Downtown LA. Sunset, shining through the wide window and reflecting off of it. Inside sits this object, rays demanding attention. Parthenon, delivered.
DONE in 2024
Sara Berman
Lapdogs and Fools
November 23, 2024 — January 18, 2025
CYNTHIA DAIGNAULT
The Lemon
October 26, 2024 - January 18, 2025
Breath(e): Toward Climate and Social Justice
HAMMER, LA
Umar Rashid
The Kingdom of the Two Californias. La Época del Totalitarismo Part 2.
FOR MY BEST FAMILY
MERIEM BENNANI
31 Oct 2024 – 24 Feb 2025
FONDAZIONE PRADA, MILAN
Saodat Ismailova
A Seed Under Our Tongue
12.09.2024 – 12.01.2025
Pirelli HangarBicocca, MILANO
Anri Sala Time No Longer
Marian Goodman Gallery, LOS ANGELES
At Home: Alice Neel in the Queer World
September 7—November 2, 2024
DAVID DWIRNER Los Angeles
Titus Kaphar
Exhibiting Forgiveness
September 13–November 2, 2024
Gagosian Beverly Hills
FIRELEI BAEZ
HAUSE & WIRTH DTLA
SIEM REAP, CAMBODIA
&
BANGKOK THAILAND Assignment
Sarah Cunningham: Flight Paths
Lisson Gallery, Los Angeles, 20 June – 24 August 2024
AMERICAN GOTHIC
Night Gallery, June 22 - August 31, 2024
Elysium
WINFRED REMBERT
Hauser & Wirth DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES
DANIEL TURNER
Hauser & Wirth DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES
Gabriel Mills
June 20 – July 20, 2024
François Ghebaly, Los Angeles
IVA GUEORGUIEVA
Seascapes, Snowscapes, Kukeri
Interconnected Landscapes
Marian Goodman Gallery Los Angeles
1120 Seward Street Los Angeles | 13 July – 17 August 2024
Jongsuk Yoon
Yellow May
Marian Goodman Gallery Los Angeles
1120 Seward Street Los Angeles | 13 July – 17 August 2024
Sublunary, a group presentation
VSF, Los Angeles - June 29 - August 17
REGEN PROJECTS, LA
Betye Saar: Drifting Toward Twilight
Nov. 11, 2023–Nov. 30, 2025, The Huntington
AKADEMIE X LESSONS IN ART + LIFE
Tony Cragg
27 April - 29 June 2024
MARIAN GOODMAN, LOS ANGELES
CLARE WOODS
May 4 - June 8, 2024, NIGHT GALLERY, LA
VENEZIA, 20.04 - 24.11 2024
BIENNALE ARTE 2024
PIERRE HUYGHE. LIMINAL
17.03.24 — 24.11.24
Punta della Dogana, Italia
JULIE MEHRETU. ENSEMBLE
17.03.24 — 06.01.25
Palazzo Grassi
17 April 2024 to 15 September 2024
Gallerie dell'Accademia, Venezia, Italia
I Saw It: Francisco de Goya, Printmaker
Norton Simon, APRIL 19, 2024 – AUGUST 5, 2024
ALBERTA WHITTLE
LEARNING A NEW PUNCTUATION FOR HOPE IN TIMES OF DISASTER
REGEN PROJECTS
MARCH 16 – MAY 18, 2024
I Saw It: Francisco de Goya, Printmaker
APRIL 19, 2024 – AUGUST 5, 2024
Ella Kruglyanskaya: See SawElla Kruglyanskaya: See Saw
Jeffrey Deitch LA
Oliver Lee Jackson
Machines for the Spirit
March 16 – May 4, 2024
BLUM, Los Angeles
Sadie Benning
The Touch, the Amulet and the Saltation
March 23 — May 4, 2024
VIELMETTER, Los Angeles
PACE
Mar 16 – Apr 27, 2024
Los Angeles
MARCH 23 - APRIL 27, 2024 - Night Gallery, LA
Tavares Strachan
17 February - 13 April 2024 - Marian Goodman LOS ANGELES
April 6 to May 11, 2024 - Baert Gallery, LA
Camille Claudel
April 2–July 21, 2024, GETTY CENTER
JASON RHOADES
27 FEBRUARY 2024 – 14 JANUARY 2025
HAUSER & WIRTH DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES
CATHERINE GOODMAN
NEW WORKS
Hauser & Wirth DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES, 27 FEBRUARY – 5 MAY 2024
PAT STEIR
Halfway to Sanity: Inaugural Group Exhibition
3015 Dolores Street, Los Angeles CA 90065
Prokofiev and Rachmaninoff
Mar 7-10, 2024 - 8:00PM
DAVID KORTY Greensleeves
NIGHT GALLERY JANUARY 20 - MARCH 9, 2024
FRIEZE LA, February 29 - March 3, 2024
Mälkki Conducts Brahms
Feb 23-25, 2024 - 8:00PM
Daniil Trifonov leads the journey through Brahms’ monumental Piano Concerto No. 2.
