This-is-not-a-blog

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10/29/2013

Swan Lake redux

HIGH DRAMA Greta Hodgkinson, Rex Harrington and Aleksandar Antonijevic in the world premiere of Swan Lake in 1999; illustration by Maurice Vellekoop.

The National Ballet of Canada’s eye-popping, heart-stopping production of Swan Lake, choreographed by the inimitable James Kudelka, opens Sat, Nov 9. I was there 14 years ago for the world premiere. It was a night of high drama: the moon disappeared momentarily during the opening tableau in a lighting snafu, a corps member collapsed on stage, and a near riot of tut-tutting erupted when an audience member refused to stand for the Lieutenant Governor. But nothing could detract from the amazing artistry on display that night. I teamed up with illustrator Maurice Vellekoop to cover the action. Not bad for a scrappy paper like Xtra. I mean, just five years prior, Vellekoop had been sent to Paris by American Vogue to cover the autumn couture shows. I always thought I had a little Anna Wintour in me.

I love the piece of comics reportage that Vellekoop and I did – the first of many collaborations (not least of which includes our 11-plus year relationship).

I also wrote an earlier preview piece where I interviewed the ballet’s male stars, Rex Harrington and Aleksandar Antonijevic, who debuted the roles of Rothbart and Siegfried. Kudelka’s version depicts Siegfried’s court, with its armor and skeletons, as a hide-bound, militaristic realm – a chilling echo of the wider world at the time. Canada, as part of NATO forces, was participating in near nightly bombing raids over what was formerly known as Yugoslavia. In my story, Antonijevic expresses his dismay over the military action; his family lived in Novi Sad, one of the hardest hit cities.

My preview also includes a discussion of the National’s long, rich history with this revered ballet.

The 2013 opening night of Swan Lake will star Xiao Nan Yu as Odette/Odile, McGee Maddox as Siegfried and Etienne Lavigne as Rothbart. national.ballet.ca.

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10/21/2013

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Hudson's Bay Blanket Bingo

I am so chuffed: One of the first cheques I received as a freelancer (not from In Toronto, the magazine I founded in 2010, where I’m still a contributing editor) is from the Hudson’s Bay Company. My very first part-time job was at The Bay in downtown Winnipeg (if you don’t count my stint washing test tubes in my father’s lab at the University of Manitoba or my appearance as an extra in the CBC short film Melda and the Ducks!?).

During my last year of high school, I started working in the Bay’s record department on the fifth floor located between toys and books. I was so clueless. I was once asked about The Clash’s latest album. I remember the exact words of my response: “Well, you can’t go wrong with The Clash.” As if I knew anything about punk music. I was more of a Billy Joel, Carole King, Jesus Christ Superstar kind of kid. (But the art of dissembling would serve me well years later as an entertainment writer.)

A couple of years later, after short stints hauling furniture and selling shoes, I ended up in 317, the young people’s jeans and fashion department. Very glamorous. I once sold Alan Sues of Laugh-In fame a pair of cotton pants that converted to shorts (they had zippers at the knee). He was performing at Stage West dinner theatre, starring in the cross-dressing farce Charley’s Aunt. The ’Peg was no cultural backwater.

Every Winnipegger of a certain age has strong memories of that downtown Bay: the smell of wet winter wool and cigarette smoke while waiting for buses inside the doors along the Vaughan Street entrance; malt milkshakes in the basement; or rows and rows of gaily coloured bowls of Jell-O in the Paddlewheel Restaurant on the top floor (immortalized in Guy Maddin’s historical fantasia My Winnipeg as the site of a 1930s male beauty pageant presided over by a lustful mayor).

Ever since the time of the fur trade, The Bay, Canada’s oldest continually operating company, and the city of Winnipeg have been closely linked. HBC basically owned the land on which the city is now located. The company’s first-ever department store opened in Winnipeg in 1881. And when its new six-storey flagship was built in 1926, handsomely clad in locally sourced Tyndall stone, it was the country’s largest reinforced concrete building. The HBC head office was transferred from London, UK to Winnipeg in the 1970s, though it moved to Toronto in the '80s as the company expanded into Ontario and Quebec; at least the HBC Archives are still in Winnipeg.

