Queen for a Day

Today is my birthday, fair subjects. Let there be much merry-making!

By Special Arrangement

Patrick, Bill, and Bill's sister

I'm incredibly spoiled.  Longtime Novembrance readers know that Patrick does legal work for many Broadway and West End theater people.  Patrick's clients are amazingly talented, and the best, most decorated, and kindest of the whole bunch is a genius named William David Brohn.

On Sunday, Bill was honored at a gala benefit concert entitled "Broadway to West End by Special Arrangement: A Musical Tribute to William David Brohn" at London's Theatre Royal in Drury Lane.  Though our October calendar was already quite inked up, Patrick didn't think we should miss the chance to celebrate with Bill.  Our friend Marucela agreed to watch the kids, so we made plans for our mini-escape.

Saturday night, Patrick and I flew to London; we landed at about 10 o'clock Sunday morning.  We took the Heathrow Express train to Paddington Station, then caught a taxi to Marylebone, the charming neighborhood where our dear friend Carmen "LaFabulous" lives.  After a joyful reunion, we sat in her tasteful and spacious flat and chatted for hours. 

We went to dinner at a lovely little gastropub near Carmen's flat and afterwards visited a new gelateria in Marylebone High Street.  After a stroll down the high street, savoring our dessert and looking in all the fabulous shop windows (including those of this bookstore that demands a visit someday soon), we parted ways with Carmen and took a cab to Drury Lane. 

The concert was top-notch.  Sir Anthony Andrews was the Master of Ceremonies, and how divine it was to see him in person again.  We heard some of the best songs from many of the musicals Bill has orchestrated over the years: Miss Saigon, My Fair Lady, Carousel, Showboat, Ragtime, Mary Poppins, and Wicked, among many others.  I wish they had chosen something from The Secret Garden, but I can't complain.  Highlights for me were "I've Grown Accustomed to Her Face" (sung by Sir Anthony himself), "Can't Help Lovin' That Man" from Showboat, "The Wizard and I" from Wicked, and Bill's "Ragtime Symphonic Suite."

Even better than the music was seeing our dear, modest Bill overwhelmed by accolades from producers, composers, and other theater legends.  Blushing and beaming, Bill's radiant face probably could have powered the entire West End all evening long.

We made a brief appearance at the post-concert reception, warmly congratulating Bill and saying hello to several other old friends.  Then we went back to Carmen's and sat up talking until 2:00 a.m.  We hated having to sleep, but a few hours of rest seemed prudent.

Monday morning, we got up at 6:00, hugged Carmen goodbye, and made our way home.  I love traveling with our children, but I also love traveling alone.  Patrick and I watched three movies in a row on the flight home without a single interruption: heaven.

Then, jiggety-jig, we were home again just 45 hours after we'd left.  Of those 45, only about 6 were spent sleeping.  Whirlwind?  Yes.  Worth it?  Absolutely.

Frenchification by Immersion

In a little over a month, we are trading houses for three weeks with a family who lives near Versailles. We found our house exchange through HomeLink, and we are very excited about our long-overdue vacation. Patrick and I took a three-week trip to France and Switzerland sixteen years ago; it remains one of our fondest memories.  I anticipate that this trip will become a highlight of family lore for years to come.

As of last Friday, school is finally out.  It’s time to begin our preparations. Because I am paranoid and prideful, I find I must add “clean out and organize every closet, cupboard, and drawer” to my already lengthy To Do list. I know, I know; but the French family will be living here for three whole weeks, and what if it rains a lot, and the kids play Hide and Seek, and one of them gets lost not in Narnia, but in some unpleasant little purgatory like our linen closet or the arts and crafts cupboard?

Long time friends and Novembrance readers will remember that I homeschool our kids every summer. This year, except for working on Daniel’s reading and Tess’s math, we are setting aside our usual curriculum and focusing exclusively on France.

We’ll be reading or re-reading:

Linnea in Monet’s Garden
The King in the Window
A Company of Fools
The Red Keep
A Proud Taste for Scarlet and Miniver
Katie Meets the Impressionists
Cathedral
The Annotated Mona Lisa
The Da Vinci Code*
The Eight*
The Count of Monte Cristo
Paris to the Moon
Tintin
Asterix

We’ll be watching or re-watching:
The 400 Blows
My Father’s Castle
My Mother's Glory
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Cyrano de Bergerac
An American in Paris
Charade
The Scarlet Pimpernel

And listening to:
Josquin
Dufay
Machaut
Berlioz
Saint-Saens
Debussy
Satie
Bizet
Ravel
Poulenc
Charles Trenet
Maurice Chevalier
Edith Piaf
Charles Aznavour
Yves Montand
Les Alchimistes
Saint Privat
Amélie-les-crayons
Plastic Bertrand

Each of the kids will be using the fantastic Rosetta Stone program every day, and I’ve pulled out my old Champs Elysées CDs. As I mentioned once long ago, I try not to think about how badly my French has eroded since my mission and those years of intensive study in college. I’ll set regret aside and focus on doing my best.

Food, of course, will not be neglected in our study. Croissants, cassoulet, escargots, steak frites, crepes Nutella, and chocolat chaud will all be consumed in anticipation of the culinary delights we will encounter in France.

Places we plan to visit while there:

Within Paris
La Cathédrale Notre Dame
La Sainte-Chapelle
Montmartre
Le Louvre
La Musée d’Orsay
L’Orangerie
Café Angelina
Berthillon
La Tour Eiffel
L’Arc de Triomphe
La Bastille

Outside Paris
Versailles
Normandy
Giverny
Chartres
Saint-Cloud
Fontainebleau
Saint-Denis
Parc Astérix

* Christian gets a couple of softballs due to his summer reading requirements for AP English. James is determined to finish the unabridged version of The Count of Monte Cristo (866 pages--he's about a third of the way through), and I am re-acquainting myself with my beloved yet long-neglected M. Proust.

