Gary Tischler • November 19, 2012

Former City Council Chairman and once promising politician Kwame Brown got his day in court and received a day in custody. U.S. District Court Judge Richard Leon sentenced Brown to one day—that’s 24 hours or less—in detention for being convicted of bank fraud and six months of home detention and 480 hours of community services. That was just one more round of public embarrassment for Brown, who gave up his council chairmanship earlier and more than likely a once promising political career in the district.

The Washington Nationals may not have made it to the World Series this year, but honors keep floating their way. They come as a tribute to the phenomenal year to the home team, which went from a losing streak to having the best record in the major leagues and getting into the playoffs before bowing to the St. Louis Cardinals. Veteran manager Davey Johnson was named National League Manager of the Year. Big-hustle phenom Bryce Harper, who ignited the Nats after being called up early in the year, was named NL Rookie of the Year. All in all, we’re already looking forward to next season.

Gary Tischler •

Linda Lavin is a Broadway baby.

Oh, sure, she had a huge hit television series as the harried, funny, wise waitress “Alice” for nine years beginning in 1976, and she’s done films and television. But her heart, her core, her voice, if you will, belongs to Broadway.

We caught up with Lavin, who’s performing at the Kennedy Center in the Barbara Cook’s Spotlight cabaret series at the Terrace Theater, Friday, Nov. 16, on the telephone just as she was moving.

“You’ll have to excuse me, the movers are here,” she said. She and husband Steve Bakunas are moving to New York after 17 years in Wilmington, N.C., where they ran the Red Barn Studio, a community theater art studio and school, happily, and left quite a stamp. She founded the Linda Lavin Arts Foundation there “to promote and foster the advancement of the performing and visual arts, with special emphasis on arts in education.” She also acted and directed in many of the plays there, including a memorable production of “Driving Miss Daisy” and “As You Like It.”

“It was time, but it’s a little hectic,” she said. “I ordered Chinese, and they’re here. We have to move the piano.”

Something in her voice sounds a little like Alice on a hectic day in the diner. She’ll be in DC –back again after a triumphant turn in the Broadway-bound “Follies” at the Kennedy Center last year—singing. “The songs are sort of a reflection of me,” she said. “There’s a lot of variety there, not just Broadway show tunes, but different kind of songs, different moods, a little story-telling, love songs.”

She sings the way she acts—honestly, fiercely, tenderly in a way that’s unforgettable. Her gig was a hit at 54 Below, a snazzy club in New York. And she has a certain comfort zone here: Bakunas is on drums, and jazz violinist Aaron Weinstein is also in the band.

And the reason she’s a Broadway baby? That’s where she started, for one thing, going back to “It’s a Bird … It’s a Plane … It’s Superman,” when she sang “You’ve Got Possibilities.” It’s where she did “Broadway Bound (Tony Award),” the last part of Neil Simon’s autobiographical trilogy. It’s where she followed Tyne Daly in “Gypsy” and belted out Mama Rose’s laments and anthems. It’s where she was in a revival of “Collected Stories” and collected three other Tony nominations. More recently, she starred opposite Stacey Keach in “Other Desert Cities” and the acclaimed family drama “The Lyons” by hot playwright Nicky Silver.

And of course—she sang “Broadway Baby”—in a powerful outburst of feeling and defiance in “Follies.”

“Yes, I think you can safely say that theater, Broadway, that’s my home, my place, where I thrive,” she said. She explains the variety of characters—united by eccentricity passion and strength—by noting that there’s “a lot of different women inside of me. I don’t think I’ve heard all of them yet.”

“Alice,” of course, identifies her, marks her with familiarity to millions of people still. She’s not complaining. “What ‘Alice’ did, it freed me,” she said. “It made me very rich, which is not a bad thing. But I think, too, that so many women immediately recognized themselves in the role, in who she was. It was about women who struggled, the women they talked about in the election this year, who don’t get paid the same as men, who get through the day. That part is always a part of me.”

“It’s a big deal, this move, we created something here in Wilmington, and it was all very special,” she said.

Lavin, who was married twice before, has been with Bakunas, an actor, artist and musician, for a long time. They married in 2005. When it was a suggested that he might be “a keeper,” she laughed an Alice laugh. “He better be,” she said. “No, he’s a wonderful man, a great guy.”

That would be the guy playing the drums as Lavin takes the stage at the Kennedy Center.

Gary Tischler • November 16, 2012

Even today, we don’t know how much hope there is, but we do know that we have a lot of change in these United States of America.

President Barrack Obama’s focused, convincing and hard-driving victory over Republican challenger Mitt Romney did more than secure a second term for him. It revealed a country that is visibly, noticeably changing in its electorate and its electoral makeup, and it was that country—diverse, not so retrograde and dissatisfied as the opposition might have imagined, fluid, multi-layered, mult-racial, and, well, multi-multi-that the president managed to engage in ways that his opponent did not.

In the end, it was the economy, stupid, but more so it was also all those other things, as well as Obama’s well-noted efficient “ground game,” the get-out-the-vote success of his varied constituencies which won the long night for him.

As predicted—while predictable results on the red and blue sides emerged throughout the night—it was the so-called battleground states which decided the issue. The longer Florida, Ohio, North Carolina and Virginia remained “too close to call,” the harder it looked for Romney, because Obama was grabbing up some other potential tossups—including Colorado, Nevada, New Hampshire and Gov. Scott Walker’s wonderland, Wisconsin, as well as Minnesota and—predictably—Pennsylvania, where Romney had spent some time late in the game.

