A good party

Suz and Russ put on a party today at their place to mark her birthday.  It was a lunchtime do.  Russ got good results from his big BBQ machine as usual. I mainlined on the sausages.  Suz had made a chocolate birthday cake that was gluten free, to suit her mother.  And it LOOKED gluten-free -- flat.  It was however very yummy so if it had been called simply a chocolate slice, it would have been an unqualified success.

Via Jenny, I gave Suz a bottle of Tanqueray as a present.  Like me, she can't cop cheap gin any more now that she has got used to the good stuff. I was already a serious gin drinker when she was a kid so I wonder if that had any influence on her. Joe mentioned to me recently that when he first smelled gin, it reminded him of me. Having a gin-soaked father was probably not the best -- but no harm seems to have come of it.  Since Suz and I had a heap of fun together when she was a kid maybe the smell of gin has good associations for her too.

Both of my step-daughters have grown up to be competent and well balanced women but I attribute that entirely to their genetics.  My only contribution was to ensure that we had lots of laughs together during their childhood.




With both Paul and Von overseas and Timmy recovering from eye surgery, numbers were down but it was a pleasant occasion nonetheless.  The kids were as usual great entertainment, with Dusty doing his usual perpetual motion demonstration and Sahara  all glammed up and enjoying it.  She was undoubtedly the best looking person there.  She played an impromptu ball game with Joe and me in which I on all occasions missed catching the ball.  Joe was pretty good at catching it though.

I talked mainly to Joe -- about dieting.  Joe has to diet to keep his weight under control and I am overweight too.  We both need to cut back our calories and have to find ways of doing that which we can live with.  In the past, when people have told me that they have lost weight, I always used to reply:  "Don't worry.  You'll find it again".  And that is still largely true.  So the challenge is to find a set of practices that one can live with permanently.  I lost over 10 kilos on a diet of Joe's devising but I couldn't keep it up and am now working on a system that suits me. I'm not there yet but I still have some ideas.

Joe has also backslid quite a lot over the last year.  He has now got a noticeable mid-section. He recently bought some new shorts because his old shorts were not a very good fit any more. I have done that at times too.  He knows how to beat it however so will trim back in due course.

I was amused when he confessed that he has gone back to drinking flavoured milk.  Flavoured milk is his addiction.  I think my addiction is sausages and meat pies. I suggested that dieting while he is studying is probably not a good idea and that the three month's break at the end of the academic year might be the best time to shed the weight.

Anne talked mainly to Jenny and Nanna.

Joe gave Nanna some big hugs to express his appreciation of her.  He is still close to his Nanna and appreciates -- as we all do -- how lucky we are to have her still with us at age 90.  Nanna spent a lot of time looking after Joe when he was growing up.  When he was born, he very soon became the man in her life.  Children can be a great delight and Joe was an intelligent and placid child  -- a great combination.  So Joe had a very cared-for childhood, with two parents and a grandmother all trying to do their best for him at all times.  Many children are not so lucky. His sisters are about ten years older than he is so they minded him to an extent too.  Sisters can be quite nice to little brothers.

Jesus Christ Superstar

I saw a live performance of A.L. Webber's "Jesus Christ Superstar" in Sydney back in the '70s.  Many church people were critical of it at the time but I thought then, as I still do, that any promulgation of the Gospel message was valuable.  It is a great message of hope and kindness. I no longer share the hope but perhaps some of the kindness has stuck.

So when I recently saw in Target a DVD of the show for $5, I thought it a good purchase.  It is the Universal Pictures movie version from the year 2000.



And I can see nothing wrong with the story in the show either theologically or exegetically.  There are even correct quotations from the scriptures at crucial points.  The main emphasis of the show is on the passion, the times immediately leading up to his execution.  And the mental agonies that he is portrayed as undergoing at that time are perfectly scriptural, though much enlarged on.  Read Matthew chapter 26 if you doubt it. My old Bible opened at that spot very easily when I went to check it.

So I think Webber has done the world a service in introducing the Gospel story to a "rock" audience.  He must have reached many that the churches did not.

The casting: Political correctness was already alive and well in the year 2000 so the cast included a lot of blacks.  Maybe there were a lot of Ethiopians in the Jerusalem of Jesus' time that we have not heard about.  There are certainly a lot there now.

But the times seem to get ever more sensitive so I imagine that if the movie were a current release it might get some flack over its casting of a black as Caiaphas. According to the Gospel accounts, Caiaphas was the major antagonist of Jesus. He was the villain of the piece, in short.