We know we are beyond lucky to be having such a grand adventure, and we plan to make the most of it. It won't be a whirlwind tour; three weeks will afford us the luxury of taking our time to enjoy the riches that will surround us.  I can't wait!

The Holy Glimmers of Good-byes

When I told Christian that Patrick and I were going to hear Benjamin Britten's War Requiem at Avery Fisher Hall, he asked, "What is it—a mass?" I answered that it was a choral piece set to the traditional liturgical text, but that the composer had also included several anti-war poems written almost a century ago by Wilfred Owen.

"Wow," Christian said. "It sounds like a protest song." He studied protest songs in his freshman songwriting class and has gained a healthy appreciation for the genre.

I agreed. "The War Requiem is the ultimate protest song," I said.

Wilfred Owen was no draft dodger; his poems draw on his own harrowing experiences in the trenches of France during World War I. Hospitalized for shell shock—what we would call post-traumatic stress disorder—Owen began writing in the hope that doing so would exorcise the horrors he had witnessed. Once healed and back on the battlefield, Owen was shot through the head by a German gunman and died just a week before Armistice Day.

Britten composed his Requiem in 1962 for the reconsecration of Coventry Cathedral. German bombs mostly razed the 15th century cathedral during World War II, and in 1956 a new structure was begun alongside the ruins. The British government turned the old cathedral site into a memorial monument; Britten hoped his composition would also stand as a monument, a warning to future generations against the senseless waste of war.

When my friend Tina Fairweather told me that her choir would be singing the War Requiem, accompanied by the New York Philharmonic under the direction of the great Lorin Maazel, I couldn’t wait to get tickets. Benjamin Britten looms large in my pantheon of personal artistic heroes, and I knew hearing the Requiem live would be a transcendent experience. Saturday night’s concert exceeded my expectations.

The Requiem is a 20th century composition, perhaps not very accessible to the casual listener. The key to appreciating it is to let go of expectations of traditional Western melodic progression and instead glory in the way the gorgeous textures of the music highlight and underscore the poignant text.

Throughout the performance, the violins and the choral voices created almost palpable tissues of sound, great swaths of silk that arose and twined around one another. The honey-voiced tenor and baritone (Vale Rideout and Ian Greenlaw), along with some of the woodwinds, embroidered upon this rich fabric. And the brass: if I hadn’t known better, I would have thought that the brass section was manned by a corps of angels: thrilling perfection.

During the third movement, the Offertorium, a boys’ choir pleads (in Latin) that the souls of all the faithful be delivered “from the pains of hell and from the depths of the pit: deliver them from the lion’s mouth, that hell devour them not, that they fall not into darkness.” The adult chorus continues the prayer: “But let the standard bearer Saint Michael bring them into the holy light: which of old Thou didst promise unto Abraham and his seed.”

Then the tenor and baritone sing a duet that tells of Abraham and Isaac’s journey to Mount Moriah. But Owen turns the traditional Bible story on its head: “Lo! An angel called [Abraham] out of heaven, saying, Lay not thy hand upon the lad, neither do anything to him. Behold, a ram, caught in a thicket by its horns; Offer the Ram of Pride instead of him. But the old man would not so, but slew his son—And half the seed of Europe, one by one.”

“Half the seed of Europe, one by one.” As this refrain is repeated, the listener understands that Abraham in this telling represents government turning away from heavenly urgings of humility and peace. It’s a chilling, inspired moment, one of the high points of the piece.

The Requiem closes with another such transformative musical scene. In the sixth movement, the Libera Me, the tenor and the baritone represent two spirits of soldiers from opposing sides of a conflict. They meet in the afterlife and recognize one another.

“Strange friend,” one says, “here is no cause to mourn.”

“None,” answers the other, “save the undone years, the hopelessness….the pity of war, the pity war distilled. Now men will go content with what we spoiled….”

They dream of an end to war: “When much blood had clogged their chariot-wheels, I would go up and wash them from sweet wells, Even from wells we sunk too deep for war, Even from the sweetest wells that ever were.

“Let us sleep now,” the two sing in counterpoint as the choirs chant the traditional words “Rest eternal grant unto them, O Lord: and let light eternal shine upon them. May they rest in peace. Amen.”

As the last whisper of chord died away, as we applauded madly with the rest of the audience through three curtain calls, and as we drove the long, dark road home from the City, I thought about war and peace.

It is not enough to wash the chariot wheels; it is not enough to treat the symptoms of war. We must eliminate its cause altogether. War on a global scale will not end until we have cleansed hate from our hearts, until we have swept disharmony out of our homes, until we have replaced the filth of enmity with the sweet water of unconditional love in our communities.

We can march, we can petition, we can wear ribbons. But until we look inward, rooting out pride and intolerance within ourselves even when we are convinced of the correctness of our position—especially when we are convinced of the correctness of our position—we will never free ourselves from war.

Dona nobis pacem.

The Hills Were Alive

Q: Has there ever been a more handsome Friedrich in musical theater history?
A: NO!

Our oldest son, Christian, was absolutely adorable (don't kill me, hon) in his high school's terrific production of The Sound of Music last weekend. Stay tuned; I'm hoping to upload a video of him as "The Lonely Goatherd" as soon as technology will allow. Thanks for the photos, Mary!

**UPDATED** Here it is (the sound problems resolve themselves after a few seconds):