Paula Kimper’

As a composer Kimper didn’t have a deep catalog when she undertook to write the evening-length “Patience.”  But the opera was widely hailed when it debuted in the 1998 Lincoln Center Festival and it’s had five subsequent revivals in the U.S. and overseas.

Since “Patience,”  there’s  been an almost unabated flow of new Kimper operas, mostly based in American history and literature.  In 2004 came “The Captivation of Eunice Williams,” and last month in Northampton, Mass. saw the premiere of her fourth opera, “Truth,” based on the life of the abolitionist Sojourner Truth.  In the title role was Evelyn Harris, a long-time member of Sweet Honey and in the Rock.

Yet another musical-theater collaboration is coming from Kimper this weekend in New York with “Restless Yearning Towards My Self.” Along with Kimper’s original music, there will be words by poet Perry Brass and choreography by Sasha Spielvogel of Labyrinth Dance Theater.  It will be part of a program of Mimi Stern-Wolfe’s Downtown Chamber and Opera Players at St. Marks in the Bowery.

O’Brien, a member of New York City Ballet for about 40 years, died in Saratoga Springs on Feb. 23 at age 86. He will be remembered for his unusually long career portraying character roles, especially Drosselmeier in “The Nutcracker” and Dr. Coppelius in “Coppelia.”

O’Brien danced in the 1966 opening season of the Saratoga Performing Arts Center and in 1973 he bought a home off North Broadway in Saratoga with his companion, the actor and photographer Cris Alexander, now 92.  The couple were together for 61 years and lived in the Spa City full time since O’Brien’s retirement in 1991.  According to Alexander, they were married while O’Brien was under care at the Wesley retirement community, where he spent his final weeks.  In keeping with O’Brien’s wishes, there will be no memorial.

Born in Brooklyn on November 28, 1925, John Peter O’Brien was raised in the working class neighborhood of Bay Ridge.  He had his first exposure to serious dance at the Brooklyn Academy of Music as a teen when the touring Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo with Alexandra Danilove performed “Coppelia.”

“I went with my pals,” O’Brien recalled for the Times Union a few years ago. “We were the artsy intellectuals from Bay Ridge, Flatbush and Far Rockaway. And I loved it.”

O’Brien soon ventured to Manhattan to audition for the newly formed School of American Ballet.  But he turned down a scholarship and went for a paying gig as a chorus boy in a revue at The Roxy.  A chance for a Broadway debut soon presented itself when there was an opening in the chorus of “The Merry Widow.”  The choreographer was George Balanchine.

“It was a huge cattle call and I was one of the last ones still there at the end,” recalled O’Brien. “Finally this rather small Russian man wearing a kind of belted trench coat walked in and looked us over.  We were just standing still in a line. He pointed at me and said, ‘That one,’ and walked out.”

Also on Broadway during the 1940s, O’Brien danced in shows choreographed by Anna Sokolow and Anthony Tudor.

He joined Balanchine’s New York City Ballet in 1950, just one year after the company was founded.  During his long career there he performed alongside such legendary dancers as Edward Villella, Patricia McBride, Merrill Ashley and Jacques d’Amboise and created roles in signature works of the company including “Harlequinade,” “Pulcinella” and Balanchine’s own version of “Coppelia,” which debuted at SPAC on July 17, 1974.   When the ballet brought the work back to Saratoga in 2009, the National Museum of Dance gave a program honoring O’Brien.

Courtesy New York City Ballet

For O’Brien’s farewell performance with the company in February 1991 he returned once again to Coppelius.  During the curtain calls at Lincoln Center, fellow dancers presented O’Brien with bouquets and Peter Martins, the ballet master and chief, paid homage to O’Brien on bended knee.  The New York Times reviewer Anna Kisselgoff wrote, “his Coppelius was kindly and sophisticated. His gestures clarified every detail in the workshop scene of Act II.”  She also noted that O’Brien’s versatile career “gave him the background for the dance acting he later developed as a model for others at the City Ballet.”

