Reading List: The Metropolis Case

As promised by the title, Matthew Gallaway's novel is an elaborately allusive one, drawing on art and architecture, science and philosophy, politics and history, and most of all opera. This literary concoction is less a novel of ideas, however, than an exuberantly erudite adventure novel. There is also more than a whiff of magic realism about it, as the narrative incorporates the improbabilities of several opera plots, and even the glorious impossibilities that opera often seems to promise. Although the title refers to Janáček's Makropulos Case, it is Tristan which is most deeply woven through the narratives of the novel. The opera's history--and the dream of its potential to make and and alter history--shapes the lives of the novel's characters, and gradually brings their lives together.

Věc Makropulos

The plot of Janáček's Makropulos Case is driven by intrigues legal, historical, and--not least--sexual. The Met's current revival of the 1926 opera is powered by a performance of radiant intensity by Karita Mattila. Elijah Moshinsky's 1996 production is sleek and effective, with Art Deco lines to the claustrophobic lawyer's office, a self-satirizing sphinx backstage at the opera, and (seen above) a sleek apartment which dissolves in the denouement. Central to the production was the image of the diva, and the question of how she is seen by others and herself. Jiří Bělohlávek led the Met orchestra in an account which seemed to emphasize romantic sweep and mysteriously shimmering detail. I speak (Really Shameful Confession) from a position of almost complete ignorance of the score, but I savored the brio and sensuality of the performance.

An Adventurous Vixen at the NYPhil

"My music remains young through contact with the eternally young rhythm of nature." --Janáček

To be honest, I found the scope and hyperbole of the NYPhil's advertising campaign for their latest collaborative event with Giants are Small rather irritating, but it seems to have paid off: last night, Avery Fisher Hall was very close to full with a healthy mixture of symphony stalwarts, twenty- and thirty-somethings, and European tourists. (Parenthetically, I didn't see many children in the audience. I did read articles about how Vixen is Not For Children Because It Has Sex And Death In It. But I read the Brothers Grimm when a child myself, and so was unimpressed by this argument.) As Andrew Porter once observed, avoiding "a Disneyish cuteness in the staging" can be difficult. I thought last night's effort succeeded reasonably well. Having the orchestra on stage behind the woodland glen (in the field of sunflowers) helped in this regard, as did the choreography of animal/human interactions. The costumes, too, balanced evocation of the animal and human, never to better effect than for the hens' print-dress plumage. Clifton Taylor's lighting design effected seamless transitions, transforming a sandy bank into a bridge, or the vixen's den into the table of the village inn. There was fine singing--some of it excellent--and the orchestra luxuriated in Janáček's musical landscapes. Lushness was emphasized over detail, I thought (though I should note that I'm not very familiar with the score) but the strings were on their best form, and both atmosphere and characterization were handled well.