Arts & Society

Georgetowner • February 1, 2013

Each month, interior designer Cynthia Reed and style-savvy publisher Sonya Bernhardt will collaborate on a window of inspiration, while celebrating a story inspired by the best of culture, cuisine and homegoods.

CELEBRATE VALENTINE’S DAY
Whether you’re in a romantic relationship or not, this year celebrate the loves in your life. Valentine’s Day, the holiday of love, is for all that you love. Our inspiration is a treat of churros y chocolate, a long-standing tradition from Spain. Churros, a crunchy donut-like pastry, gets dunked in a thick and velvety dark chocolate sauce. We set our table with elegant porcelain, light linen, napkins and luscious throw and, most importantly, our friends. We’ve paired our beautiful chocolate with orange and red, colors of love and warmth. Here are recipes and places where you can indulge.

To purchase Items in the photo:

The Tables and bench are available in any size. wood, and finish. Please contact Bernhardt & Reed for more information.

Linen, throws and napkins are available at Timothy Paul Bedding

CHURROS Y CHOCOLATE

Ingredients

For the churros

•3 oz (ounce) caster sugar

?•1 tablespoon(s) Ground cinnamon

•4 oz (ounce) Plain flour?

•4 oz (ounce) Self raising flour

?•1 pinch of sea salt?

•2 tablespoon(s) olive oil

?•1.76 pint(s) sunflower oil (for frying)

For the chocolate sauce

•7 oz (ounce) dark chocolate (roughly chopped)

•2 oz (ounce) Milk chocolate (roughly chopped)

•2 tablespoon(s) Golden syrup

?•10.53 fl oz (fluid ounces) double cream

Method

1. Mix the sugar and cinnamon together and set aside.

2. Make the chocolate sauce. Put all the chocolate in a heavy-bottomed saucepan with the golden syrup and cream and heat over a low heat, stirring continuously, to melt the chocolate, being careful not to let it burn. Alternatively, heat with short bursts in the microwave, stirring between each burst.

3. Sift the flours with a good pinch of salt into a metal or heat-proof bowl and make a well in the center.

4. In a separate bowl, mix the olive oil and 450ml boiling water together, and pour into the well, beating it well with a fork to get rid of any lumps. The dough should be slightly soft and sticky to touch. Let it rest for 10 minutes.

5. Fill a large, heavy bottomed saucepan with the sunflower oil – it should be about one-third full. Heat the oil to 325 F or until a small piece of bread browns in less than 30 seconds.

6. Add the dough to a piping bag with a star- shaped nozzle and squeeze out churros directly into the hot oil, cutting them with a pair of scissors into the length you want. Be careful?not to cook more than three at any one time, or they will all stick together. Fry for about 3 to 4 minutes until crispy and golden. Remove from the oil with a slotted spoon and drain on kitchen paper. Sprinkle with the cinnamon sugar. Reheat the chocolate sauce and pour into little cups for dipping with the churros.

This recipe comes from Mexican Food Made Simple by Thomasina Miers

Where to find churros y?chocolate in Washington, D.C.

?If you don’t feel like making your own churros, you can find them at many restaurants in the area.

BODEGA

3116 M St. NW

BOQUERIA

1837 M St NW

DOLCEZZA ARTISANAL GELATO (2 LOCATIONS)

1560 Wisconsin Ave. NW

1704 Connecticut Ave. NW

FARMERS FISHERS BAKERS

Washington Harbour, 3000 K St. NW

CHURRERIA MADRID

2505 Champlain St. NW
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Nico Dodd •

On Saturday, Jan. 19, Members of Congress, Californians and fashionistas gathered at the Ritz Carlton on 22nd Street for the California State Society’s Inaugural Luncheon and Fashion Show, presented by the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising. After a reception, attendees ate lunch and heard speeches from people such as Sen. Dianne Feinstein and the Very Rev. Gary Hall, of the Washington National Cathedral. A fashion show featuring the work of FIDM students dazzled attendees. [gallery ids="101141,140681,140675,140668,140694,140662,140699,140703,140654,140709,140688" nav="thumbs"]