“When I first met Shaun I was a kid and he was doing Drosselmeier and he showed me how to do the makeup,” recalls David Otto, another retired City Ballet dancer who now lives locally. “Every time I saw him he was smiling and happy. I don’t remember him ever being in a bad mood or complaining.  His was a gentle Drosselmeier who didn’t come across as scary to the children but as a quirky old man.  I’m sure he put something of himself into the role.”

Robert Maiorano, also a retired City Ballet dancer and Saratoga resident, fondly remembers dancing a brief soft-shoe duo with O’Brien in Jerome Robbins’ “Fanfare.”  At the time O’Brien was the company’s oldest member and Maiorano its youngest.  Grateful for O’Brien’s friendship, Maiorano was also impressed by his gifts as a raconteur.

Photo: Luanne M. Ferris / Times Union

“We weren’t allowed to take pictures of anything official and all of a sudden he gets hauled off by the scruff of the neck,” says Maiorano.  The formidable local police chief was having none of O’Brien’s claims of innocence and pleas that he must return for an evening performance.  But all was immediately forgiven upon the arrival of a translator who’d been accompanying the dancers for the past month.

“The interpreter outranked the police offer,” recalls Maiorano.  “Sean put two and two together and realized we’d been traveling with the KGB.  That evening he just comes into the dressing room and says, ‘you’ll never guess what happened to me today.’”

Originally appeared in the Times Union.

Previously on MyBigGayEars:

Shaun O’Brien, Balanchine’s original Coppelius

40 Years of New York City Ballet in Saratoga Springs

“At the Other Side of the Earth” is scheduled to debut May 18 at the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Community Center in New York.  The cast features Layla Jasmine Presson, Katherine Cardin, Monica Harte, Scottie Roché and Lisa Difiore.  J. Julian Christopher directs.

Here’s the synopsis:

Aurora is forced to face who she truly is when she meets Layla, an out-and-proud “riot grrrl” with a bold and brazen demeanor. Layla’s radical political activism and boyish charm cause Aurora great inner turmoil and conflict until she comes out, gaining confidence and proudly declaring herself.

When the two women begin their affair, their love clashes with an oppressive, conservative society where same-sex relationships are against the law. Their struggle with a George Orwellian law enforcer, appropriately named The Man, and his silent, trickster Wife, prove to be both terrifying and hilariously futile, as the two women attempt to follow their hearts to great risk.

Last summer his sister Sarah Ashman Gillespie launched a beautiful tribute site, Howard Ashman: Part of His World. It’s a place for fans to learn and explore but it also seems to be an outlet for Sarah to rediscovered who her brother was.

I can’t carry on Howard’s singular talent as a writer and director but I can carry on other things he taught me. Like love for the arts and the sharing of ideas and enthusiasms. His enormous energy motivated so many of us to find our own creative selves. And that’s what I hope to continue here.

She’s been writing regular blog posts with family photos and personal reflections, such as Leisure Suit Christmas and How I Learned My Brother Was Gay.  You go, little sister!

I’ll never look at paper dolls the same again.  That’s because I recently befriended the greatest living creator of the art form, 83-year old Tom Tierney.

Now I certainly didn’t go looking to chat up a paper doll artist, which made the whole experience all the more special.  Here’s the story…

My boyfriend Doug and I were driving from Houston to Austin last Sunday, and stopped in the little town of Smithville, population c. 4,456.  We’d been told it was the best place to browse antique shops while en route.  Junk stores is more what Doug considered them.  But it was a typically warm and sunny Texas day and Smithville’s Main Street was clean and well preserved.  (“Tree of Life” is one of the many films made there.)  A nice break in the drive.  One lady shop keeper was particularly friendly and said to be sure to check the little store around the corner, which she described as “more European.”  We didn’t know if that meant better quality or more gay.  But it was just steps away.

As soon as we entered, the gentlemanly old proprietor offered us freshly brewed coffee.  It was a tiny shop and we didn’t plan to stay long, and so we politely declined.  But the other friendly older man in the shop, seated and smiling, soon started chatting us up.  Where are you from, what do you do, etc.  And he was as generous with information about himself as he was inquiring about us.  He had a shop over on Main Street where he sold his line of paper dolls, though the place was closed on Sunday.

