AN EVENING FUELED BY ARTSY ABSINTHE

By JOHN DeMERS 

Artists of the world, rejoice. After nearly a century of being banned – blamed for madness, violence and other occupational hazards – the spirit of choice for 19^th-century creative types is available again to those of the 21^st century. And this coming Saturday at AvantGarden, a group of international experts will strive to explain how and why. 

There will be no shortage of absinthe to drink. 

“I really like small-batch bourbons,” offers Houston-based photographer Damian Hevia, “and I’ve tasted my way through the world of single-malt Scotches. And hey, I’m Cuban, so I certainly know rum. But once you’ve tasted absinthe, those things just don’t have as much punch.” 

You’ll no doubt spot Damian at this week’s absinthe tasting, a kind of “spirited” seminar at the old-house-garden-music-venue-watering hole on lower Westheimer. And assuming your eyes can still focus after a few of the drinks, which turn a cloudy greenish hue when the proper splash of water is added, you’ll certainly see his photographs. Absinthe, you see, must be considered Damian’s favorite supermodel. Several of his artistic, highly stylized images of the spirit and its serving paraphernalia will be offered for sale, right along with colorful absinthe-themed posters from Europe in the 19^th century. For that was surely the drink’s heyday. 

According to Damian, a full house is expected at this first-of-its-kind event for Houston, beginning with an absinthe presentation that will quench curiosities. The meaning of terms like artemisia absinthium, Dr. Ordinaire, louche, verte, blanche, dose, thujone, and L’Heure Verte will be revealed by renowned absinthe historian and master distiller Ted Breaux of Lucid Absinthe (Viridian Spirits) along with Legendré Herbsaint historian and collector Jay Hendrickson. 

After the talking, the celebrating will begin, says Damian, with what he terms “general frivolity” and absinthe tastings traditionale, including a venerable New Orleans spirit reissuing its original 1934 recipe. Special absinthe cocktails will mix it up a bit for the palette. Light hors d’oeuvres, live jazz by Cory Wilson Jazz Coretet and modern classical music by Two Star Symphony, absinthe art for sale, green fairies (long the drink’s primary emblem or metaphor) , and Belle Epoch-inspired attire will fill out the evening.  

Dr. Pierre Ordinaire is credited with the creation of absinthe in 1797, initially a sort of patent medicine/cure-all. A guy named Pernod (how appropriate!) opened the first distillery in Switzerland but, by 1805, had moved the operation to Pontarlier in France. One of the earliest markets for absinthe, and forever one of the most colorful, proved to be soldiers of the French Foreign Legion. To them, the stuff was disease prevention in a canteen; and during their campaigns through North Africa in the 1840s, there were so many diseases to prevent. 

With these stout-hearted souls as its marketing force (and their rough “men-in-uniform” image as an early part of poster advertising), absinthe took Paris by storm – as would virtually every other invading army after that. In short order, the period between 5 and 7 p.m. became known – no, not as happy hour but as l’heure verte (the Green Hour) in honor of the favored beverage. The fact that it was actually two hours mattered no more to revelers then than it does to happy-hour regulars today. Drinkers couldn’t get enough of this mix of grande wormwood, green anise, fennel and other European herbs. And if that seems a weird way to make a drink, just think of the concept of “root beer,” OK? 

Artists loved absinthe in the 19^th century. And before long, anything excessive that an artist was wont to do got blamed on the absinthe he’d no doubt been drinking. Even in the popular imagination, long before the long arm of the law got involved, people who went nuts were accused of having been driven to it by absinthe. And families with loved ones in asylums found it easier to blame absinthe than a host of other possible reasons, starting with their own gene pool. That, it seemed, only drove the artists farther, with absinthe turning up regularly in the paintings of Toulouse-Lautrec, Manet, van Gogh and Picasso, as well as in the poems and lives of dissipated poets like Baudelaire, Rimbaud and Verlaine. 

Even in France, the sales of absinthe finally did what was once thought impossible, outstripping the hold long enjoyed by French wines. The wine industry was so hobbled by absinthe that, when temperance movements of the early 20^th century singled it out as the enemy, the wine industry was quick to chime in with support. The Swiss were the first to ban absinthe in 1910, with the United States following suit in 1912 (the now-infamous USDA Food Inspection 147) and France three years after that. And that was the legal situation until 2007. 

New Orleans native Ted Breaux, one of the speakers at this week’s AvantGarden event, helped lead the charge to abolish the ban in recent years, along with a Swiss distillery named Kubler – no, not the place with all those elves. Breaux teamed up with his business partner and New York attorney Jared Gurfein to provide evidence of the spirit’s purity and safety when produced with strict adherence to historical methods, flying in the face on 100 years of misinformation and disinformation. The absinthe ban was finally lifted in 2007. 

If you want more information about the event, provocatively titled “Absinthe Revealed: A Celebration of Tastings and Truth,” you should RSVP at www.avantgardenhouston.com/absinthe.html.  AvantGarden is located at 411 Westheimer and the phone is 832-519-1429. With tickets sold at the door, the entire events costs $20 per person, the celebration-only available for $15.