Ari Post • January 17, 2013

Over thousands of years, portraiture has taken on a history and life of its own. In Egypt and other ancient societies, portraits of gods and rulers were ubiquitous. Though no examples remain today, ancient Greek painting is known to have developed a highly accurate portrait style, the evidence remaining in sculpted Hellenistic portrait busts of emperors and historical personalities from Alexander the Great to Socrates. By the zenith of the Roman Empire, portraiture had absorbed and propelled Greek and Etruscan traditions with artistic advancements and imbued them with senatorial political currents and religious and ancestral usage.

Skip ahead a few 1,000 years, past the Renaissance and the Dutch masters, the dreamy exuberance of the Baroque, the self-aggrandizing methodology of the Enlightenment and the emotional revolt of the Romantics, through roiling, ungodly tides of Impressionism—throw the invention of the personal camera and the cinematograph in there somewhere—and over the Vienna Secession, Cubism, Surrealism, Abstract Expressionism, Post-Modernism, Warhol, Conceptualism, and into the thick of the Information Age, where the plugged-in masses can cast their picture-phone portraits into a depthless technological sea as quickly and frequently as they can take them.

So, considering as many things up to this point, I often wonder what a drawn or painted portrait has to do with anything anymore. It can feel like a stuffy tradition, as dated as muskets and cravats, most often employed as an exercise by art students or as social posturing by royal families and self-important dignitaries. Frankly, compared with a good photographic portrait, a fine art portrait today looks a little awkward, out of place and self-conscious (Did anyone catch the recent Kate Middleton portrait fiasco?).

“Portraiture Now: Drawing on the Edge,” at the National Portrait Gallery, takes on the challenge of portraiture’s fate, pulling together a collection of contemporary artists who are moving the subject forward with fresh relevance. The artists featured in this exhibit use both timeless and modern techniques to deal with portraiture’s historical baggage as well as its inherently personal nature, presenting a cross-cultural smattering of identities and legacies for our time. The artists explore who we are and who surround us, where we come from and where we might go, and grapple with rendering the likeness of a broader, more disparate society that can no longer be cleanly identified.

Mequitta Ahuja is an African American and South Asian artist born in Grand Rapids, Mich. Her self-portraits are large, colorful fusions of her religious and cultural backgrounds, which she patches together to create her own personal history. It is a series of expansive, quilt-like canvases, which look as if they grew organically as more space was needed, cluttered with stamps, marks and washes of color. She places herself in the center of the compositions, surrounded by vaguely mythological plants, cryptic hieroglyphics, and a variety of symbolic markers from Eastern and Western traditions. Collectively, the works are enchantingly amorphous, offering a singular portrait of one woman’s bold emergence from her wild and untamed heritage.

The small, uniform, nearly translucent graphite portraits by Rob Matthews are on the opposite end of the spectrum from Ahuja’s self-portraits. With a softness and precision of light that recalls Vermeer and an unsettling emotional hollowness, Matthews renders meticulously detailed graphite drawings of his friends and family that consecrate the mundane affectations of our lives. His subjects each hold an object, a reference to medieval saints, but in place of bibles, swords or quills, they hold basketballs, crocheted skulls, house cats and turntables. The blank, distant stares of his portraits are like an acceptance of mortality, and the portraits turn into odd memorials of the “pre-deceased.”

Like Matthews, Ben Durham makes portraits of the people from his hometown, though he is further distanced from his subjects. Born in Lexington, Ky., he derives his source material from the local police blotter. These are people he knew in his childhood, some now arrested for traffic violations, others for assault or murder. Durham writes out his memories of them on thick handmade paper, using the mug shots as guidelines for his words. As he reconstructs his memories, a portrait composed of entirely handwritten text emerges. The clarity of the portraits are stunning, but the effect of a written story rendered unreadable from physically running over itself is an altogether beautiful sensation. Without being overwrought, these works pose the eternal question of what it is that defines each one of us, and illuminate the inescapable ripple effects of our past.