Actually, the same friend who recommended we stop in Smithville for the antiques also mentioned the paper doll shop.  At the time that really went in one ear and out the other, but there in front of us was the paper doll man himself, Tom Tierney.  He was irresistibly good natured and full of stories, starting with how Liz Smith, the gossip columnist and native Texan, once recommended his work on television, talking about how on a recent visit to the White House she showed his book of Clinton paper dolls to Hillary, who remarked that he got them just about right, underwear and all.  “That was pretty great publicity and I just happened to catch it on TV,” he recounted with some understated pride.  When I inquired about the extent of his work, he said that the Clinton paper dolls are one of over 500 books of paper dolls that he’s produced over the years.

After hearing that it didn’t take much to persuade Tom to open up the shop to give us a look see.  Soon we were strolling half a block down the gravel alley and being escorted through the back entrance.  He actually lives in the rear of the shop (zoning restrictions aren’t too strict in Smithville, he said), and so on the way in we saw some of his large paintings hanging in the private space.

The shop is officially named Shangri-la Emporium and includes sundry tchotchkes and a rather sizable array of Hindu statues.  But the heart of the business is the large display of paper doll books.

Tom Tierney’s background as a fashion illustrator and years of accomplishments with paper dolls are well known, at least to those who follow such things.  Once I laid eyes on the colorful merchandise, I realized I’d glanced past them countless times in souvenir and gift shops over the years.

Although only a portion of his life’s work was on display here in Smithville, it was darned impressive.  Soon he was showing us the William and Kate paper dolls, the Obama paper dolls, the vampire paper dolls (with Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise and the whole “Twilight” crew), and the fashion designer paper dolls, including runway looks by Dior, Chanel and McQueen. And on and on and on.

Somehow Tom knew to hand me a couple of the more gay-themed paper dolls, which I ended up purchasing.   “Life’s a Drag!” is subtitled “a campy salute to the cross-dressing stars of film and television” and features Milton Berle, Jerry Lewis, Julie Andrews (“Victor Victoria”), Dustin Hoffman (“Tootsie”), Barbra Streisand (“Yentl”), Robin Williams (“Mrs. Doubtfire”), Nathan Lane (“The Birdcage”), and John Travolta (“Hairspray”), among others.   A more risque publication is “Attitude: An Adult Paperdoll Book,” which is structured like a Greenwich Village cocktail party c. 1979. First we meet our hostess, Auntie Mary (“She’s load of fun,” reads the brief deadpan narrative), and then all her charming friends, including leather queens and muscle queens, some rough trade and cute little twinks, plus more than a few tired old queens. Every one of these books has the same formate: a figure on the left in their skivvies with their choice attire on the right, ready for cutting out and playing dress-up.

Before we knew it, we were following Tom up the back staircase and into his studio where we got to see scores of original illustrations, some published and some not.  Where the “Attitude” book was suggestive, there’s also a large and unpublished body of Tom Tierney work that’s more overt but still meticulous and beautiful.  Tennessee Williams, James Dean, Andy Warhol and Rock Hudson are just some of the figures from gay history that Tom’s depicted with his same careful hand and loving eye – and, mind you, without their skivvies.

Throughout all of this show and tell, Tom recounted one terrific story after another from his decades in New York through to his recent semi-retirement back home to Texas.  (Just one example:  Tennessee Williams was a friend of a friend and Tom ended up making them breakfast on Saturday mornings while they met to work on a project.) But time was running short and Doug and I were expected in Austin.  And so we had to hit the road, but only after getting our purchases autographed by Tom, sharing hugs and promising to stay in touch.

The hour or so in Smithville, sandwiched as it was in between a pleasant weekend with friends in Houston and a few days of family obligations in Austin, turned out to be a highlight of our trip.  And it wouldn’t have happened if we’d not taken those few steps off the Main Street of Smithville and if we’d not been open to a conversation with a friendly old fellow.  Really, it’s anyone’s guess where you’ll find a new friend or a slice of vibrant queer culture.

