COVIDO

 

ลูกหมีบอกว่า รักหนังเรื่อง “COVIDO – THE OPERA” (กฤษดา เรเยส, A+30) ที่สุดเลยค่ะ เพราะในหนังเรื่องนี้มีตุ๊กตาหมีที่ร้องเพลงโอเปร่าเป็นภาษาอิตาเลียน, ภาษาเยอรมัน และภาษาบาลีได้ด้วย ลูกหมีเลิฟมาก ๆ

WORLD OPERA WEEK IN BANGKOK

(Thanks to Merveillesxx who told me about this)

BANGKOK OPERA
and the Bangkok Opera HIV Awareness Project
with outstanding artists from Asia, Europe, and The Americas
presents its second
WORLD OPERA WEEK

November 23-29, 2009
Venues: The Thailand Cultural Center
The Bangkok Art and Culture Center

ODE TO JOY • LA BOHEME • A BOY AND A TIGER

EARLY BIRD TICKETS NOW ON SALE AT
THAI TICKET MAJOR OUTLETS
(02) 262-3456
www.thaiticketmajor.com

20% OFF UNTIL OCTOBER 15

more information at the Bangkok ShOpera, BACC
or email chintana@bangkokopera.com
or call (02) 231-5273

Bangkok Opera's first "World Opera Week" in 2003 brought distinguished guests like Wolfgang Wagner to Thailand and mounted the Southeast Asian premiere of Britten's "Turn of the Screw". Six years later, the Bangkok Opera has grown to be an internationally acclaimed entity (called "the operatic hub of Southeast Asia" by New York's OPERA NEWS) and it's time for another week celebrating singers and musicians from around the world.

November 23 - Ode to Joy
• 7:30

Beethoven's Ninth Symphony and more, with members of many choirs from all over the city joining the Orpheus Choir and Siam Philharmonic, and great soloists: Nancy Yuen, Israel Lozano, Sheilagh Angpiroj, and Stefan Sanchez ... some of the most popular singers to perform in Bangkok.

Tickets 100 to 1000 baht.



November 25, 26 at 7:30

• La Boheme

The most popular operatic duo to perform in Bangkok, Nancy Yuen and Israel Lozano did Butterfly here in 2007 in a production so acclaimed that its director and designer were invited to create a Butterfly at the renowned Savonlinna Festival in Finland. They are together in Puccini again, this time in Puccini's most beloved opera under the direction of Darren Royston of RADA, whose brilliant "THAIS" (the Asian premiere of this important opera) earlier this year was a revelation. Many stars, local and international, round out this cast.

tickets: 500 to 3000 baht


November 28, 29 at 2 pm and 7:30 pm

• A Boy and a Tiger

an opera by children for adults, composed by Bruce Gaston ... presented by the Bangkok Opera HIV Awareness Project ... Gaston's brilliant allegory is inspired by the imagery of "The Life of Pi," the bestselling novel by Yann Martel, who has given his blessing to the project. Children from all over Thailand, including HIV-infected children, have come together to perform this stunning new opera that teaches us to live with, and finally to love, our darkest enemies. The Siam Philharmonic Orchestra joins forces with children playing Orff instruments and members of Fong Naam.

tickets: 200 to 2000 baht

*** There is a VIP pass to all 3 events for 4,000 baht, premium seating (6,000 baht if sold separately).

SYLVIE GUILLEM

My friend, Nina, recommended me to watch the following YouTube clips which are mostly about ballet or opera.

One of the best thing about clips like these is that they can let poor people like me watch all the ballet dancers closely. Because if I go to watch ballet performances in Bangkok, I will find that the ticket price for the best seats is too high for me. It costs about 100 US dollars. I can’t afford it. I can afford only some faraway seats which make the ballet dancers look like ants running around on the stage.

It gives much stronger feelings when you can watch them closer. Somehow watching these clips may make me appreciate ballets more than watching them live on the faraway stage.


1.La valse a mille temps – Jacques Brel
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xsFZ4oNLzq4

2.Alessandra Ferri + Sting
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQw7lSKYvDQ

3.Anna Netrebko
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PabinF__lhI

4.Anna Netrebko & Rolando Villazon
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLKEdmVu3FY

5.Sylvie Guillem
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dcT3dDR8QfY

6.Sylvie Guillem dances solo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cexPachsNF8

7.Sylvie Guillem dances Bejart
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V8d8tZp7fb0

8.Maurice Bejart
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gh_9leIFl7Y

9.Gisell – Diana Vishneva
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i123oQNMT1U

10.Gisell pdd 3 – Diana Vishneva
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVc-Uy7oVQw

11.Gisell pdd 4 – Diana Vishneva
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lbwi3BFkoAM

