Tchaikovsky’s Pathetique
Saw Tchaikovsky’s Pathetique today with the Sydney Symphony. Rather good, rather good. Took mother with me – the first time she’s ever been to the symphony. She had a ball too. All good, all good. Yeah.
Suddenly realised today that, going to see a ballet next month called Anna Karenina, I’m going to have to read the damn book before I see it. (Though whether I can be bothered – I still haven’t finished The Tree of Man, even after listening to the piece by Carl Vine that used the last chapter as its text.)
Also, finally got my copy of A World History of Art, and it is huge, and it is packed full of pictures and information, and I eagerly await reading it, as I do with most books that I own, obviously.
A friend of mine has my copy of Infinite Jest – as well as some other books – but I’ve come to the conclusion that I feel like I’m missing something when my copy of Infinite Jest is not in the house. I think that means that it must be somewhat important to me.
I saw the Australian Ballet do Anna Karenina years ago. It was a different production, by choreographer Prokovsky, but the thing it has in common with the Eifman version is that it leaves out most of the subplots in order to focus on the central love triangle. My eight-year-old self then decided to read the book. As you do. Sadly, the ballet had spoilt it for me. I kept skipping through the parts of the novel that hadn’t been represented on the stage: the various Kitty and Levin scenes, and all of Tolstoy’s thinly disguised lectures on social issues, etc. (Actually, given my age, I might have skipped those bits regardless!) I would say you definitely don’t *need* to read the novel first in order to enjoy a ballet on this subject. On the other hand, and even allowing for the fact that you’re not a child as I was, reading the novel before seeing the ballet may be more satisfying than the other way round.
Regardless, looking forward to your report. In particular – since I’m now recalling the version I saw – please do let us know if the Eifman Karenin cracks his knuckles. Also, how do they deal with the train at the end? (I was very impressed with Prokovsky’s solution.)
On another matter: when you say some event was “rather good” it would be so nice to know what it was you actually liked/approved of in said concert or play or ballet or whatever. These posts of yours can be a bit of tease.
Yvonne Frindle (@frindley)
July 6, 2012 at 3:52 pm
SPOILERS! (Well, not really – if I didn’t know what happened in the book, I’d have no idea what you meant by the train, but I vaguely remember reading something somewhere once that said Anna throws herself in front of one, or lays down on the tracks, etc, at the end, so I won’t be entirely innocent in my reading of the book, unfortunately…)
I was more concerned to read the book so the ballet didn’t spoil it for me, rather than reading it to understand the ballet (it must be a horrible ballet if you had to do that!).
That said, I doubt the ballet would spoil it for me anyway (I don’t think Onegin will ruin my eventual reading of it, for instance), but I’d rather not take the chance. (Plus, also, Tom Stoppard (whom I rather admire) wrote a screenplay of it for a film that’s coming out early next year, so I’ve definitely got to read it before then, too.) It’s like with the Harry Potter books, I suppose – it’s best to let your imagination run free while reading the books, and then go and see the movies, rather than the other way around.
As for the teasing – vis a vis lack of detail in my summaries of cultural events… My ill-informed musical opinions are currently property of ArtsHub, so I save myself for the reviews I write, instead of writing everything down twice. So it’s all there, you’ve just got to do a bit of searching for it!
(Basically I’m taking over the internet.)
epistemysics
July 7, 2012 at 4:16 am
There’s a writer in Hong Kong who’s in your situation (reviews concerts etc. for the local Time Out). He typically links to the review from the personal post in which he mentions the event.
Yvonne Frindle (@frindley)
July 7, 2012 at 5:18 pm
Ahh, but you see, my reviews take a couple days to (a) be written, (b) go through editorial, (c) etc. (Though I realise I’m just making excuses – maybe I shall link to them in the future. I was for a while posting the whole reviews here, but then I decided to keep them separate.) But anyway, who’s this writer in Hong Kong, though? They sound interesting!
epistemysics
July 8, 2012 at 2:10 am