Photo by Becky Cash: Damian Hevia and John DeMers enjoy their own l’heure verte.

A PRINCELY CHAT WITH PETER FRANC

 

By NANCY WOZNY 

Houston Ballet demi soloist Peter Franc finally gets his night as the Prince in The Nutcracker.  Franc been been steadily moving forward and will also be dancing up a storm in the upcoming Jubilee of Dance: 40^th Anniversary Celebration. Franc fills us on what’s on his dancing plate. 

Houston ArtsWeek: Tell us about the prince. Why is this such a rite of passage role? 

Peter Franc: He’s such a prince! It’s fun and challenging because there are so many different levels to the part. It’s a dynamic role that requires a great deal of control. I also get to add to the character to make it my own. 

HA: What about your partners? 

PF: Well I have three girls to take care of as the Prince: Clara, Snow Queen, and Sugar Plum Fairy. With Clara, I am mostly an escort, but I dance quite a bit with Snow and Sugar Plum. 

HA: Elise Judson, your Sugar Plum, is also making her debut in the role. 

PF: We have great chemistry because we both have been trained in the Academy, are eager to do well, and have strong work ethics. Plus, we are the perfect size for each other. She’s just a lovely dancer too. 

HA: You are also in intense rehearsals for the annual “Jubilee of Dance.” What will we see you dancing that evening? 

PF: I will be doing the “Blue Couple” in the finale of Stanton’s Tu Tu. It’s all big jumps and partnering. I have a solo in Stanton’s world premiere, 40. I start off the men’s section. I love the music, it’s Rimsky-Korsakov’s Capriccio Espagnol Op. 34.

 

HA: Last season you turned heads in Jerome Robbins’ Afternoon of a Faun. What did that role mean to your career? 

PF: I was so privileged to dance Faun. It’s such an iconic ballet, so smart, and there are so many details that make the piece work. Also, I got to dance with Mimi (Mireille Hassenboehler). It has to be my favorite moment in my career so far. 

HA: You also got a chance to dance Louis XVI in Marie. 

PF: Yes, with Sara Webb too. It was a huge opportunity for me. Last year was a good year for me. 

HA: What are you looking forward to dancing in 2010? 

PF: La Bayadere, Jerome Robbins’ Fancy Free, Christopher Bruce’s Hush and Balanchine’s Apollo. I love all those pieces. 

HA: Any last thoughts on your adventures in prince land? 

PF: Well my mom and other family members are coming. It’s my biggest role yet and I hope to do it well. We have a very high standard here at Houston Ballet. I can’t wait. 

Peter Franc dances the Prince in Ben Stevenson’s The Nutcracker on Tues. December 8 (student matinee) and Saturday, December 12 at 2pm, and in the “Jubilee of Dance: 40^th Anniversary Celebration” on December 4, at 7:30pm, at Wortham Center. Call 713.227.2787 or visit www.houstonballet.org. 

Photo by Amitava Sarkar: Peter Franc in Stanton Welch’s Tu Tu.

 

A DEADLINE EVERY MINUTE

By JOHN DeMERS

Despite the dastardly potential for wordplay (in a world of dirty minds, starting with my own), my favorite compliment I ever get on my journalism is “Gee, you’re really fast.” And yes, I do hear that all the time, especially when I’m the first member of the local news media to weigh in – usefully, I hope – on a performance we’ve all seen together a few hours before. We can thank the disease I caught from Dr. Nick Plasterer for that, but more on him in a moment. 

Even removed from “breaking news” (what beloved genius came up with “When news breaks, we fix it”?), there is value in being fast. There’s value when, in my vocabulary, there’s a reason for being fast. And there’s value, at least to me, when it’s just because I can. The main reason would be impact – to spread the word about an opera, ballet, play, reading or exhibition that may not run all that long, perhaps only another performance or two, and that I don’t want you to miss. Still, sometimes I run my review the morning after just because I can. And that’s where Dr. Nick comes in. 

Nick Plasterer ran the editing and layout classes in my journalism school (LSU, if you must know – yeah, Geaux Tigers, though we were still literate enough to spell it “Go” in those days). And Plasterer graded all our assignments with a system that would baffle Einstein. His markings resembled a game of tic-tac-toe, with number grades for quality and separate number grades for speed. Somehow, though I don’t remember how and never understood it anyway, those numbers intersected to produce your grade on the assignment. The message was clear: You can’t just turn in good stuff. You have to turn in good stuff now! 

In later years, every time I addressed this great journalistic truth with my own students, I channeled Nick Plasterer. I couldn’t do the intersecting grading thing, so I opted for a “colorful expression” thing instead. “I’d rather,” I’d tell each set of eager, idealistic young faces, “you turn in a serviceable, accurate, grammatical story on time than a work of sheer genius after the paper’s gone to press.” I tell my writers for Houston ArtsWeek the same thing today. Starting, of course, with myself. 

