Doing some promo footage for the 2015 LA Opera Costume sale for KTLA Morning News
Looking for a Cinderella shoe, or broom? How about a Papageno mask, or a handmade stepsister wig? Today - Saturday March 28th - might just be your lucky day. The LA Opera Costume Shop is having a public tag sale (today only).
The LA Opera Costume shop is cleaning house in prep for moving their location and having a rare "tag sale" of about a thousand items worn on stage in numerous productions, including more than a few worn by the world's greats (think Placido Domingo). Fairy tale costumes will be included in the selection of course!
The L.A. Opera's costume shop, pictured in 2013 during the tailoring of outfits for "The Magic Flute," is moving -- so an estimated 1,000 costumes are being put up for sale. (Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times)
Think late 19th century bustles and flouncy panniers; handmade shoes and masks; military garb and gladiator gear; period wigs and accessories. The items for sale are from productions such as “Cinderella,” "Aida," “The Grand Duchess,” “Lucia di Lammermoor” and “The Turn of the Screw.” Prices start at $25 for complete costumes and $2 for individual pieces.
One-of-a-kind items such as handcrafted hats, uniquely designed shoes, numerous masks, theatrical jewelry, period wigs, gladiatorial armor and even slave cuffs will be laid out on tables alongside the racks. Also for sale will be bolts of unusual fabrics and faux fur, as well as buttons, belts, floral hair pins, bustles and panniers.
Costumes available for sale will include items from Aida, The Barber of Seville, The Birds, The Broken Jug, Cinderella, The Grand Duchess, Lucia di Lammermoor, Orfeo ed Euridice, The Queen of Spades, Salome, The Turk in Italy, The Turn of the Screw and Vanessa, among others.
A special “diva rack” will have the high-end items, $1,000 to $5,000, worn by stars such as Jennifer Larmore, Kiri Te Kanawa, Bryn Terfel and Deborah Voigt.
You can see a slideshow of some of the available costumes HERE and
If you're in the neighborhood, go check out the 90 clothing racks at: 330 South Alameda Street in downtown LA (parking lot) 10:30am to 4pm Saturday March 28th ONLY
It's a public event and you can browse for FREE!
If you go, don't forget to take your camera. We want to see the goodies please!
I love Tin Can Forest's work. It's perhaps not for everyone, but there's no denying it's mythic and folkloric-full.
Just look at how at home in the forest their artwork is! (see right)
This time it looks like they're retelling a whole tale in a book, so I can't wait to see their take on it (and I do love this story with the old animals triumphing over the baddies!)
"We Are Going To Bremen To Be Musicians" by Geoff Berner and Tin Can Forest - Book Launch
Thursday May 7th, 2015 Book Launch at 7pm, Geoff Berner Performance at 9pm @ The Pilot, 22 Cumberland St., Toronto Free Event
Come celebrate the TCAF book launch of We are Going to Bremen to Be Musicians by Tin Can Forest and Geoff Berner at the Pilot , 22 Cumberland St, Thursday May 7th.
Internationally acclaimed graphic novelist Nina Bunjevac (Fatherland, Heartless) will interview Geoff and Tin Can Forest about the making of the book, followed by a live performance by fearless klezmer punk accordionist and self-proclaimed "whisky rabbi” Geoff Berner.
Come drink and dance with us!
About We Are Going To Bremen To Be Musicians: Accordionist and novelist Geoff Berner together with folk-surrealists Tin Can Forest, re-tell this dark, strange German folk tale about four animals running away from their masters to become town musicians in the city of Bremen.
Illustration by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, image from poster for Goblin Market 2015 production by Theatre GRU
"There is no friend like a sister."
(Christina Rossetti - "Goblin Market")
Christina Rosetti's fairy poem Goblin Marketis beloved by many and often given consideration alongside other literary fairy tales as its own layered masterpiece. While it's not the first time it's been adapted for stage, I haven't seen performances crop up often at all the last decade in the US, which is sort of unusual when you consider just how popular the poem is, and how often it's taught at universities with theater companies attached.