First Came a Friendship: Sidney B. Felsen and the Artists at Gemini G.E.L.
February 20–July 7, 2024, GETTY CENTER
CATHERINE OPIE
HARMONY IS FRAUGHT
JANUARY 11 – MARCH 3, 2024 REGEN PROJECTS
Solanaceae
Jan 20 – Mar 2, 2024
PACE Los Angeles
The World Made Wondrous: The Dutch Collector’s Cabinet and the Politics of Possession
Wagner, Das Rheingold, Dudamel, LA PHIL
UMEDA Tetsuya at Watari-um Museum
Term 1: December 1st (Fri.), 2023 - January 14th (Sun.), 2024
Term 2: January 16th (Tue.) - January 28th (Sun.), 2024
I had the honor to visit and experience the unique exhibition by Umeda Tetsuya at the Watari-um Museum in Tokyo late December 2023. The two part exhibition that can be a different experience for every visitor, each time one visits. It was one of the most memorable works in the past few years. If you have the chance to visit, this is a must go. Do check out the link. It is a roughly 50 minute curated story, limited to a small number of participants each time. You will be see the world in a different way. You will ask yourself ‘what was that? Did I miss something? Oh, was that something that I saw 15 minutes ago? Was that related?’ You will be reminded that this world will just pass you by, if you do not be in the present and notice them. A reminder that there are messages and miracles happening all around us at any given time. You will know if you experience it.
LA PHIL/Gemma New/Boris Allakhverdyan - STRAVINSKY, COPLAND, MOZART
2024 CALENDAR
This is the live calendar for 2024. I will continue to update and track events throughout the year in this page. These will include places we visit, art exhibits and concerts scheduled and visited.
2023/24 Walt Disney Concert Hall Season Ticket purchase
23-24 Sunday SU2
LA PHIL, Walt Disney Concert Hall
With ClassicAsobi’s advice, I secured a well constructed 2023-24 LA Phil, Walt Disney Concert Hall season subscription.
Went with the Sunday Matinees 2 (SU2), and made four exchanges.
Number of Tickets: 9
Total: $1,547.00
Front orchestra, second row, dead center.
SU2 comes with these programs >> link
Immediately replaced four concerts with others that we preferred. The big benefit of subscribing is the fact that subscribers have an exclusive window of purchasing other concerts, and exchanging, without fee, with subscribed concerts. It is very easy to make exchanges on the laphil.com site. No need to call the subscription service. This is something I learned as the nice LA Phil subscriber service representative walked me through how the subscription level is valuable. I used to construct my program using the Create Your Own (CYO) program, and you can create the same program this way, but you will not have the subscription status, which means you do not have access to the early window to purchase other tickets. Early access means that the best seats are available. Also, if you are a subscriber, there are no fees to make exchanges. CYO members, or normal ticket purchasers for that matter, pay a $15 fee every time for exchanges.