These things, in retrospect, sometimes look inevitable, but that wasn’t the case here. What was the case was that we didn’t know what was going to happen until very late in the night, and by then the floodgates opened for some revealing results. Everyone, in some way, behaved predictably—when the call for Ohio came in, ending the race, for instance, the Romney forces insisted that Ohio was still in play, and Karl Rove got into an argument on the air with Fox News anchors who had also called it. In short, somewhat sullenly, the Romneyites, perhaps thinking there was another Florida fiasco in the air, fought longer than they should have.

It’s always interesting to watch the networks at work on such an occasion—there was NBC News, for instance, turning Rockefeller Plaza’s ice rink into a giant blue and red map of the United States, but for now it was the closest thing to a hockey game we can get. Rumors floated in tweet-land that ABC News anchor Diane Sawyer was inebriated because she slurred some words, another instance where the Internet is some kind of circus in attendance to the more serious matters going on. One famous singer tweeted, “I’ll have what she’s having.” This kind of thing—tweeting anything you feel like tweeting—is another sign that we are in a modern version of the latter days of the Fall of the Roman Empire. So is Donald Trump, who called the Obama victory a sham and a travesty, an injustice, and called for revolution.

Romney, who had written only a precisely counted victory speech, was not at a loss for words, although they were few. He graciously conceded, said the president was in his prayers, and visibly disappointed, exited the public stage for now. During his acceptance speech in the wee hours, Obama promised to speak with him at some length in the near future.

In the end, Obama won the popular vote and the electoral vote (handily, with 303) and had some coattails to spare. It’s hard to say who helped whom in Virginia, where Tim Kaine caught up with and barreled past George Allen in a hotly contested senate race and where Obama finally caught Romney.

Two of the more notorious Tea Party candidates running for the U.S. Senate—Todd Akins in Missouri and Richard Mourdock in Indiana, lost, after sounding off on abortion and rape in a way that deeply offended just about most reasonable people, but especially women. Tack on a win by Elizabeth Warren over Sen. Scott Brown, R-Mass., and that led the way to the Democrats slightly widening their margin in the Senate although the GOP maintained their hold on the House.

If the evolving electorate and a steady but slightly improving economy might have led the way to an Obama victory, it was a victory that left Obama in place, facing a debt crisis —the famous “fiscal cliff”—against what appears to be a still intransigent House of Representatives if Speaker John Boehner’s remarks about taxes were any indication. The president has to find a way to end the deadlock, the partisanship, the blue and red mentality, the conservative mentality of deep divide and enmity that now exists, without feeling the need to capitulate or be so combative as to turn off conciliation. The other side—the House tea partiers, Boehner, the crafty majority leader Eric Cantor, et al., need to come to the table with something to offer besides what they’ve offered in the past—which is nothing. Maybe New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and Bruce Springsteen, minus Meat Loaf, can show the way.

Still, as there always is in an election, there’s something exhilarating about the process, however cumbersome, sometimes inefficient, difficult and gigantic it appears. Here we are on a Thursday, the numbers are all in. While Florida is still somehow not official—not that it matters—we know who won, with a certainty that won’t be reversed.

We can debate and talk about what it all means, but little national elections went off all over the country with their own secret meanings. It’s remarkable in New Jersey, in New York, in Connecticut and here in Washington, D.C., people flocked to the polls despite the fact that Obama was a lock in all of those place. There appeared a great, unquenchable desire to be heard and noted. I felt it when I voted, I felt part of a place and a country—and that was a good thing.

Here in D.C., things remained much the same—Councilman Vincent Orange retained one of the at-large council seats as a Democrat, but incumbent Michael A. Brown lost to David Grosso. Both ran as what can only be called faux independents. Everywhere else, it was status quo—Yvonne Alexander buried newly minted Republican Ron Moten in Ward 7, Jack Evans won Ward 2 unopposed, and Marion Barry was returned to the council from Ward 8. Phil Mendelson remained District Council Chairman.

In Maryland, the gay marriage proposition—the first passed at the state level—won, as did the Dream Act proposition and the gambling proposition. In Colorado, the people passed a proposition legalizing marijuana—period, not just for medicinal uses. Let me be the first to use “Denver, the Mile High City really is” and “Rocky Mountain Highs”.

Wrestling rich lady Linda McMahon lost yet again in an effort to gain a U.S. Senate seat in Connecticut, spending enough money to undo a good part of the damage done by Hurricane Sandy. This was a case where it would have been better to give the money away as opposed to throw it away.

Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., won her congressional race in Minnesota by a little more than 3,000 votes, which may be a harbinger of things to come for the Tea Party two years from now.

For now, we the people have spoken—in many tongues, registers of timbre and note, sometimes verging on celebration and song, sometimes delivering forecasts and warnings and displeasure, but always in the spirit of what we remain, which is a democracy of all the peoples—the 100 percent.

Gary Tischler • November 15, 2012

Well into his second year of being Mayor of the District of Columbia, things remain troubled for Vincent Gray. According to polls, a majority of the city’s residents want him to resign, not to mention a few members of the District Council. Aides from his 2010 election campaign have confessed to election improprieties to U.S. District Attorney Ronald Machen. The investigation remains ongoing. Everywhere he goes, Gray is plagued with questions about his role in a so-called “shadow campaign,” involving developer Jeffrey Thompson. Everywhere he goes, Gray says little or nothing, on the advice of his counsel.

Yet, he soldiers on. July 27 was almost what you could call an upbeat day for the mayor as he led a ribbon-cutting ceremony in Adams Morgan, celebrating the high-style completion of the neighborhood’s 18th Street Streetscape project, which has transformed the long stretch of the area’s commercial and nightlife district.

“This is the sort of the thing we should be paying attention to. It’s something positive, a project that going to help transform the Adams Morgan neighborhood, bring business to the areas and make a dramatic difference,” Mayor Gray said, trailed by reporters, local business and community leaders and officials from D.C.’s Department of Transportation.