Adam Chapman’s digital works do not privilege the finished artwork over the pieces of it. His digital animations aggregate 150 of his own portrait sketches, and proceed to pull and push about their disassembled elements of line and shape on an LED screen. The moving pieces float in and out of the screen, occasionally and briefly reformulating into one of the portraits. Chapman custom-built the software, and according to the artist’s statement, every second of the installation is original, and every time a portrait is formed it is altered, shifted in some way from its initial incarnation. The portraits are continually forming, dissolving and reforming, sometimes without coming together at all. Like moments of clarity amidst the overwhelming malaise of a waking life, only briefly do the mechanics of the world flash brilliantly into focus.

So, what does portraiture have to do with anything anymore? Perhaps nothing. But if we take the time and exert the effort, it can offer us perspectives on our own lives that ultimately define the way we experience things—from our relationships with friends and family, to the effects our past, to the small rituals we unknowingly create to help us through our lives. Surely it is worth a look.

“Portraiture Now: Drawing on the Edge,” is at the National Portrait Gallery through Aug. 18. For more information, visit www.npg.si.edu

Mary Bird •

The Russian New Year’s Eve Ball, under the patronage of the Ambassador of the Russian Federation and Mrs. Kislyak, was held on Jan. 11 in the Grand Ball Room of the spiffily updated Mayflower Hotel. Washington’s old guard gathers at this special event to honor tradition upheld by Princess Selene Obolensky, who expressed the hope that “the young people will continue the ball.” Elegantly attired guests of all ages were entertained by the Washington Balalaika Society, Sydney’s Orchestra and the Kalinka Dance Ensemble of Baltimore. The evening benefits the “Children of Berezichi” residing in two boarding schools for special children in the Russian Federation where the Obolensky-Saltykoff Fund, Inc. assists them in completing their high school educations.
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Georgetowner • January 16, 2013

?The Thrill of the Chase: Antiques of the Sporting Life? was the theme of this year?s Washington Winter Show held at the Katzen Art Center Jan. 10 to 13. The opening night reception was a joyous first peek at the Loan Exhibit Sporting Pastimes: Art & Objects of Leisure, drawn largely from the National Sporting Library and Museum in Middleburg, as well the treasures of 45 exhibitors. Mason Bavin and Anne Elmore served as WWS co-chairs with Ambassador of France Fran?ois Delattre and Mrs. Delattre as honorary diplomatic chairs and owner of Triple Crown winner Secretariat as honorary chair. At a Jan. 11 lecture and luncheon, Madame M?n?hould de Bazelaire, Director of Cultural Patrimony for Herm?s, presented Chic Le Sport, tracing Herm?s? sporting spirit showcased in the museum above the Faubourg St. Honor? landmark of elegance. On Jan. 12, David Frei, television co-host of ?Westminster: America?s Dog Show,? gave a spirited talk on the history of the Westminster Kennel Club. He presented a video of champions and shared how he and his wife Cherilyn have pioneered work with therapy dogs. These were only the highlights of several wonderful days of events that this year benefited the Bishop John T. Walker School for Boys, THEARC and the Founders Board of St. John?s Community Services.

Nico Dodd • January 10, 2013

There is lots going on during the few weeks before the Presidential Inauguration. Check out these concerts, featuring local artists and music industry veterans.

BeauSoleil avec Michael Doucet at the Barns at Wolf Trap

Thurs. 1/10 @ 8 p.m., Tickets: $27

See cajun music legends BeauSoleil at the Barns. Since 1975, BeauSoleil have been bringing traditional cajun music to the masses. They were also the first Cajun band to win a Grammy Award, BeauSoleil first won Best Traditional Folk Album in 1997 for L’amour Ou La Folie and a second Grammy for Best Zydeco or Cajun Music Album in 2008 for Live at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival. Since the Barns are such an intimate venue, this promises to be a party.