This adaptation is by Patricia Pace and will be performed at The Maxwell Performing Arts Theater in Augusta, Georgia, Thursday through Saturday nights for this week only. With tickets $10 and under, if you love the poem, fairy tales and are in the area, this is worth considering for a night out.
Visually stunning and ripe with sensuous language, Christina Rossetti's poem Goblin Market is performed by six Victorian actresses between occasional rests in The Green Room. Patricia Pace said, "the adaptation investigates the many layer's of meaning in the poem -- a children's cautionary tale, a rebuke to the new commodity market in Victorian England, a religious allegory, a poet's wish for a female literary tradition, a fantasy about women caring for other women."*Contains mature content.
Illustration by Arthur Rackham
As Dr. Amanda M. Caleb, assistant professor at Misericordia University, said at a storytelling gathering earlier in the year, in which she spoke about fairy tales and how they relate to social issues:
“Rossetti’s poem is one that has intrigued me since I first read it as an undergrad, as it has so many possible interpretations: we might read it as a religious allegory, a tale of female solidarity, a critique of laissez-faire economics, or a warning about food adulteration — I really appreciate the depth of the tale!”
I found a little background on the play in an article published a couple of days ago and am putting the highlights below to give you a better idea of how the poem is being translated to stage for this production.
O’Meara, who is directing the Georgia Regents production of “Goblin Market,” said she acted in Pace’s adaption of the play when she was an undergraduate. She said she wanted to take the play further, readapt it and add things to it. “I knew that one day, once I had a position somewhere, that I would want to direct it myself,” O’Meara said. “The play follows these six women who are Victorian actresses, and they are on stage performing this Victorian poem and then we see them backstage dealing with women’s issues of the time.” O’Meara said the poem may seem lighthearted, but has a much darker side to it. “Some people would argue that this is a poem for children, but it’s not,” O’Meara said. “It’s very much not for kids.”
Arthur Rackham
“(Lucette) is the one who … has a semi-masculine role,” Farmer (who plays Lucette) said. “She is a little older (and) she’s a little more experienced. She’s a really fun character to play when it comes to the actual poem part, because she’s playing a goblin – and being a goblin is really fun because I get to do really crazy, ridiculous things.”
“(Dame Miriam is) sort of the leading actress of the company,” Owens (who plays her) said. “She’s very flirtatious, always making jokes, but she’s also the comforter.” Farmer said she hopes the audience will see the greater meaning behind the play. “It is both a fun play to watch and listen to,” Farmer said. “But it does have some deeper meanings going on, and it’s really fun to find those deeper levels when you’re in the midst of laughing at a situation that you didn’t realize was... a pretty serious topic. It’s great fun.”
The play is performed by an all-female cast and will be close to 70 minutes long without an intermission.
If you get to see it, why don't you let us know? We are very curious for we would like to go to the Goblin Market ourselves...
I'm sorry I didn't see this until about half an hour after the opportunity was over, and I didn't want to just add this to the round-up list, but yes: Maria Tatar was on the pop culture 'n' more news site iO9, answering every question, no matter how strange, with tact, aplomb and a solid dose of good humor.
Here's the announcement from Thursday:
Maria Tatar is the translator of the newly discovered trove of fairytales, lost for over a century, but just recently uncovered. Ask her all your questions about The Turnip Princess, the history of fairytales and folklore, and anything else you want to know!Tatar will be joining us today from noon - 1:00 p.m. (Pacific time), so start asking her all your questions now about the history of fairytales, where these new fairytales fit in with the tradition, and what these stories mean to us today.
Although I don't really have too many questions on Schonwerth yet as I have yet to do more than skim the book, I'm sure I would have thought of something! But it's great to be there live as regular people are asking questions on fairy tales. That doesn't happen too often!