12.Diana Vishneva + Igor Kolb
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-awXKWc9tZg

13.Revelations – Alvin Ailey
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWJzSP7irwM

14.In the Middle, Somewhat Elevated
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHCUpEEqPSU

-----------------------------------------------------

Some clips I would like to watch when I have free time

1.Trio A – Yvonne Rainer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LESSB2RlZUU

2.Katherina Sieverding
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MRR8aVHD0gs

3.Vanessa Beecroft
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vom9-Nxa4vA

This is a photo of Sylvie Guillem
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1138/1412885258_1c867017b0_o.jpg

MA NUIT CHEZ ROHMER

BELOW IS MY REPLY TO "MEMORIES OF THE FUTURE" IN MY BLOG. YOU CAN READ "MEMORIES OF THE FUTURE"'S COMMENT HERE:
http://celinejulie.wordpress.com/2007/05/05/before-sunset-the-green-ray/


My comment sometimes looks as if it was a stream-of-consciousness writing. I apologize to anyone who feels confused reading it.

-I just listened to the album BEGIN TO HOPE (2006) by Regina Spektor. I like her playful use of voice very much. The lyrics of SUMMER IN THE CITY is very good. It gives vivid images. I think the lyrics is also very sensual and gives strong tactile sense, such as in the sentence: So I went to a protest just to rub up against strangers. This kind of vivid images and strong tactile sense also reminds me the movie VENDREDI SOIR. Claire Denis makes us feel as if we touch some skin by using her images, while Regina Spektor does it by using her lyrics.

Thanks very much, Jesse, for recommending Regina Spektor.

Speaking of Summer in the City, it makes me think about the movie SUMMER IN THE CITY (1970, Wim Wenders). I’ve got its video for a long time, but I haven’t watched it yet.

--I think THE MARQUISE OF O (A-) is a good film. The main thing I don’t like about it is that the heroine seems to be too weak. That’s not the film’s fault, but I normally prefer a film with a strong-willed heroine.

I like Edith Clever, the leading actress in THE MARQUISE OF O very much. She gives great performances in THE LEFT-HANDED WOMAN (1978, Peter Handke, A+), in which she played a woman who left her husband for no reasons at all and started to adjust to a new independent life, and in PARSIFAL (1982, Hans-Juergen Syberberg, A+), in which she played a witch who tried to seduce her own son. I think Edith Clever is very great when she plays strong woman, and I admire her more when I can’t recognize her in THE MARQUISE OF O. Her characters in THE LEFT-HANDED WOMAN and THE MARQUISE OF O seems to be an antithesis of each other. That means she is a great actress who can play both roles successfully.

You can read a review of PARSIFAL here.http://www.moria.co.nz/fantasy/parsifal.htm

The DVD of PARSIFAL is available from amazon.com. I strongly recommend this film.http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/6305131112/imdb-adbox/
http://g-ec2.images-amazon.com/images/I/51AYCE5AJML._SS500_.jpg

This is a comment from someone in amazon.com about PARSIFAL:

>>Syberberg regarded Kundry as the centre of the opera, and so chose for the part the outstanding German actress, Edith Clever. Her incarnation of Kundry as variously mother, seductress and penitent has been unanimously praised as a performance of hair-raising intensity. Parsifal himself is played by two people, first a boy (Michael Kutter) and then, after Kundry's kiss, by a girl (Karin Krick). Parsifal's sex-change is a coup-de-theatre for which Syberberg gave no complete explanation.<<

Actually, PARSIFAL is not my most favorite Syberberg’s film, but I think it is a film you shouldn’t miss. The film is 255-minute long. It is an opera, but a very beautiful opera.

I also wish I could see the film EDITH CLEVER READS JOYCE (1985, Hans-Juergen Syberberg), which is 180-minute long. I assume it would be just as the title implies—the audience will see only Edith Clever reading the writing of James Joyce. What an interesting idea!
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0089070/

--I’m sorry the DVD of THE LEFT-HANDED WOMAN, starring Edith Clever, hasn’t been released yet. I’ve got a PAL video of this film, but I wonder if anyone still has a video player today.

Though the DVD of Peter Handke’s film is hard to find, I recommend everybody to read Peter Handke’s novels. I read ABSENCE, which is regarded as a minor work by Handke, but I was still very impressed by it. It is very difficult to understand. After I finished reading this novel, I still can’t describe what happened in it. I just knew that in this novel, some people travel, but the details of the travel--who travel, what happen, why they travel, where to and where from they travel--are beyond my understanding. I have to read it again.

I also have a video of ABSENCE (1993, Peter Handke), starring Jeanne Moreau and Arielle Dombasle, but it has no English subtitles, so I haven’t watched it yet.