Gerald Albright at Blues Alley

Thurs. 1/10-13 @ 8 & 10 p.m., Tickets: $43

Saxophonist Gerald Albright is bringing his smooth jazz skills to Georgetown’s own Blues Alley next Thursday. The Grammy-nominated artist has performed for U.S. presidents and has sold more than a million albums. He has even played with Phil Collins.

Honor by August at Howard Theatre

Sat. 1/12 @ 8 p.m. Tickets: $12 in advance, $15 day of show

Homegrown talent Honor By August formed while students at Georgetown University. Honor By August is a modern rock band with a big focus on songwriting. Their sound has been compared to Switchfoot—a band HBA has opened for—and Kings of Leon. The band is celebrating being signed with Rock Ridge Music, a record label and management company that serves artists such as Reel Big Fish and Tony Lucca of NBC’s The Voice. Honor By August’s upcoming album, Monuments to Progress, is coming soon.

Thievery Corporation at 9:30 Club

Fri. 1/17,18 & 19, Tickets: $45

The DC-based DJ duo is bringing its diverse sounds back to 9:30 Club for three nights. DJs Rob Garza and Eric Hilton started performing as Thievery Corporation back in 1995, and have been moving audiences around the world ever since. Groove is the operative word. Thievery shows are always memorable and sell out quickly, so get your tickets now!

A Tribute to Robert Egger at the Hamilton Live

Mon. 1/7 @ 6 p.m., Tickets: $100

This special event is honoring Robert Egger, founder of D.C. Central Kitchen, as he leaves the nation’s capital to start L.A. Kitchen. The folks at the Hamilton are putting together a band that will feature members of the Cramps, Fugazi, Thievery Corporation and the Razz. This event promises to be a great sendoff for someone who has made a positive impact on our community. All funds raised will benefit Egger’s organizations. Cocktails and food will be served, 6 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.; the tribute will take place, 7:30 p.m. to 9 p.m. Music and fun after that until 10 p.m.

Gary Tischler •

William Shakespeare was supposed to be a pretty fair story teller.

A blind poet by the name of Homer wasn’t so bad, either. His work—his one (two, counting “The Odyssey”) story, told over and over again—continues to compel attention and to bring us back to our core of hearing stories.

A teller, not a writer, Homer was an outloud poet, if he was anything—although we know even less about Homer than we do about Shakespeare.

Homer sang his tales, and they’re still around. “The Iliad” about the war between Greeks and Trojans, with the gods joining in like some Olympian pugilists, starring Achilles, Hector, Agamemnon, Priam, Helen and Paris, and a cast of thousands of warring combatants before the gates of the city of Troy—its other name is Ilium—about 4,000 years ago.

We all know the story. We’re familiar with it from tales told at school and books we were forced to read in college, and movies we saw and plays we saw that used the great war and the Greek warrior-king Odysseus’s eventful journey home as jumping-off points to tell us about ourselves. We saw Kirk Douglas sailing, Brad Pitt fighting and various Helens launching a thousand ships.

But it’s still the same old story—a real fight for love and glory—best told in the semi-dark, around, if not a campfire, at least on a bare and barren stage, by one man, who, if not blind, could pass for the real deal, if he had lived and told the same tale all over the world, on stages, on street corners, amid the tents of other warriors and fighters, in castles for a piece of lamb, in taverns for a drink and a memory

That’s essentially what’s happening at the Studio Theater where artistic director David Muse helmed a production of “An Iliad,” adapted by Lisa Peterson and Denis O’Hare from a Robert Fagles translation of Homer’s epic poem.

It features one man: a ragged man, the story teller, who speaks with such power and clarity, that you believe every word he says, because he sounds as much a witness as a poet—a witness, it should be made clear, to all the brave, ravenously courageous and horrifyingly destructive wars men have ever fought over things they’ve soon forgotten.

