Arts & Society

Mary Bird • January 17, 2014

Washington Women and Wine (WWW) co-founder Karen McMullen gathered “a lot of women and a few good men” at Brian Voltaggio’s Range on Oct. 21 to recall 15 years of dinners, networking socials, wine excursions and international trips. NBC News 4 Anchor Wendy Rieger, an active WWW member, emceed the evening as she had the group’s first event. The gourmet canapés and several courses were paired with wines selected by Advisory Board Member Suzanne McGrath, proprietor of the Curious Grape in Shirlington. The group has visited France twice and will travel to Northern Italy next March. [gallery ids="118724,118728,118735,118702,118709,118717,118741" nav="thumbs"]

Mary Bird •

Karen McMullen, a co-founder of Washington Women and Wine (WWW), chose Nick’s Riverside Grill in the Georgetown Harbour to host a “Farewell to Summer Waterfront Networking Social” on Aug. 27. WWW brings a cross section of the business community together monthly to network and enjoy fine food and wine. The group’s 15th anniversary will be held Oct. 21 at Bryan Voltaggio’s Range. In addition, WWW will enjoy its third international trip, journeying to Northern Italy, next March. [gallery ids="101445,153681,153674,153678,153669,153687,153686" nav="thumbs"]

Mary Bird •

On Sept. 7, Ambassador of the Kingdom of Bahrain Houda Nonoo hosted a dinner buffet and program honoring the late legendary photographer Albert Francis Mogzec. For over 50 years “Albert,” as he was known to all, covered the international and diplomatic community. Jan Du Plain emceed a program of speakers including Ambassador of Bulgaria Elena Poptodorova; Patricia Elwood, who presented a special message from Mayor Vincent Gray, and Albert’s musician grandson Jeremy Carlstedt, who said Albert considered the diplomatic corps his “other family.” This would have been Albert’s 85th birthday. It was Ambassador Nonoo’s as well and Jerome Barry led the guests in “For She’s A Jolly Good Fellow.” [gallery ids="101446,153656,153668,153661,153664" nav="thumbs"]

Ari Post •

Freer – Sackler
Aug. 24 – Feb. 9, 2014
Charles Freer and the Arts of Japan
Between 1895 and 1911, Charles Lang Freer (1854–1919) visited Japan five times, establishing himself among Japanese collectors as a formidable and respected peer. Paintings currently on display in the Japanese galleries reflect the evolution of Freer’s understanding of Japanese art, as well as the diversity and quality of his acquisitions. At the time of his death, Freer bequeathed some 600 Japanese paintings to the Freer Gallery of Art. Today that number has more than doubled, but the prototype for collecting has continued to honor his sensibilities. These works are exhibited with a nod to the 90th anniversary of the opening of the Freer Gallery in 1923.

Aug. 24 – Feb. 9, 2014
Korean Style in Japanese Ceramics
Korean ceramics arriving in Japan as trade goods in the 15th and 16th centuries captured attention for the quality of their form, glaze, and decoration, far surpassing what Japanese kilns could produce. Korean bowls in particular were coveted for use as tea bowls. Even after Japanese pottery-making skills improved, neither potters nor customers forgot their profound admiration for Korean stoneware ceramic styles. Focusing on tea bowls, this exhibition offers a selection of Japanese vessels inspired by Korean models, spanning the 17th through 19th century.

Sept. 28 – September, 28, 2014
Off the Beaten Path: Early Works by James McNeill Whistler
In the summer of 1858, 24-year-old Whistler traveled with a friend from Paris through the Rhineland. Their goal was to reach Amsterdam and view “The Night Watch” and other paintings by Rembrandt van Rijn—but they soon ran out of money and were forced to return to Paris. Their excursion through the countryside, where they drew portraits in exchange for food and lodging, resulted in a body of work that for years served as source material for the artist. The drawings, etchings, and watercolors on view not only document Whistler’s adventures, but they also shaped his selection of subject matter and his approach to composition, light and shadow, and perspective.

National Gallery of Art
Sept. 1 – January 5, 2014
Yes, No, Maybe: Artists Working at Crown Point Press
The exhibition features 125 working proofs and edition prints produced between 1972 and 2010 at Crown Point Press in San Francisco, one of the most influential printmaking studios of the last half-century. The stages of intaglio printmaking reveal the printmaking process in very particular ways. They are used to monitor and steer a print’s evolution, prompting evaluation and approval, revision, or rejection. Each proof compels a decision: yes, no, maybe. Among the twenty-five artists represented are those with long ties to Crown Point Press—Richard Diebenkorn, John Cage, Chuck Close, and Sol LeWitt—as well as those whose association is more recent, such as Mamma Andersson and Amy Sillman.