ABSENCE book is available from amazon.com.
http://www.amazon.com/Absence-Peter-Handke/dp/0374527636

This is the description of ABSENCE in amazon.com

>> German author Handke ( Afternoon of a Writer ) enlarges the recurrent metaphysical preoccupations of his prolific output in this latest challenging and rewarding novel. The story's four nameless protagonists meander through a surreally disconnected and flattened landscape. An old artist, a gambler ignorant of himself, a callow soldier whose self-effacing "absence" is a defense against the world, and a vain woman whose frantic mirror-staring fails to make her present to herself, "roam"--as the novel's epigraph from Chuang Tzusp ok puts it--"in the palace of Nowhere, where all things are one." As they wander across an almost featureless northern plain, the past, present and future become one and the characters' insubstantial identities collapse into one another. But when they detect legible symbols in the surrounding blankness and read them with conviction, the landscape springs into recognizable life and the characters discover their strength. In this smoothly written fable, Handke forcefully summons readers to the recognition that the essence of human life lies in the striving for self-expression even though its perfect realization must always remain elusive.<<


For anyone who love the bewilderment of Marguerite Duras, Alain Robbe-Grillet, Alain Resnais, and Virginia Woolf, I recommend PETER HANDKE, especially the novel ABSENCE.


--Another interesting thing about THE MARQUISE OF O is that it was adapted from a novel by Heinrich von Kleist. I don’t know about this writer, but my friends seem to like him and suggest me to watch THE JACK BULL (1999, John Badham), which stars John Cusack and is also adapted from Heinrich von Kleist’s.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0171410/

--People also tell me that if I worship Eric Rohmer, I should watch MUTUAL APPRECIATION (2005) and FUNNY HA HA (2002) by Andrew Bujalski, but I haven’t watched them yet.

--I also found these films to have the thing that I like in Rohmer’s films:

1.THINGS YOU CAN TELL JUST BY LOOKING AT HER (2000, Rodrigo Garcia, A+)

2.I AM A SEX ADDICT (2005, Caveh Zahedi, A+)

3.HOTEL SORRENTO (1995, Richard Franklin, A+)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0113337/

4.many German films by Rudolf Thome

5.some Malaysian films by Tan Chui Mui


The “thing” that I think similar among these films is the success it achieves in making its characters look like human beings and talk like real human beings. When I watch Rohmer, Thome, Garcia, and Zahedi’s films, I usually forget they are fictional characters. (I may be wrong to call Zahedi’s characters ‘fictional’, but I like them no matter whether they are fictional or not)

I also wish I could see some films which are described as Rohmer-esque, including:

1.GITO, THE UNGRATEFUL (1992, Leonce Ngabo, Burundi)

Synopsis of GITO, THE UNGRATEFUL:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0104344/

>>Gito is a young African intellectual returning home from France with numerous academic degrees and ministerial ambitions. Gradually his ambitions are crushed by the daily realities of his country. Gito is tested further by the alliance between his French girlfriend and his old sweetheart who join forces to teach Gito an unforgettable lesson.<<

2.TOGETHER ALONE (1991, P.J. Castellaneta)

This is a GAY FILM IN ERIC ROHMER’S STYLE. It’s about two gays talking for 85 minutes.

Below is the description of TOGETHER ALONE from Planetout.com
http://www.planetout.com/kiosk/popcornq/db/getfilm.html?528

>>It's one of those all-night discussions where you tell a perfect stranger things you would never tell your closest friend. They recount stories from college. Reveal inner secrets. Argue and console. It's their attempt to make sense of their lives, the world around them, their attractions to other men, AIDS, and why their socks never match when they come out of the dryer.<<


--As for MY NIGHT AT MAUD’S, I like it very very much. I watched it in 1995 or 1996, when my ‘senses of cinema’ hadn’t developed fully. It was one of the films that opened a new door for me at that time. MY NIGHT AT MAUD’S and BEFORE SUNRISE are among the first films that I saw that are full of talking. Before that, I saw mostly Hollywood films. So MY NIGHT AT MAUD’S is the film that teaches me that talking all night with someone might be a very wonderful experience. I would love to talk all night with someone like that. Jean-Louis Trintignant is gorgeous in my point of view. In 1996, I became crazy for Jean-Louis Trintignant, Jean-Pierre Leaud, Jean-Claude Brialy (LE BEAU SERGE), and Jean Sorel (BELLE DE JOUR). I wish I were a girl in Paris in 1960’s.

--DEJA VU, TORCH SONG TRILOGY, and BRIDGES OF MADISON COUNTY make me cry a bucketful of tears. TORCH SONG TRILOGY might seem so-so in the first act, the second act is intriguing, but the third act is heartbreaking. There's a scene of Harvey Fierstein and Anne Bancroft in the third act which makes me want to cry every time I think of it.