And the casting of Jesus was unrealistic too.  He was cast as a tall, well-built man with flowing and curly red hair.  In life he would have been a short, stocky man with black hair, dark eyes and swarthy skin, as most Middle-Easterners are to this day.  But the casting was pretty close to traditional depictions of Jesus.  It was rather odd that he was the only one wearing a nightgown, though.

I must confess that I found the casting of a light-skinned "black" woman (Renee Castle) as Mary Magdalene rather jarring.  I can take only so much anachronism.  And her rendition of "I don't know how to love him" amazed me by its poverty. She had a very weak and girlish voice.  I would have liked to hear that aria from a soaring operatic mezzo. Helen Reddy did it pretty well, though.

Some thoughts on Moerbisch 2011

I watched another lavish production from the vast floating stage at Moerbisch last night.  It was the Zigeunerbaron by Strauss 2.  They have done it several times but this was the 2011 production with Harald Serafin as Intendant. As usual he took a part himself and performed it very well.  He is a brilliant character actor -- though there is a sense in which he always plays himself.

But I cannot imagine what he was thinking when he did the casting this time. Why was the old witch portrayed by an overweight young woman in a grey wig?  Why was the allegedly attractive Saffi played by another rather overweight young woman?  Why was Barikay portrayed as a hippy type? The role is for a wanderer but hippies are quite often sessile and plenty of wanderers are not hippies.  There is no reason why the part could not have been filled by a generally attractive young man.  I am afraid the casting rather ruined the show for me.  The visual side has to be good in operetta and it was not on this occasion.

2012 was the last for Serafin at Moerbish before he handed over to Dagmar Schellenberger so maybe he was using the 2011 production as something of a last hurrah and to prove he can be politically correct about fat. Casting his son in a good role in the production also has the air of a last hurrah.  He cast himself and his son in the 2012 production (of Fledermaus) too.

In my view the best performance was by Serafin himself.  He was as usual fun to watch.

But it was a lively and amusing show overall with good music and the usual improbabilities of operetta.  The famous Flotter Geist song was of course the musical highlight of the show.  Ist nicht schwer!

An excerpt from the recruiting scene, with the stirring Werberlied (recruiting song):

 The whole show is online here

A welcome home for Paul

Paul is back from Scotland for a week or thereabouts so I put on a Bollywood dinner for the family last night so that they all had  the chance of a chat with him about his latest doings.  Lots of  people were interstate or overseas so it was a small gathering of 8 adults and two littlies, Sahara and Dusty. Joe got back from Canberra a day early so he could take part.

We all had a good time.  Timmy actually went out and got some more champagne.  The food was good as usual, with much garlic and cheese Naan consumed in addition to the main courses. I had Balti lamb as I often do.  Joe had his regular chicken dish.

The people who had the best time of all were Sahara and Dusty, who were both vocal and running around like mad things for a lot of the time.  I said to Suz that her children were entertaining us all and she replied that they would probably sleep well that night.

The only other people in the restaurant were an Indian family.  The lady of the family watched us a bit so when Sahara came and gave me a cuddle that was closely observed.  With her blonde plaits, fair skin and mostly-pink attire Sahara looked very pretty and the Indian lady gave a big smile as she watched Sahara cuddling up.  Nordic looks  are undoubtedly the world beauty standard -- for all that it is politically incorrect to say so. Even a lot of Japanese ladies blond their hair.

A game that the kids invented was to crawl UNDER the long table and get from one end to the other between people's legs.  We all assisted the merriment by moving our legs about to obstruct them. So there was always a cry of triumph whenever they got to the other end.

Ken and I talked a bit about voting systems.  Ken had the idea that you should have to BUY a licence to vote -- so that only people who are really interested in the issues would vote.  I think most of the world already does something not too different.  In most countries people not interested just stay away from the voting booths on polling day.

When Paul arrived, he spent the first 10 minutes in the room interacting with the kids before he sat down.  Like me, he is very child-oriented.  Russell was very jolly, as he usually is and Ken as usual talked mostly to Anne.  They have similar entertainment interests.  Maureen could not come due to illness.

Die lustige Witwe

I suppose I am a bit foolish to bother about these things but I have myself done a fair bit of translation from German so I am inclined to make a few comments about the translation of Die lustige Witwe.  The usual translation is "The merry widow" and I suppose that is close enough but "gay" or "pleasure-seeking" would approximate it too.  "Lustig" is not "lusty", however.  It is about having a good or entertaining time.