Sept. 1 – Jan. 5, 2014
Northern Mannerist Prints from the Kainen Collection
Ruth Cole Kainen was one of the most important collectors of prints and drawings in recent decades, and bequeathed major works to the National Gallery of Art. This exhibition?the first of three to focus on central aspects of her bequest?presents some 50 works that embody the sophisticated imagery, extraordinary stylization, and virtuoso technique of the flourishing printmaking industry in the northern Netherlands in the late 16th century. Included are exquisite interpretations by the finest engravers of the powerful works of Goltzius and the leading Netherlandish painters Cornelis van Haarlem, Abraham Bloemaert and Bartholomaeus Spranger.

Sept. 15 – Jan. 20, 2014
Tell it with Pride: The 54th Massachusetts Regiment and Augustus Saint-Gauden’s Shaw Memorial
To commemorate the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Fort Wagner, this exhibit celebrates its magisterial Shaw Memorial by Augustus Saint-Gaudens, honoring Colonel Robert Gould Shaw and the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, one of the first regiments of African-American soldiers during the Civil War. The exhibition features daguerreotype and tintype portraits of the soldiers, the people who recruited them, including Frederick Douglass, Charles Lenox Remond and Sojourner Truth as well as the women who nursed, taught and guided them, such as Clara Barton, Charlotte Forten, and Harriet Tubman. Letters, a recruiting poster, and the Medal of Honor awarded to the first African-American soldier who earned this distinction are also displayed, as is work by 20th- and 21st-century artists who have reflected on the continuing importance of the 54th Massachusetts, the Battle of Fort Wagner and the Shaw Memorial.

American University
Museum at the Katzen Arts Center
Opening Sept. 3
Green Acres: Artists Farming Fields, Greenhouses and Abandoned Lots
This exhibition of contemporary art addresses ecological issues, brought over from the Contemporary Arts Center in Cincinnati, Ohio. The show is a multifaceted, “multi-seasonal” interactive art venture focused on art and agriculture that comprises several elements and a series of public programs. It will also incorporate broad community involvement across the county and region, with a goal to visually and spatially engage the public in a discussion around topics related to food, agriculture, urban farming and livability, and to expose the investigations artists are making in these areas. The exhibit is in collaboration with the Arlington Arts Center, which presents its half of Green Acres through Oct. 13.

Donald Rothfeld Collection of
Contemporary Israeli Art
This is the first exhibition of Donald Rothfeld’s extraordinary gift of Israeli Art to the American University Museum at the Katzen Arts Center in honor of H.E. Ambassador Michael B Oren. Selections from the extensive collection chronicle Israel’s history and include the work of numerous prominent and emerging Israeli artists, including Uri Aran, Yael Bartana, Tsibi Geva, Moshe Kupferman, Siglat Landau, Elad Lassry, and Michal Rovner. The exhibition is sponsored by American University’s Center for Israel Studies.

Patrick Mcdonough:
Brightveridiansentinelevents
The exhibition, sponsored by the Office of Sustainability, examines the relationship between sustainability, aesthetics, and free time, a timely and important topic in the face of environmental flux and increased interest in alternative energy, technologies, and economies. Utilizing both the interior gallery space and outdoor sculpture garden, McDonough presents discrete objects, performance documentation, and solar sculptures that blend wit and insight, playfulness, and provocation.

Kreeger Museum
Sept. 3 – Dec. 28
Mindy Weisel: Not Neutral
This exhibition is comprised of three significant bodies of work by artist Weisel that parallel one another in large-scale human and environmental tragedies: “Paintings of the Holocaust” (c. 1980), “Survival of Beauty” (2010) and “After Tohoku” (2012). Within each series of work, the artist explores deep emotion through color, gestural marks, surface tension and composition. These works are a profound expression of the triumph of beauty, reconciliation, and healing over human tragedy, loss and destruction.