Gray looked and sounded upbeat, as he moved up and down 18th Street, dropping into shops and restaurants along the way. Still, faced with reporters with notebooks, he often looked a little wary. This is part of his daily routine now, even when it’s not the central piece of a particular event, as it really wasn’t here. Locals helped him celebrate, including Ward One Councilman Jim Graham, members of the Adams Morgan Business Improvement District and harried business owners, many of whom applied for interest-free loans from the city to alleviate costs caused by construction noise and disruption.

“If you have not been to Adams Morgan recently, you might not recognize it,” Mayor Gray said. “18th Street has undergone an extreme makeover and the results are remarkable. The new roadway, the wider sidewalks, the safer crosswalks—all of the upgrades support the local businesses in this great community and will help attract new customers.”

The project began February 2011, going up and down the sides of 18th Street from Columbia Road to Florida Avenue, a half-mile stretch. There were days and nights when the street looked like a war zone, with gaping wounds and craters along streets and sidewalks, not to mention the constant noise of drilling. The street, famous for its bar and night and entertainment and restaurant life, was in the past often congested, colorful and sometimes dangerous.

The result of the streetscape, similar to other projects in the city (there’s one about to begin on U Street and in Columbia Heights ) have made a remarkable difference at first sight. The $6.8-million project includes 32 Washington Globe street lights, 16 pendant pole lights at intersections, 47 ADA-compliant sidewalk wheelchair ramps, wider bump-outs and pedestrian gathering islands, a reconfigured intersection at 28th Street and Florida Avenue, 4,868 feet of granite curbs and brick gutters, new garbage cans and recycling cans and solar-powered compactors and larger storm-drain inlets. There are also 71 new bike racks, signs for bikers, and 59 new trees. The streets and sidewalks are wider, giving the area a new, urban, cosmopolitan look it didn’t have before. Shop owners on the whole appeared pleased with the new digs, and already there’s been an influx of new restaurants that appear an upgrade from the double-decker bars prevalent in the area. [gallery ids="100926,129531" nav="thumbs"]

Gary Tischler •

Music, be it jazz or classical or pop, is the most adaptive of art forms. It can thrive in any setting.

Of course, it’s always nice to have a perfect setting, and that’s what the S&R Foundation and its Overtures Holiday Concert Series provided November 2 at the sumptuously and classically beautiful Evermay in Georgetown.

The S&R Foundation’s Holiday series —headed by President Sachiko Kuno and Honorary Chair Ryuji Ueno—kicked off last Friday with a sweet, energetic and eclectic turn by young Israeli jazz guitarist Yotam Silberstein. The jazz theme continues tomorrow with an appearance by top-notch jazz pianist Cyrus Chestnut.

The two jazz concerts are being presented in conjunction with the DC Jazz Festival, with help from the DCJF Chairman Michael Sommenreich and his wife Linda. DC Jazz Festival executive producer Charlie Fishman (and son Moses) and Executive Director Sunny Sumter were on hand for the first concert.

Silberstein is an up and comer in the jazz world. At age 21, he was named Israel’s “Jazz Player of the Year.” He plays with a light, easy style, in which player, instrument and music all seem to be involved in a courtship as he moved from free-styling versions of old standards, through his own compositions and forays into lively Brazilian numbers.

The series switches to classical performers with violinist Tamaki Kawakubo on November 16 and pianist Yu Kosuge on November 23, followed by a return to jazz with Jeb Patton and Mike Rodriguez November 30, then back to classical music with violinist/violist Yura Lee on December 7 and pianist Ryo Yanagitani December 14.

The S&R Foundation was created to support talented individuals with great potential and high aspirations in the arts and sciences. The Overture Series—which will have a spring season as well—was created to showcase award-winning emerging musical artists in the splendid setting of Evermay estates.

For more information, visit www.sandrfoundation.org
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Gary Tischler • November 14, 2012

When Colin Powell walks into a room, you kind of want to sit up a little straighter.

He looked in his dark suit, walking-tall way, smiling but firm, well, presidential. It’s only natural that such a thought came to mind, given that President Barack Obama had been re-elected the night before. There was still a buzz in the air among those attending the book talk by Powell, the former U.S. Secretary of State at the Dupont Circle offices of the Aspen Institute, the non-profit, non-partisan think and issues tank.

Not only that, but it had been only days since Powell, a Republican, had endorsed Obama for a second time, which stirred a certain amount of controversy, at least among the likes of shoot-from-the-hip Fox commentator Bill O’Reilly, who suggested that Powell did so because Obama, like Powell, is black and rose success from modest circumstances.

It’s also true that in the 1990s, there was a groundswell for the popular Powell, an African American who led the hugely successful U.S. military effort in the Gulf War against Saddam Hussein, to run for president.

Nobody in the crowd at the Aspen Institute asked him about that, but they didn’t need to. Powell brought it up himself. “We all know the huge effect of fund raising and money has had on the electoral process. That was evident to me even back then. My running was a serious matter, raised by serious people, and it had to be taken seriously, and I gave it considerable thought. I agonized over it a little, truth be told. But a decision like that in our house involve my wife, Alma, and I thought about it. And I thought about having to go to yet another fund raiser. I thought about the life of daily campaigning that it would take, and I finally decided and I came down for my morning coffee and told her of my decision. “I’m not running,” I said. She looked at me and said, “What took you so long?”

Everybody laughed. This was, after all, not a policy staff meeting in the Pentagon or White House. This was a book talk, moderated by noted biographer (of Steve Jobs, Benjamin Franklin and Albert Einstein) and Aspen president and CEO Walter Isaacson. Powell was among friends—including his successor as National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft, Aspen members, a two-star army general, former colleagues in his state department where he served as the first African American Secretary of State under President George W. Bush, and an opera singer and professor of music at George Mason University. Everybody knew everybody.