I was delighted recently to receive a DVD of the operetta by Lehar of that name which featured Dagmar Schellenberger as the leading lady.  After her performance as Mariza at Moerbisch I expected some brilliant singing and acting and I was not disappointed.

The performance was from Zuerich in der Schweiz, in the Zurich opera house  -- and that made clear to me how Moerbisch spoils us.  The high tech facilities at Moerbisch enable lots of very sharp and very close close-ups -- rather like in a Hollywood musical.  So facial expressions can be seen in great detail.  The technicians at Zurich were no slouch but broadcasting from an ordinary opera house did limit them, with the lighting apparently being the main culprit.

So the brilliant expressions that Schellenberger is known for were at their clearest only when she was under bright light.  Lighting varies in opera houses so clarity was on other occasions reduced.  There was not the constant clarity to be found at Moerbisch. What was particularly missing was Schellenberger's eyes.  She has the most expressive eyes and one could not always see them at critical junctures.  We saw enough of her, however, to marvel yet again at how well her face mirrored what was going on.  She has the most amazing range of expressions -- and all used appropriately to the story.  I liked it when she answered her difficult man with just one glance of her eyes.

And it's not only facial expressions. Her gestures and body language are eloquent too. Her body language when she was urging the dummer Reitersmann to claim her was a legend-quality example of non-verbally saying "take me".

And the very different role did call forth from Schellenberger a new lot of expressions.  This time she brilliantly conveyed disgust, pique and coquettishness -- among much else.  Her singing was as good as ever but the role did not really stretch her -- though she did belt out a few high notes for fun on occasions.

But it was a fun operetta and I will be watching it repeatedly.  It gains with each successive viewing of course.  The local patrons at the Teatro alla scala in Milano know that.  They normally know well the opera put on there but keep going along to absorb more of it.

I initially thought that Schellenberger looked younger than she was at Moerbisch but, on checking, I found that both performances were in 2004!  It shows how much difference hair, makeup and clothes can make.  And her role was quite different too.  At Moerbisch she was the haughty lady who fell in love against her better judgement whereas at Zurich she was the pretty and clever little lady who was determined to get her man.  And, this being operetta, she did, of course.  The man didn't have a hope.  Whether she IS the ultimate female or not, she certainly plays one with great conviction.

The Swiss were a bit more daring in the costume department too.  Both Schellenberger and Ute Gfrerer showed noticeable cleavage,  particularly so in the case of Gfrerer. Gfrerer was the second  lead, playing Valencienne, the attractive young singer married to a rich older man.

Gfrerer seems to be a rather jolly lady in general but her part in this show was almost wholly serious.  She was even asked, rather absurdly for her, to be Eine anstaendige Frau (a respectable wife). I was inclined to think that her notable bosom was what got her the part and that may have been so.  It did suit the role.  But she is also much acclaimed as a singer and actress. There is a bio of her here.

Her natural talent for gaiety did however surface in the dancing.  She was in any dancing going, whether the part really called for it or  not. She even led the cabaret dancers towards the end of the show. With big smiles and shrieks, her happiness throughout the dancing was a joy to watch.  She even got herself tipped upside down in that last segment! She is a naturally happy lady, I think.  And being born both beautiful and talented why should she not be happy?

Ute Gfrerer


Schellenberger with the ambassador


Schellenberger with her "difficult" man

In fact Zurich got top talent all round.  Even the conductor has a distinguished record. He was Franz Welser-Moest and when I saw him I thought he was rather young as conductors go -- but I was mistaken.  He was in fact 44 at the time.  A lot of German men are ageless for a long time and he is obviously one of those. Something to do with the climate, maybe.  I was at a conference at Oxford once when I saw a New York lady mistake a good-looking German man as being about 30.  He was closer to 50.

The music was of course good so it seems a pity that none of the arias seem to be much used outside the context of the operetta itself.  Some of the tunes might even reasonably be described as catchy. Vilja gets a very occasional airing as a concert piece by itself but even on YouTube most of the  renditions are extracted from stage performances of the operetta.

The inescapable Andre Rieu has of course grabbed it for his shows and in fact done rather well with it.  He has up a very sweet rendition by a slightly built black South African soprano named Kimmy Skota.  She does not of course have a fraction of Schellenberger's facial expressions but the singing is as good as any.  I find it hard to evaluate Schellenberger's performance of the aria as just singing.  I can't isolate the singing from the brilliant way she plays the part as a whole.

