Happy Valentine's Day!

(I started this post yesterday, so please forgive the lateness and the inaccuracies...)

Yeah, I don't know why I named this post for a holiday I don't much enjoy.  It's probably worth a blog post someday, but today's not that day.  Although I do pass out goofy little valentines at work, so...I don't know.  Hope springs eternal and you all remember my avoidance/denial way of life.  I thought I'd fill you in on a few things I've been up to and hopefully can get myself back on a schedule.  I've actually been writing so much during the workday that it's hard to blog after work.  My brain is pretty empty most of the evening now.  But I promise to try harder.

A few weeks ago, I got an email from the NY Philharmonic, completely out of the blue.  I have a ticket to a concert later this year, so I guess they just emailed their entire single ticket list - they were offering two-for-one $25 tickets to their Lunar New Year concert.  I looked at the program and saw that they would be presenting the US premiere of a new concerto by Tan Dun.  You may remember that I took myself a couple of years ago to a concert of his music and enjoyed myself greatly (you can remind yourself of my thoughts
HERE).  Their other offerings also looked interesting, and hello, $25 for two tickets!  Why not?!  I took my dear IHBB and we had a grand evening.

After a delicious glass of cotes du rhone at Epicerie Boulud across the street from Lincoln Center, we braved the nasty rainy weather over to David Geffen Hall.  The security at the venue has been ramped up and it was rather a mess down there in the lobby, which I'm sure was made worse by the bad weather.  But there were confusing lines all over the lobby and very few staff members there to direct patrons.  Thankfully, we had gotten there early-ish so we could find the restrooms before the concert started, so we made it through the lines and the metal detectors in plenty of time.  Also, I had gotten several emails and even a voice mail from the Philharmonic, telling me that the concert would have no intermission and they couldn't guarantee any late entry, so that was another reason to be there a little on the early side.  Other unfortunate audience members didn't pay attention to those details, I'm thinking.  People were being let in after the first and second pieces, which wasn't a huge deal, but my seat neighbors were quite incensed to have missed watching them live.  Anyway.  Oh, and before I forget, the playbill at the Philharmonic is awesome - it has descriptions of every piece and a little boxed 'in short' section that tells you when/where/duration/more about every piece.  I liked that very much.

The first piece on the program was a sweet little overture called "Spring Festival Overture," by Li Huanzhi. It was brief, lilting, and a nice start to the evening.  The piece was written in the 50s, but is frequently performed at the Philharmonic, which is nice.  After that piece was the Tan Dun violin concerto, "Fire Ritual - A Musical Ritual for Victims of War."  There was an extended break between the first and second pieces; the musicians changed out and something else happened that I didn't notice until well-into the second piece.  The lights went back down and something incredibly complex began...

photo credit: Xinhua

There was the sound of a solo violin, almost disembodied, and I could tell they weren't on stage because the conductor was facing out and conducting into the audience.  I realized that the violinist (Bomsori Kim) was walking up the aisle, playing strange and beautifully dissonant music - she was the shaman (according to the notes in the program) and suddenly you heard more music from around the house.  I suddenly noticed that musicians were positioned inside the house, to the sides of the audience, playing gorgeously strange sounds.  

I thought this piece was fascinating and thrilling at times and I so want to hear it again.  I felt as if I couldn't take in everything Tan Dun was trying to do.  Occasionally, the instruments sounded like birds; the musicians hummed and stamped their feet; there was even a bit where the orchestra shook the pages of their score to signify the sound of wind.  It was all so interesting and beautiful and complicated and very moving.  There was an interesting promo video for a CD of this piece (which I just purchased, btw, I can't wait to listen again!) that you might enjoy:  VIDEO.  The piece really defies description but I highly recommend your listening to it.

Next up was the Queen of the Night's famous aria from Mozart's The Magic Flute.  I have a recording on my phone of Sumi Jo doing the aria and I love it.  It was fun to finally hear it live, though.  It's quite a showpiece for a soprano.  I thought the soloist, So Young Park, did a beautiful job with it.  The trills and all those high notes seemed to come pretty easily to her, but she wasn't smug or showing off about it.  It was lovely.  She did a second piece, "Shin Arirang," which is a traditional Korean folk song.  It was also very sweet, and she had a nice easy smile on her face through the whole thing.  I found So Young Park to be lovely and I'll be looking for more of her recordings, too.

After the arias came a suite from Stravinsky's "The Firebird," which is one of my favorite orchestral pieces/scores.  It's just so thrilling with its sounds of danger then forgiveness.  I admit to getting a tear in my eye at the start of the last movement after the Lullaby.  It's exciting to listen to and I frankly forgot there was another piece after.  It was also very nice, "Train Toccata," which was also being premiered with the Philharmonic.  It was brief, about five minutes, with mournful sounds of a train whistle alongside the forward-moving beat of the toccata.  I might have preferred hearing it before the Stravinsky, but that's probably just me.  

I forgot to mention that the evening was a debut for conductor Kahchun Wong, as well.  He is a recent winner of the Mahler Conducting Competition and seems to be making debuts all around the world.  I found him to be delightful - he was obviously enjoying himself throughout the evening and seemed to relish the work by the musicians.  After each piece, he would go around to the various instrument sections and ask the soloists to stand up and take a bow, which was very sweet.  I enjoyed watching him very much and look forward to keeping an eye on his career.  The audience was very enthusiastic at the end of the concert and even though the house wasn't quite full, it still felt warm and happy inside while it was cold and rainy outside.  I'm glad I took the Philharmonic up on their generous discount offer.