Still, Powell had a little more—all right, a lot more—gravitas than anyone else in the room, but he wore it lightly and well. The book in question—“It Worked For Me: In Life and Leadership” published by Harper—is a kind of bookend to his critical and popular successful memoir “My American Journey”, an anecdotal riff on the qualities of leadership and what is required to be a top leader in any field.

Some of it centers around Powell’s famous 13 rules—they were first referenced in a Parade Magazine story—chief and legendarily among them “Get Mad, Then Get Over It”. “Throughout my military career,” he said, “I’ve always encouraged discussion, even disagreement, and the rule applies here, not just about getting mad, but arguing. But once that’s over, the decision is made and you abide by it. It works in life, too. A reporter asked my wife once how we had managed to have successful marriage for so many years—“Get mad, then, get over it,” she answered.

Powell has had a fabled American career of service. In the army, where he says he found his home, his life, his friends, and in American government, he rose to the rank of four-star general and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, served as National Security Adviser, and Secretary of State, becoming the first African American (of Caribbean descent) to serve—in both roles.

A decorated combat officer—he has always said he was haunted by Vietnam, where he served with distinction. He is not only the author of the 13 rules (others include “Share Credit!” “Have a Vision!” “Be Demanding!” “Perpetual Optimism is a force multiplier”) — he is also the author of the Powell Doctrine. This doctrine was an approach to military decision-making in wartime that, summed up, means applying maximum force with minimal casualties. This worked famously in Desert Storm, the first Persian Gulf War against Iraq, where, coupled with the elder Bush’s ability to forge an eclectic alliance against Saddam Hussein, U.S. Arms won a decisive victory with few casualties.

The 2nd Iraq war, in which President Bush asked him to make the case for military action against Saddam Hussein (in a post-9/11 climate) based on intelligence that Hussein had WMDs was a different matter. “Look, I went there—gladly—with the intelligence that was given to me. Based on that, I gave my speech. It turned out that the intelligence should have been looked at more closely by all concerned. I’m not happy with that—we should have bored in more into the intelligence. There isn’t a day that goes by when I’m not asked about that, and it’s a burden I carry. It’s a blot on my record. But given the same intelligence, that is what I knew then, when I made the speech, I would do it again.”

He had blunt things to say about the war and other matters, saying that the Iraqi army should not have been dismantled, that the conduct of the war, post-victory, was not all it should have been.
He praised President Obama for his handling of the auto bailout, for what he called “his nuanced diplomacy”, and he said that the election revealed a diverse America .

“The Republican Party, we all, are facing a historical demographic change,” he said. “In another generation, there will be no more minorities, in terms of gender, Hispanics, people of color, families with different organizations. The Republican Party has to recognize it. Yesterday demonstrated that you have to figure it out. You can’t say we have no immigration policy. It’s a historic moment that’s happening, and we’re the only country that could deal with such a huge change, and that’s why it’s such a beautiful country.” He said that “there is a vein of intolerance in my party (Powell is a Republican after all). We have to change that. You can’t attack the president and say he’s a Muslim. There’s nothing wrong with being a Muslim, but we can’t demonize people we disagree with …I hope after the election yesterday, there’s no place in America for this kind of intolerance. We are the example of the best in us to the world. When I hear somebody say that we’re living in the worst of time—I say, no it’s not, I can show you the worst of times.”

There was both authority and a passionate love of country in his words. Describing the United States of America post-2012 election sounded, well, presidential.

Gary Tischler • November 9, 2012

So here we are: the eleventh hour, the last moments, the seal-the-deal times, the end of days, when it comes to the 2012 presidential campaign.

It’s generally conceded that there may by now and at last be more pandas in the world than there are undecided voters. If you haven’t decided by now, you’re probably lying to the last robo-caller and to yourself.

It will be Republican Mitt Romney or Democrat Barack Obama, the incumbent president. Or it may be the other way around. We will know by tomorrow. And maybe we won’t.

According to the polls—snapshot in time, folks, this time, this hour, this day, nothing more, but again, nothing less—the two men after wailing on each other with their own ads and those made by SuperPACs with generic, patriotic but altogether anonymous names are more or less in a dead heat in the popular vote, with some polls showing now a slight edge to the president. I don’t believe a percentage of it. Like exit polls, polls on the day before the election are the kinds of things—frown lines on a loan officer’s face, studying the centimeters of eyebrow raising on your spouse’s face after you came home a little late after the football game—that are iffy, they’re meant to allow news people to make predictions without fear or favor. Fat chance.

The playing field, in any case, has leveled. The toss ups remain, with perhaps the exception of Ohio for reasons not determined—unstable, volatile, fearfully unsettled—and in Florida’s case, as always, like a disturbance in a foreign land.

Almost everyone agrees that Hurricane Sandy has played its part—probably because President Obama could be President Obama and get a hug from New Jersey Governor Chris Christie. Christie, a Republican is still voting for Mr. Romney, but resented criticism of his let-us-now-praise-the-president, bipartisan mode. Romney had little to do, except to hand out food and dodge questions about what he would do with FEMA.

It is hard to figure out what’s going on in the sense of vox populi, because this has been a very dispiriting campaign on which enough money was spent to probably turn on the entire East Coast power grid, alleviate the damage and help every one that suffered a material loss. That, in and of itself, is dispiriting. Even Brian Williams of NBC News had a frown for the cost of the ad campaigns of the two candidates.