The only camera I had on hand was in my phone, but I couldn’t resist snapping a few things…

Tom was quiet a looker in his youth, as shown in these photos by Richard Avedon:

Many of Tom’s stories involved getting an approval or a blessing from those who’s images he rendered in paper doll form.  This is a detail of an autographed Erte poster:

With my new friend Tom:

Fred Hersch

“If you think too far ahead you drop the ball. This is why tennis and jazz are very similar,” he says, in the documentary “The Lives of Fred Hersch.”  He continues, “you have to play what is in front of you and what appears, and react to it.”

On Friday night he’ll be performing a solo piano concert at Chapin Hall in Williamstown, Mass.  “People should come expecting original music, and definitely some things by Thelonious Monk and some reworked standards,” he says.

Like the notes that arrive at his finger tips, the final order of the program will be spontaneous. “I’ll be deciding as I go,” says Hersch.

Hailed as one of today’s finest jazz pianists, Hersch is up for two Grammy Awards for his latest disc, “Alone at the Vanguard.”    Apart from his skills as both improviser and composer, Hersch’s health condition over the last 25 years has provided plenty of opportunity to stay present, both literally and figuratively.

In 1986, Hersch was diagnosed with HIV.  Soon after, he went public about his condition. More importantly, he survived the darkest era of the AIDS epidemic, when seemingly an entire generation of artists died in their prime.  Advancements in treatment, though, haven’t meant the end of problems.

In late 2009, Hersch suffered a precipitous decline, as a persistent cough led to a major infection. Late that year he was rushed by his partner to an emergency room, where doctors put him under a medically induced coma that lasted for two months.

“After I came out of it, it was a good 8 months til I could eat, talk or walk.  It was a near death thing and was going down hill fast,” says Hersch. “If I’d not gotten to the hospital when I did, I might not be talking to you.”

It seems an understatement to say that Hersch had a determination to continue with life and music.

In the year after rehabilitation was complete, he recorded two new albums.  He also began remembering the dream world of his coma, which included dancing a tango aboard a luxury airplane and hanging out with Thelonious Monk.  At first, he just typed out the fantasies into a computer file and got on with things.  But eventually he shared them with a friend, the writer and director Herschel Garfein, who fashioned them into a dramatic scenario that mixes the surreal dream world with the cold reality of the hospital.

The resulting show, “My Coma Dreams,” with original music by Hersch, was developed at Montclair State University last spring and subsequently had a short run in San Francisco.   Hersch describes the event as “jazz theater” and says that future productions are in the works.

“The people who’ve seen it have been moved and inspired by it and that’s what we want as artist,” he says. “So we achieved what we set out to do.”

Accomplishing what he sets out to do is typical of Hersch, who lists a large number of current projects, including a new set of songs for jazz vocalist Kurt Elling, and supervising a spring performance of his 2005 song cycle “Leaves of Grass” at the New England Conservatory, where he’s been a faculty member since 1980.  Touring, recording and teaching are ever on-going.

“I don’t sit around. I’m always doing stuff and I’m clinically and energetically better than I’ve been in years. The drugs are working,” says Hersch. “In November I had a full month of touring with my trio to eight countries. I came back in fine shape. Five years ago, I would have been whipped. It’s remarkable.”

“As an artist, we never know what’s going to come along and strike our fancy. I try to be open but also instigate things,” he says. “You have to roll with life and have patience and also know when to push yourself.”

Originally appeared in the Times Union.

Previously on My Big Gay Ears:

“Jazz and the Queer Aesthetic” in JazzTimes

Fred Hersch profile in the New York Times

Fred Hersch’s Whitman tunes

In one passage, Sondheim acknowledges that the collections focus on only half of his creativity, since he writes both words and music.  While delving into the minutia of what makes a good song text, he purposely avoided technical discussions of melody, rhythm and harmony.  “Music is a foreign language that everyone knows but only musicians can speak,” he wrote.

As a counter balance to the anthologies of Sondheim the lyricist, there’s now a new project from pianist Anthony de Mare that honors Sondheim the composer.  “Liaisons: Celebrating Sondheim from the Piano,” which comes to the Hudson Opera House on Saturday (1/21), is an on-going concert and commissioning project wherein more than 30 composers create new works based on Sondheim’s songs.