Wow, this post is pretty long already!  I'll just briefly add a couple more things:  I took one last Winter Restaurant Week fling, a dinner at Bobo, a very cute French restaurant in the village.  It's tiny and they seated me at a very cramped table in the front, which was annoying at first because a person who was supposed to have left before I arrived was still sitting in my seat.  I stood there and she said just a minute then continued to sit there.  Sometimes I hate people.  She finally got up and left and I tucked myself into my corner table.

Like most fairly-authentic French restaurants, the service was, uh, leisurely.  My server came to chat with me whenever he had a mind to, so I was there for quite a while.  As I describe my courses, imagine them being spread out over around two hours.  I got there during happy hour, so I was grateful to have a steeply-discounted glass of another delicious cotes du rhone.  For my first course, I got the butternut squash soup, which had pieces of roasted butternut squash at the bottom of the bowl, along with a smattering of toasted pepitas and a drizzle of creme fraiche.  It was really yummy, very earthy and rich, and the crunch of the pepitas was just right.  I enjoyed the soup very much.  I'll include some pictures, but the part of the restaurant where I was sitting was pretty dark, which is good for taking pictures of yourself (candlelight is always flattering), but not so good for food.  

I used the photoshop on my phone - you still can't tell how great it looked

For the main course I got the cassoulet, because when else can you get cassoulet?  And MAN was it good!  Cassoulet is basically a stew/casserole that has white beans and lots of pork, covered in bread crumbs.  I mean, seriously, what could be bad about that?!  This was SO delicious, I can barely describe it.  It was presented in a small cast-iron skillet, but was so full of rich, meaty flavor, I couldn't finish.  I'm thinking there were chunks of pork belly in there (SO GOOD), and also some duck (SO GOOD) and some garlicky sausage (my least favorite ingredient, but still good).  The bread crumbs were crunchy and buttery and the perfect accompaniment to the stew.  Well, not really a stew, since there wasn't much liquid, but there was much flavor.  I would totally get that dish again - I've been thinking about it ever since I had it.

For dessert, I got the lemon tarte, with a swirl of pomegranate molasses.  This was lemony and tart and delicious.  For me, it maybe needed a touch more sugar in the lemon curd, but it wasn't a big deal.  It had huge lemon flavor, and the thick shortbread crust was delicious, too.  I almost thought about getting some tea to go with it, but I was fine.  I was seriously stuffed after the meal - so much good food and good wine!  I was also reading a charming book on my Nook, though I did have to put it away because I was too busy eavesdropping on my seat neighbors...

About my restaurant seat neighbors - it was a couple of gal pals, probably in their late 20s or early 30s.  They finished two bottles of wine while I had my three course meal, so they got increasingly loud as the evening went on.  One of the ladies has a new beau, as far as I can tell, and they spent most of the evening dissecting a text he sent.  ONE TEXT.  They were a bit exhausting.  And very TMI.  I learned entirely too much about their methods of contraception and why they chose them.  They also asked me about every course I ordered, but didn't order any food themselves.  It was...interesting.  When I left, they bid me farewell and called them their silent food partner.  I guess you just never know.

I also went to see a new play at the Cherry Lane Theater:  God Said This by Leah Nanako Winkler.  You may remember I saw this play at the Humana Fest last year - here's what I said about it then:  "Our last play of the day was God Said This by Leah Nanako Winkler.  This play recently won the Yale Drama Prize and will be at Primary Stages next season, so it's maybe the most high-profile of the Humana line-up.  I enjoyed it quite a bit - it's a moving story about a family, illness, redemption, and sacrifice.  It's quite human, very moving and terrifically acted.  A fractured family comes together around the gravely-ill mother, trying to finish her last round of chemo.  The father is a recovering alcoholic, one daughter is a born-again Christian and the other has been estranged from her family for seven years.  It sounds a bit 'been there, done that,' but it's all done with great humanity and wonderful acting.  I thought the father's monologues, as if he's speaking at an AA meeting, were very well done, and set the tone for the play.  The physical production, and the direction, were very good, too.  I was happy to be back in a good place after the earlier play."     

photo credit: James Leynse

I kept considering going back to see the play, but since I had already seen it, and enjoyed it (as you can tell from my thoughts above), it wasn't at the top of my list.  Then, I saw a thread on Twitter about a particular review of the play.  The review was so stupidly racist, while trying to seem so 'woke,' it pissed me off.  The producing company, very smartly, offered a new discount code and put it on Twitter.  So I bought another ticket and actually, I'm really glad I did.  I thought the play seemed much richer and deeper this time around.  It's the same cast, so they've lived with these characters for a long time.  But also, being done in a proscenium production at the Cherry Lane (instead of in-the-round at Humana) really heightened the feelings of frustration, helplessness, fear, and fury.  Because the space was more contained, the emotions seemed bigger, because there wasn't as much air.  Does that make sense?  Anyway, I'm sorry that the stupid critic was so stupid, but I'm glad I saw God Said This again.  I'm looking forward to seeing what the playwright brings us next.

I guess that's enough for now.  I've got some new plays and musicals on my calendar, so hopefully, as I keep saying, I can get back in the blogging groove.  It's actually a little bittersweet to think about sharing my posts on Facebook anymore, because one of my most loyal readers, and a dearly beloved teacher at my college, passed away recently.  He always emailed me after reading my thoughts about a show - I will miss that.  And him.  But thanks to the rest of you here for sticking with me.