There is not a single phrase that I heard during the course of the campaign that was not negative in some way—that was rhetorically inspiring—not even “Forward,” which is, after all, the same phrase the commander of the Light Brigade used, according to Lord Tennyson. Of course, the suspicion remains that Romney has a hundred slogans, including a “Brighter Future,” “America Strong Again,” and so on, all pointing to 1955.

Even now, the two sides are still snarking and sparring—the president at one point in an aside to a reporter appears to have called Romney a b-ser, not the worst thing that’s been done in this campaign. And after there were boos in a crowd after hearing Romney’s name, the president reportedly said, “Don’t boo. Vote. Voting is the best revenge.” Romney promptly and often criticized him for urging voters to vote out of revenge.

It’s worth looking back—not too much, else the strangeness of it all affect voter turnout—on the campaign. You could, for simplicity’s sake, break it down: Phase One, the Republican Nomination Campaign, which consisted of a series of primaries and a series of debates, in which Romney outlasted and outspent and made fewer mistakes than his many, many opponents, none of whom merited even the thought of measuring as presidential. In the second half of this phase, Romney earned a victory from his labors which consisted of bullying Newt Gingrich, trying to move to the right of Rick Santorum and thankfully never quite succeeding, outsmarting Rick Perry—how hard is that?—and ignoring everyone else, except for fellow Mormon John Huntsman for working in the Obama administration.

Phase Two were the Republican and Democratic conventions, the former preceded by Romney’s sage choice of Wisconsin congressman Paul Ryan, the party’s budget whiz kid, as his running mate. The convention itself was not quite the super bowl event it could have been—Ryan wowed, everyone praised Ann Romney for her speech in support of her husband, and everyone talked about Clint Eastwood’s conversation with an empty chair. If Romney could not do that to himself, perhaps Clint did.

The Democratic convention was not a triumph for Obama, but it was a winning event, especially when former President Bill Clinton took the stage, doing more to explain and boost the achievements of the administration that had hitherto been managed by the candidate himself.

There was a bounce and then an apparent surge, which the president, at the start of Phase Three, the all-important-to-the-media debates, single-handedly threw away and turned the race into the deadlock that it is now by a still-mystifyingly poor, detached and passive performance in the first debate. The rest of the campaign has been spent with the president climbing slowly, but apparently successfully, out of the hole that had loomed as a total disaster.

Mind you, although news kept coming of the Middle East and the economy inched its way upward but not out of stagnation, it was a great television show—at least to the electronic media, which treated each debate (there were four), as the deciding factor in the election.

The economy was Obama’s burden to defend and Romney’s whip. Neither did enough to change the political climate, which was a barrage of negative ads across the country. There is now a worrisome feeling in the air, not exactly jump-for-joy, but a certain relief that it will be over.

Maybe. None of the great issues were discussed, and none of the more urgent lesser ones made it to the table in the debates, either. Everyone talked about the looming financial cliff; few offered a solution.

The campaign this year was conducted in a time of horrific, and consistently regular, mass shootings, using semiautomatic weapons, most dramatically at a midnight showing of a Batman movie in a Colorado suburb. The campaign was also conducted in a time when there were more unseasonable, dramatic and severe weather—a devastating drought, out-of-season and destructive tornadoes and wildly wind-filled and flood-inducing storms, forest fires spectacularly destructive, and most recently, Hurricane Sandy. Neither gun control nor climate change nor global warming came into the discussion in any significant way.

Romney made it a trademark to speak inelegantly, to struggle to define himself as a warm human being. That inelegance produced “$10,000 bet?” and most dramatically, the 47 percent and and the embrace/desertion of stands on issues that made flip-flop seem too elegant a phrase.

All notwithstanding, here we are. Tomorrow, we—all who choose to—get to have our say. Regrettably, there is no electoral box to check or click that can indicate: “We want our money back,” “None of the above,” “Abraham Lincoln” or “the Joker.”

Gary Tischler • November 6, 2012

Cab drivers ask about these things. “Long, yes?” he asked. “Very long?” “Yes, it was long,” I replied. It clocked in at just under three-and-a-half hours. But maybe not long enough.

When you are talking about Mozart’s “Don Giovanni,” time, quite often, but not always, flies. Ideally, you forget where you are, forget all your troubles, and become immersed, like going under, knowing you don’t have to worry about holding your breath.

“I saw ‘Amadeus’ when I was young. Mozart, yes, and the ending was about that, yes?” asked the cab driver. I saw “Amadeus,” too, when I was young, or not so young. Ever since I’ve wanted to see the opera, considered by many to be the best opera ever by anyone, no comfort to Salieri there. Well, here we were at last, better late than never.

This may be a shameful thing to admit, seeing—and hearing—“Don Giovanni” for the first time at my age, and I am a little bit ashamed. But not so much. On the other hand, it makes you feel chipper and young, knowing that there may yet be other great things to experience for the first time—winning the Powerball lottery, finding a signed Dickens book, meeting the Dalai Lama or Angelina Jolie, whichever.

Right now, there’s still time to see the Washington National Opera Company’s superb, bracing production of “Don Giovanni” (Sept. 29, Oct. 1, 4, 7 , 9 and 13), and it’s really, really worth it, whether you’ve seen it 100 times or never, whether you’ve got all the time in the world or the clock is running out.

You get a real sense of what Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was all about during the course of this production and it’s not actor Tom Hulce’s giggling man-child, but a deft, facile, include-the-whole-experience, bona fide ahead-of-his-time, modernist genius of a composer, raising every form and bit he touched to another level. That’s why “Don Giovanni” is considered the best—it lacks nothing except brevity. Wagner may have thought he was in the running, but Richard Wagner lacked a capacity for humor of any sort, at least in his operas. “Don Giovanni,” disconcertingly unclassifiable, is rich in humor—low and high, sly and naughty, earthy and witty, acting as a kind of sneezing pepper for an opera that wears and discards the mantle of a dark, philosophical tragedy until the end. In short, this is serious stuff that’s also funny, sensual and sexy, uncommonly deep and grandiose. And it flits from serenades to dances, to arias, to soaring symphonic orchestral music, sometimes all at the same time with such ease that you barely take breath between transitions. The music—the real, meaningful content—is a joy.