Somewhere along the road, after working for two daily newspapers, I joined the wire service United Press International, immortalized as “UPI” until it proved less than immortal in federal bankruptcy court. And there the motto was even wilder: UPI had “a deadline every minute.” This was more than sales-force hyperbole. Every minute of every day, some newspaper on earth was going to press, some TV or radio newscast was going on the air live. If anyone was prepared to live the UPI life, it was this student of Dr. Nick Plasterer. 

In the late ‘70s, I served as arts/entertainment/book editor of the Jackson Daily News, the afternoon daily in Mississippi’s capital. And that meant that six out of seven days each week, I wrote a column with my face on it. Amazing experience, that. One, just writing that much was a mixture of pleasure and pain. And two, as we all know, even fame in tiny doses is utterly addictive. (Once, after a particularly mean-spirited review of heartthrob Sean Cassidy titled “Backstage at the Teeny-Bopper Sex Show,” some surely young reader wrote me saying “I can tell by your picture that you know nothing about music.”) In Jackson, I usually went to performances and then straight back to the office to write my review. It sure beat writing it at 6 a.m. 

Once or twice, though – and only once or twice – the need for speed came around to, um, bite me. One Friday afternoon I added a final item to my Monday arts column (our deadlines worked that way, with limited weekend staff, etc.) based on a press packet about some rock band’s upcoming show in Jackson. I’d heard of the band and they were coming to Our Town USA, so it made perfect sense to crib a few paragraphs and, you know, just get the ball rolling. This was fine until Monday, when the local performing arts center phoned to say they’d been bombarded with phone calls about a concert they had no record of. 

And that, I learned, is because the press packet had been sent to me in Jackson MS by accident, instead of to my counterpart in Jackson MI, where the show actually was. In Michigan. I’ll never make a rash editorial decision on a Friday afternoon again. I hope. 

Finally, sometimes being fast is an amazing, delicious thing. On the night Mikhail Baryshnikov danced in Jackson with a lavish champagne reception for VIPs (like me) at the Governor’s Mansion afterward, I actually wrote my review longhand in a drunken haze at my kitchen table before going to bed. Then I woke up at 6 and went to the office to type it into the system. The Daily News had a large chunk of that day’s Page One reserved for my review, hardly where my stuff usually ended up. But I did, and then they did, and then there it was. 

I don’t remember what headline the copy desk put on my review, which ran beneath a terrific, action-blurred black-and-white photo of Baryshnikov dancing a tarantella complete with tambourine. But I’ll never forget the headline I myself imagined for it. In fact, I think of it often 30 years later, just for giggles: “John DeMers Says Baryshnikov a Good Dancer.”

Photo: The LSU School of Journalism, later renamed for Baton Rouge news media moguls, the Manship family.

 

THE LAST NIGHT OF BALLYHOO – A Review

Main Street Theater (Through Dec. 12) 

By HOLLY BERETTO 

One of the joys of seeing a show at Main Street Theater is that you feel like you’re right in the middle of the action, thanks to the intimacy of the space. Main Street uses this to its fullest advantage with its latest production, a revival of Alfred Uhry’s The Last Night of Ballyhoo, a show that’s about identity and prejudice, as much as it is about family and frivolity.           

It’s Atlanta. It’s December 1939. There’s a war brewing in Europe. And Gone with the Wind has jut premiered. But for the Levys, the most important thing going on is who will take Lala Levy to the big dance that happens on the last night of Ballyhoo, the event of the Jewish social season. Her mother, Boo, thinks that this might be Lala’s last chance to nab a husband, since Lala washed out of college in Michigan and has been spending days in her room, writing novels and radio plays. Lala’s dreaminess is in stark contrast to her cousin, Sunny, in town from Wellesley, where’s she’s simply flourishing.           

In much the manner of Uhry’s most popular play, Driving Miss Daisy, this is a show in which layers unfold and reveal themselves like the languid peeling of an onion. As each layer is revealed, some new characteristic, some new resentment, some new clue about the Levy and Freitag families unfolds. In less capable hands, it could be a nightmarish mish-mash of over-performed emotions and well-worn clichés. Not so at our Main Street.

Artistic Director Rebecca Greene Udden plays Boo Levy, Lala’s mother, with formidable strength, channeling her relentless energy and project management into her daughter, picking, prodding, pushing, and balancing a woman’s love and desire to her child’s success against the societal confines of her day. Acting as a foil to Udden’s Boo is Jim Salners as her brother, Adolph Freitag. The patriarch of the family, head of the family business, he is even-tempered, supportive and self aware. Salners’ performance combines wry wit and great sympathy. 

Dreamy Lala is played with both venom and ditziness by the delightful Liz Cascio. Bethany McCade, as Lala’s cousin Sunny, is stunning in her Main Street debut, offering up a performance that perfectly showcases Sunny’s conflicts of intellectualism and ignorance of her own heritage. Opposite Sunny as Joe Farkas, the man who falls in love with her and pushes her to find out who she is, Jamie Geiger’s Brooklyn accent may be uneven, but his indignation, his heart and his sense of self are gorgeously real.           