At the end, this is the program created for Balse at the LA PHIL 2023-24 season:
Gershwin and Rachmaninoff
SUN, OCT 15
2:00PM
Jessie MONTGOMERY — Coincident Dances
GERSHWIN — Piano Concerto in F
Intermission
RACHMANINOFF — Symphonic Dances
Los Angeles Philharmonic
Elim Chan, conductor
Igor Levit, piano
Mozart’s “Prague” Symphony
SUN, JAN 7
2:00PM
STRAVINSKY — Danses concertantes
Veronika KRAUSAS — Sphinx, Concerto Grosso for two double bass and harpsichord (world premiere, LA Phil commission with generous support from the MaddocksBrown Fund for New Music)
Intermission
MOZART — Symphony No. 38, K. 504, "Prague"
Gemma New, conductor
Joanne Pearce Martin, harpsichord
Christopher Hanulik, bass
David Allen Moore, bass
Dudamel Leads Das Rheingold
Celebrating Frank Gehry
SUN, JAN 21
2:00PM
WAGNER — Das Rheingold
Los Angeles Philharmonic
Gustavo Dudamel, conductor
Frank Gehry, scenic design
Alberto Arvelo, director
Cindy Figueroa, costume designer
Ryan Speedo Green, Wotan
Raehann Bryce-Davis, Fricka
Simon O’Neill, Loge
Barry Banks, Mime
Jochen Schmeckenbecher, Alberich
Morris Robinson, Fasolt
Peixin Chen, Fafner
Jessica Faselt, Freia
Ann Toomey, Woglinde
Alexandria Shiner, Wellgunde
Taylor Raven, Flosshilde
Tamara Mumford, Erda
John Matthew Myers, Froh
Kyle Albertson, Donner
Ravel and Adès
SUN, FEB 11
2:00PM
Thomas ADÈS — The Tempest Symphony
RAVEL — Piano Concerto for the Left Hand
Intermission
Thomas ADÈS — Concerto for Piano and Orchestra
RAVEL — La valse
Los Angeles Philharmonic
Thomas Adès, conductor
Kirill Gerstein, piano
Prokofiev and Rachmaninoff
SUN, MAR 10
2:00PM
Sofia GUBAIDULINA — Poema-Skazka ("Fairy-Tale Poem")
RACHMANINOFF — Piano Concerto No. 2
Intermission
PROKOFIEV — Symphony No. 5
Los Angeles Philharmonic
Domingo Hindoyan, conductor
Mao Fujita, piano
Elgar and Vaughan Williams
SUN, APR 7
2:00PM
Arvo PÄRT — Cantus in Memory of Benjamin Britten
ELGAR — Cello Concerto
Intermission
Vaughan WILLIAMS — Symphony No. 8
Los Angeles Philharmonic
Simone Young, conductor
Gautier Capuçon, cello
Saint-Saëns’ Organ Symphony
SUN, APR 14
2:00PM
Jonathan Bailey HOLLAND — Symphony (world premiere, LA Phil commission)
RAVEL — Tzigane
Intermission
SAINT-SAËNS — Symphony No. 3, "Organ"
Los Angeles Philharmonic
Louis Langrée, conductor
Martin Chalifour, violin
Dudamel Leads Mozart and Strauss
SUN, MAY 5
2:00PM
Andreia PINTO CORREIA — new work (world premiere, LA Phil commission with generous support from the Esa-Pekka Salonen Commissions Fund)
MOZART — Piano Concerto No. 9, “Jeunehomme”
Intermission
STRAUSS — Don Quixote
Los Angeles Philharmonic
Gustavo Dudamel, conductor
Maria João Pires, piano
Robert deMaine, cello
Teng Li, viola
Dvořák and Ortiz with Dudamel
SUN, MAY 12
2:00PM
John WILLIAMS — Olympic Fanfare and Theme
Gabriela ORTIZ — Altar de cuerda (LA Phil commission with generous support from the Lenore S. and Bernard A. Greenberg Fund)
Intermission
DVOŘÁK — Symphony No. 9, “From the New World”
Los Angeles Philharmonic
Gustavo Dudamel, conductor
María Dueñas, violin
BALSE NEWSLETTER 009
Back from the Brooklyn Film Festival 2023. World Premiere of our great friend Alex Andre’s feature film PRATFALL. Awards were announced and the film won the Spirit Award for Narrative Feature! Lovely afterparty, and less than 24 hours later, back in LA. Memorable moments in life.
The Trees by Philip Larkin
The trees are coming into leaf
Like something almost being said;
The recent buds relax and spread,
Their greenness is a kind of grief.
Is it that they are born again
And we grow old? No, they die too,
Their yearly trick of looking new
Is written down in rings of grain.
Yet still the unresting castles thresh
In fullgrown thickness every May.
Last year is dead, they seem to say,
Begin afresh, afresh, afresh.
Saw a lovely film on the Delta 332 flight to JFK called Empire of Light.
Another world.
To be able to fly. Illusion of life.
One of the wonderful people that I met at the PRATFALL after party had just arrived back from a music event in Tbilisi, Georgia that afternoon. He was there to DJ at an event called 4GB, which I did not know. Tbilisi has always been on our radar at Balse, after reading an article by Resident Advisor a number of years ago. It is now on top of the list of events to attend. link>>>4GB official site. See you there.