A friend of mine asked me the other day if I was going to see “Don Quixote” that night. I, of course, corrected him, but afterwards, thought that’s not so far off. “Giovanni” or Don Juan is not that far removed from the Spanish knight tilting at windmills and seeing saints in sinners and his trusty sidekick Sancho Panza are not that far apart. They’re exact opposites of extremes: Quixote has banished thoughts of sex and seduction totally from his mind—Giovanni thinks of nothing else. Quixote rides to the rescue, Giovanni is the man people—women—need rescuing from. Giovanni is all about his id, his world view and in that sense he is Quixote’s twin.

But life and operas and music and genius aren’t that simple. What we’re offered at the Opera House is a palette of complications paced close to perfection by director John Pascoe, who’s also provide the oversized sets and the odd costumes, apparently set in Franco’s Spain, but here and there mixing it up with Mozart’s time. He puts you right in the action—and there is a lot of action—with Giovanni, having attempted to seduce and then rape Donna Anna, killing her father and on the lam with his exasperated servant Leperello in the first 20 minutes or so.

And away we go, always sidetracked when Giovanni spies an available woman or unavailable (it matters not). He’s pursued by Donna Elvira whom he dumped and left with child, he spies a fetching young peasant girl Zerlina on the day of her wedding to Masetto and attempts to seduce her not once but any time he can, he’s hunted by Donna Anna and her fiancé Don Ottavio who want to avenge her father’s murder, and he’s chased by a mob before the statue of the man he murdered comes to his villa for dinner and takes him at last away to hell, unrepentant to the last.

And that’s not the half of it.

It pays to have a great “Don Giovanni” in this part. He must have the chops, the voice and the looks and Russian bass Ildar Abrazakov has all three, because you have to, if not be sympathetic to Giovanni, at least feel his powers. Otherwise, we’re just dealing with a rapist, a boor and a killer. For a bass, Abrazakov sings with great power, sure, but also with surprising range. Consider for a moment when he’s decides to seduce yet another woman with a street-level balcony serenade (the famous “deh, vieni alla finestra”). He’s on his knees, the voice lowers, pleading, sweet, an ode to beauty and desire, it’s pitched to passion and wanting, it’s so moving you can imagine someone’s really smart and pretty sister falling for it. It caused at least one man in the audience to elicit a loud “Bravo!” and loud clapping.

The cast is more than supportive: American soprano Meagan Miller, supple, strong and working with throat trouble and triumphing as Donna Anna; Italian soprano Barbara Frittoli, singing freely and with great passion as the conflicted and in-love Donna Elvira; Argentine soprano Veronica Cangemi as the bewildered peasant girl Zerlina, injecting continual fresh energy into the proceedings.

In the program, a writer refers to Mozart’s “Shakespearean Diversity,” and that’s exactly so. The richness of content in “Don Giovanni”—and Mozart had considerable help with his favorite librettist Lorenzo da Ponte—contains, like “Hamlet,” the world. And it’s a big world, after all.

Gary Tischler •

Washington Ballet: A Vampire Arrives for Halloween
Septime Webre, artistic director of the Washington Ballet, decided to call the company’s 37th season “Seduction,” meaning that he hopes this season’s rich material and lengthened offerings in terms of time and number will seduce more patrons into attending TWB productions.

But in another way, it could very definitely be a major characteristic of the season’s first production, the noted choreographer Michael Pink’s production of “Dracula”, which will be done by the Washington Ballet company under the direction of Pink, who now heads the Milwaukee Ballet Company.

“It’s a very seductive production, it’s romantic and spectacular all at the same time,” Webre said in a phone interview. “We’re living in a time when vampires and all the attendant markers and history are very much a major part of our popular culture—there’s “True Blood” on HBO, there’s the “Twilight” book and film series, and all the publicity surrounding the stars, and, of course, there’s all the films, and the original novel by Bram Stoker, which comes straight out of the 19th-century romantic period, in terms of music, dance and to a degree literature.”

The production dates back to the 1990s and Webre says “I’ve wanted to have this done by the company for at least 10 years now. Finally, it’s the right time.”

“Dracula” will be the opener for what promises to be an exceptionally interesting season for the Washington Ballet, and just in time for Halloween. “Well, that certainly helps, don’t you think,” Webre said. “I just think it’s perfect material for a ballet, and it will be true to the source, as Pink emphasized. It’s not a ballet to merely showcase dancer, it’s meant to tell the story clearly and with dramatic effect. It’s very physical material, seductive, romantic, the look of it will be important ,too, and it has a powerful, dazzling pas de deux with Dracula and Jonathan Harker in the opening act.”
Webre calls the season provocative and engaging, one which will include an extended two-week run for “Dracula” at the Kennedy Center, beginning Oct. 24. This year will also bring the annual production of “The Nutcracker.” Next year includes a ballet version of Ernest Hemingway’s “The Sun Also Rises,” part of a new initiative called “The American Experience,” arising “out of my love of both dance and literature,” according to Webre, and makes official what began with “The Great Gatsby.”

THE 4th ANNUAL VELOCITYDC DANCE FESTIVAL
What started out as a popular showcasing of Washington area dance companies and artists that featured world class artists and groups has now become an institution. The fourth VelocityDC Dance Festival is back running at break-neck speed at the Shakespeare Theatre Company’s Sidney Harman Hall on Oct.18, 19, 20 and 21 after three years of sold-out performances.