At its heart, this play is about a family finding itself. The characters are Jewish and this is very much a show about what it means to be Jewish and, more importantly, what it means to deny that fact in order to get along to with others. Still, these are universal themes. Ayone who’s ever struggled to fit in, to try to be something you’re not, to explain why you believe what you do to others who don’t will recognize himself in the characters on stage.         A play for the ages, this is a not-to-be-missed Main Street tour de force.        

Photo by Ric Ornel Productions:  Liz Cascio, Bethany McCade and Jamie Geiger at MST.

‘FOOLISHNESS’ WITH LARRY PISONI

By NANCY WOZNY 

Larry Pisoni returns to Houston to reprise his role as the fool in Revels Houston’s production of The Christmas Revels, a medieval celebration of the Winter Solstice. Pisoni, a renowned clown, has performed with Circus Flora, Circo Zoppe Internacionale and Cirque du Soleil, and along with such luminary performers as Yo Yo Ma, Bill Irwin and Geoff Hoyle. He’s the founder of the Pickle Family Circus and is also a nationally known circus educator. Pisoni fills us in on life in the clown lane. 

Nancy Wozny: Can you give us some historical background on the fool in this production? 

Larry Pisoni: The fool would be the guy that showed up on market day to perform for people. He was unkempt, a loner and probably lived in the woods in close proximity to women who were considered healers and witches. He juggled, did acrobatics, a touch of magic – a little bit of everything. He was also probably a little raunchy and bawdy in his humor.  

NW: You were the first fool in The Christmas Revels. 

LP: Yes, I originated this part in Cambridge in 1996. At first, the character was written with dialogue. I suggested that we perform him mute, which is really my forte, although I am a trained actor. It’s not mime, though. I just don’t speak, so it’s more like a silent movie. The fool can speak, he just chooses not to. At least that is how I am playing it. 

NW: What’s the juicy part of the role for you? 

LP: Well, all Revels plays are celebrations of the Solstice, and I participate in that. But it’s the relationship between the Fool and the King that is intriguing. The King tolerates the Fool and reminds him of his place from time to time. Similarly, the Fool reminds the King that he is mortal. So they have this symbiotic relationship. 

NW:  What keeps you reveling? 

LP: I always enjoy the lovely dancing and music, which is part of every Revels show. I also appreciate the audiences that Revels attracts, which include people of all ages and ethnic backgrounds. The cast mixes amateurs and professionals, another highlight. 

NW: What brought you into the clown world? 

LP: My grandparents performed in vaudeville shows, my grandfather as a comic and my grandmother as a dancer. She started a dance school that I got dragged to in Long Island, NY. I was the kid in the back who did not want to shuffle off to Buffalo. I learned some acrobatics. What five- or six-year-old wouldn’t want to do that? From ages 7-11, I performed in a comedy and acrobatic act at state fairs. During the 1960s, I audited some acting classes at New York University. I caught the acting bug, and before long I was performing with Geoff Hoyle’s troupe, Circo del Arte. I have since performed with The Pickle Family Circus, Circus Flora, San Francisco Mime Troupe, Ringling Bros. Barnum and Bailey, and many other shows. I performed my own solo show, Clown Clown, Clown, Clown, Clown, Clown, Clown, for several years. Oh, and I did one movie, Popeye. It bombed, but still, it was directed by Robert Altman. 

NW: Even a bad movie by Altman is exciting. 

LP: That’s what I thought; he was terribly interesting to watch work. Plus, the screenplay was by Jules Feiffer. 

NW: Can you give us a flash history of clowns? 

LP: I think of a clown as a verb, not a noun. Clowns go back to pre-history as long as humans have been alive. The literary clown goes back to the Greek playwright Menander. The clown tradition that most of us work from today stems from Commedia dell’Arte, more specially Pedrolino, who evolved into Pierrot. Joseph Grimaldi originated the circus clown we are familiar with who wears the wig, garish make-up and outfits. Today, a clown should be able to do a little bit of everything. I trace my roots back to the fool in the marketplace. I am from that lineage. 

NW: Any thoughts about returning to Houston? 

LP: In addition to performing this same Revels show a decade ago, I came here with Circus Flora and with San Francisco Mime Troupe. I met lovely people and I look forward to seeing them all again. 

Larry Pisoni performs in Revels Houston’s The Christmas Revels production on December 12-13 and December 19-20, in the Wortham Theater, Cynthia Woods Mitchell Center for the Arts, at the University of Houston campus. Call 713-669-9528 or visit www.revelshouston.org.

 

7 COURSES AT FEARING’S

By JOHN DeMERS

Dallas chef Dean Fearing welcomed me into his new home last night. Well, he’s actually been the face and the name behind Fearing’s at the Ritz-Carlton for two years now; but after spending a quarter-century associated with the Mansion on Turtle Creek, it’s going to be a while before his new digs start feeling the least bit old. 

