Showing posts with label Peter Sellars. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Peter Sellars. Show all posts

June 17, 2024

20,000 vinyl LPs 365: Igor Stravinsky ~ Oedipus Rex

 ~  
vinyl LP front cover 
Graphics design – Zdeněk Ziegler
photo of album cover by Styrous®


Today is the birthday of Russian composer, Igor Stravinsky who was born on June 7, 1882, in Saint Petersburg, Russia. Oedipus rex was written towards the beginning of Stravinsky's neoclassical period, and is considered one of the finest works from this phase of the composer's career. I personally think he is the greatest of the modern composers; some may disagree but then life is subjective after all.         
 
 
Under construction



 
 Igor Stravinsky  ~ Oedipus rex
vinyl LP back cover
Graphics design – Zdeněk Ziegler
photo of album cover by Styrous®
 
 
 
 

 
  Igor Stravinsky  ~ Oedipus rex
vinyl LP gatefold interior
Graphics design – Zdeněk Ziegler
photo of album cover by Styrous®
 
 
 
This recording of Oedipus rex is a stereo recording, however, it was recorded during the period of transition from monaural to stereo. The cover was printed for the mono version so a sticker was added to adjust for that.     
 

vinyl LP front cover detail
Graphics design – Zdeněk Ziegler
detail photo by Styrous®




 
 
 
John Green talks on Crash Course about one of the least family-friendly family dramas in the history of family dramas, Oedipus rex that is informational and very hysterical. Peter Sellars discusses the myths and rituals surrounding the Oedipus legend (links below).             
            



There are dozens of outstanding videos of performances of Oedipus rex on YouTube. I've linked to my favorites below; each has startling sets and costumes.           


libretto

 
 Igor Stravinsky  ~ Oedipus rex
vinyl LP libretto cover 
Graphics design – Zdeněk Ziegler
photo by Styrous®
 
 
 
 

 Igor Stravinsky  ~ Oedipus rex
vinyl LP libretto back cover 
Graphics design – Zdeněk Ziegler
photographer unknown
photo of libretto by Styrous®









Igor Stravinsky  ~ Oedipus rex
vinyl LP side 1
photo of album cover by Styrous®






 
 
Igor Stravinsky  ~ Oedipus rex
vinyl LP side 2
photo of album cover by Styrous®
 





   
Tracklist:
       
Side 1:
        
        Oedipus Rex - Opera-Oratorio After Sophocles   
A        Part 1   

       
Side 2:
       
B        Part 2   
       
Companies, etc.
       

       
Credits:
       
    Chorus – Czech Philharmonic Chorus
    Chorus Master – Josef Veselka
    Composed By – Igor Stravinsky
    Conductor – Karel Ančerl
    Edited By, Engineer – František Burda
    Graphics – Zdeněk Ziegler
    Liner Notes – Jaroslav Smolka
    Orchestra – Czech Philharmonic Orchestra*
    Recording Supervisor – Dr. Ladislav Šíp*
    Translated By – Jean Danielou*
    Voice Actor [Creon] – Karel Bermann*
    Voice Actor [Jocasta] – Věra Soukupová
    Voice Actor [Oedipus] – Ivo Žídek
    Voice Actor [Speaker] – Jean Desailly
    Voice Actor [The Messenger] – Zdeněk Kroupa
    Voice Actor [The Shepherd] – Antonín Zlesák
    Voice Actor [Tiresias] – Eduard Haken
    Written-By – Jean Cocteau
       
Notes:
       
℗ 1966 (label info)
(C) 1966 (sleeve info)
Gatefold sleeve w. Liner Notes in English, Russian, German & French
cont. 4-page-inlet w. Libretto in Latin
       
Barcode and Other Identifiers
        
    Rights Society: BIEM
    Price Code: G
    Other (Manufacturing Code): 66 2
    Other (side 1): E 729
    Other (side 2): E 730

         
 
Viewfinder links:        
         
Jean Cocteau          
Peter Sellars         
Igor Stravinsky        
Zdeněk Ziegler        
        
Net links:        
        
Britannica ~.   
        Oedipus Rex play by Sophocles         
        Oedipus-Greek-mythology            
Cliff'sNotes ~ Play Summary Oedipus the King        
SparkNotes ~ Oedipus Rex         
        
YouTube links:        
        
