Tag: Brooklyn

A Week in the (Cultural) Life – Part One

Greetings and Salutations! Yes, we’ve been away for a few weeks, but now we come roaring back. I hope everyone made it through the winter and is enjoying some milder weather and the expectation of warmer things to come.

We’ve been very busy ourselves, although we haven’t been out of the city since our return from Antarctica and Buenos Aires. The cultural scene has been extremely busy and will continue for the next month or so.

I thought you might be interested to know what we’ve been up to over the past week. It’s been all culture and eclectic culture at that. The accent has been mostly on opera. However, it hasn’t been your mom and pop’s opera, as you will soon see.

Last Saturday night, we returned to Brooklyn to attend LoftOpera’s first production of the year, Puccini’s Tosca. You may recall that, this past December, we visited LoftOpera for the 1st time to see their production of The Rape of Lucretia and were pretty much blown away by the audacity of the experience.

In the first place, LoftOpera has made a commitment to take the “elite” out of opera, without sacrificing what’s important: great works being performed by talented up and coming singers in unusual surroundings at affordable prices and with a real party vibe.

Tosca - AAC
AAC CPA arrives with the ArcAngel Michael over his shoulder

Did I mention that the audience is mostly comprised of youngsters (i.e., the under 30-crowd) looking for a great night on the town?

Or that, one of LoftOpera’s sponsors is the Brooklyn Brewery, so that beer is available throughout the performance? (One of the more piquant enjoyments of this Tosca performance was to hear the tinkling of beer bottles tipping over now and then and yet again.)

Oh, and did I mention that Tosca was presented in an old bus depot in the Bushwick section of Brooklyn in so isolated a part of town that even Uber had a hard time finding the place?

Tosca - Opera Sign
How we found the bus depot – this sign in the darkness

Or that, during intermission, the beer continues to flow freely while house music blasts over the speakers?

Tosca - Audience
The cool and young audience enjoying culture and the party atmosphere

Or that, most importantly, this Tosca was the best production of Puccini’s “shabby little shocker” on the opera scene in New York (and I include a certain production of the work in the repertoire of a certain opera company located at Lincoln Center).

Oh yeah, and tickets are $30. Yes, you read that right: $30 will get you an opera.

Backed by a 32-piece orchestra and energetically conducted by Dean Buck, this Tosca took flight. The cast, headed by Eleni Calenos in the title role (diminutive in appearance, but packing a huge soprano voice well versed in the verismo style), James Chamberlain (our Cavaradossi with his beautiful upper register and thrilling high notes) and Kevin Wetzel (the perverse – and I mean that in a good way – Baron Scarpia) put it all out there at what was the closing performance of the run.

Tosca - 01
Cavaradossi and Tosca, Act I

Tosca - 01a
Baron Scarpia – Act I (Te Deum)

Tosca - 02
Tosca takes matters into her own (bloody) hands

Tosca - 03
Tosca and Cavaradossi – Act III

Tosca - 04
Spoiler Alert: It ends badly for everyone

And I have to give a shout-out to Jordan Pitts as Scarpia’s head henchman, Spoletta (and one of the creepiest and most threatening Spolettas I’ve ever witnessed – you wouldn’t want to run into this guy late at night in Bushwick!). Normally a comprimario role that disappears into the scenery, this Spoletta was a junior Scarpia in training.

Although the performance was sold out with over 500 people attending, the performance space allowed for an intimacy between the characters and the audience that would be impossible at almost any other venue. I’m not kidding when I tell you that there were times that the singers were literally within 2 feet of where we were sitting. And, in fact, the performance was SO sold out that there were about a dozen people sitting on the floor in front of what would be the first row.

(In fact, the company’s executive producer (and set designer for this performance), Daniel Ellis-Ferris, was sitting directly in front of us (on the floor) as he synchronized the projected titles onto a screen over the set.)

Tosca - Titles
How the titles work (Thanks, Dan!)

The production was imaginatively staged and authentic to the creators’ opus, notwithstanding a number of anachronisms that were both witty and yet, somehow, appropriate (although I doubt that Spoletta would have received the news of Napoleon’s victory at Marengo via his cellphone).

Bottom line: kudos to Dan and Brianna (LoftOpera’s general manager), the cast and all involved with this very successful production of Tosca.

NY Times on LoftOpera’s Tosca

Next up for LoftOpera: Rossini’s Le Comte Ory in June. Stay tuned or, better yet, order your tickets as soon as they go on sale!

CULTURE TIP: LoftOpera

Dining in Brooklyn, Opera in a Loft; and an Uber PostScript

Greetings and salutations, all. I’m looking out of my office window at a beautifully bright and sunny afternoon here in the city that never sleeps. True, it’s on the cool side, but 50 degrees in December is almost like a heat wave for us.