Scott Parkinson looks very much the part of a man whom you’d spot for a few drinks in a bar, just to listen to him talk. The talk is about the last weeks of the war, about Agamemnon’s destructive fight with the great warrior Achilles, about the loss of Achilles’s best friend, about his towering rage, about his foretold doom, about the Trojan warrior Hector, about loss and rage, and war’s discordant and affecting music.

It’s not much, and it’s everything. So scruffy-good is Parkinson, so casual, so many-voiced that soon enough you hear the clash of spears and swords, the screams of wounded men, and the anguish of people wounded to their souls with loss. “The Iliad” is as before and always, a great story, but in their adaptation Peterson and O’Hare have made it so much more. It is a huge story, bounding and echoing across lands, borders, time and space. We know without being told that this story has always been about us, about war, about what it does to us, an invention, not of God or gods, but of our own, where men, leaders and spit-upon-privates carrying spears can catch a sense of something god-like and monstrous in the rivers of blood that are spilled.

All that’s there on the stage are the tools of the trade—of story-telling, not war—a trunk, a shaggy coat, a stick, a woman (Rebecca Landell) in a flowing white gown, playing the cello beautifully and serving as a kind of chorus, movie score and subtle carrier of grief to come. There are stage lights that look like masks or discarded armor, but that may be your or my imagination.

Mostly, Parkinson is the teller of tales—sometimes funny, sometimes sage and sagacious, sometimes sarcastic, sometimes like a man carrying old wounds and memories. He tells the tale, but it become something more. It seems to involve everything from the Crusades, to the Persian wars, ancient and modern, to Vietnam, Afghanistan, all those forays by one group of nationals or alliances into the lands of another group of nationals and alliances, to come to grief, to cause great destruction and create new stories over and over again.

That’s the underlying minefield of this tale, the tragedy of mankind, but its surface is full of phosphorus, the hot blood and rage of individuals, their deeds and deeds undone. Parkinson plays all the parts—the ragged poet, but also Hector and Achilles, and Priam and Achilles, the king and the greatest warrior, meeting in the middle of the night after Achilles has killed Priam’s son Hector. The meeting of king and warrior has a calming effect on Achilles after Priam begs for his son’s body. It’s as if the stage suddenly filled up with people in the silence and became dotted with tears.

Parkinson also follows Homer’s telling of the tale. This poet stops before the creation of the Trojan horse, the foretold death of Achilles, the destruction of Troy, the awesome fall of a Bronze-Age Asian civilization, its aftermath of epic journeys and the stuff of Greek tragedies.

When the actor is done you feel like leaving a giant tip, or a wreath to wear, some token of appreciation that you’ve understood every word, even the haunting spackles of ancient Greek.

“An Iliad” runs through Jan. 13.

Gary Tischler •

That Quentin Tarantino. He’s such a cut-up.

After bowdlerizing and generally having a grand old time with the Holocaust in his fantasy-action-god-knows-what-genre movie “Inglourious Basterds,” Tarantino, never a director to cringe from any subject, now matter how low or high, has tackled slavery and race in America to unhinge our sense of history further and to bolster the survival of the mashup genre.

And what a mess this mashup of a movie called “Django Unchained” is. And I say this with all due respect to the hordes of critics and way-cool Tarantino fans who have sung the praises of the movie, while duly noting the director’s gleeful use of blood-spurting violence and the n-word.

I think Tarantino is a brilliant director who bleeds cinema, talks cineaste and has probably seen every bad B movie ever made. Here’s a brilliant guy who, unfortunately, has never made a brilliant movie. He’s made brilliant sequences, scenes, segments and such, but never a movie that amounted to something that you could hang a feeling or a revolution on. If they gave Oscars for parts of movies, why give him one for best performance by an actress, playing a character under the influence of heroin (“Pulp Fiction”), best use of gangster yakety-yak (“Reservoir Dogs”), most suspenseful, tense ten or 15 minutes to open a movie for “Inglourious Basterds,” best performance by a German actor in an 1848 American setting (Christoph Waltz in “Django Unchained”), best dissertation on the origin of the name Brunhilde and how it came to be bestowed on slave woman (“Django Unchained”).