Igor Stravinsky  ~ Oedipus rex ~         
          Bernard Haitinik, Amsterdam, 1984          
          Seiji Ozawa, Japan 1992          
          Marius Stravinsky, Russia 2021          
Crash Course ~ Fate, Family, and Oedipus Rex        
Peter Sellars ~ Oedipus Rex: Stravinsky Myths & Rituals        
        
        
         
        
        
        
Styrous® ~ Monday, June 17, 2024       
       
 
 


















Posted by at No comments:
Labels: , , , , ,

October 18, 2021

20,000 Vinyl LPs 316: Kurt Weill ~ The Seven Deadly Sins

 ~  
vinyl LP front cover detail
painting by Tom Allen 
detail photo of album cover by Styrous®


Today, Monday, October 18, is the birthday of Lotte Lenya who was born in 1898. She was an Austrian-American singer, diseuse and actress, based in the United States. In the German-speaking and classical music world, she is best remembered for her performances of the songs of her first husband, Kurt Weill.         
Lenya's voice is not what one would call pretty, it is dark, grating, raspy, almost out of tune. When you listen to her singing you can almost smell stale cigarette smoke and taste late nights of drinking whiskey in shabby bars and feel tales of lost loves; it is a voice that comes from the real world perhaps even the slums. It is beautiful in its own gravely way!    
 
In 1957 Lenya recorded one of the theater works by her husband, The Seven Deadly Sins (German: Die sieben Todsünden, French: Les sept péchés capitaux). It is a satirical ballet chanté ("sung ballet") in seven scenes (nine movements, including a Prologue and Epilogue) composed by Kurt Weill to a German libretto by Bertolt Brecht in 1933 under a commission from Boris Kochno and Edward James. It was translated into English by W. H. Auden and Chester Kallman and more recently by Michael Feingold. It was the last major collaboration between Weill and Brecht.       
 
 

vinyl LP front cover detail
painting by Tom Allen 
detail photo of album cover by Styrous®


 
This album is one of my purchases because of the cover, as stated in previous articles, I did that a lot. I had only known of Die Dreigroschenoper (The Threepenny Opera) by Kurt Weill and had fallen in love with it but this was completely unknown to me.   
 
       
vinyl LP front cover
painting by Tom Allen 
photo of album cover by Styrous®


I got it home and listened to it, heard how beautiful the music is, especially the Prolog, and I was a Kurt Weill devotee from that very day and went on to buy every album I could find by him. And through this album and Threepenny discovered the amazing treasures of his collaborator Bertolt Brecht as well as his wife, Lotte Lenya.      


vinyl LP front cover detail
painting by Tom Allen 
detail photo of album cover by Styrous®
 
 
photographer unknown

 

The Seven Deadly Sins tells the story of two sisters, Anna I and Anna II. Anna I, the singer, is the principal vocal role. Anna II, the dancer, is heard only infrequently and the text hints at the possibility that the two Annas are the same person:
 
"She's the one with the looks. I'm realistic. She's just a little mad, my head is on straight. But we're really one divided being, even though you see two of us. And both of us are Anna. Together we've but a single past, a single future, one heart and one savings account and we only do what suits each other best. Right Anna?"
        
"The Family", a male quartet, fills the role of a Greek chorus. They refer to Anna as a single daughter of the family, making a verbal allusion to her divided nature: "Will our Anna pull herself together?" The sisters set out from the banks of the Mississippi River in Louisiana to find their fortune in the big cities, intending to send their family enough money to build a little house on the river. After the prologue, in which Anna I introduces the sisters and their plans, each of seven scenes is devoted to one of the seven deadly sins, each encountered in a different American city:         
 
  1. Prologue
  2. Faulheit / Sloth (city unnamed)
  3. Stolz / Pride (Memphis)
  4. Zorn / Wrath (Los Angeles)
  5. Völlerei / Gluttony (Philadelphia)
  6. Unzucht / Lust (Boston)
  7. Habsucht / Greed (Tennessee, in posthumous versions Baltimore)
  8. Neid / Envy (San Francisco)
  9. Epilogue (home, in the new little house)


vinyl LP back cover 
back cover photo by Louise Dahl-Wolfe
photo of album cover by Styrous®
 
 
It's really interesting to see how different groups have interpreted the work. The first link  (link below) is the version "By sin" with Peter Sellars & Teresa Stratas, there is emphasis on the singing; in the second link (link below) with the Opera de Paris it is the dancing and movement that predominates. Both versions are stunning in totally different ways!!!
          


