John adams girls of the golden west review

He drives Anthony crazy, because Anthony keeps thinking he can fall back to his old way of doing things. He is sort of like one of our Silicon Valley masters of the universe he does everything right, he has no sense of humor and everything is about his business model вЂ“ Does this sound familiar? IвЂ™ve read almost all the Shakespeare plays and I feel that, despite all the trappings of Egypt and Caesar and Rome, it is intellectually and emotionally the most modern of the Shakespeare plays, in terms of the human relationships.ДЄnd then we have Caesar, who is Caesar Augustus, who is young, heвЂ™s barely twenty years old. They continually do terrible things to each other, and then realize they canвЂ™t live without each other, So, in that sense, itвЂ™s a very modern. SheвЂ™s had a child by Julius Caesar when she was a teenager, and sheвЂ™s a very, very intelligent, capable woman. SheвЂ™s, I suppose, again by the standards of that time, approaching middle age, even though sheвЂ™s probably only thirty years old. And heвЂ™s been constantly troubled by Rome, who needs him, for his political and military skills.Д¬leopatra is really interesting person. Anthony is definitely, by Roman standards, middle-aged he has had a very distinguished career as a military man, and now just wants to have a good time. I love the Anthony and Cleopatra story, because itвЂ™s a love story of two people who, as we say, have вЂ™been there, done thatвЂ™. And I found that I just loved setting Shakespeare. So we added a couple of short scenes from Macbeth, woven into the story. (The stage director and librettist) Peter Sellars had discovered in his research that Shakespeare was a popular form of entertainment during the Gold Rush era. The reason IвЂ™m doing it is that there were two scenes in my most recent opera, Girls of the Golden West, where I ended up setting some Shakespeare. It takes place at that time, it does not take place in Texas or Washington D.C. The opera a definite departure for me, in that itвЂ™s a Shakespeare play. вЂќFor a long time that was just a kind of existential activity, because you just couldnвЂ™t know what the realities would be. on the week after that.вЂќД®ven with all the performances gone, the lockdown months have been busy time for Adams, for he has been working every day on a new opera. вЂќOf all the cancellations, my biggest disappointment was a production of Nixon in China,В that was supposed to be running in Washington on the week of the election, before going to L.A. With the concert venues closed since March, a lot of performances were lost in the course of the year, including the Cleveland premiere of AdamsвЂ™s latest piano concerto, Must the Devil Have All the Good Tunes?(2018) or the concert performances of his 2017 opera Girls of the Golden West. So I go back and forth between the two places.вЂќ And I also have a place in the very remote woods, about three hours from here, where IвЂ™ve built what I call my Mahler hut. вЂќOur daughter and our son and their families live not very far away, so we are very fortunate. And we tend to see the world in a certain way, if you drove but just fifty miles inland, there were Donald Trump signs everywhere.вЂќДЄdams has spent the long pandemic months in on home ground in Berkeley, where he lives with his wife. I live in the bubble of urban California, and most of my friends live in New York. WeвЂ™ve fortunately got rid of the president, but the country is so radically divided. The election was sort of disturbing because it did not really result in what many people hoped it would. In addition to the wildfires, 2020 scored terribly on almost every level in the U.S., be it politics or the pandemic. For several weeks we couldnвЂ™t even go outdoors, because the smoke was so bad in the air.вЂќ Two years ago, the fires started in November, last year, they started in October and this year, they started in August. вЂќWeвЂ™re waiting some rain, which is really very, very badly needed here. Times have been testing in California too, on many levels. Despite being one of the most prominent composers of our times, AdamsвЂ™s first thoughts deal with the everyday realities of life. ItвЂ™s Tuesday morning in California (and early evening in Finland), as we sit down with John Adams for a Zoom interview.

John adams girls of the golden west review