Numerous companies and individuals will perform at the festival, which was organized by a consortium of local dance-supportive arts entities which includes presenters Washington Performing Arts Society, the Shakespesare Theatre Company and Dance/MetroDC, the region’s service organization for dance. The festival is being presented in a fast-paced gala format of movement and music, hip-hop and spoken words and through its revolutionary, cutting edge styles and artist, has made Washington DC a leader as a top dance destination nation wide.

Also returning is the Ramp!-to-Velocity series, put on 90 minutes before each evening performances, with excerpts from the work of up and coming young dancers and choreographers. Performances of the Ramp! Series will be held in the Forum, an intimate space on the lower level of the Harman.
Individual artists and group performers for the three day festival include Dissonance Dance Theater, CityDance Conservatory, Word Dance Theater, the Uprooted Dance Theater, Gesel Mason, El Teatro de Danza Contemporanea de El Salvador, The Suzanne Farrell Ballet, VTDance, Urban Artistry, Flamenco Aparicio and Pastora Flamenco, The Washington Ballet Studio Company, Asanga Domask, Christopher K. Morgan and Artists, Farafina Kan, slight dance theater, the American University Dance Company, the Youth Dance Ensemble, Step Afrika!, Jane Franklin Dance, Edgeworks Dance Theater, Xuejuan Feng, Sidney Skybetter, Footworks Percussive Dance Ensemble, Company/E, The Washington Ballet, Farafina Kan, Rebollar Dance, Just Tap and Janaki Rangajaranm.
Inquire about tickets at the Shakespeare Theatre COpany at (202) 547-1122 or at www.ShakespeareTheatre.org

OUT OF AFRICA, FROM RUSSIA
Two at the Kennedy Center—Tradition meets contemporary edge in two diverse fall dance offerings at the Kennedy Center.

First, it’s “Voices of Strength: Two Programs of Contemporary Dance and Theater byWomenfrom Africa” from a collection of female African choreographers who mix “humor, irony, poignancy and power in their work. In two Terrace Theater programs, it’s “Correspondances” and “Quartiers Libres” on Oct. 4 and then “Sombra (Shadow)” and “Madame Plaza” on Oct. 5.

“Correspondances” is a duet that’s part dance, part theater and part story telling by choreographers Ketty Noel from Hait/Mali and Nelisiwe Xaba from South Africa. “Quartiers LIbres” is a solo work by Nadia Beugre from Cote d’Ivoire. In “Sombra,” Mozambique choreographer Helena Pinto explores the role of women in modern society, while “Madame Plaza” is the work of Bouchra Ouizguen from Morocco.

In a more traditional vein, the wondrous Mariinsky Ballet returns to the Kennedy Center’s Opera House Oct. 16 to 21 with a production of “Cinderella,” choreographed and staged by Alexei Ratmansky, one of ballet’s prolific and hottest choreographers. [gallery ids="100963,130774,130772" nav="thumbs"]

Gary Tischler •

THE KENNEDY CENTER

THE NATIONAL SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA
The season starts officially in grand style for the 82nd year with the Season Opening Ball, as the charismatic NSO and Kennedy Center music director Christoph Eschenbach conducts and world-class star violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter performs Felix Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto, headlining a varied program on Sept. 30 in the Concert Hall.

The initial non-gala event for the NSO will come Oct. 4 to 6, when Eschenbach conducts mezzo-soprano Kelley O’Connor singing Lieberson’s “Neruda Songs” as part of a romantic program that includes works by Wagner and Tchaikovsky.

NSO Pops
Hometown lady Roberta Flack is back in her home town with the NSO Pops Orchestra in “Roberta’s Back in Town” featuring many of her famous songs as well as songs from her new Beatles-keyed album, Oct. 25 to 27. Steven Reineke conducts the NSO Pops Orchestra with Flack, who’s famous for such hits as “Killing Me Softly” and “The First Time I Ever Saw Your Face.”

Kennedy Center’s Own Jazz Club
With the passing of the legendary Billy Taylor, the KC Jazz Club now has a new artistic advisor in Jason Moran, a young innovator who will add a new spirit to the expanding KC jazz scene. The center also has a new performance space in the center’s atrium, the Supersized Jazz Club.

Performance-wise, vocalist Kurt Elling comes to the Terrace Theater on Oct. 27, while at the KC Jazz Club, now in its second decade, Mulgrew Miller and his trio, who opened the club in 2002, returns Oct. 5. Pianist and organist Dr. Lonnie Smith appears Oct. 6, and the vibrant Israeli clarinetist Anat Cohen comes to the center Oct. 19. The legendary Heath Brothers Jimmy and Albert “Tootie” appear Oct. 20. Moran and his group, The Bandwagon, appear Oct. 26.

History Comes Calling
Two very special concerts which showcase how music can bear witness and drive and interact with social change will be hosted by the Kennedy Center. On Oct. 14, there’s “This Land Is Your Land,” an all-star concert that pays tribute to the folk singer and troubadour Woodie Guthrie, who celebrated and sang of about working people, drifters and a nation in the midst of the Great Depression. In the process, he influenced and continues to influence generations of folk and blues singers, including Pete Seeger, Bob Dylan and his own son Arlo Guthrie. Gathering together for this “Woody Guthrie Centennial Celebration” include such top musicians as John Cougar Mellenkamp, Arlo Guthrie, the Old Crow Medicine Show, Tom Morello, Rosanne Cash, Judy Collins, Ry Cooder, Jackson Browne, Ramblin’ Jack Elliott and others.