One of the “fathers” of New Southwestern Cuisine, or New Texas Cuisine, or whatever somebody decides to call it next, Fearing is respected and celebrated for his food almost daily. Like “Founding Brothers” Robert Del Grande in Houston, Stephan Pyles in Dallas and arguably one or two other chefs, he has the advantage of having given us a brand-new category – one at which he, quite naturally, excels. Now, however, having made the break with his old home and set up a comfortable new one, Fearing doesn’t rely on the same labels anymore. He talks a lot about cooking “without borders,” which (Lou Dobbs notwithstanding) is an immigration reform to be devoutly wished. 

The new place isn’t actually one atmosphere but seven – that’s what Fearing calls them, “atmospheres.” Some inside, some outside. Some more for food, some more for drink. Some more refined and quiet, others like my favorite – called Dean’s Kitchen, strewn about the open, active space of that name – loud and spirited. In the course of a seven-course dinner last night, the soundtrack included Beatles (“I Want to Hold Your Hand,” no less!), Cream, Kinks, Tommy James and the Shondells, and Jimi Hendrix. Since I’m a child of ‘60s music, that’s really excellent for my digestion. 

Fearing’s hyper-talented chef de cuisine Eric Dryer (a Dallas native who spent many years working in California) and wine director Paul Botamer teamed up to produce a menu that just wouldn’t stop – not merely in one thing following another but in one surprise or delight following the one right before. Some of the wine pairings, in particular, were things I’d never tasted or even heard of. Many serious wine guys in Houston could do the same, I’m sure. It’s just they so seldom do. 

Here’s the squeal-filled roller coaster of a menu, along with the wines chosen to showcase each dish perfectly. And let me add that because I sat right by the open kitchen, there was always enough sound and motion to serve as my own personal dinner theater. 

Grade A Big-Eye Tuna Duo: a tartare with sesame sushi rice and shiso/mint puree, plus a sashimi with crushed mango, crystallized ginger and spicy ponzu. Like sushi except with more intriguing flavors. Nicolas Joly Savennieres, Les Trois Sacres 2006 – an intense, golden, almost apple cider-like chenin blanc from France’s Loire Valley. 

Dean’s Tortilla Soup with South of the Border Flavors, described by Fearing as “more like we made back in the kitchen, more Mexican.” Anytime you hear such words, the result will be good, though I doubt they really used to cut the chicken in those tiny, too-perfect white cubes. Becker viognier, Texas, 2008. Still, on a good year, the best viognier I’ve ever tasted. 

Barbecued Shrimp Taco With Mango-Pickled Red Onion Salad and Smoky Citrus Vinaigrette. Already a Fearing’s classic, with some mysterious yarn about supplying the restaurant’s organic ketchup to Sonny Bryan’s BBQ joint in Dallas so they can make the sauce. Domaine Ott Rose from Provence, 2008. Almost wonderful enough to make me ever think of ordering a rose. 

Elephant Trunk Sea Scallops (from near Gloucester, Mass.) With Shredded Short Ribs and Foie Gras/Sweet Potato Puree, Royal Trumpet Mushroom Ragout and Fennel Chips. With several versions of seafood and meat in this dish, the wine was Writer’s Block Counoise 2007 (a lesser known of the 13 grapes in my beloved Chateauneuf-du-Pape), made in California’s Lake Country. 

Smoked Pheasant on Barbecued Cauliflower/Pheasant Chorizo Ragout with Charred Corn Tortilla Wrap and Green Chili Mojo. A sleeper of a dish, not one I would have thought to order. Puts cauliflower in a whole new light – geez, now I have my life’s first cauliflower craving. Robert Foley Charbono, Napa Valley, 2007. Always reminds me of Cher Bono, unfortunately. An Italian grape wiped out of Italy by phylloxera in the 1800s, now grown only in small patches in California. 

Maple/Black Peppercorn Soaked Buffalo Tenderloin on Anson Mills Jalapeno Grits and Crispy Butternut Squash Taquito. Any dish that comes with a taquito is okay with me, especially if it’s this Fearing’s signature.  I just wish they’d call it Bison, because the animal is no more a buffalo than the “Indians” Columbus met were from India. Quinta do Crasto Red, from the Duero in Portugal, 2007. A little-known, meat-friendly wine from an area more famous for its ports. Any port in a storm, I always say. 

Warm Chocolate Caramel Cake with Chocolate Fried Pies and Mike’s “PayDay” Ice Cream. How often in adulthood does anyone give us not one, not two, but three childhood favorites on a single dessert plate? I especially like it when fancy, expensively trained chefs fry me up a pie! Rotta Black Monnuka from Templeton, Calif., 2006. A fortified dessert wine made from a weird Spanish grape now being grown in the Golden State.