“it was just very touching, to see how these group of friends turned a very very sad thing that happened there, with his accident, into something powerful and beautiful and positive. It’s really, one of a kind” - Michael Mayer, KOMPAKT
Added a study of Don McCullin, British photo journalist. Inspiring. Do check it out.
The camera was a key to open up my life. It was like opening a huge window to the world. It gave me education. It gave me travel… It gave me hope. - Don McCullin
Have been digging through the vinyl records the past two weeks. Listening. Timeless beautiful tracks. See below in the Other Studies section for some sound bits like this one.
Hammer museum’s major exhibition of their collections since 2005. Together in Time: Selections from the Hammer Contemporary Collection is a must see. Going on till August 20, 2023.
Hauser & Wirth’s Thomas J Price exhibition is also an experience that should not be passed.
Enjoying the The Danish Japanese singer song writer Mina Okabe. Pondering over the philosophy of Deleuze.
“Deleuze’s philosophy is builds upon Spinoza’s Monism. That’s everything is connected. In fact the world is so complicated, so connected, so mysterious, there are potentially an infinite number of possibilities in the world. “
And some Alison Goldfrapp to finish.
Wishing you a good one, see you back in two weeks -Charles Balse
Words of wisdom
A hero goes on an adventure, is victorious in a decisive crisis, and returns to the ordinary world, changed or transformed, and shares that gift with their community. Before any of this can happen, the hero must answer the call to that adventure. The hero is reluctant at first refusing the call. A mentor appears, and helps them to cross threshold leaving the ordinary world for the new one. In real life it can be hard to recognize the call for adventure, it is almost always something that you are afraid to do, but know inside that you need to do. It appears as an obstacle. To be the hero of your story, you must answer the call, and the obstacle is the way. - Joseph Campbell, The Hero With a Thousand Faces
I photograph the things that I do not wish to paint, the things that already have an existence - Man Ray
What I perceive are not the crude and ambiguous cues that impinge from the outside world onto my eyes and my ears and my fingers. I perceive something much richer - a picture that combines all these crude signals with the wealth of past experience ... Our perception of the world is a fantasy that coincides with reality. - Chris Frith 2007, cognitive psychologist.
In us, learning has led to the establishment of a completely new kind of evolution - cultural evolution - which has largely supplanted biological evolution as a means of transmitting knowledge and adaptations across generations. Our capacity for learning is so remarkably developed that human societies change almost exclusively by cultural evolution. In fact, there is no strong evidence of any biological change in the size or structures of the human brain since Homo Sapiens appeared in the fossil record some 50,000 years ago. All human accomplishments from antiquity to modern times, are the product of cultural evolution, and therefore MEMORY. - Reductionism in Art and Brain Sciense, ERic Kandel, page 44.
These biological findings confirm Kris and Gombrich's inference that visual perception is not a simple window on the world, but truly a creation of the brain. - Reduction in Art and Brain Science, Eric Kandel page 30
"We do not have direct access to the physical world. It may feel as if we have direct access, but this is an illusion created by our own brain." - Frith 2007, Reductionism in Art and Brain Science, Eric Kandel page 23
...we do not see material objects, but rather the light reflected off them (Berkely, 1709). As a result, no two-dimensional image projected onto our retina can ever directly specify all three dimensions of an object. This fact, and the difficulty it raises for understanding our perception of any image, is referred to as the INVERSE OPTICS PROBLEM. (Purves and Lotto 2010; Kandel 2012; Albright 2013)... any three dimensional object is inherently uncertain. Gombrich fully appreciated this problem and cited Berkley's observation that "the world as we see it is a construct slowly built up by every one of us in years of experimentation." - Reductionism in Art and Brain Science, Eric Kandel, page 21
Other Studies
Gordon Parks: The Haunting & The Beautiful
Ricardo Villalobos - Time Warp 2023 - ARTE Concert
Sven Väth - Time Warp 2023 - ARTE Concert
The photography of Don McCullin
Gio Shengelia | Boiler Room x Bassiani
EMPIRE OF LIGHT | Official Trailer | Searchlight Pictures
Timeless Photography Lessons from Fred Herzog
Why the world does not exist | Markus Gabriel | TEDxMünchen
The FORBIDDEN PHOTOGRAPHY of Dorothea Lange!