Here are a few exchanges that I thought you guys might find interesting:
Isabelle Arsenault
Ria Misra:Also, one of the things that stood out to me when reading The Turnip Princess was the darkness of many of the stories that were told. Obviously, the original Grimm brothers tales had their own dark elements as well, but those have been considerably softened through the years. Do you suspect that a similar softening process will eventually happen with these new fairytales, or are they more likely to retain their darker threads?Tatar:I've touched on some of the differences between Grimm and Schönwerth already, so I'll focus on the question of the "softening process." When the Grimms published their collection, they came under much critical fire for publishing stories that were "crude" and "vulgar." One reviewer was outraged by the story of Hans Dumm, who makes women pregnant by looking at them. The Grimms quickly dropped that story from their collection in part because they found that by making the volume more appealing to parents, they sold more books. Schönwerth never refashioned his stories, and he gives us a story in which a fellow eats dumplings and then makes a mess outdoors. Then there is the king's bodyguard, who gets the king's daughter pregnant. I imagine that these stories will expand the folkloric canon, and in some cases they will be watered down, in other cases intensified and made even more explosive. Neil Gaiman once said that a fairy tale is like a "loaded gun"—and that's why I use the term "explosive." You can always blow up a fairy tale, blow it up in both senses of the term.
Sketchnotes for "The Great Cauldron of Story" with Maria Tatar by On Being
The Homework Ogre:In terms of original fairy tales, the one thing that everybody seems to know is that they were once much more violent — wicked stepmother dances to death in red-hot iron shoes, kids waste away and die together under a tree, stepsisters mutilate themselves to fit the slipper, etc. etc. — and have since been "sanitized" for the consumption of kids. I'm sure the stories in this collection are no less grim (har har); how do you feel about the bowlderization of folk tales?Tatar:I'm completely irreverent when it comes to fairy tales. There's nothing sacred about these stories. No one really owns them, and we should be able make them our own in mash-ups, remixes, and adaptations. It's important to preserve the historical record, and that's why I am so deeply invested in the work of the Grimms, Charles Perrault, and Schönwerth. But why should we read stories from the early nineteenth-century to our children today? Especially when women dance to death in red-hot iron shoes? Or a stepmother decapitates her stepson in "The Juniper Tree"? There's no reason not to create our own zany versions, and, if you look at picture books about Little Red Riding Hood, you see that we do that all the time. We are constantly recycling "Cinderella," "Snow White," and "Sleeping Beauty" for adults—in ways obvious and not so obvious. I don't necessarily like every new version, but I do love to talk about it. What did the writer or filmmaker get right? Where did they go wrong?
Silver Marmoset: In a class I'm currently taking on fairy tales, we've discussed where the Grimms' fairy tales came from geographically (apparently Italy). But have you any idea where the fairy tale motifs themselves came from? As in, what ideas or time periods gave rise to the idea of ogres, talking animals, and magic as story fodder?Thank you!Tatar: Great question, and I'd start with Vladimir Nabokov who tells us that fiction began on the day when a boy came home crying "Wolf Wolf" and there was no wolf. I love the idea of fairy tales as lies—true lies that exaggerate and bend reality in ways that enable us to flex our intellectual muscles and "think more." Where did these stories come from? I don't have much faith in the view put forth that the tales had literary origins in Italy. In fact, the Schönwerth collection has few literary fingerprints on it at all. His stories are not urban and urbane confections, but narratives rooted in popular culture—with all the rough edges, surreal qualities, and lack of closure you might expect from oral storytelling traditions. The more I study folklore, the more I realize that the tropes (lost slipper, cannibalistic ogre, predatory wolf) circulate globally. The stories are primal and take up cultural contradictions that are found everywhere—human vs. animal, predator vs. prey, bestiality vs. compassion, hostility and hospitality—and help us try to make sense of them.
LucilleBallBuster: what do you think the modern equivalent of fairy tales are? do you think any of the stories current society creates have taken the place or fairytale? or do we still form these types of stories and pass them around?Tatar:Fairy tales have not gone away. They have just been re-mediated, and today we find them on screen, at the opera, on stage, in advertisements, even in paintings. Take Little Red Riding Hood: She's refashioned in films like Hanna, Hard Candy, Freeway, and The Company of Wolves. We see her in a Chanel ad, in a Pepsi commercial (where she becomes the wolf—I think it's Kim Cattrall howling in the soundtrack), or in a Volvo ad (with a red-hooded car driving through the woods and a kid in the back seat). Then suddenly Vogue has a fairy-tale fashion shoot, and presto she reappears. Visual culture loves the girl in red, and Kiki Smith has an eye-popping series of Little Red Riding Hood images (one in the series famously appeared as a perverse wedding gift in Gilmore Girls—could not stop myself on that one).