Sadly the grand old department store at the corner of Portage and Memorial is on her last legs. Business has moved elsewhere because of suburban sprawl and shortsighted urban planning. The Bay’s top three floors have been mothballed and the Zellers in the basement just closed. HBC seems to be biding its time until the province unveils its plan for the site (here's good update from the Winnipeg Free Press). Hopefully it won’t go the way of the Eaton’s store, demolished in 2003 to make room for a downtown arena.

So The Bay is back in my professional life. My first cheque; my last cheque. It’s one of those circle of life moments. But bittersweet. The perfect symbol for that circle, the spinning, splashing paddlewheel from the cool riverboat diorama in top-floor restaurant, is no more. Hopefully the building itself will have a happier fate.

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10/18/2013

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Living Tree

Happy Persons Day!

Today we celebrate the landmark ruling from 1929 granting that women are indeed "persons" under Canadian law. The issue at hand was eligibility for appointment to the Senate in a case involving a judge and women's advocate, Emily Murphy, and four other leading feminists from Alberta, “the Famous Five.”

For historical context and its implications in contemporary legal disputes north and south of the Canada/US border, check out Linda Greenhouse’s fascinating article in the New York Times.

In honour of Persons Day, I want to make a special call out to Diane Spivak. It’s because of Diane that I work in media today, that I’m a writer. She got me my first job out of grad school. We had shared a class together at UofT and she recommended me to her boss, Linda Rainsberry, a Gemini-winning TV producer with a mania for social justice. I walked into an interview without even a résumé and got hired on the spot. I got a job as a researcher at TVO, working alongside Diane and Linda on a literacy project (later I’d be a field director and producer before moving into print as arts editor at Xtra). I call Diane out, not just because she is a woman who helped me at the beginning of my career, but also because her mother, Mira, happens to be a former senator (I only met her once, at Diane’s wedding). Mira Spivak represented Manitoba in the upper chamber from 1986 to 2009. Married to Sid Spivak, a former provincial leader of the Progressive Conservatives in Manitoba, Mira was appointed to the Senate by Brian Mulroney. But Mira believed in the "progressive" side of her party and left the Conservative caucus to sit as in independent when the PCs merged with the Alliance Party.

I haven’t really kept track of Diane, a writer and literacy advocate, over the years. The last time I saw her was a few years ago at Linda Rainsberry's funeral. But Diane's name popped up recently in the most felicitous way: She is a member of the 2013 Toronto Book Awards Committee that just awarded this year’s prize to my friend and colleague Kamal al-Solaylee for his memoir, Intolerable, about growing up in Yemen and Egypt before emigrating to Canada. Coming into his own as a writer and gay man, Kamal writes movingly about his feelings of powerlessness as he watches religious conservatism and economic instability slowly change his family back in Yemen, especially his sisters, how they resemble less and less the women he loves, their very personhood under threat.

One of the smartest things I ever did in my career as an editor was to give Kamal, now an associate professor of journalism at Ryerson and former Globe and Mail theatre reviewer, his first-ever byline; it’s a point that Kamal, always the gracious and generous soul, often acknowledges.

Isn’t it funny how small kindnesses can string together to create such unforeseen consequences. Emily Murphy, Mira and Diane Spivak, Linda Rainsberry, me and Kamal -- we are all linked in a very strange, roundabout way.

The central image from Greenhouse’s New York Times article stems from a quote in the 1929 ruling that called Canada’s constitution “a living tree.” The living tree doctrine in Canada (as opposed to the conservative "originalism" in the US, for example) allows for the meaning and application of our constitution and laws to change and grow as we change and grow, as a people, as a country. So persons, please remember to water daily with care and kindness.

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10/13/2013

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Shimmering, terrible beauty: Peter Grimes reviewed

AT SEA AMONG MEN The amazing Ben Heppner as Peter Grimes in the Canadian Opera Company production of Peter Grimes. (Photo by Michael Cooper)

The Canadian Opera Company production of Peter Grimes, currently running at the Four Seasons Centre, is an artwork of shimmering, terrifying beauty.