I was amused that "men" are described in one of the later scenes as quoting Heinrich Heine (a German romantic poet) to win women.  I like some of Heine but have never recited Heine to a woman I was interested in  -- but I did once quote Goethe to a very fine woman with good effect.  I am out of contact with her now, to my regret,  but I imagine she still remembers that too:   "Tiefe Stille herrscht im Wasser ...". I have had some lovely ladies in my life and I fear that I did not treat them all as well as they deserved.

The stars of the show were undoubtedly the two ladies above but Njegus the majordomo was a great comic touch too. And Rudolf Hartmann made a great comic figure out of Baron Zeta.

And I must of course say something about the big and mellifluous American baritone, Rodney Gilfry, who has learnt enough Hoch Deutsch to play Graf Danilo well. His rugged good looks do make him credible in the part as much admired by women but he is quite powerless against the the German ultra feminine Schellenberger.  Schellenberger has been described as "Prussian energy plus feminine charm" --  and there is a lot to that. A real-life man could not withstand her for 5 minutes.

A small point:  My old ears are not so good these days but, as I hear it, Schellenberger does reply to her lover on some occasions with the Slavic "da" rather than the German "ja".  That would be in keeping but I do wonder if my ears deceive me.

And the two little voiceless sobs she does in the humming song are immensely evocative, though I do think they are a bit of a trademark for her.  She is one clever lady.

A small language note:  The honorific Russian form of address "Gospodin"/"Gospodina" is used on occasions in the show -- presumably to identify the mythical country in which the show is set as Slavic (clearly modelled on Montenegro).  It means "Your honour" or "Gracious lady" or something along those lines.  It is perhaps a bit less empty than the German expression "Gnaedige Frau" (which is also used).

Speaking of expressions, it is mildly interesting that women in German lands rarely refer to their husband as a husband.  They refer to him as "mein Mann" (my man).  There is a German word for husband (Ehemann) but it seems to be little used. And Frau (woman) is also used to mean "wife".

Another language note:  As the anstaendige Frau is a recurrent theme, I thought I should elaborate a little on the meaning of anstaendig.  It is reasonably translated as "respectable" but it is also often translated as "decent".  It is a claim about her good character as well as a claim about her good reputation. On one occasion she describes herself in French as a femme d' honneur and I think that best captures what is intended for the part.  It means a "woman of honor".  Interesting that the old Latin word honor is still used in both English and French with the same, original meaning. I am mildly regretful that the Old English word mensk has been completely supplanted by it.

I was a bit peeved that the French used in the show was subtitled but not translated. I haven't spent one minute studying French.  But, fortunately, my general knowledge of European languages enabled me to get most of it.

The words of all the songs in the show are here -- in German AND English

Finally, is there a political message in the operetta?  Patriotism is rather clearly held up to ridicule in it but is Lehar ridiculing Austro/Hungarian patriotism, the patriotism of small countries or ridiculing patriotism generally?  I will have to read further on that, I think. He was not himself Jewish but his wife was and he associated a lot with Jews so that may have made him skeptical of the patriotic sentiments of the time.  On the other hand he spent a lot of his early life in the armed forces, which usually encourages patriotism.  On balance, I am inclined to suspect that he saw Austro/Hungarian patriotism as excessive. His near contemporary in England, W.S. Gilbert (in the Gilbert &  Sullivan light operas) was certainly no respecter of the establishment.

Kalman's Graefin Mariza at Moerbisch in 2004

I am at the moment "nuts" about the 2004 performance at Moerbisch of Kalman's Graefin Mariza.  I have already written a bit about it but I think I should add a few things that might, via the magic of Google, be helpful to people looking for more information about it.  There is very little available in English about it online so far.

I think I have watched the show every night since I got the DVD some weeks ago.  It is to me great entertainment and also a perfect work of art. I even still laugh at jokes that I have heard around 30 times already!  The combination of Kalman's music and the no-expenses-spared staging at Moerbisch is hard to beat.  I love the Moerbisch steam train.

And, in the usual way for operettas, the show is exceedingly romantic.  Love is its theme.  So why the Devil do I enjoy it?  I see myself as one of the world's least romantic persons.  But as the ancient Greeks used to say, "It's a wise man who knows himself" and the fact that I have been married four times may be some evidence of that.  And I still think that I married four very fine ladies.

Lots of good excerpts below;











But if you want English subtitles you will have to buy the DVD. The words are of course in German, but the music is international.