As you can see, there's a lot to chew on here! (I had to stop myself from adding more.) You can read the whole Q&A HERE, though you might want to make yourself a very large cup of tea. Once you start, it's hard to stop reading.
A quick sneak-it-in post, since Sunday (today as you are probably reading this) is the last day this is being performed in Costa Mesa, California. But the production sounds all sorts of amazing, with new choreography and classic combined, full of symbolism and a different sort of storytelling to usual story ballets.
By the way - beautiful promotional pic, don't you think? Although it also looks incredibly uncomfortable.. that girl is going to need a massage when she finally gets woken up!
The American Ballet Theatre returns to the Center with the world premiere of its new production of The Sleeping Beauty, with choreography by Marius Petipa and additional choreography by ABT Artist in Residence, Alexei Ratmansky. This classic story ballet tells the enchanting tale of the beautiful princess cursed to sleep for 100 years by an evil sorceress, until awakened by the kiss of a handsome prince. It’s ballet on the grandest scale with the superstar dancers and spectacular sets and costumes that only ABT can deliver. And it all unfolds to Tchaikovsky’s ravishing score, performed live by the Pacific Symphony.
New costume design left to right: 1st row: Rose Adagio, The Wolf, Queen at Christening, English Prince 2nd row: Catalabutte, Mandarin, King at the Christening, Indian Prince 3rd row: Hummingbird Fairy, New Wedding Dress, Ariana, Garland Couples
(You can see the costumes sketches much larger HERE.)
I wanted to point to a hilarious, irreverent post on her special night out to see an older ABT Sleeping Beauty production (at The Lincoln Center) HERE. The writer clearly was completely entranced, but makes some hilarious observations and connections too, such as:
"Any respectable girl knows the story of Sleeping Beauty. She is born, and at her welcoming ceremony, her parents offend Helena Bonham Carter, who curses the princess to an early death via poisonous spindle."
I had to laugh.
And if you get the chance to see the ABT's current production, consider going. It's touted to be a little bit more than a standard production of Sleeping Beauty (which is a very difficult ballet to stage and execute because of the technical difficulties - many companies are just not up to the grueling task!).
For this Sunday/today's last two performances, you can find more information HERE.
For more information on the American Ballet Theater touring (though I don't see any further performances of this new Sleeping Beauty production after tomorrow until June) go have a look HERE.Note: if you end up going and seeing a performance of this Sleeping Beauty later in the year, I've read articles which say the ballet, because it's a brand new production, is being tweaked and revised, according to critic and audience reception as it goes along (this is fairly standard for age companies adding a new signature work to their repertoire) so be assured that it will only get better.
Fairy tale bonus of the day:
Ballet legend, Gelsey Kirkland and her amazing Carabosse costume from the ABT production in 2007. I just had to share. It looks like beetles and magic! You can see more from the creator, Kari Love, who created the costumes for the 2007 production HERE.
"... A charming bridegroom by day and a suave robber by night. Rosamund is the poor little rich girl who loves him. Salome is the wicked stepmother who tries, and largely fails, to throw a wrench (and even a poisoned apple) into the works... If this sounds like the makings of a fairy tale, that’s because it is: a Grimm fairy tale, no less, adapted into a Southern Gothic classic by Eudora Welty before being turned into a manic bluegrass musical comedy...Greensboro College is staging the rarely-performed musical adaptation of "The Robber Bridegroom..."