vinyl LP back cover details
back cover photo by Louise Dahl-Wolfe
detail photos of album cover by Styrous®





vinyl LP back cover detail
back cover photo by Louise Dahl-Wolfe
detail photo of album cover by Styrous®


vinyl LP back cover detail
photos by Styrous®



vinyl LP back cover details
detail photos by Styrous®














 


   
Tracklist:
       
Side 1:
        
A1 - Prolog
A2 - Faulheit
A3 - Stolz
A4 - Zorn
       
Side 2:
       
B5 - Völlerei
B6 - Unzucht
B7 - Habsucht
B8 - Neid
B9 - Epilog
       
Credits:
       
    Bass Vocals – Ernst Poettgen, Sigmund Roth
    Conductor – Wilhelm Brückner-Rüggeberg
    Lyrics By – Bert Brecht*
    Music By – Kurt Weill
    Painting – Tom Allen*
    Tenor Vocals – Fritz Göllnitz, Julius Katona
    Vocals – Lotte Lenya
       
Barcode and Other Identifiers
       
    Matrix / Runout (Label side A): x"LP"39510
    Matrix / Runout (Label side B): x"LP"39511
    Matrix / Runout (Runout side A - stamped - variant 1): XLP39510-1A
    Matrix / Runout (Runout side B - stamped - variant 1): XLP39511-1D
    Matrix / Runout (Runout side A - stamped - variant 2): XXLP-39510-1D
    Matrix / Runout (Runout side B - stamped - variant 2): XXLP-39511-1AA
 
Lotte Lenya – Kurt Weill's The Seven Deadly Sins
Label: Columbia Masterworks – KL 5175
Format: Vinyl, LP, Album
Country: US
Released: 1957
Genre: Classical, Stage & Screen
Style: Modern
 
 

         
Viewfinder links:        
         
Bertolt Brecht          
Lotte Lenya        
Peter Sellars        
Teresa Stratas        
Kurt Weill        
        
Net links:        
        
        
YouTube links:        
        
Kurt Weill ~      
     The Seven Deadly Sins (by sin) (47 mins.)   
     The Seven Deadly Sins (dance) (39 mins., 36 secs.)  
        
        
         
        
        
        
Styrous® ~ Monday, October 18, 2021       
       
 
 












Posted by at No comments:
Labels: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Peter Sellars articles/mentions

 ~ 
         
 
 
mentions:
Igor Stravinsky ~ Oedipus Rex     
Kurt Weill ~ The Seven Deadly Sins 
     
     
     
     
         
     
     
photo by Styrous®



        
       
       
       
        
       














Posted by at No comments:
Labels: , , , ,

September 4, 2011

Chez Panisse 40th Anniversary Pt 1



After almost half a century of watching slow food from it's beginnings to it's growth and evolution, I had the wonderful pleasure of photographing the 40th Anniversary of Alice Waters' legendary, Chez Panisse restaurant, at the Berkeley Art Museum on the 26th of August. This and other fundraising events were held to support the growth of Edible Schoolyard programs across the country.

What an event it was! While still daylight, a procession of musicians and people dressed in costumes entered from outside the museum inviting everyone to the event.

photo by Styrous®



photo by Styrous®



left: Steve Sullivan, owner of Acme Bread
right: Rafa on trumpet
photo by Styrous®


The costumes were playful but simple, mirroring the essence of slow food.

photos by Styrous®

Ms. Waters held court and the audience ranged from the political . . .
photos by Styrous®


to originators and gurus of the slow food movement . . .

original members of the Swallow Restaurant
photo by Styrous®


to luminaries of the arts


left: Peter Sellars, theater director
right: David Byrne, composer & Larry Rinder, Director of BAM
photos by Styrous®


A recycle team performed maneuvers a marine would have envied.


photo by Styrous®


The apex of the evening was when Alice Waters unveiled a photographic portrait of her standing beneath a tree. It will be hung at The Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery in Washington D.C.


photo by Styrous®



photo by Styrous®


photo by Styrous®



photo by Styrous®



photo by Styrous®


photo by Styrous®


photo by Styrous®


It was a momentous evening.

The next post will cover the celebrations held the next day. A totally different scene you can see here.

Styrous® ~ Sept 4, 2011
~




~
Posted by at No comments:
Labels: , , , , ,
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)