Just to show you how lovely my city can be this time of year, here’s a photo I took at Columbus Circle late Thursday afternoon. Pretty gorgeous, huh?

Columbus Circle

I thought I’d share with you our excursion last night to a place called Brooklyn. Do you know it? As we say on the Upper West Side of Manhattan: “It’s over there, somewhere” as we gesture vaguely in some unknown direction. Actually, Brooklyn is an amazing place where all kinds of interesting things are going on: restaurants, shops, clubs, culture. It’s all there for the taking.

So, I had heard about this ambitious young opera company: LoftOpera. The company presents their productions in unusual spaces in Brooklyn. Believe me, this is NOT your parents’ opera company. Even though they choose operas from the standard repertoire, the productions are cutting-edge, exciting, unusual and cast with up and coming singers. When was the last time you saw La Boheme in which all of the singers were age-appropriate?

And speaking of age, the average age of the Metropolitan Opera audience is about 57+ (according to a sampling of 15,750 audience members taken in 2005). That makes AAC CPA and I relative youngsters when we go to the Met. Just looking around the audience at LoftOpera last night, call us Gramps, as the place was filled with people in their 20s and 30s. In fact, we viewed only a handful of audience members who were our age or older. Yikes!

Loft Opera

Check out the hip, young crowd at LoftOpera

Of course, the $30 ticket charge may have had something to do with the demographics of the audience. I’d argue, however, that it had more to do with the vibe and the experience. Entering the performance space, located at 501 Union Street (I have no idea where in Brooklyn that really is – over there somewhere??), the first thing you see is a long bar, from which beer and wine are being served. The atmosphere is party-like, as if everyone is there to partake in some kind cool experience. The performance space is a long rectangular room, the length of which has 5 or 6 rows of seats. At one end is the 12-piece orchestra, tuning up. It’s very social, it’s very hip, it’s fun.

AAC goes to LoftOpera

AAC CPA goes LoftOpera!

The work being presented was Benjamin Britten’s The Rape of Lucretia, which dates from 1946. It’s a very serious work with a gorgeous Britten score and deals with what might have triggered the beginning of the fall of the Roman Empire, tho’ that is never a stated theme.

Lucretia_LoftOpera
Production still from The Rape of Lucretia at LoftOpera

The production was simply staged, but very dramatically enacted for full and immediate impact. The cast, with which I was totally unfamiliar, was excellent, each and every one. The audience sat rapt throughout and, at the end, was very generous with its applause. All in all, it was a very groovy night and very exciting to discover this new company. Although specific repertoire hasn’t yet been announced, LoftOpera will be presenting 4 productions next year. If you’re in the area, I encourage you to check them out. These are professionally presented productions in intimate surroundings and adventurous locations, and at a fraction of the cost you’d spend at any other opera company.

CULTURE TIP: LoftOpera

And check out the New York Times review for your edification:

New York Times Review

Because AAC CPA and I needed to be well fortified prior to the show, I sought out a place to grab a bite. Enter al di la Trattoria, on 5th Street in the Park Slope area of Brooklyn. I’d heard that they served seriously good Italian food. Again, my phobia about getting lost in the boroughs has held me back. Bad boy!! We had a delightful dinner last night.

al di la

We weren’t able to sample their extensive wine list (no sleeping at the opera, damnit!), but we were delighted with what we chose to eat. We shared an Autumn Market Salad, beautifully shaved vegetables (except for the cauliflower, ewwww), and dressed in the lightest of dressings. Yummy. Followed by a special, pappardelle and duck ragu. OMG, it was so tasty.

al di la food
Talk about whetting your appetite!!!!

For mains, we went our own way: hanger steak with arugula for me (how healthy!) and the most tender pork chop I’ve ever tasted for AAC CPA. Our contorni was Crispy Squashed Beets with horseradish crème and chives. I’m telling you, it was a taste sensation, and totally worth the trip to Brooklyn.

CUISINE TIP: al di la Trattoria – Brooklyn

Speaking of trips to Brooklyn, perhaps that’s why God invented Uber?

Speaking of which: Remember when I talked about Uber last week and how it got us flawlessly around Fort Lauderdale? Well, we Uber-ed our way home after the opera last night and, not only did they pick us up within like 2 minutes, the trip back home was faster and cheaper than taking a taxi. And much more fun, ‘cause you generally travel in a nice car and the drivers are always friendly and chatty (but in a good way).

So, here’s the deal: if any of you are curious but have never tried Uber, use my code:

jeffreys567

and you’ll get $15 off your first Uber ride. (Full disclosure: apparently, I’ll get some kind of credit as well. That’s what I call a “win-win”.)

Travel Tip: Uber Sign-Up

That’s all for now, folks. Have a lovely weekend!!