With note-perfect direction from Neil Armfield and starring Ben Heppner in the title role, this production, originating with Houston Grand Opera and Opera Australia and new to the COC, offers one of the best opportunities to experience Benjamin Britten’s brooding masterpiece from 1945. Anyone excited by passionate, sophisticated musical theatre should see it before it closes Oct 26.

The opera is a searing look at the interplay between a man and his community and the private demons that plague them both. At its black heart is the fisherman Peter Grimes, a brutish loner whom the community keeps at a wary distance. One young apprentice has died in Grimes’ rough care and the arrival of another raises the community’s fearful anxieties to a fevered pitch.

As Grimes, Canadian star Ben Heppner gives a profoundly moving performance. The fact that the veteran tenor sounded raw and ragged at times on Oct 11 — he missed the Oct 5 opening night because of a cold — added to the performance’s poignancy. Grimes is an ugly character. In particular, Heppner’s third act mad scene was one of the most harrowing two minutes I’ve ever experienced in the theatre. After the second apprentice has died, Grimes slowly, crazily, comes to the realization that his dreams are dashed, all hope is lost. Distilled tragedy. As Balstrode, one of Grimes’ only friends sings, “When horror breaks one heart, all hearts are broken.”

Alan Held as Balstrode, with his beautiful booming voice, was another standout in a very strong cast. The only disappointment was Ileana Montalbetti in the crucial role of Ellen Orford. She is a powerful soprano and that power is necessary to soar above Britten’s churning orchestrations. But as the widow who tries to soothe Grimes’ rages, who shares his dreams of something happier, Montalbetti’s tone could have been a little sweeter at times. She did have some lovely tender moments, however, like in the second act quartet among the women who “comfort men from ugliness.”

The COC chorus is the other great standout. The community, or Borough, is really a character unto itself with conflicting emotions that ebb and flow, where mob fury can erupt at any moment. The chorus ably delivered the colours and the power of such a beast.

Britten began work on Peter Grimes when stranded in the US due to the outbreak of World War II; he was inspired by the poetry of George Crabbe. The opera is a nostalgic but steely-eyed look at the small fishing village of Alderburgh where Crabbe was born, near where Britten grew up. Director Armfield emphasizes the opera’s nostalgia by increasing the role of Dr. Crabbe, a non-singing part that only garners a couple of direct references in the libretto. Armfield has Crabbe onstage throughout silently observing the action as if in a dream or as if he’s actively conjuring up the drama. It’s a simple and very effective addition.

That Britten chose to write about an outcaste, a child abuser no less, living in his actual hometown is nothing short of astonishing. When Britten and his partner Peter Pears, the tenor who originated the role, returned to the UK, they bought a home in Alderburgh. This at a time when homosexuality was illegal in the UK and war heroes like Alan Turing were being chemically castrated because they were gay. By moving back to Alderburgh as a successful composer, it’s as if Britten was living the vindication, the happy ending Grimes so desperately longed for.

Set designer Ralph Myers places the action in a large, drab, A-framed community hall with a curtained-off stage at the back, fluorescent lights and orange Formica tables. It’s mid-1940s England but it feels very familiar. Damien Cooper’s evocative lighting design only hints at the rising and subsiding tumult outside the community hall. Many a production of Peter Grimes has floundered on the near impossible task of depicting the ocean in all its moods. Wisely, in this production, the creative team leaves that job to Britten. Forget 3D movies; letting your imagination run riot to this glorious music is truly an immersive experience.

Armfield’s direction and Myer’s design brought home what I know see as an obvious truth about the opera. With all the score’s dramatic storm sections and evocations of the sea, I’ve often thought that the sea itself was a character or a central force in Peter Grimes. Not so. The community is the sea, the Borough is an ocean of unseen dangers, of turbulent passions and unexpected beauty, a living thing of unimaginable power.

The final image crafted by Armfield sees one of the community’s young boys walking upon a long section of rope as if it were a tightrope. The world, whether writ small as in the life of one man, or writ large as in the conflagration consuming Europe at the time Britten composed the opera, is on a knife’s edge. Care and respect must be paid to the irrational, uncontrollable forces all around us.