INSIDE ‘COLLECTION AUCTIONS’

Morton Kuehnert Auctioneers continues to be on the leading edge of selling Houston families’ treasures during its weekly auctions. What once were deemed “Estate Auctions” have now been transformed into “Collection Auctions” to directly connect sellers and the buyers.

The Collection Auction process begins by discussing with the family the transition that has been the catalyst for selling their possessions. Morton Kuehnert is sensitive to the family’s affection for these items; often there are generations of family memories connected to these treasures. But sell they must. Once they understand the family’s expectations and decide on a timetable, Morton Kuehnert begins to quantify and qualify the items.

That’s when the niche of Collection Auctions emerges. Morton Kuehnert appraisers examine, research and categorize the items. They may include furniture, lighting, decorative arts, china, crystal, silver, jewelry, clothing, musical instruments or classic automobiles. At this point, a dollar estimate of what their items might bring at auction is discussed, along with identifying “collections” for auction. For example, if the client furnished his/her home with Americana cabinet makers from the late 18th and early 19th centuries, these pieces will be showcased as a “collection”, although they are normally sold individually.

By presenting the items as a collection, marketing efforts are more strategic. Morton Kuehnert develops an entire marketing plan for its Collection Auctions. It begins with a significant presence on the website and the production and distribution of a four-color photo catalog via direct mail to individual Houston neighborhoods, and at the auction house. Press releases are sent to the local media and the national trades. There is also local and national advertising and on-line bidding through ArtFact.com. This opens up the auction for an international audience.

Last, but not least, there is on-site merchandising at the auction house which will soon be located in the Galleria area at 4901 Richmond and Loop 610. There are many who don’t fancy themselves “collectors,” but once they survey their possessions, it may come as a surprise to see how many of our treasures have transformed into collections. When it’s time for a change, Morton Kuehnert will streamline the process. Morton Kuehnert’s first auction in the new location will be Thursday, January 7th, and every Thursday night thereafter. The official Grand Opening will in March 17th, followed by a Collection Auction on Thursday, March 18th. – Patricia Kuehnert Gillespy and Luis Lopez Morton

LAST THOUGHTS ON ‘LOHENGRIN’

Houston Grand Opera

By JOHN DeMERS

I have traditionally deferred to Mark Twain on two subjects besides the twists and turns in the Mississippi River: the value of exercise and the operas of Richard Wagner. 

On the first subject, I’ve always quoted Twain whenever (which was often) somebody suggested I needed to exercise. The man from Hannibal said he never exercised, since he couldn’t see “any advantage in being tired.” And, whenever someone said I should go to a Wagner opera, I quoted Twain’s goofy, backhanded compliment that the German composer was “better than he sounds.” Turns out, when I finally got around to trying, the author was dead wrong about exercise. And after seeing Houston Grand Opera’s four-hour production of Lohengrin that finished its run yesterday afternoon, I’m almost ready to admit he was wrong about Wagner too. 

Lohengrin is a Teutonic spin on the Holy Grail legend of the Middle Ages, the same wild yet irresistible cauldron of belief that gave us King Arthur and yes, eventually, The Da Vinci Code. The Grail is in our bloodstream, as anyone who watched Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade will understand completely. You simply can’t be a hero without running up against the Grail sooner or later, and hopefully claiming its power (and unblinking moral austerity) as your own. 

From all evidence at the Wortham Center, HGO had to do two things before tackling its first Wagner since  Tannhauser back in 2001: build up the orchestra and build up the chorus. I’m here to tell you that both have been built up, magnificently. 

Much was made before Lohengrin (a co-production with Geneva Opera) of this being music director Patrick Summers’ first experience conducting Wagner. Turns out, Summers pulled together no fewer than 80 musicians for the outing – which sounds like a helluva lot. Indeed, it sounded like a helluva a lot, whether the orchestra was playing the familiar “Here Comes the Bride” Wedding March from the start of Act III (I got the jitters just hearing that thing again), or the stirring orchestral music the Beatles once chose to introduce the Austria section of their movie Help!    

If there is a pecking order among conductors, with opera conductors feeling like second-class citizens alongside symphony conductors – and I’m sure there is – then Summers is a second-class citizen no longer. He has now officially conducted a symphony, simply one that had a whole bunch of people singing along from time to time. 

I’m less surprised by the “improvement” in the HGO Chorus under Richard Bado, because I’ve always thought they were wonderful. Lohengrin spends a lot of time with the chorus commenting on things – mostly, it’s downright Greek. But in terms of singing, acting or (this being opera) just standing around, HGO’s chorus has never looked or sounded more full, more accomplished. Their significance to the plot, whether as the army Lohengrin is about to lead into battle or The People from whom he withholds his Grail-inspired true identity, makes us pay attention where attention is due. 