Coming Oct. 17 to 20, “Songs of Migration” is a musical salute to the great songs of migrants of the African continent created by trumpeter and composer Hugh Masekela, singer Sibongile Khumato and James Ngcobo.

The Barbara Cook Spotlight cabaret season opens Oct. 12 at the Terrace Theater with Maureen McGovern, who transformed herself from a pop singer to a great Broadway and cabaret performer.
And let’s not forget who’s getting the Kennedy Center’s Mark Twain Award for American Humor: Here’s Ellen, that is, Ellen DeGeneres, will get the prize Oct. 22 in the Concert Hall.

WASHINGTON PERFORMING ARTS SOCIETY
The Washington Performing Arts Society has been the top presenter of performing arts talent, both established and rising for over 40 years, connecting with venues large and small, from the Kennedy Center to the Music Center at Strathmore to the Harman Center to the Sixth & I Historic Synagogue.
Highlights for the next month or so include:

Israeli-born pianist Inon Barnatan kicks off the Hayes Piano Series, named after WPAS founder Patrick Hayes and his wife and with a mission to feature rising piano stars. Barnatan will be performing works by Debussy, Ades, RaVel, Britten and Schubert at the Terrace Theater Oct. 13.
Also on the immediate schedule are pianist Richard Goode (Terrace Theater, Oct. 11); Rob Kaplow’s series “What Makes it Good?” with pianist Brian Ganz focusing on Chopin (Oct. 14 at Baird Auditorium); violinist Paul Huang (Terrace Theater, Oct. 25); pianist Andras Schiff (Strathmore, Oct. 30) and superstar violinist Joshua Bell (Strathmore, Nov. 1).

THE MUSIC CENTER AT STRATHMORE
The Music Center at Strathmore, now in its seventh season, continues to supply performance seasons characterized by eclecticism and diversity, mixing the offerings of partners like WPAS, the National Philharmonic and the Baltimore Symphony with its own programming.

The center kicks off the season with Virginia’s own and America’s own rock-out pop star Pat McGee, as in the Pat McGee band which will feature a lineup that includes members of McGee’s very own high school band (Sept. 28).

Meanwhile, the torchy, iconic and always one-of-a-kind Patti LuPone continues the center’s American songbook series with “Matters of the Heart” (Oct. 5 and 6) in a concert of love songs featuring the works of a wide range of composers from Richard Rodgers, Oscar Hammerstein, Stephen Sondheim to Randy Newman, Jimmy Webb, Brian Wilson, Judy Collins, Dan Fogelberg, Joni Mitchell and Cyndi Lauper.

On Oct. 20, the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain, described as “anarchic” and mind-bogglingly versatile brings the great, re-discovered ukulele to bear on music by the likes of the Who, Beethoven and Isaac Hayes.

The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Marin Alsop, brings a season prevue performance to Strathmore, with excerpts from Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, “West Side Story” and Christopher Rouse’s Ku-Ka-Ilimoku” among others, with Alsop presiding and offering commentary Sept. 13.
The National Philharmonic Orchestra will opens its season at the center with “Beethoven: The Power of Three” with Orli Shaham on piano and NPO director Piotr Gajewski conducting.

THE EMBASSY SERIES
Since 1994, Embassy Series founder Jerome Barry has been practicing his own form of cultural and musical diplomacy, and in the course of things, managing to create a unique and lasting Washington cultural institution. By doing what he and the Embassy Series did—a series of concerts by established and rising American and international musicians and artists performed in many of this city’s well-situated embassies, international cultural centers and residences of ambassadors—they managed to introduce an accumulatively large audience over time to the international community in our midst and vice versa.

In the process, he also built bridges by producing concerts in such places as the Iraqi Cultural Center, the Cuban Interest Section and the Middle Eastern community reflecting their music and culture as well as receiving strong support from the European community and its traditionally Western classical music and performers.

This year’s season begins at the Embassy of Latvia with the popular violinist Lorenzo Gatto, with Robert Giordano on piano on Oct. 4, followed by an Oct. 10 concert at the Embassy of Hungary, with mezzo-soprano Veronika Dobi-Kiss and George Peachey on Piano. On Oct. 19, the Fairfax Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Christopher Zimmerman and with Edvinas Minkstimas on piano will perform at the Embassy of Austria. And on Oct. 31, Andre Goricare, the silent film pianist, will perform at the Embassy of Slovenia.

THE FOLGER CONSORT
The Folger Consort adds another aspect of Londonmania to our all-London summer consciousness with a return to its roots and opening its season with “London: Music from the City of Shakespeare,” Sept. 28 to 30 at the Folger Elizabethan Theatre.

THE CHORAL ARTS SOCIETY
Choral Arts opens its season Oct. 21 with “La Musica Latina,” a program of Latin American music from ballads to swinging salsa and rumba music, under the baton of new director Joseph Holt, with the Choral Arts Chamber Choir at Lisner Auditorium.

THE WASHINGTON BACH CONCERT
Washington Bach Concert celebrates its 35th season with a six-concert season, beginning with “Kings and Commoners,” a selection of music commissioned for state occasions, including works by Handel and Bach on Sept. 23 at the National Presbyterian Church.

THE IN SERIES
The beyond-category institution begins its 30th anniversary season “Prelude: Songs We Love” on Sept. 29 and Oct. 1 with a program of opera, cabaret, dance and zarzuela, no less.

DUMBARTON CONCERTS
Dumbarton begins with the Vida Guitar Quartet, comprised of some of England’s finest guitarists: Bizet’s “Carmen Suite,” Turina’s “Prayer of the Bullfighter” and de Falla’s “Love, the Magician” at the Dumbarton Methodist Church in Georgetown Oct. 20.
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