Wenesday in Budapest

June 11, 2014

In my room early in the afternoon, nursing a sore leg. The worst part of traveling is not knowing when the maids are going to come.

Elektra last night was glorious. More streamlined that Der Rosenkavalier, it was excessive and “operatic” in all the right ways at all the right moments. How could the woman playing Elektra sing at such intensity for that long?  I am not familiar with traditional staging of this, but the Budapest production was done in the royal baths, which allowed gratuitous but nevertheless welcome male nudity. Strauss opera is very much more political than I had imagined. One of the attendants is also a soloist for The Birth of Color, so I got to boast (to myself) that I knew someone in the cast. The gangling kid in the seat beside looked at me whenever I made a noise, as if waiting for some secret knowledge, or perhaps afraid that I was about to explode. Ended the night under a rising full moon at the Longford Irish pub, where I had a Strongbow of excellence.

Yesterday was not otherwise a success. Attended the rehearsal for the soloists, and the solos were, to a note, ugly. I didn’t believe their ugliness can be blamed on ineptitude, but on the resolute will of the composer to work out complicated ideas independent of how they actually sound. It is all intellect and no ear. He had graphs matching colors to frequency and all that, but it seemed bullshit to me, because the outcome had to be explained for it to be other than chaos, and even explained it was ghastly. Of course, I have not heard everything together, and together some great aural vision make be working itself out, but the sin of the parts is being too thick, over-thought, messily opaque, and if adding layers helps some kinds of deficiencies, I don’t think it is going to help this. There were moments of loveliness a few days ago. Yesterday I heard all that drowned under a sludge of theory and wilfulness.  Lucio’s punishment for this was to have to play through every part multiple times, to the point of tearful frustration, because the excellent singers had no practical form, no musical coherence to guide them. God forbid you ask “what key are we in?”

H waited until yesterday to tell me she had altered some of the poems, and replaced some of her own. She was right that I would have walked off the project had I known. Wise to tell me when I was in Budapest, the day before taping, when REALLY nothing could be done.

We were meant to tape the narration today, but for some reason I COULD NOT get anyone to respond to my question, when? Where, I discovered on my own, and in frustration I walked there and found out from the guards at the radio station when we were scheduled. I arrived at 10 AM panicked that I was late. My mirth quotient is high, but other than successful tourism, this trip is not yet a success for me. The singers’ English is so calamitous that there is no real point in correcting what I do correct: (V-V-V-Violet, not Wiolet. . . WOOOOOND, not WOWND.” Dear God, they are so patient and working so hard and I just want to scream “This is Bullshit!” and go to a bar. I do not do so because I am not yet absolutely sure it is bullshit. I try to make do with handsome boys bringing me cool drinks in the shady cafes.

Stole a snake plant from an absolutely lightless alcove in the hotel and put it in my window. Nobody moved it back, so it must have been OK.