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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (March 15, 2002)
3 8 J u st s u t ’ march 15. 2002 THEATER ▼ SELY EROTIC...” BRAVUR A WORK! ¥&%noie -A.O. Scott. THE NEW YORK TIMES GAY ‘BONNIE AND CLYDE’!” -Kevin Thomas. LOS ANGELES TIMES SEXY...THE FILM’S TWO BURN UP THE SCREEN.” Hate The opera? Consul She has » lot oí problems CLASSIC RETURNS! NEW 35MM PRINT! and Candide Then y o u ’ll love by M arc A c ito -Aaron Krach. HX MAGAZINE RELEASING PRESENTS FILM BY MARCELO PINEYRO HM 3C1D RELEASING S T A R T S FR ID A Y , M AR . 29 FO R O N E W EE K ! @ C I N E M A 21 6 1 6 N W 2 1 st A V E 2 2 3 - 4 5 1 5 nightly 9:05 only plus Sat-Sun 4:30 COMING SOON! A N N i ver/ a t y g o in g oN M L e ■N À M IL L E N N IU M ■ J •-v!: a '■ '.... li 'W- l! w w w .m u s ic m ille n n iu m ..c o m E A S T S ID E 3158 E B U R N S I D E 503-231 -8 926 NO RTHW EST 801 N W 2 3 R D 503-248 -0 163 PINK MARTINI with the Oregon S ym phony Friday, March 22 at 7:30 pm | Saturday, March 23 at 7:30 pm Norman Leyden, conductor | Pink Martini, Instrumental & vocal ensemble David York Chorus | Jefferson High School Choir Performing selections both old and new! Media support by KINKfml02 & Willamette Week Tickets start at $25 -■ FOR TICKETS AND INFORMATION: Call 503-228-1353 | 1 800 228 7343 | Mon- Sat, 9 am - 5 pm www.orsymphony.org | 503-790-ARTS (service charge may apply) Group rates available. Call 503-228-1353 A Delta A ir lin e s Oltuiat tirlvic n) tin Oregon Symphony ARLENE SCHNITZER CONCERT HALL SW Main & Broadway * Portland Center for the Performing Arts 01 02 pera lovers are a predictable breed. Year in and year out they will tire lessly watch the same works drawn from the 50-some odd pieces that make up the “standard repertoire” while con sciously avoiding any thing new or unfamiliar. Companies that try to program lesser-known pieces often do so at great financial peril. So it is all the more remarkable that an other wise conservative regional company such as Portland Opera should resolutely insist on producing a sel dom-seen work each and every season. And those operagoers who stay away from this years offering will he missing a great opportunity indeed. Gian Carlo Menotti’s Pulitzer Prize-winning opera The Consul is a powerfully dramatic work of astonishing relevance. In an unnamed dictatorship, the wife of an exiled freedom fighter struggles with bureaucratic red tape as she pleads for a visit to leave the coun try and join her husband. The consulates failure even to acknowledge her, combined with the secret police’s increasing harassment, eventually leads to tragedy. Premiering in 1950 at the height of the Cold War, The Consul was conceived as a com mentary on Soviet-bloc injustices and the U nit ed States’ reactionary response, hut its themes have proven timeless. O n the occasion of a revival in 1999, Mcnotti said: “I didn’t have to change anything— not a word or a note. Every body at the time said the opera would become dated, hut it’s a sad thing that nowadays the subject is just as vital as it was then.” hese issues were also very much on the mind of playwright Lillian Heilman, a fierce proponent of liberal causes. She approached composer Leonard Bernstein to collaborate on an operetta based on French writer and philosopher Voltaire’s revolutionary 18th century novel, Candide. The resulting work, revised and revived a number of times since its premiere in 1957, will he Portland Opera’s final presentation of the season. Thematically, it is a fitting companion piece to The Consul. O f its conception, Bernstein later wrote: “The particular evil which impelled Lillian Heilman to chtxise Candide and present it to me for a musical stage work was what we now quaintly and, alas, faintly recall as McCarthyism, an ‘ism’ so akin to the Spanish Inquisition as to curdle the blood.... That was the time of the Hollywood blacklist, television censorship, lost jobs, suicides, expatria tion and the denial of passports to anyone even suspected of having once known a suspected Communist. I can vouch for this. 1 was denied a passport. By the way, so was Voltaire denied a passport. His aaswer was satire." Candide follows the picaresque adventure of T Can t I just have my visa? T he consulate is a frightening place in Portland Opera T h e Consul the bastard son of a European nobleman as he searches lor the meaning of life through war, plague and, yes, the Spanish Inquisition. The operetta is very much like the compli cated composer himself: dizzyingly witty, manic and ribald yet poignantly emotional and insightful. From its spirited overture to its stir ring finale, it contains some of Bernsteins most virtuosic and sublime music. Like The Consul, it is sung in English and written in the accessi ble Broadway style of the period. W hile neither The Consul nor Candide is gay-themed, it is not unreasonable to suggest the sexual orientation of both composers influ enced their com m itm ent to fighting injustice. Menotti, who will turn 91 this year, m ain tained a 30-year relationship with the equally accomplished U.S. composer Samuel Barber. Although they parted before Barber’s death, M enotti still intends to he buried next to his longtime partner. A nd the classical music world is still full of men, gay and straight, who found themselves on the receiving end of bisexual Bernstein’s unsubtle advance^. T he late composer’s passion, so apparent on the podium as a con ductor and in his own music, also applied to his sexual appetite. But the most compelling reason to see these performances is the genius of the works them selves. For you opera queens out there, you won’t want to miss the opportunity to see these two seldom-produced gems. A nd for you opera novices, you won’t find a better introduction to the art form than these productions. J H P o r t l a n d O pera presents T he Consul March 30 and April 3 and 6 and Candide May I I , 13, 15 and 18. Both performances start 7:30 p.m. at Keller Auditorium, 222 S.W. Third Avc. Tickets are $26'$ 155 from 503-241 - 1802 or Tichetmaster. M a r c A c it o u*as known as "Seattle Opera’s Bad Boy" for his interpretation of comic roles in opera before giving up singmg to become a writer.