Thirteen pieces will be part of Saturday’s program, with the contributing composers from many avenues of American music, including jazz (Fred Hersch), classical (William Bolcom), minimalism (Steve Reich) and opera (Jake Heggie).

“Each piece has become a wonderful marriage of the Sondheim material and the composer’s own individual style,” comments de Mare.  “Several of the composers have commented that this has been a very difficult assignment for them simply because they feel the songs are already so perfect.  They’ve nonetheless come through with a finished product that they seem quite proud of.”

The idea for “Liaisons” came to de Mare more than 20 years ago when he tried his own hand at arranging some Sondheim material.  But as a veteran of the contemporary music world, de Mare knows a wide circle of composers.  As Sondheim’s 80th birthday in March 2010 drew near, he had no trouble lining up other composers to join in the project.  All told, the processes of approaching composers, raising funds for the commissions, and scheduling concerts at venues large and small have been in the works for several years.

To get Sondheim on board with the project, de Mare first reached out with a letter.  He responded quickly, stating, “I’m flattered and delighted by your interest in my songs, and your project sounds intriguing indeed.”

More composers, young and old, continue to sign on as participants, which shouldn’t pose a problem as there’s an almost endless supply of Sondheim material at the ready. (The shows with his words and music number about 13 depending on how you count them.)

While the growing body of pieces is too much for one concert, the diversity of material allows de Mare to create new recital programs for each concert outing.  After the Hudson concert he heads to performances in Fort Worth and San Francisco followed by the New York City debut at Symphony Space in April.  Sondheim and most of the other composers are all scheduled to be on hand then.   Planned for next year is a second concert in Manhattan and a recording of the entire collection.

Though most of the composers in “Liaisons” come from the classical realm, there’s the potential for a wide audience due to the cult of Sondheim fans. (Did you know there’s an entire magazine devoted to Sondheim?  “The Sondheim Review” has been published quarterly since 1995.)

As for Sondheim’s own response to the project, de Mare says that over the past year he’s attended a number of private concerts where the new works have been tried out.  “He’s heard about 15 of the works thus far,” says de Mare, “and still comments on how humbled he is by the composers’ interest in and how inspired they are by his melodies and works.”

Previously on My Big Gay Ears:

DeMare Launches his “Liaisons” with Sondheim, Concert review by Scott Pender

Happy 80th Birthday Stephen Sondheim

Anthony de Mare, Power Pianist

Perhaps it’s that bravery, that hold-your-chin-up attitude, which allows Koestenbaum the courage to delve so deeply into the shame, guilt and suffering of others.

“Humiliation” is the latest book by Koestenbaum who will appear on Thursday at the University of Albany in an afternoon seminar and evening reading, sponsored by the New York State Writers’ Institute.  As the title suggests, his new book explores the humiliating moments of a wide range of historical figures, up to and including the sex scandals of American politicians.  He also throws in plenty of moments from his own life.

Degradation may seem like a surprising departure for the author whose six previous books of nonfiction include highly personal, almost loving biographies of Andy Warhol and Jackie Kennedy Onassis (“Jackie Under My Skin”) two of the great, glittering icons of the 20th century.

Yet in a recent discussion Koestenbaum points to the pivotal importance of a shaky self-image in the lives of the first lady and the pop artist.  He also suggests that it’s the most troubled part of their lives that made them appealing topics to him.

“Jackie was a queen and a mistress of ceremonies and very imperial in manner.  But then there was the bad press she received for defection (to marry Aristotle Onassis) and the footage that weirdly records the bloodied suit,” says Koestenbaum. “And Andy Warhol was spat upon as a child and always an outsider.  His sense of having a bad body, bad skin, bad hair gave him a profound sense of being untouchable. That was the M.O. of his mature career.”

Okay, everybody hurts.  But is Koestenbaum, who’s a distinguished professor of English at the City University of New York, just an intellectual version of a tabloid reporter, spinning out books of scandal for the high brow set?