Tarantino has been praised for tackling such a serious subject as slavery—and presenting it realistically and gruesomely—horrible scenes of whippings and Mandingo fighting, for instance. But you know what? The cruelties practiced by slaveowners and overseers are no secret. It seems to me that we’re supposed to be edified by these scenes, and horrified, and educated, but should we also be entertained? I know it’s exhilarating to see those awful guys (and one woman) to be slaughtered by the righteous Django in the film’s climax, but should this be quite so much fun? You can kill Adolf Hitler in a movie, but it’s harder to end slavery. Django said it much better when offered to be a bounty’s hunter’s partner: “Killing white people and getting paid for it? What’s not to like?” That stings, and it’s sharper than the literal-minded slaughter of the guilty at the end, especially the way Django metes out justice the hard way against Samuel Jackson’s embittered, viscous Uncle Tom character. It almost makes you wonder how Django would have handled Mammy, the stubbornly and blindly loyal slave of Scarlett O’Hara.

It seems to me that Tarantino can’t help showing off, being wickedly funny or showing how smart he is. That doesn’t make “Django Unchained” profound, it makes it at bottom a little silly, which undermines the seriousness the subject deserves. I don’t mean Steven Spielberg serious—although Spielberg, a frequent target of the cool, hip critical world, gets to the heart of the matter in “Lincoln”—but serious in the manner of respecting the audience’s intelligence instead of indulging your own smartness

It should be added that all the actors—Jamie Foxx as the hero, Waltz as his German partner, Jackson, Leonardo DiCaprio in a relishing turn as the corrupt, effete owner of the plantation named Candiland, and Kerry Washington as the heroine, are pitch-perfect, and the writing as always, is sharp. What “Django Unchained” lacks, and what most if not all of of Tarantino’s movies lack, is size, which is to say greatness. Nobody—except smart-ass critics—loves a smart ass.

Gary Tischler • January 3, 2013

If you want to get an idea of the diversity enshrined in what is loosely called “The Musical,” past, present and who knows what the future holds, all you have to do is take a gander at “White Christmas”, the holiday red musical rife with nostalgia and the best works of the grand old man of the American songbook at the Kennedy Center, and down Pennsylvania Avenue to the National Theatre, where you can find “Les Miserables,” techno-upgraded but now in its second year of touring its 25th anniversary production of the big, spectacular, dramatic musical based on Victor Hugo’s 19th-ccentury novel.

“White Christmas” is based on a 1954 Paramount Studios movie musical, starring the great crooner Bing Crosby and mister-do-everything Danny Kaye as his sidekick, with Rosemary Clooney and Vera Ellen as their love interests. “Les Miserables” is producer Cameron Mackintosh’s national touring version of the gift that keeps on giving ever since it debuted in London more than 25 years ago—so much so that it’s become a highly anticipated, Oscar-buzzed movie with Hugh Jackman, Russell Crowe and Anne Hathaway in the starring roles. There you have it: a stage musical, based on a movie musical, and a movie musical, based on a stage musical.

For all that connective material, the two shows couldn’t be more different. “White Christmas,” performed with the kind of spirit that recalls Mickey Rooney, Gene Kelly and Judy Garland, is redolent of the kind of musical that once were the main staple and fare of both Broadway and major Hollywood studios. The music, the material and the style are so comfortably old-fashioned that they almost seem fresh.