It was thrilling to hear Heppner singing on a knife’s edge in such a wonderfully conceived production.

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10/11/2013

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Ersatz!

For most of my editing career, I've been an ersatz art director and photo editor: creating concepts, setting up and supervising shoots, choosing final imagery, and working with production designers to package it all attractively. Everything starts with a great idea and strong team. Over the years, I've developed crucial but elusive skills: an art director's inventiveness and intuition, a photo editor's eye. I know how to ensure what happens in the studio lives up to, or surpasses, the original concept. During my 13-plus years as arts editor at Xtra, for example, I was responsible for the majority of cover shoots. In most of those cases, art directing consisted of bringing together talented photographers and creative subjects... and then getting out of the way when things started to click. I mean, when you have the voluptuous Sasha van Bon Bon (pictured) in the studio, you just have to stand in a corner and smile. In this small assortment of Xtra covers, the photographers are the amazing Paula Wilson and Glenn Mackay; the subjects include Will Munro and Miss Barbrafisch, Scott Thompson, Gavin Crawford, Mariko Tamaki, Michele Clarke and Aleesa Cohene, Jonathan Wilson and DJs Deko-ze, Jamal and Lytes. Often it's necessary to do more. In this selection I encouraged Nina Arsenault to create her wonderful portrait au naturel, I made the Hermey the Elf outfit and wig for Gavin Crawford's cover, and I even turned photographer for the Nirvana/Thailand travel cover. That's the "joy" of working in independent media: You do whatever is necessary to get the job done well.

One of my Ultimate Pride Guide covers snuck into this selection. From 2003 to 2009 I commissioned a series of cover illustrations from an amazing string of artists: Maurice Vellekoop, Daryl Vocat, Stephanie Power, Ian Phillips, John Webster, Jillian Tamaki and J Bone. See them here.

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10/7/2013

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My Father & Opera

WHEN EAST MET WEST My parents in Singapore in the mid-1950s.

My father bequeathed to me a love of opera. He died 14 years ago today: Oct 7, 1999. I thought I'd share this essay I wrote a few years ago about my father's relationship to opera. It's never been published. I did submit it to Brick magazine and I received one of the most encouraging rejection letters ever. Really. That letter helped me to see myself as a writer (outside of the publications I've edited over the years).

A mix of biography, history and music appreciation, the essay revolves around the only fully staged opera my father and I saw together, a production of Bellini's Norma by the Canadian Opera Company. As the youngest child of a mixed-race couple, Norma's doomed, cross-cultural, love story was a revelation to me. (Coincidentally, last week Toronto's Sondra Radvanovsky opened in the title role with the Met's Norma to rave reviews. I interviewed her prior to her COC debut in 2010. She returns to the COC in Roberto Devereux next spring.) In addition to Bellini, other composers mentioned in the piece include Strauss, Canteloube, Britten and Brahms. At the time of his death, my father's favourite singer was Renée Fleming. My father wasn't big on funerals but if we had one, he requested that we play Fleming's recording of the transformation scene from Daphne by Strauss. My father's funeral was on Thanksgiving weekend. Every time I am moved by opera, every time I get to see a COC production, I am thankful to my father for the gift of music. Story

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10/1/2013

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Webbed!

I'm a website: gordonbowness.com is jam-packed with my favourite published stories, recent work and other career highlights. I'll be loading up more stuff and blogging... so check back often. This isn't some vanity project... I want work! Looking for a crackerjack writer, editor or producer? I'm your gill-man.

Freelancing is a new and exciting pool for me to play in. Help me find my Julie Adams, that bathing-beauty-scientist pursued by The Creature from the Black Lagoon. As the film's boat captain says, "The boys around here call the Black Lagoon a paradise. Only they say nobody has ever come back to prove it." I'm going to prove it. Bring on the freelance gigs.

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This is not a (b)log

Gordon Bowness is a Toronto-based writer with more than 35 years' media and entertainment experience. Apparently, he still has a few more things to say.

Swan Lake redux

Hudson's Bay Blanket Bingo

Living Tree

Shimmering, terrible beauty: Peter Grimes reviewed

Ersatz!

My Father & Opera

Webbed!

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