Art Museum of the
Americas
Sept. 4 – Oct. 18
Brasil, Meu Brasil: Contrastes da
Modernidade (Brazil, My Brazil: Contrasts of Modernity)
This exhibition of 14 paintings by Brazilian artist Marília Bulhões promotes a constructive vision of South America’s future through local and hemispheric cultural exchange. It also offers a contemporary view of the artist’s relationship to her country’s people, natural beauty, modernity and troubles. These elements contrast with other vital components of the Brazilian culture in Bulhões’ work, such as the slums and the challenges of deforestation in the Amazon, examining these coexisting, although seemingly incompatible, worlds. With an abstract and minimalist approach, Bulhões assembles a distinct mosaic of present-day Brazil, subtly revealing intricate contrasts while weaving a sense of cultural unity. The artist also explores the concept of the nation based on its kaleidoscope of identities. She portrays Brazil, one of the most demographically varied nations of the Americas, as a unique melting pot of cultures.
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Gary Tischler •

NOW PLAYING
Miss Saigon—Here’s a way to kick off a 24th-anniversary season: remount and re-imagine a full-blown production of “Miss Saigon,” one of the most iconic big-theme, big-deal Broadway musicals of the “Les Miz,” “Phantom of the Opera,” “Cats” and “Evita” era.

That’s what Signature Theater’s not-shy-of-a-challenge artistic director Eric Schaeffer has done, staging the first production of the Viet War set, but “Madame Butterfly” echo musical in 15 years, running at the MAX Theatre through Sept. 22. Schaeffer, who directs the production, described as “environmental,” says Signature is “pulling out all the stops in this production with a terrific cast, full-size orchestra and a set that engulfs the entire theatre.

It stars Diana Huey as the bar girl Kim, Jason Michael Evans as the American GI Chris and Thom Sesma in the bravura role of The Engineer.

The Beauty Queen of Leelane—Martin McDonagh is back and the Round House Theatre in Bethesda has him, with its production of “The Beauty Queen of Leelane” through Sept. 15, directed by Jerry Skidmore. Irish to the core and contemporary to the core, “Beauty Queen” is about a lonely spinster living with her bigger-than-life, manipulative mother. Featuring Kimberly Gilbert and Sarah Marshall—two of D.C. theater’s finest actresses as daughter and mother.

A Few Good Men—Skidmore also directs the ongoing production of Playwright Aaron Sorkin’s 1989 military courtroom drama “A Few Good Men,” which became the basis for a hit movie, starring Tom Cruise and Jack Nicholson. It’s now a Keegan Theatre production through Sept. 7.

Brokeology—Theater Alliance begins its 11th season with playwright Nathan Louis Jackson’s “Brokeology,” a powerful drama about a widower battling his own illness and trying to raise two sons. Now through Sept. 8 at the Anacostia Playhouse.
Shakespeare Free For All—The Shakespeare Theatre Company has been doing Shakespeare Free For All’s for 23 years and continues the tradition with a production of the Bard’s fabulous and popular (the director of “The Avengers” recently filmed it in black and white) comedy “Much Ado About Nothing,” after the original direction of Ethan McSweeny. Jenny Lord directs this comedy which stars Kathryn Meisle as Beatrice and Derek Smith as Benedick, one of the Bard’s most attractive battling couples, right alongside Petruchio and Kate. Now through Sept. 1 at Sidney Harman Hall. Check the STC website for times and how to get free tickets.

SEPTEMBER BRINGS IN THE SHOWS
Donna McKechnie at Olney—Probably not a coincidence, but Donna McKechnie, the sparkling Broadway star who was the original Cassie in “A Chorus Line” appears at the Historic Stage at the Olney Theatre Center in her cabaret show, “Same Place, Another Time,” Sept. 1 at 7 p.m., even as “A Chorus Line” is being performed here.

Wagner and Tristan and Isolde usher in the new Washington Opera Season—Washington National Opera Artistic Director Francesca Zambello celebrates the new WNO season with big works by both Richard Wagner and Guiseppi Verdi, who are having their bicentenaries.

It’s Wagner, with his epic “Tristan and Isolde,” and we do mean epic that starts the season with music Zambello describes as “romantic and hypnotic.” “I chose it,” she said, “as the gateway for us to experience the breadth of Wagner’s styles as we build towards our ‘Ring’ Cycle in the spring of the 2015-2016 season.” (Verdi’s “The Force of Destiny”, with Zambello directing, will follow, beginning Oct. 12.)

