NEW YEAR'S EVE

New Year's Eve from our apartment.

 



LINCOLN CENTER

Dizzy's Club
Wynton Marsalis Septet

 

Jazz at Lincoln Center never disappoints.  This was a new venue for us and it was wonderful.  The room is small, all seats are good, and we were in the very best seats in the house.

 

The performance was at Dizzy's Club which is both a restaurant and "night club."  We arrived, ate dinner, and then saw a world class show.

 



 





"The classic jazz club reinvented, Dizzy’s Club Coca-Cola brings the music out of the basement with views of Central Park and the Manhattan skyline, great soul food and some of the best music to be found anywhere in the city, every night. The club hosts a variety of established acts and introduces young up-and-comers five nights a week in after-hours Late Night Sessions. An intimate setting designed to showcase this uniquely American art form, Dizzy’s is the latest addition to the historic list of New York’s great jazz venues."

 

As Jazz at Lincoln Center Managing and Artistic Director Wynton Marsalis explains, “Dizzy's Club Coca-Cola is designed to entertain people in the spirit that Dizzy [Gillespie] had...very welcoming. We just want people to have a good time. We want the musicians to feel comfortable to play. We want people to come in and have a memorable experience. This whole facility is designed for international participation. This is a hall of integration...to bring everything together."
 

"The Wynton Marsalis Septet features the best of the best, with each legendary member an undisputed leader on his instrument. Led by nine-time GRAMMY® Award and Pulitzer Prize winner Wynton Marsalis, the group’s repertoire includes originals from Marsalis and his band mates, as well as a diverse selection of favorites from throughout jazz history. With an array of straight jazz, blues, bop, New Orleans music, and Marsalis’ own extended compositions, music fans will find a lot to dig into during these sets. A shining example of polish and discipline, the group navigates these demanding pieces with deceptive ease, leaving room for expressive, subtle detail and off-the-cuff interaction. Most excitingly, every player gets plenty of time to solo – and these soloists are inexhaustible, endlessly resourceful, and nothing short of magnificent."

 

CHRISTMAS

Los Angeles, California

We spent Christmas in Los Angeles doing things we cannot do in New York.  Among those activities: sitting in the backyard, cooking outside on a grill, and walking around without a jacket.

The reason to go was to visit Jere, Ted, and Roxy over the Christmas Holiday.





































EMPIRE STATE BUILDING

Christmas Light Show

Enjoy.

 

Merry Christmas!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 





MUSEUM

Museum of Modern Art

Carolyn feels the 5th floor of the MOMA is the "Mother Lode" of modern art.  It is spectacular.  I reminded her that the Metropolitan Museum of Art is no "Weak Sister" regarding its modern art collection.

This was a visual experience and so we're showing lots of pictures and videos.  It was a great way to spend a cold day.

 

As an aside, we walked along 6th Avenue from our apartment at 32nd & 6th Avenue to the museum at 53rd & 6th Avenue.  That's a one mile walk.  All of the sidewalk trash receptacles have been removed, police barricaides are being placed, more police are present than usual, multiple police vehicles such as cars and buses are placed and ready to facilitate police presence and coordination.  The reason... Times Square is just one block west along 7th Avenue from around 40th to 50th.

 

We are going to Los Angeles for Christmas but will be back in New York City for New Year's Eve.  This should be an experience!

Enjoy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



THEATER

Belasco Theater
Twelfe Night - Shakespeare

Another wonderful performance.  The setting, the production, the actors, and the playwright were spectacular.  A theater packed with enthusiastic people of all ages anticipating and then enjoying Shakespeare.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/11/theater/reviews/twelfth-night-and-richard-iii-with-mark-rylance.html?_r=0

LINCOLN CENTER

Metropolitan Opera
The Magic Flute - Mozart

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xDTXVnDe4XQ

This Met's production of The Magic Flute was Grand Opera.  The sets, costumes, and human puppets designed by Julie Taymor were spectacular.

You must Google search for images of Julie Taymor Puppets, Metropolitan Opera Magic Flute, Julie Taymor Lion King.  Search for images for all three.

BROOKLYN ACADEMY OF MUSIC

The Nutcracker
American Ballet Theater

http://www.bam.org/nutcracker

NEW ORLEANS

We just spent three days in New Orleans.  Interestingly, I only had one meal of beignets and chicory coffee in the French Quarter.  The other meals were around other areas in New Orleans.

We ate at Willie Mae's, Coquette, Commander's Palace, and August.  Willie Mae's is in one of the oldest African American neighborhoods in the country.  We went for fried chicken.  

http://www.travelchannel.com/video/legendary-fried-chicken-15782

LINCOLN CENTER

Metropolitan Opera
Rigoletto - Verdi

Premiere: Teatro la Fenice, Venice, 1851

"Rigoletto is a journey of undeniable force that commands the respect of critics, performers, and audiences alike. It was immensely popular from its premiere—from even before its premiere, if we credit accounts of the buzz that surrounded the initial rehearsals—and remains fresh and powerful to this day. The story is one of the most accessible in opera, based on a controversial Victor Hugo play whose full dramatic implications only became apparent when transformed by Verdi’s musical genius. Rigoletto is the tale of an outsider—a hunchbacked jester—who struggles to balance the dueling elements of beauty and evil that exist in his life. Written during the most fertile period of Verdi’s remarkable career, the opera resonates with a universality that is frequently called Shakespearean.

Rigoletto contains a wealth of melody, including one that is among the world’s most famous: “La donna è mobile.” The opera’s super-familiar arias—“Questa o quella” and “Caro nome,” for example—are also rich with character insight and dramatic development. The heart of the score, though, lies in its fast-moving subtleties and apt dramatic touches. The baritone’s solos, “Pari siamo!” (Act I, Scene 2) and “Cortigiani, vil razza dannata” (Act II), are epic scenes telescoped to less than four minutes each. Not even Wagner’s great monologues cover more territory than these, and certainly not within Verdi’s economy of means. The celebrated father–daughter duets also reflect Verdi’s overall design. Rigoletto sings of his protective love for Gilda in Act I, Scene 2 in a spun-out phrase of simple, honest melody, while her music decorates his. In their subsequent scene in Act II, Gilda’s music (and, by implication, her life) is similarly intertwined with that of Rigoletto, until finally her melody breaks away as she strives to declare her adolescent independence. The famous quartet “Bella figlia dell’amore” (Act III) is an ingenious musical analysis of the diverging reactions of four characters in the same moment: the Duke’s music rises with urgency and impatience, Gilda’s droops with disappointment, Rigoletto’s remains measured and paternal, while the promiscuous Maddalena is literally all over the place. In the context of the opera, the merely lovely music becomes inspired drama.

Dmitri Hvorostovsky sings the title role of Verdi’s tragic masterpiece for the first time at the Met in Michael Mayer’s dazzling production set in Las Vegas—the neon-bedecked hit of the 2012–13 season. Matthew Polenzani is the womanizing Duke, and Irina Lungu and Sonya Yoncheva, both in their Met debuts, sing Gilda."

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/22cf6ad6-69fc-11e2-a7d2-00144feab49a.html#axzz2mWhZlmm6

THANKSGIVING

We are driving up and into the Catskill Mountains for 5 days.  We will be with the Godici family at their house in Claryville.

Lots of food and lots of family!











We walked up the hill to find and check our "Memory Rocks."  We stacked them together in an out of the way site.

The girls, Carolyn, and I stacked these rocks a while back.

 

 





Tulips from Roxy, Jere, and Ted in Los Angeles.