4GB Festival - The Story
So You Wanna Be A Writer by Charles Bukowski
The Art of Being Alone: Lessons from Famous Philosophers
Rufus - Realize Dis [BSOULLTD002]
Una Sombra (Original Mix)
Robert S ( PT ) - Atomico ( original )
A2 - Claudio PRC & Blazej Malinowski - Riddle [Inner Tension 003]
Luca Agnelli - Voltumna
Lebanon Hanover - Gallowdance (Deflex Rave Edit)
LXST CXNTURY - DEEP FUSION
Alison Goldfrapp - In Electric Blue (Video Vignette)
Juliana Madrid - Silica (Official Video)
Introduction to Deleuze: Difference and Repetition
A. Oshana - Eccentric Electrix [YoY.02]
Sciahri - Contortion [SUBT102]
Oklou - Friendless
Patrick Mason // Estella Boersma // Cera Khin - TXL Berlin Recordings Chapter 2 - ARTE Concert
Werner Herzog: There is no harmony in the universe
King Krule - Flimsier
BALSE NEWSLETTER 006
Ready to succeed. Ready to receive.
Flourish with handmade. That bird that chirp, soar, and make you smile.
Spring to Summer.
CARL CRAIG:PARTY/AFTER-PARTY - MOCA LA
Dawoud Bey & Carrie Mae Weems - Getty Center
Gallery VIELMETTER LOS ANGELES
“Goodnight Prometheus,” our first solo exhibition with Robert Pruitt
Esther Pearl Watson, “A Luminous Vision”
Dave McKenzie, And sometimes y
Jared McGriff’s first solo exhibition in Los Angeles, “On Being a Wild Dream,”
Other research items:
Modulations - History of Electronic Music | Documentary
(hoshikuma minami) - TOKYO 神 VIRTUAL (Official Music Video)
Everything But The Girl - Each and Every One
TWO LANES - Live Performance (Piano Set)
Hania Rani – On Giacometti: A live performance at Atelier in Stampa
Royel Otis - Razor Teeth (Official Music Video)
BBC - The Birth of British Music: Haydn The Celebrity
Adam Curtis | The Problem of Our Time
All the Beauty and the Bloodshed - Official Trailer (2022) Nan Goldin
Absurdism: Life is Meaningless
Postmodernism is Good Actually: Baudrillard vs. Marxism | Plastic Pills
Learning photography with Dorothea Lange.
La Strada, the STREET PHOTOGRAPHY you need to know.
Giulietta Palumbo: Photojournalism Workshop
From ClassicAsobi:
Next up:
LA Phil, Beethoven, Piano Concerto #4 & Strauss, Der Rosenkavalier
Artists
Together in Time: Selections from the Hammer Contemporary Collection - at the UCLA Hammer - MAR 26 – AUG 20, 2023
Ultimate Selector
Select, experience, transform.
To be present, or not to be.
Every hour and day: discarding and focusing.
Consciousness. Open mind.
Courage, and gut feeling.
A constant process.
At Balse, we will share our selection process and what we learned.
We will visualize our transformation.
And for some, we hope, will be a valuable source of inspiration.
We are ultimate selectors.
Record
Welcome
start with
BALSE NEWSLETTER 0005
Been updating the ‘About’ page. Here is the current iteration:
What to make of this?
How to live?
Our eternal questions.
No body can advise you and help you, nobody. There is only one way. Go into yourself. Examine the reason that bids you to write; check whether it reaches its roots into the deepest region of your heart, admit to yourself whether you would die if it should be denied you to write. - Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet
In a way, Balse is a research institute. In another, simply an experience of life, the NOW.
How I feel. My journey. Real human drama through photography and words.
Things are not all as graspable and sayable as on the whole we are led to believe; most events are unsayable, occur in a place that no word has ever penetrated, and most unsayable of all are works of art, mysterious existences whose life endures alongside ours, which passes away. - Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet
Key areas of research are:
Art, Music, and History
Philosophy
Environment
From ancient to contemporary.
What we consume, how we spend time, shapes us. Consume less, consume consciously.
A work of art is good if it has arisen out of necessity. The verdict on it lies in this nature of its origin: there is no other.
Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet
Follow the fun. Experience the world - LIFE.
With your needle, feel the groove - Focus.
