoline at $4 a gallon, you really can’t. But experiencing the High Culture and Art that we’re lucky enough to host once a year? Priceless. Anyway, this is just blather to preface news of another cheap ticket …
College of Charleston Professors Lee-Chin Siow, violin and Natalia Khoma, cello, with pianist Volodymyr Vynnytsky, in a program entitled SEASONS.
SEASONS will feature four popular chamber works: Piazzolla’s “Verano Porteno,” Tschaikovsky’s “Four Seasons,” Beethoven’s Piano Trio, Opus 1, No. 1 and the pianist Vynnytsky’s very own “Lost Tango.”
Lee-Chin Siow, violinist, is a rising star with powerful artistic temperament and electrifying technique, hailed as “a violinist having superb control with tasteful flair . . .” by music critic Donald Rosenberg, Cleveland Plain Dealer. A seasoned performer and the Henryk Szeryng International Competition Gold Medalist (1994), Siow has performed in more than 20 countries on four continents. Currently, Siow is the director of Strings and Professor of violin at the College of Charleston. (She has a postage stamp in her image in Singapore.)
Natalia Khoma, cellist, “…plays with masterful authority…magical and deeply touching…” (New York Concert Review), thrilling audiences around the world and capturing top honors at the All-Ukrainian competition (1981), the Budapest Pablo Casals Competition (1985), the Tchaikovsky International Competition (1990), and the Belgrade International Cello Competition (1990). Khoma is a Professor of cello at College of Charleston. (She is the only Ukrainian cellist to win at the Tchaikovsky International Competition.)
Volodymyr Vynnytsky, pianist, this brilliant chamber music performer has graced many of the great music halls of the world including Carnegie Hall, Merkin Concert Hall, Steinway Hall, the Great Bolshoi Hall at the Moscow Conservatory, the Theatre Champs d’Elysees, and St. John’s Smith Square in London. Vynnytsky is Music Director of the Music and Art Center in New York. (A laureate of the Margueritte Long-Jacques Thibaud International Piano Competition in Paris (1983))
Piccolo Fringe have got many brilliant shows over the next couple of weeks (At decent prices, too! For all of you who say Spoleto can be pricey), and a perfect example is the improv group The Reckoning, visiting from iO Theater Chicago who have done some early shows. If you’re reading this on Monday, then it’s NOT TOO LATE to get a ticket for tonight and catch this marvelous five-piece.
I caught up with group member Jet Eveleth, who is also part of the show ‘I live next door to horses’ and asked her a few quick questions …
And when we say ‘house’, we mean ‘podcast studio’. Welcome Mr. Conover and his dulcet tones for the first time this year, to discuss those staging issues onboard the Amistad, as well as highlighting some of the local visual art that Piccolo has to offer.
Elite New York sketch comedy group Harvard Sailing Team are planning a couple of writing workshops while they’re here for Piccolo.
The inventive youngsters don’t do many workshops, and this is an experiment for them to find out how many people in Charleston are hungry for comedy writing knowledge.
There’s just one problem: the classes aren’t in the Piccolo program and information about the Sketch Comedy Writing Classes has been thin on the ground.
I do know this much: the workshops are at Theatre 99 (home of the Have Nots!). They encompass live and video formats, they’re scheduled for May 27th & 28th from 12 to 3 p.m., and both workshops cover the same principles of idea-building and sketch development.
The two classes may be amalgamated depending on the number of sign-ups, so nothing’s set in stone yet. But this is definitely a good opportunity to find out how the team consistently comes up with its nuggest of comedy gold.
Get out your cameras because SpoletoToday and Lowcountry Live of WCIV-TV Channel 4 are teaming up to sponsor a video contest. The rules are simple: The video cannot be more than 3 minutes; it must have a Spoleto and/or Piccolo tie-in; and it must be finished by June 4.
For more shocking details (OK, not really shocking, I just always wanted to say that) tune in at 10 a.m. Tuesday, May 27, to see Geoff Marshall and Janet Edens Conover talk about SpoletoToday on Lowcountry Live with Ryan Nelson.
You do have to make a video even your mom could watch. There is a $200 prize and the winner will be featured on Lowcountry Live. It can be funny, serious or inspiring. It doesn’t have to be perfect: Just shoot it, post it and send us the link (with an embed code) to SpoletoToday@postandcourier.com. We will check it out and, if it meets all the content criteria, we’ll put in on SpoletoToday and in the running for the prize.
Celebrities who have agreed to judge so far include Mitchell Davis and Farrah Hoffmire of Organic Process Productions. They just wrapped up the surfing documentary “Finding Pura Vida” in Costa Rica. Nick Smith, our own Spojo and Charleston filmmaker will also be taking a look-see at the videos. Learn more about what he’s been up to at his Cat City Online blog. As always, if you’ve got any questions, give us a shout at SpoletoToday@postandcourier.com or comment here.
And when we say ‘house’, we mean ‘podcast studio’. Welcome Mr. Conover and his dulcet tones for the first time this year, to discuss those staging issues onboard the Amistad, as well as highlighting some of the local visual art that Piccolo has to offer.
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