“Les Miserables” is a juggernaut, a powerhouse of a certain kind of musical—call the music rock-pop with oversized operatic style—that began to originate overseas, primarily in England, featuring productions almost entirely sung, usually in a manner that required voices that could reach places and hold notes few people could. “Les Miserables,” created by a French song-and-music team and produced by Mackintosh, was probably the most successful in a long line of shows that included “Jesus Christ Superstar,” “Cats,” “Evita,” “Miss Saigon” and “Phantom of the Opera” as well as “Sunset Boulevard.” Andrew Lloyd Webber was the superstar among such creators, along with Tim Rice and MacIntosh.

There was a time when most—if not all—of these shows dominated Broadway and the musical theater. That situation has waned, giving way to the force known as Disney. Mixed in are occasional new, sometimes rock-and-roll themed works (see “Million Dollar Quartet”) and revivals of prominent and reliable staples from the great works of Rodgers and Hammerstein, Cole Porter, Gershwin and Lerner and Loewe, and for the intellectually stimulated, Stephen Sondheim. The next thing as far as we can tell really hasn’t arrived yet, noting of course “Spiderman,” which is a Titanic that, having struck an iceberg in its early voyage, refuses to sink.

With “White Christmas,” it pays to have patience and a passion fo Irving Berlin’s music and old musicals, if you must. As musicals went, “White Christmas” was no “Singing in the Rain” but relied primarily on its star powered quartet, and Berlin’s music, which was quite enough to make it a hit. The star power isn’t in this production, although all the performers more than hold their own, and that includes James Clow and David Elder (a terrific Kelly-kind of dancer), and Stefanie Morse and Mara Davi.

The show is practically a recreation of the 1950s movie in terms of the plot, which includes the heroes, Broadway impresarios and stars, trying to save the fortunes of their old World War II commander, now running a Vermont resort into the ground. They make the rescue just in time for—you guessed it—a “White Christmas.” You kind of have to go with this because it’s part of the season, and, um, well, just because, because you’ll feel better. There are tons of 1950s references to old television shows, gossip columnists and such, which can make you feel very old or very confused.

Here’s what you do: kick your feet back and watch what happens after a somewhat slow and longish first act. Because right off the top comes a little Berlin number, called “I Love a Piano,” which exists solely to make you happy—beginning small, ratcheting up to a riveting, rhythmic and spectacular dancing, much of it in the key of tap. To me, the sound of 30 or two feet hitting the floors loudly or softly and syncopated has always been good for what ails you.

So are songs like “Let Me Sing and I’m Happy,” “I’ve Got My Love to Keep Me Warm” and “Blue Skies”—not to mention, of course, “White Christmas” and the torchy duo of “Love You Didn’t Do Right By Me” and “How Deep Is the Ocean.”

You’ll probably have the various themes and tunes of “Les Miserables” running around your head once again, but the residual feeling, as always, is of a pleasant and satisfying sadness, giving all the melodrama, triumphant and tragic that is so much a part of Hugo’s novel and of the musical, even more so. The presence of both the show and the movie are serendipitous, but should probably not be compared. The stage is the stage, and a movie is a movie. To be sure, the movie will be louder, and in your face. But, then again, serious weight loss and other physical changes are not a requirement for having a role in the stage production.

This staged version—instead of a turn-tabled barricade—achieves cinematic effects through back projection along with dramatic effects by way of soaring voices and affecting acting. As always the case with touring companies, or new groups, some will rise; others will stand out more. For my money, Andrew Varela as the driven, relentless Inspector Javert and Peter Lockyer as the almost saintly Jean Valjean are the standouts. This is a good thing—their mortal rivalry is the key to the show, the book and a number of songs—“Bring Him Home” knocked out of the park by Lockyer and “Stars,” sung with great revealing power by Varela. But Genevieve Leclerc makes “I Dreamed a Dream” her own song, at least until the movie comes out, as Fantine. Jason Forbach as heroic Enjolras, the leader of a student revolution, is a super-hero in this production.

As for who likes what: you say “Les Miserables,” and I say “White Christmas.” You can do both. In this season of high drama and tragedy, and the need to feel good about something, both shows have something to offer.