I'm going to squeak notice of this show onto the blog late today, even though tomorrow (Sunday, February 22) is the last day it's showing, because just the fact that this exists and is back in performance circulation is good fairy tale news! (And you can keep an eye out for it in future too.) Yes. The musical is based on the Bluebeard-related fairy tale The Robber Bridegroom (more specifically, on Eudora Weltey's Southern Gothic novel, which was based on the fairy tale - text is HERE), and is comic, a little bawdy and full of bluegrass music. In other words, it's probably not quite would you would expect if you're familiar with the tale. (I've included a number of different posters for the musical, along with the current one, to give you a better idea of the tone.) In case you've never heard of the musical version you should know this is considered quite a unique, though oft-forgotten, masterful work, among musical theater folk. It helped launch the careers of Kevin Kline, Patty LuPone and Barry Bostwick (the latter earning a Tony that season for Leading Actor in a musical). From some older productions here's a cobbling together of some different summaries to give you an idea of the show:
Set in eighteenth-century Mississippi, the show follows Jamie Lockhart, a rascally robber of the woods, as he courts Rosamund, the only daughter of the richest planter in the country. The proceedings go awry, however, thanks to a case of double-mistaken identity. Throw in an evil stepmother intent on Rosamund's demise, her pea-brained henchman, and a hostile talking head-in-a-trunk, and you have a rollicking country romp.It has one foot in the Southern Gothic tradition, the other in a fairy tale, and an arm gleefully waving about in comedy.
The music is one of the only genuine bluegrass scores ever heard in a Broadway musical: challenging fiddle melodies that twist, turn, and gather velocity like a hare escaping a panther, only to slide back down into the warmth of a quiet Southern night. With its distinct sound, colorful cast, and unique form of storytelling, "The Robber Bridegroom" is a hidden gem!
In case you have this evening free and are in the area, here's the information on the tickets:you can get more information on the times and tickets HERE.
From the Greensboro Theatre press release:
"The Robber Bridegroom"'s book and lyrics were written by Alfred Uhury, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of "Driving Miss Daisy," and were based on a 1942 novella by Eudora Welty. Music is by Robert Waldman. Opening on Broadway in 1975, this rousing, bawdy Southern fairytale has gone on to become a regional favorite. As Broadway historian Peter Filichia puts it, "This is a favorite show of many people who hate musicals, because it eschews the more obvious conventions and has no trouble being its unpretentious self."
The Robber Bridegroom, small illustration by Walter Crane from Household Stories by The Brothers Grimm
Here's a link to the full background and analysis of the musical The Robber Bridegroom, by Scott Miller. It's quite lengthy but very readable and extremely fascinating, asking all sorts of great questions about men and women, relationships and how we view sex. With regard to current pop culture fascinations, specifically, 50ShadesofGrey, and Bluebeard tendencies to continuously rear their head, no matter how modernized, liberated and equal opportunity we believe ourselves to be, this is a good article to reference. Why? Because this is exactly what the musical is all about. The manner of the telling, with a large dose of tongue in cheek and folklore flavor, actually makes the material easier to consider and discuss. So if you're interested in Bluebeard, check out the article. You won't be disappointed.
The Grimms’ “Das Mädchen ohne Hände” (The Maiden Without Hands) is certainly one of the most disturbing and fascinating fairy tales.There are over a hundred variants, often known as “The Handless Maiden,” “Silver Hands” or “The Armless Maiden.”
A whole weekend workshop focussing on this tale? Yes, please!
This beautiful workshop is run by Heather Keens, an experienced individual and family therapist, and Joan Harcourt, an experienced body psychotherapist and group leader. Together they will help attendees explore this rich fairy tale from a Jungian psychological perspective.
As Keens and Harcourt remind us, “The Handless Maiden is a story about individuation, about developing one’s inner strength, resilience and creativity. It is a story about losing your hands, living with silver hands and finding your hands.”
The part I love the most is that these inspiring women take this tale of loss and healing, and make it personal to the attendees: “there will be an opportunity to explore your own journey to the conscious feminine and the inner positive masculine in a safe and contained setting. We work through discussion, metaphor and symbol, movement, dream work and art in this process.”
Sounds incredible!
This workshop will be of interest to health professionals, counsellors, expressive therapists, storytellers, writers or anyone engaged in their own psychological journey.
The workshop will take place from February 20 through to the 22nd, 2015.
Further details on the workshop times, location and fees can be found in the PDF flier, available to view HERE.