Actually, Koestenbaum elevates the discussion by regularly making statements like “Humiliation is the kiln through which the human soul passes and receives a burnishing and consolidation.”

Using the psychological term abrecation – the release of a previously repressed emotion through reliving the experience that caused it – he goes on to explain humiliation’s deeper significance.

“By repeating a traumatic episode, you release it’s toxicity, you convert it.  It’s repeating the acts of shame to get cheerful,” he explains. “Writing the book had an abreactive effect for me, and before that so did teaching a course called ‘Humiliation.’ We were all in a good mood and didn’t talk about personal things.  But it was a personal subject and we realized that one could be very cheerful discussing humiliation if you had a supportive group.”

Being an author isn’t easy on the psyche though.  Whatever healing may have come to Koestenbaum through the writing about humiliation was at least somewhat jeopardized by the publishing process, fraught with editing, interviews and especially reviews.

“Publishing itself is so weird and elating and depressing, such a mixed bag,” he says.

Besides his non-fiction books, Koestenbaum has also written five books of poetry and a novel.  He made his first mark on the cultural map in 1993 with “The Queen’s Throat: Opera, Homosexuality and the Mystery of Desire.” A brash and daring treatise on the passionate connection between gay men and opera, it includes chapters on “opera queens,” record collecting, and the cult of soprano Maria Callas.

Humiliation, it seems, is a thread that’s laced throughout classical music, especially the worship of opera divas, and the gorgeous prolonged deaths, night after night, of Violetta, Mimi and all the other tragic female characters.

Koestenbuam says that he just didn’t use the h-word in writing “The Queens Throat,” thinking it too extreme at the time.

“There’s a deeply felt connection between the shame of a flawed public performance and the mercilessly rigorous and perfectionist standards in classical music interpretation,” he says.

Perhaps the only realm where there are higher, even more unattainable standards is that of masculinity.

“Many gay men’s narrative is about failing in masculinity. But everyone does. It’s impossible to ever succeed at masculinity,” states the 53-year old author.  “As a gay man, I have a complex, very particular understanding of the melodrama of masculinity.  As someone my age, it’s taken for granted there’s shame in the package. That’s why a straight man could not have written this book.”

Originally appeared in the Times Union.

Thibaudet will perform all of Ravel’s solo piano works over two nights, Wednesday and Thursday (7/20-21), at Ozawa Hall. Then on Sunday, July 24, he’ll appear in with the Boston Symphony Orchestra at The Koussevitzky Music Shed in both of Ravel’s two piano concertos.

The immersion in Ravel apparently comes easily.

“There are very few composers where I’d do the complete works, because it’s not all at the same level of quality,” explains Thibaudet. “Most composers have great works and some not-so-wonderful. With Ravel, every single note he wrote is perfect.”

Thibaudet has recorded the complete piano works of only three composers — Ravel, Debussy and Satie — and he swears it’s not because they’re all French. Negotiations with his longtime record label Decca played a part. But he holds special reverence for Ravel.

“Everything he wrote is beautiful,” he continues. “To add a note would get in the way, and to drop a note would detract. It’s just a miracle.”

Thibaudet might be considered an heir to Ravel and his tradition.

“My first teacher at the Paris Conservatory, Lucette Descaves, was a friend and collaborator of Ravel. She played for and with him. They were very close,” recalls Thibaudet. “When I’d play something of his, she would speak about him and it was like he was present, like he’d just dropped by the lecture.”

Although Ravel was a famously elusive person, with few intimate friends during his life, Thibaudet says he feels a kinship.

“I feel like I met the guy. It’s really weird that I feel really close,” says Thibaudet. “He was very shy and not very social and had trouble communicating with other people. Perhaps it was some kind of disorder in his brain, but his only way to express himself was through his music.”

Just as Ravel’s piano music comes from every chapter of his life, the material has also been a touchstone throughout the career of Thibaudet, 50. He learned all the solo piano works by age 15 and refers to “Ondine” as one of his “lucky pieces,” having performed it regularly in competition. As for the Piano Concerto in G Major, he learned that at the tender age of 11. It was his first piece to play with an orchestra.