The stars of HGO’s Lohengrin – apart from the orchestra and the chorus, that is – were first-rate, especially New Zealand’s Simon O’Neill in the title role. During the past three decades of opera, the dark, murky, emotive tones of Placido Domingo have come to rule the tenor roost, with most of his ilk proving unable to echo Domingo’s ringing top notes. No problem for O’Neill on that score. As is so often the case with the German language, the word “heldentenor” sounds as strong, as soaring as it’s meant to be. And soprano Adrianne Pieczonka was perfect as Lohengrin’s love interest, Elsa of Brabant, hailing from a section of Europe now known exclusively for its potatoes. Richard Paul Fink and Christine Goerke shined as the opera’s Boris and Natasha (I never pass up a solid Bullwinkle reference), especially Goerke as Lady Macbeth with a German accent. Gunther Groissbock was appropriately regal as King Henry. 

So yes, Lohengrin was played and sung magnificently. And yes, as drama it “played” like wildfire, with tons of emotions spewing right and left. It was, all the same, a large HGO mistake to reset the production into something resembling modern times – a mistake verging on insanity. Sure, the plays of Shakespeare get this done to them all the time, and they almost always work, no matter what the set, no matter what the costumes. But watching the sad progression of sets and costumes in this particular Lohengrin, I came to understand something rather clearly. 

In nearly all Shakespeare – comedies, tragedies and even so-called histories – what drives the story, the emotional impact, is something not in the past at all but happening right in front of us. Here and now. Something human, timeless, eternal. With Wagner, on the other hand – or certainly with Lohengrin – what drives the story and motivates the characters is something ancient, or at least medieval. Something that doesn’t happen or even make sense anymore. 

First, this particular “reset button” means the armies gathered around Lohengrin look like a convention of Soviet Bloc border guards, circa 1971. Second, it means that Lohengrin and Elsa get to spend their wedding night in a too-shining bright box that resembles the set from a still-to-be-written Neil Simon comedy. A sequel to Plaza Suite, probably called Motel 6 Suite. Tom Bodet insists: It could happen. 

Most importantly, however, the change means that ancient things lost in ancient times – not merely honor and chivalry but superstition, the war between gods and goddesses, and even trial by combat (which plays a pivotal role in the plot) – are forced into a modern world that no doubt would have a government, a currency and a bank, even a military hierarchy and a legal system. No one in such a world would seek the final truth by saying, “Okay guys, here are two really big swords – now fight it out!” 

Lohengrin is a magnificent and altogether mystical achievement, by Wagner and now by HGO. No one should ever force a Knight of the Grail to sing anything while wearing a New Jersey wedding tuxedo with a silly white flower in the lapel.   

Photo by Felix Sanchez: HGO Chorus does Les Mis in Lohengrin

THE DYBBUK: BETWEEN TWO WORLDS

Jewish Community Center, Final Performance Today @ 2 p.m. 

By JOHN DeMERS 

Described as a “multi-media chamber opera” by Israeli-born composer Ofer Ben-Amots, The Dybbuk is dark, lyrical and occasionally luminous. Though not the world premiere, the two performances given as part of the JCC’s 37^th annual Jewish Book & Arts Fair do give many in the audience their first opportunity to hear “opera” done more intimately than they’re used to – not to mention hearing arias sung in Hebrew, with the supertitles that more regularly help us get through Italian or French.

Based on the opera’s context, a “dybbuk” is a kind of restless spirit who wanders the earth after death. In this case, it’s the spirit of a young man prohibited from marrying his true love because she is rich and he happens to be poor. So his spirit does the next best thing, more or less possessing her after his body is in the grave, apparently with her approval. This possession draws the Rabbi to attempt a Jewish exorcism (remarkably similar in theology to the Christian versions we’ve seen in good and not-so-good horror movies). But in the end – after his/her refusal to depart – it leaves the couple together for eternity. 

Those are the bare bones of the story; and once a too-static, talky first half has given way to the dramatic exorcism in the second, The Dybbuk puts some flesh on them – so to speak. Ben-Amots’ music is modern, sometimes atonal and, by definition, minimalist. What might find it a larger audience than such music often finds is its strong reference points in Jewish (meaning Eastern European) folk melody. Even a listener whose only references are Fiddler on the Roof and the score from Exodus will find lovely, faintly familiar touches. A wild array of sounds is served up by only Susan Grace on piano, Brittany Henry on violin and David Mollenaur on cello, with the composer himself handling some intriguing bits of percussion. 

Well, instrumentally that’s not entirely true. Gilad Harel, tall, lanky, and called “Clarinet (as Hannan),” portrays the actual dybbuk of the title. This means that instead of speaking or singing, he expresses all the feelings in his heart on a clarinet – an interesting new visual for a leading man to be sure, especially if we forget Steve Allen in The Benny Goodman Story.  This is how Hannan calls out to his love, played and sung here by lovely Houston mezzo soprano Misha Penton. This is the way he calls her to join him between life and death. Penton sings the lion’s share of Ben-Amots’ arias, lovely risings and fallings of nature poetry, with smoldering flair. And she evens gets to “be” her lover in the opera’s second half, when his spirits tells the rabbi through her to go take a hike. 