Apologies for the delay in posting. I am under the weather today, (there may be a delay in tomorrow's too just as an FYI) but thought I'd finish off a draft post to make it a little easier on myself, and show you what Chanel put together for their Spring Haute Couture show in January.
This is such a lovely way to reveal color. Bold in more ways than one...
"Florals for spring. Groundbreaking.” Those four words, famously uttered by The Devil Wears Prada villainess Miranda Priestly, have become something of a mantra in the fashion sphere. Leave it to Karl Lagerfeld, though, who showed Chanel’s spring 2015 couture collection on Tuesday in Paris, to turn spring florals into something not only groundbreaking, but downright futuristic. (Architectural Digest)
First the guests were treated to foggy greenhouse with intriguing paper-cut shapes of over-sized plants, then after being seated inside a gardner came out and "watered" it, starting the animations...
...which culminated with the models walking out as if they were living blooms.
I have to say I was so taken with the visuals that, for me, it was almost a disappointment when the models first walked out!
Strangely, it's been difficult to find much on the creation of such a stunning and much-talked-about centerpiece, the 'mechanical blooming hothouse' but this is from Vogue:
One definition of superb haute couture is that it’s the art of making impossibly difficult things seem as if they just—poof!—happened that way naturally. That’s precisely how Karl Lagerfeld’s spring haute couture was, a pleasingly unforced blooming of Chanel flower ideas set in an artificial hothouse. The Chanel conservatory was planted with mechanical plants which (gasp!) opened up and produced origami flowers before our very eyes, a naively childlike moment of transient entertainment, which, of course took an army of experts to engineer. “I thought of it six months ago, in a flash,” said Lagerfeld, cross-examined after the show. “There are 300 machinesunder our feet, one to make each flower work.” It is exactly the same with the ridiculously intense inventive work that goes into every inch of Chanel couture embroidery on the runway, as he pointed out. Karl comes up with the vision—in this case, a fusion of Henri Matisse’s cutouts of leaves and 3-D paper Chinese lanterns—and then the ateliers apply themselves to figuring out how the minutiae of such structures can be faithfully conjured up in fabric.
I thought the gauzy floral skirts were very reminiscent of Terry Gilliam's TheBrother's Grimm movie design/direction for some of the fairy tale portions of the movie (can't find any images to clips at the moment to show you what I mean unfortunately). Perhaps that's why I held on to it to show you.
In the meantime it looks like three-dimensional florals displayed on white is something we're going to be seeing a lot. Here's something that looks like it's from the same show but isn't: it's the "wedding dress" worn by Mila Kunis' character in the (reportedly insane) sci-fi-with-shades-of-Snow-White movie, Jupiter Ascending. (Note the red and white.. works for the concept of the character too.)This design, however is by Michael Cinco.
NOT Chanel - this design is by Michael Cinco for the movie Jupiter Ascending
Fashion has forever been connected with magic, fantasy and fairy tales but more and more we see the presentation of these shows be quite theatrical, trying to draw the audience into a story they might want to take home a piece of, for a price. (There's always a price...)
I applaud it, myself. It shows me people need stories - even their clothes, no matter how beautiful, are more relatable and desirable when a story is attached. There's something particularly special about haute couture because the pieces are one-of-a-kind, made to fit only one person (sometimes even sewn on to that person!) but a lot of time an attention goes into the making of each piece, like weaving magic spell. (Which always makes me think of The Three Spinners fairy tale and how great magic cost them.)
I don't normally spend a lot of time thinking about fashion (seriously: fashion beanies? Midriffs are bac?!) but I am completely fascinated by process and theater and all those forms of storytelling so for those who like seeing behind-the-scenes like I do, here's a peek at magic in the making:
There's probably a lot more someone who's much better with fashion could write for you on fashion and fairy tales but for today I'll just leave you with the lovely to have your own thoughts.
A special “diva rack” will have the high-end items, $1,000 to $5,000, worn by stars such as Jennifer Larmore, Kiri Te Kanawa, Bryn Terfel and Deborah Voigt.
If you're in the neighborhood, go check out the 90 clothing racks at:
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