“My teacher raised hell, saying that’s not right for a child, you should do Mozart or Mendelssohn,” he recalls. “But I insisted, and she said ‘OK, if you learn the first movement by next week.’ I did it and she gave up.”

It was last summer that Anthony Fogg, artistic administrator for the Boston Symphony, suggested two evenings of Ravel. Thibaudet readily agreed. But then Fogg went further, asking for the two concertos as well. That much Ravel, all in a few days, will be a new benchmark for Thibaudet.

“This is something I’ve never done in my life. I’ve played both concertos on rare occasions, and the solo works, but never all of it in one week,” he says.

Although it’s a challenge, the setting helped convince Thibaudet to give it a go.

“I love the possibilities of Ozawa. You’re in a concert hall, but feel open to nature and the beautiful grounds of Tanglewood,” he says. “And Ravel was very much in love with nature. Madame Descaves told me that. He was born in this little village in the south of France, on the west side, almost in Spain. You can still see the house where he lived and the little garden. He was not a tall man and he loved everything that was tiny. He lived in his own world and took care of every little plant.”

That attention to detail carries over into the music and to how Thibaudet plays it.

“People always have an idea of impressionism — the term is silly — and that it should be washed out with a lot of pedal,” continues Thibaudet. “He was a classical composer and wanted to hear every note, like a pearl.”

JEAN-YVES THIBAUDET
All Ravel (part two)
Ozawa Hall, Tanglewood, Julye 21

Things have been changing for pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet, who is closing in on a 50th birthday in September.  His concert attire is no longer so brash and colorful, though his suits and tuxedos still have a not so subtle flair (thanks to his exclusive designer Vivien Westwood).  And the contraction of the record industry means he’s no longer cranking out two or three discs a year.  Yet with some 40 titles already released, including forays into jazz, soundtracks and opera transcriptions in addition to lots of mainstream recitals and concertos, he’s already amassed an impressive legacy.

Hopefully Thibaudet’s sundry enthusiasms will continue, but there’s no reason to complain that for three appearances this week at Tanglewood he’s settled in for some very comfortable and familiar material.  In two programs at Ozawa Hall, he’s offered the complete solo piano music of Ravel.  He turns to the Shed on Sunday afternoon to perform both Ravel concertos.  After hearing Thursday’s performance, the second of the two recitals, words like perfect and definitive and unforgettable don’t seem like overstatements

Elegant and refined are other descriptives and they apply equally to the music and the performances.  Yet within the contained, rather intimate sound world, there was an expansive variety as well.

Thibaudet opened the program with the relative simplicity of “Pavane for a Dead Princess.”  Each small rubato and gently rolled chord was revelatory.  Despite its crashing waves and crossed currents, “Jeaux d’eau” was crystalline and transparent.

The first half ended with the brash pleasure and blunt humor of “Valses nobles et sentimentales.” Toward the end, one finally sensed the weight of Thibaudet’s touch and therefore too the humanity behind such endless style.

Thibaudet took hardly a breath between each of the eight waltzes.  After intermission his first notes in the Sonatine brought us right back to the same precious place.  The writing is more formal, less depictive, and somehow that allowed for pianist’s own emotions to come through a bit.  A long series of cadences were like gentle sighs.

“Gespard de la nuit,” the finale, brought us back to the high seas with the “Ondine” movement. The repeated B-flats in “Le Gibet” gave a welcome mooring to the piece.  “Scarbo” went by at an ever quickening pace and was by turns militant, jazzy and expressionistic.

There was no more Ravel left for an encore, so Thibaudet turned to Spanish composer Federico Mompou. The brief, languid piece felt like summer siesta.

Originally appeared in the Times Union.

Photos courtesy Decca Records. Copyright James Cheadle

Previously on MyBigGayEars:

Jean-Yves Thibaudet plays Gershwin

Pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet, style at the keyboard

Kushner has a penchant for taking on big projects and important themes, starting with his most famous work, “Angels in America,” a six-hour, two-part play about AIDS that received the Pulitzer Prize in 1993. For further evidence of his ambition, as well as a somewhat outrageous sense of humor, consider the title of his most recent major play: “The Intelligent Homosexual’s Guide to Capitalism and Socialism with a Key to the Scriptures.”