The production’s stage director, Jeremy Wilhelm, fills out the cast as the Messenger and later the Rabbi – both interesting roles made believable by his natural acting style. Though the first half is too slow, Wilhelm keeps that viable by telling stories of love from the past (young lovers, Cossacks, a 17th-century pogrom) that he makes us want to hear. Still, it’s in the post-intermission that, as the Rabbi, he joins Penton in creating the conflict, tension and, yes, even a little suspense, The Dybbuk has needed all along. 

This opera has one more star than the ones we get to watch act or hear sing: Sheri Wills. The entire performance is played out on either side of two scrims that showcase an amazing collection of videos and stills, virtually the entire set except for one table that gets pushed around a lot. Sometimes it’s abstract light or color that fills these scrims – sometimes with the lovers separated on either side, meaningfully – sometimes its dramatic forms, and sometimes it’s highly representational: trees in a forest here or, naturally, an ancient-looking Jewish graveyard there. Especially in the opera’s early going, when there is so little action, what happens on the scrims is what keeps our eyes arrested. 

Finally, once we understand that the exorcism has been a failure (perhaps because neither Leah nor Hannan and his clarinet wish to be parted), Ben-Amots gives his timeless lovers the most gorgeous love duet we’ve heard in a while – all the more so because it’s Girl-Meets-Clarinet. The harmonics are beautiful yet also ear-catching, with barely a gesture required from the players to tell us what’s being said. With each lovely line echoed by the orchestra in what feels like the universe’s “call and response,” the duet starts out merely ascendant but kicks into transcendent by the end.

Photo by Dave Nickerson: Misha Penton with the spirit of her love

JAMIE BARTON, MEZZO SOPRANO

An Ars Lyrica House Concert

By JOHN DeMERS 

It’s always a pleasure to experience chamber music in an actual chamber – and since most concerts are given in theaters, opera houses or at least recital halls, it can be a rare pleasure indeed. Houston’s own Ars Lyrica, however, is working to make the “house concert” a regular part of its commitment to serving up plenty of music that no one else seems to be doing. 

As Ars Lyrica and its artistic director Matthew Dirst are particularly committed to music of the Baroque period, which came before the “classical period” and therefore sometimes gets overlooked (except for maybe Bach and Brahms, plus Vivaldi at weddings), that is the group’s usual sound. Think harpsichord, which will immediately make you think powdered wigs. But every once in a while – last night, for instance – Ars Lyrica takes a leap of faith away from its comfort zone and presents something different. The house concert built around the talents of mezzo Jamie Barton was one of those occasions. 

Barton’s is a gifted voice, as we know if we’ve followed her progress up through the ranks of the Houston Grand Opera Studio onto the main stage for many of its productions. For the time being, instead of living somewhere else and coming to Houston when she has a gig, Barton is living here and traveling to sing everywhere else. These travels are set to include the Metropolitan Opera this coming September, in the Met’s production of Die Zauberflote. Which is all great: this way we get to hear her more often. The program she sang for Ars Lyrica, with the talented Joseph Li on the piano, was as varied in style and emotion as it was rich in sophistication. 

Hearing an opera singer from two feet away is a unique thrill, since Barton and her peers are trained to blast their voices off the back wall of an opera house seating 2,400. From the singer’s perspective, this means choosing songs that probably aren’t anything ever associated with Birgit Nilsson, as well as keeping gestures more restrained, more natural. Barton excelled at what might be called this “classical cabaret,” whether she was picking her way through Mahler’s lovely but difficult “Ich Atmet’ Einen Linden Duft” (there was a lot of singing about plants and other forms of nature in this show) or indulging in the passions of Rachmaninov’s “Vesennije Vody.”  The two songs by this Russian great that closed the program were the highpoint for many, as Barton found the perfect balance between living-room restraint and the roiling passions in the music. Or, as the Georgia native cautioned those gathered before the first Rachmaninov, “Ja Khdu Tebya”: “This is a gonna get loud, y’awl.” 

Equally effective, but for quite different reasons, was Libby Larson’s “Empty Song (A Tango)” from something intriguingly titled Love After 1950. In the sadsack spirit of “One Less Bell to Answer, One Less Egg to Fry,” this seemingly random and therefore Sondheimian catalog of things lost with a relationship allowed Barton to perform at her most conversational. It’s the kind of conversation, in fact, that could almost happen in a hotel bar – and I for one wanted to buy the lady a drink. 

In the course of the lovely evening, bookended by conversation with food and wine, Dirst did a little promotion for Ars Lyrica’s upcoming major deal: a New Year’s Eve concert and gala at the Hobby Center that will star Barton along with soprano Ava Pine, whose done a house concert with the group herself. You might want to consider ringing in the new with the American première of J. A. Hasse’s Neapolitan masterpiece Marc Antonio e Cleopatra. A festive party follows in the Hobby Center’s Founders Room, with champagne, hors d’oeuvres and prizes at Ars Lyrica’s annual silent auction. For more information, check out the group’s website www.arslyricahouston.org.