by Christina Waters | Sep 3, 2014 | Art, Home |
Would you travel 7000 miles to watch a stage full of pink and white mice singing the Wedding March from Lohengrin?
Well I did, and my reward—in addition to hearing sumptuous music performed in an acoustically perfect hall—was watching the reigning Lohengrin underscoring his stardom.
Gifted with a perfect stage name, Klaus Florian Vogt also has the looks and the voice to go with it. I’d been told that I was in for a treat by several of Vogt’s global devotées, but I was not prepared for the tenor’s ravishing opening notes as the mythic knight who arrives in time to save a medieval town from its political rivals.
The voice began high in the tenor register, in a long shimmering phrase and simply spun outward into the entire hall, celestial and pure. Unearthly in fact. Vogt’s voice is lieder light, and yet it has a gorgeous crystalline tone and relentless power. His voice stayed strong and clear to the very end, where in Hans Neuenfels’ brilliant production, Lohengrin rejects human society and moves on to find a better world.
Looking and sounding exactly as a Wagnerian hero should, the blonde, rockstar handsome Vogt (more…)
by Christina Waters | Aug 13, 2014 | Home |
Seriously, this was the most seamless, delicious, relaxing, vibrant farm dinner I’ve ever enjoyed. (And there have been plenty!)
Route One Farms—sprawled out along the fertile alluvial plains by Waddell Creek—joined forces with Feel Good Foods and Santa Cruz Mountain Vineyard wines – and romanced 125 of us last Sunday.
Courses came swiftly, from salmon and Little Gems salad with dill aioli, on to potatoes and romanos and grilled eggplant, Fogline chicken, pasta with fresh tomatoes and cheeses, it all flowed seamlessly. Paul Rangell and company created the late summer soundtrack.
Wines to match, including a port with ice cream, walnuts, golden raspberries and whipped cream for dessert.
We told our favorite Orin Martin stories—Steiny, host farmer Jeff Larkey, et al.—and sailed out into the super moon on the way home. Kudos to the entire team—Zane, Jasmine, Melody, etc.!! (photo: from Hilltromper’s Traci Hukill)
by Christina Waters | Aug 11, 2014 | Home |
Robin Williams, so desperately gifted, so desperately troubled.
He died of an overdose of talent.
Thanks for all the laughter and tears!
by Christina Waters | Aug 2, 2014 | Home |
When our finest American actor succumbed to his demons earlier this year, film-goers knew it was a significant loss. But only with the release of A Most Wanted Man, the new film by Dutch filmmaker Anton Corbijn from the book by spymeister John LeCarré, did the full measure of the loss become apparent.
Philip Seymour Hoffman, as a German intelligence officer relegated to the backwater of Hamburg, pretty much owns this film, and so good is he that even lapses in the story line, the awkward pacing, and acting foibles by some of his co-stars, cannot pry our attention away from him.
When a brutally tortured Chechen/Russian Islamic immigrant surfaces in Hamburg, finds refuge with friends, and a social activist attorney Anna (Rachel McAdams) to help him redeem a lost inheritance, CIA and German security agents start paying close attention.
Somehow the film eludes pacing. (more…)
by Christina Waters | Jul 22, 2014 | Home |
If you haven’t yet fallen for the delicious, versatile nopal cactus (the pad of the prickly pear cactus, minus the pricklies), then you must head on over to 176 Lincoln Street this Sunday, July 27, for the Festival del Nopal loaded with nopal-driven foods, live music, ballet folklorico, recipe contest, a cactus cooking demo, and all presided over by a genuine Nopal Festival Queen! Truly a community event, lots of fun, and the 10am-6pm festivities are free.
Bring your friends, family, and an appetite for the marvelous nopal. It tastes a lot like a tangy green bean, btw.
by Christina Waters | Jun 26, 2014 | Home |
From the first frame, you are hooked. Yes partly because Ida, written and directed by Polish filmmaker Pawel Pawlikowski, is shot in raw black and white. Partly because the camera is most often stationary, allowing actors to move in and out of our viewpoint—creating a softly unsettling sense of time standing still.
But the visual secret of this mesmerizing 85-minute masterpiece is the choice of an almost square aspect ratio. Instead of the wide horizontals of contemporary filmography, we watch the small, unflinching story emerge in a compressed space. The pressure on all sides pushes the action—such as there is in this quiet, steady pursuit of truth lost—pushes it into a space without time. A continuous Now. We could read this film forwards or backwards. Is it redeeming the past? Or is it pointing toward the inevitable recurrence of the future?
The story, if explained to someone who hasn’t seen the film, will sound unlikely. A young novice, Ida (played by Agata Trzebuchowska) about to take her final vows, learns of the existence of an aunt—her only blood relative—and is told she must visit this woman before she can enter the religious life for good.
The aunt is played with the sort of spare visual dominance of a dark Ingrid Thulin by Agata Kulesza, a veteran Polish stage actress who is nothing short of shattering. As a former (more…)
