This week in the Arts online - Nov 4-10

Met On Demand gift subscription

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I finally found a present I want to give someone this holiday season. I’ve been a subscriber to the Metropolitan Opera On Demand since the pandemic and most weeks I watch at least one of the Met’s more than 800 beautifully filmed operas for my own pleasure.  

​Sometimes it’s one of the newest productions, sometimes it’s one of the classic telecasts from the ‘70s, ‘80s and 90s, often with great stars who are no longer performing, sometimes it’s an opportunity to compare an earlier production of a famous work with a recent one. The unlimited Annual Subscription, for real opera nuts like me, ten months at $149.99, is a great deal, especially with a free trial week. 
 
Now, for this holiday season, all new and existing Annual Subscribers can receive one Met Opera on Demand Companion Subscription to send to a person of their choice. This offer is only available through January 5, 2024.
 
Once redeemed, the Companion Subscription will give your recipient an entire year of free unlimited access to Met Opera on Demand, online or in any of their apps for Apple TV and iOS, Amazon Fire TV and Tablet, Roku, Samsung Smart TV, and Android.

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Prisoner C33 – Oscar Wilde in Reading Gaol

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The continuing fascination with the great playwright  Oscar Wilde reaches another dimension with this new play by Stuart Patterson, directed by Trevor Nunn, and starring Toby Stephens. Confined in the harsh conditions of a Victorian prison cell, Wilde's journey from celebrated playwright to anonymous inmate unfolds through poignant dialogue with his younger self, revealing the stark contrast between his flamboyant past and bleak present, all infused with Wilde's humor and wisdom.

Wilde was a dramatist of genius, poet, wit, novelist, husband, father of two children and, until recently, the darling of London society. He has been imprisoned for the crime of having participated in an illegal (they were all illegal) homosexual relationship with his beloved Bosie, Lord Alfred Douglas, revealed by Lord Alfred’s father, the spiteful, and quite possibly mad, Marquess of Queensberry.

Here, in Reading Gaol in 1896, condemned to solitary confinement because of his sexual identity, he begins a conversation with his younger self, struggling to reconcile his identity as a creative genius with the trauma of his treatment as a despised criminal.

Despite the flashes of wit and the inevitable elegance of his speech, Prisoner 333 isn’t a cheerful hour to watch. But it does add some additional answers and a few more questions, to the enigma that was Oscar Wilde.

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Decidedly Jazz Danceworks

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Decidedly Jazz Danceworks (DJD) is a 38-year-old jazz company from Calgary, Canada, dedicated to the rich traditions and boundless future of jazz dance.

Recognizing themselves as guests in a form born out of Black American culture and the African American experience and making their Jacob’s Pillow debut this summer, DJD was a crowd-pleasing favorite with a style that has been described as “music for the eyes”.

Experience DJD’s spirit of jazz from anywhere in the world by streaming the full company performance which was filmed live this summer accompanied by the six-piece Rubim de Toledo Ensemble with vocalist Karimah.
December 4 – 31 $15

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Diego Velasquez – Painting Takes Power
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The Painter's Painter
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I found two marvellous documentaries about the Spanish artist Velazquez on YouTube and I’m sharing both because they each bring out different aspects of this painter about whom very little is known. One, Painting Takes Power, is part of a series called Best Documentary. The other, The Painter’s Painter, is part of the Imagine series for BBC-TV.

Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez was baptised on June 6, 1599 and died just 61 years later on August 6, 1660. Within this relatively short lifetime he became the leading artist in the court of King Philip IV and one of the most important painters of the Spanish Golden Age. He was an individualistic artist of the contemporary Baroque period, important as a portrait artist.

In addition to numerous renditions of scenes of historical and cultural significance, he painted scores of portraits of the Spanish royal family, other notable European figures, and commoners, culminating in the production of his last masterpiece Las Meninas, the painting which is never lent or removed from the Prado Museum in Madrid.

The first film, different and more immediate in essence because of the absence of an overriding personality presenter, was directed by Thibaut Seve. The other is, as always with Imagine, dominated by the ubiquitous presence of Alan Yentob.

Happy Birthday, Madame Callas

​Paris 1958/1965
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Maris Callas v.Renata Tebaldi
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On December 2, 1923, Maria Anna Cecilia Sofia Kalogeropoulos was born to Greek immigrant parents in New York. 100 years later, Maria Callas is the best-known opera singer in history. She fascinated the public with her instantly recognizable, one-of-a-kind timbre; her magnetic, larger-than-life stage presence; and her tumultuous and tragic private life. In this week of her 100th birthday Medici has two exceptional programmes about her.

One is a concert programme drawn from two of her most famous recitals both filmed in Paris, one in 1958, the other in 1965. If you missed hearing Callas at the peak of her powers this is an opportunity to understand what all the fuss is about. Here she sings arias by Massenet, Bellini (including a "Casta Diva" that may never be outdone), Puccini, Verdi, and Rossini (a jaw-dropping "Una voce poco fa").

The other is a new documentary about her most famous feud – she had many – this one with rival soprano Renata Tebaldi. This was a rivalry between two opera divas diametrically opposed in art and temperament: Renata Tebaldi, she of the pure voice and angelic air; and Maria Callas, dramatic and wild, nicknamed "The Tigress".

Callas fans, and those who want to understand what made Callas Callas, won’t want to miss either one.