Yet for all Kushner’s big involvements, he recently took time to come up with just the right new three-syllable word to replace another word that he decided was a little too mundane. It was while in the midst of final rehearsals in Cooperstown, where the Glimmerglass Festival is producing the world premiere of “A Blizzard on Marblehead Neck.” The new one-act opera by composer Jeanine Tesori, to an original libretto by Kushner, debuts tonight (7/21) and runs for five more performances through Aug. 22.

“When writing in verse forms, there are various strictures that you have to obey and a somewhat mathematical precision in searching for a word that will fit,” explains Kushner. “Writing lyrics, instead of writing language that’s supposed to approximate how people speak spontaneously, forces you in a slightly different relationship to language. It knocks the dust off the machinery a little bit.”

Creating “Blizzard” is certainly not Kushner’s first time immersed in music. His parents were professional musicians, and he has already collaborated extensively with composer Tesori. Their through-composed musical “Caroline, or Change” played on Broadway for 136 performances in 2004 and received six Tony Award nominations. The team also has an outstanding commission from the Metropolitan Opera.

“I can’t write or read music, but I love it, and go the opera all the time, though I’m sort of up and down about musical theatre,” says Kushner. “I love the chance at having this intimate connection to singing and to music.”

Asked if there’s a difference between writing for an opera versus a musical, Kushner turns to the diverging nature of the genres and their practitioners.

”I’m not entirely sure of the difference between a musical or opera, but when you go into an opera company with people trained to sing operatically, the expectation is different,” he says. ” ‘Caroline, or Change’ was commissioned for the San Francisco Opera with Bobby McFerrin, but he decided he didn’t want to write an opera. Director George Wolfe was happy about that, because he wanted to work with musical theater performers, not opera singers. There are certain things that musical theatre people know how to do that opera people don’t and vice versa.”

Similar to slotting in words to fit a musical line, Kushner and Tesori were given a very specific task when commissioned last year by Glimmerglass and Francesca Zambello, the company head who is staging the new work. Zambello already had in mind to produce “Later The Same Evening,” by John Musto and Mark Campell, a one-act that deals with the life of painter Edward Hopper. As a companion piece, Zambello requested another one-act about the life of an American artist. Kushner immediately thought of playwright Eugene O’Neill.

“I’m an O’Neill fanatic and have been working on a screenplay about his life for the past 13 years,” says Kushner. “If you’re a playwright, you go to O’Neill as the source. There’s really not much in the way of serious American theatre before he came along. He proved it could exist. He’s the father of us all, the first to stake a claim nationally and internationally for American dramatic literature.”

“A Blizzard on Marblehead Neck” depicts a rather infamous incident that occurred late in O’Neill’s life. It’s February 1951 and O’Neill, 63, gets into a heated argument with his wife, Carlotta. Although in failing health, he walks out of their cabin into a snowstorm and is rescued an hour later.

“The fight that he and Carlotta had almost ended their marriage, but in a sense he never recovered from it,” explains Kushner. “After an hour in the snow, he went into the hospital and stayed fairly seriously infirmed for the rest of his life.”

“Their relationship is a tortured love story. Most great ones are,” adds Kushner.

Besides the husband and wife roles, the opera includes three singers who portray famous drama critics of the era. They’re evoked through some insults the wife hurls at her husband, the sensitive artist. Dealing with tough reviews is a sore spot Kushner can identify with.

“The relationship between critics and playwrights is infinitely tormented,” says Kushner. “If you know of any artist who has no ax to grind, I’d love to meet them and find their secret.”

Kushner says the new opera is one of the shortest things he’s ever written. Just 20 pages of text, it spills out over some 40 minutes of music. Though the work is completed and ready to debut, Kushner’s enterprise starts to show through again during the final rehearsals in Cooperstown.

“When I was watching it, I had a vision of expanding it,” he says. “I’m very pleased with it and think I’ll try to give it further life. I’d like to write more, add one or two other sections, maybe make it a complete evening.”