Gary Tischler •

(This is the fifth in a series of articles about Washington performers, singers and actors who are playing iconic roles during the holiday season at various venues).

Per his professional biography, the American tenor Corey Evan Rotz has sung more than 400 performances with the Washington National Opera since making his 1995 debut in “Der Rosenkavalier.” So, he’s used to Washington audiences. Friday, he may have a different experience.

“I expect to hear some boos,” Rotz said. “There will be children there who may not like me or what I do in this part.”

That part is the role of the witch in the WNO’s production of Engelbert Humperdinck’s “Hansel and Gretel.” Rotz, in a bit of unusual casting, will be playing the menacing gingerbread witch—one of the classic villains not only of opera but of fairy tales and fictions.

“I’ve done all sorts of roles over the years,” said Rotz, 40, a Pennsylvania native who has settled in Washington. “But this is very different from anything I’ve ever done. It’s funny, when it was suggested that I play the witch, I thought, ‘Huh. But why not?’ I jumped at the chance. I think it’s a real challenge—you really have to be an actor as well as a singer. You have to be convincing.”

“Hansel and Gretel”—which comes from one of the Grimm Brothers’ more famous fairy tales—is a bona-fide, full-length opera which will be performed at the Kennedy Center’s Terrace Theater Dec. 21 through 23. Humperdinck was one of the great composers of the 19th century and got the idea at the urging of his sister who had written some German folk songs on the theme of the Grimms’ fairy tale. Humperdinck apparently liked that idea and termed the result a “fairy tale opera.” It proved to be a winner and is a staple of opera companies throughout the world. It was also something of an event in its various debuts, among them in Weimar in 1893, conducted by Richard Strauss—and in Hamburg by Gustav Mahler.

“I supposed it could be a little bit scary for children, but I think it has a very triumphant ending,” Rotz said. “I know these are troubling time for little kids.” The opera is deemed appropriate for ages nine and above; there will be small children in the audience.

It’s a bit of a jump for Rotz, who’s been a mainstay for WNO audiences in a variety of roles, many of them with German themes or by German composers. He has performed roles in “The Magic Flute,” “The Queen of Spades,” “Salome,” Arturo in “Lucia di Lammermoor” and Bacchus in “Ariadne of Naxos.” He made his Los Angeles Opera debut as Abace in “Idomeneo” and his Carnegie Hall debut as Raymond in Tchaikovsky’s “The Maid of Orleans.” He also appeared in the WNO production of “Othello,” which toured in Japan with Placido Domingo.

“ ‘Hansel and Gretel’ isn’t just a children’s opera per se,” Rotz said. “It’s a major work by a major composer. ‘The Magic Flute’ is also considered something of a family opera, but it’s very much Mozart.”

The cast also includes Sarah Mesko and Julia Mintzer as Hansel; Emily Albrink and Shantelle Przybylo as Gretel; Norman Garrett as the father; Maria Eugenia Antunez as the mother—with Jessica Stecklein, playing dual roles as the Dew Fairy and the Sandman.

“Hansel and Gretel” is being presented as the WNO’s new commitment to family programming during the holiday season and is expected to be a regular part of the WNO seasonal programming in the future.

Although he performs in other venues, the Washington National Opera is essentially the beacon, the mainstay, the home of Rotz’s career. “It’s home,” he said. “Every time I perform here, it’s like going home. I know the stagehands, everybody that works here, from top to bottom. So, it’s always a great experience for me. That’s why I’ve decided to live here.

“I would say that the witch is probably the most challenging part of I’ve done, simply because the role is so different,” Rotz said.

It is a very audience-involving opera. Hence, the boos.

“I think there will be some,” Rotz said. “But I don’t think—given the news and what happened in Connecticut—that the witch and the opera is too frightening for children. And it ends on a triumphant note. There’s a quote at the end: ‘When we cannot bear our grief, God the lord will send relief.’ ”
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