Signal - seek with heart - Phono stage.
Find your message, expand with light - amplification.
Energy, vibration, form, harmony, emotion, being, breath in, and breathe out - Sound.
Now - DANCE.
Life.
Other research items:
Philias - Private Sun (Traum V279)
Traum, techno
wonderful doc on photographer William Eggleston
A lot of Chairlift and Caroline Pollachek
And been hooked on this Brutalismus 3000
gotta have Oklou
ClassicAsobi Selects:
Verdi Falstaff - continued
Yesterday, I posted the method of having the libretto, Italian and English side by side to go over. Great in theory, but for me, I first need to understand the story. So, I have decided to go through this Youtube clip, which has the English caption, with a production that is easier to follow.
Once I get the overall story, I may have time to get back to the libretto.
I also need to get onto Der Rosenkavalier and Norma, both coming up in a week… a lot to study.
and more Verdi
When Verdi died, half the population of Milan showed up for his funeral, wow.
Here is the link to the photo at the time.
“To date, it remains the largest public assembly of any event in the history of Italy.”
The best books on Verdi recommended by Francesco Izzo
Great summary of books to read on Verdi. Introduction is also an interesting and educational read.
Just ordered his first pick, below.
more on Verdi and Falstaff
This morning, expanding on the study on Verdi and some more specifically on Falstaff.
Found this summary of Verdi’s essential works. Very useful with Youtube links.
Best Verdi Works: 10 Essential Pieces By The Great Composer
La Forza Del Destino
Aida
Don Carlos
Falstaff
Il Trovatore
La Traviata
Otello
Rigoletto
Un Ballo In Maschera
Messa Da Requiem
For me to listen to, Falstaff recording with Claudio Abbado, Berliner Philharmoniker.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADn3CtCPh0Q&t=39s
At nearly 76 years old, Verdi loved the libretto on Sir John Falstaff, written by Boito. Verdi originally wrote to Boito how he was too old to write another large scale opera, but eventually decided to write the piece. Took him four years to complete. Boito’s libretto for Falstaff is undoubtedly his finest work, and among the finest libretti ever written. Boito was odd, and frankly terrified of editing, altering, and adapting the play, by the man, Shakespeare, on an Italian opera stage. Verdi complained how he was not able to write productively as he once did when he was younger.
Giuseppe Verdi study
Continuing my study of Verdi’s Falstaff opera. Today I summarized Verdi’s life.
Opera Philadelphia
Giuseppe Verdi | Short Biography | Introduction To The Composer
Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901), Roncole, Italy (at the time Italy did not exist, and as the region was controlled by the French, he had a French birth certificate). Comes from a family of traders and small landowners. Mother was a spinner, father a innkeeper. Verdi’s musical talent was evident from his early years, and was trained at the local church, where he was full-time organist by age nine. In 1823, moved to a nearby larger city of Busetto, where he composed and performed. Eventually moved into the house of Antonio Barezzi, a local merchant and amateur musician. Taught singing and piano to Barezzi’s daughter,Margherita, who he would later marry.
At age 18, moved to Milan and applied to the conservatory, but was rejected due to being over the age limit. Instead, began to study with Vincenzo Lavigna, a composer and maestro at the La Scala. In 1836 he married Margherita and accepted the position as maestro at Busetto Philharmonic.
1839 first opera Oberto - accepted by La Scala
Next opera Un giorno di regno - was a failure, and he would not compose again until the maestro at La Scala, Bartolomeo Merelli, forced the libretto Nabucco on him. This opera became a major success and ascended him to the light across Italy and Europe. He became a leading figure in the movement toward a free, united Italy.
After Nabucco, Verdi wrote 16 operas in 11 years. Rigoletto (produced in Venice), Il Trovatore, La Traviata. He spends time in Paris, once back in Rome premiered Un ballo in maschera.
He traveled extensively in Russia, Paris, Madrid, and London, supervising his operas. In the final three years, wrote Aida, Otherllo, and Falstaff.
Total 26 operas were written, died in Milan at 87, in 1901.
Verdi's Falstaff study
Starting to gather information and study Giuseppe Verdi’s Comic Opera ‘Falstaff’. You might want to tag along and check it out.
Listening to an interview with the Italian Conductor Daniel Gatti. Verdi composed three Operas based on Shakespeare: Macbeth, Othello, and Falstaff. He considers Falstaff to be “a great Italian Opera masterpiece, written for musicians, not for the audience in a way… a very sophisticated opera.”
Story of a man at the sunset of his life. No friend, completely alone. “I’m very fond of the first scene, the monologue…so sad, so dark, so pessimistic in a way…but it is not a monologue of a man at his end of life, but a monologue of a man that has to start his last part of his life….maybe because I am not so far from this age….it’s an opera that is growing every time, because I think I am growing as a human being.”
“...after [writing] the three or four operas, he began the study of human being. And this is the greatness of the theatre of Verdi, it is not the melodies, not the arias, no, it is how he developed the character. And sometimes it is very uncomfortable to listen to Verdi opera, because he shows the human being misery…Verdi is all the time, very modern, because he talks about all the problem that we have nowadays… and by going there you may see yourself, in Falsestaff, in Othello, Trovatore, and Rigoletto.”
Two flights that merge
A friend from Tokyo reached out to me last fall that he will be in LA in early March after his business trip to Barcelona. No idea why he flies from Barcelona to LA to go back to Tokyo but it's wonderful to catch up. Last time he was in LA was three years ago. A few months ago, another best friend calls up and says that he wants to stay over at my place on his way back from his business trip to Mexico City. They happen to arrive on the same day, on different flights, but leave on the same flight back to Tokyo. They don’t know each other, I am the connection.
What a coincidence. A world full of coincidences.
Cezanne: London - Chicago connection
I found out that there is a large Cezanne exhibition at the Tate, London. Stumbled upon this Youtube clip. Well, it is almost ending. (ending March 12th, 2023). The largest Cezanne exhibition in the last 30 years in the UK.
Checked out the Tate site
At the time, still life was, at least traditionally, considered the least important of art genres, but he wanted to show the art establishment just how meaningful these modest objects could be. ‘With an apple, I will astonish Paris!’ he declared.
It reminded me of the Cezanne exhibition at the Chicago Art Institute that I visited in June, 2022, the first major retrospective of the artist’s work in the United States in more than 25 years.
And of course they are related. I completely forgot, but The Art Institute of Chicago organized this with Tate. So, the art work that I saw last year is now in Tate London.
It all came back to me. That the Cezanne exhibit experience in Chicago was one of the most memorable, and impactful that I have ever experienced (I need to add this to the photo essay section in the future). I would have loved to see it again, at the Tate London. Especially since I have never been to London.
I need to survey the word more closely to know what other significant exhibitions are on at any given time.
This we will do at Balse.
Zettelkasten, 2023 concerts schedule, and Paul Bowles
I had a breakthrough in my daily knowledge management system. A significant one. I said to my friend, ‘before Zettel’ and ‘after Zettel’. Not an overstatement. By implementing this process, it fundamentally changes how I interact with knowledge. It forces me to slow down, reconstruct, and connect with a piece of knowledge, in personal ways. Zettelkasten is a knowledge management system. Gathering information, summarizing them on index cards, connecting them with various themes across your other cards (Zettels), and, most importantly, enables you to retrieve them in your desired use case/context. It’s hard to explain here, so I will promise to create a separate page to gather the year of research on this.
2023-24 concert schedules are being released from major venues around the world. MetOpera released last week, Carnegie yesterday. We will be reviewing those soon.
Revisiting Paul Bowles lately. Digging up some docs from the library. The Sheltering Sky, my favorite, and The Spider’s House, which I have not read.
Morning hours.
Morning hours.
Los Angeles, Saturday 6am. Sky is blue, grey, light orange. My writing table, aka dining table, look toward the balcony. Potted plants, white rail, then two large strong trees. Partial leaves. They trim them down to the bare in winter. In Spring it grows with fresh. In Summer, the most deep green, thick, glowing with energy. Plume of foliage packs the frame. I reach and touch. There is an owner. A squirrel. He visits us daily onto the balcony and digs through my plants. A feisty one, loves one cactus, not others. Then there is the pair of doves every now and then. They like to flap and sit together on different branches. My cats love to watch them. Of course, the humming bird that zips by, but you wonder if you saw anything. Finally, there is a small, chirping bird that comes by every spring. It sits right in the middle of the tree, on a branch, that looks staged, made for it to parch. It is a chirper. Oh does it chirp, into my living room, talking to my cats. It comes everyday, for weeks, until early Summer. She is my favorite.
It should be back soon.