The incomparable Deborah Voigt—who starred in “Salome” here returns in the role of Isolde, with Ian Storey as Tristan (Clifton Forbis will perform Tristan Sept. 27.) WNO Conductor Philippe Auguin conducts, Neil Armfield, directs, with sets by Opera Australia, costumes by Jennie Tate. (Sept. 15, 18, 21, 24, 27)

Page-to-Stage New Play Festival—A sure signal that a new performance arts and theatre season is upon us is the arrival of the 12th Annual Page-to-Stage New Play Festival, with more than 40 theaters from all over the D.C. area. Performances are in venues throughout the center, in a series of free readings and open rehearsals of plays and musicals developed by local, regional and national playwrights, librettists and composers. It’s happening Aug. 31 through Sept. 2, and it’s a good chance for theater buffs to check the pulse and look into the future of the area theater scene. And to repeat: it’s free. Check the Kennedy Center website for details.

More Kennedy Center Shows
The boys are back. Yes, it’s Elvis, Jerry Lee, Carl and Johnny, Presley, Lewis, Perkins and Cash, aka the “Million Dollar Quartet,” the hugely popular musical in which the four budding stars get together, bicker, play, sing and fight and play a whole lot of shaking rock and roll and country music at Sam Phillips Sun Records Studio in Memphis in 1956. The musical arrives at the Eisenhower Theater Sept. 24 through Oct. 6.

“Four Little Girls”—The Kennedy Center, Project Voice and Howard University, working with Duke Ellington School of the Arts and African Continuum Theater Company, present a free, staged reading of “Four Little Girls, Birmingham, 1963.” Written by Christina Ham, and directed by Tony Award winning actress and television star of “The Cosby Show,” Phylicia Rashad, takes place Sept. 15, 6 p.m., in the Family Theater in the Kennedy Center. The production commemorates the 50th anniversary of the bombing that took the lives of four young girls at the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Ala., only weeks after the 1963 March on Washington.

NSO
With National Symphony Orchestra and Kennedy Center music director maestro Christoph Eschenbach conducting, the NSO begins its 83rd season with the annual Opening Ball Concert Sept. 29 at the Concert Hall. The evening will include legendary cellist Yo-Yo Ma performing Tchaikovsky’s “Rococo Variations,” and Carmen Carpenter, the dynamic young organist playing a finale of Saint-Saen’s “Organ Symphony.”

The NSO Pops Orchestra, directed by Steven Reineke, will kick off with “Cirque de la Symphonie”, Sept. 19 to 22, and then feature superstars Wayne Shorter, Vince Mendoza and the remarkable Esperanza Spalding, Sept. 26 in the Concert Hall.
The Kennedy Center’s dance program will kick off with the highly original company KARAS, which, under founder and choreographer Sburo Teshigawara brings the North American Premiere of “Mirror and Music” Sept. 12 and 13 at the Eisenhower Theater.

FOUR RISING PLAYWRIGHTS
At Arena Stage, Eric Coble’s “The Velocity of Autumn” focuses on 79-year-old Alexandra living with memories and explosives in her Brooklyn townhouse, and getting a visit from a long-lost son. Oscar winner Estelle Parsons and Tony Award winner Stephen Spinella make their Arena debuts, Sept. 6 through Oct. 20, with Molly Smith directing.

At Woolly Mammoth Theater, Lisa D’Amour’s Pulitzer Prize finalist “Detroit” about a collision between neighbors in Motor City gets going Sept. 9 and runs through Oct. 6, directed by John Vreeke for the city’s most consistently cutting-edge theater company.

Critically acclaimed playwright Amy Herzog’s play “After the Revolution,” which focuses on one family’s reaction to the blacklist starts at Theater J Sept. 7 and runs through Oct. 6, directed by Eleanor Holdsridge, and starring Nancy Robinette.
“Agnes Under the Big Top” by Aditi Brennan Kapil, and directed by Michael Dove, starts the Forum Theater’s season Sept.5 to 28, a play in which six lives intersect in what’s described as a “comic adventure about immigrant life in America.” At the Round House in Silver Spring.

The Laramie Project at Ford’s Theatre
Ford’s Theatre kicks off its season with something of a departure, the emotionally powerful “The Laramie Project” by Moises Kaufman and members of the Tectonic Theater project. It’s the play about the 1998 murder of Matthew Shepard, a young gay man and resident of Laramie, Wyo., and the reaction of the community to what was considered a hate crime. Fifteen years later, the murder and Shepard’s story still echoes not only in Wyoming but across the country. The play is the third offering in the multi-year Lincoln Legacy Project, an effort to “generate dialogue around issues of tolerance, equality and acceptance.” Directed by Matthew Gardiner, Sept. 27-Oct.27.

The Embassy Series at 20
It’s hard to believe that the Embassy Series under founder Jerome Barry has been around for 20 years, building cultural bridges, exercising musical diplomacy and giving Washington audiences a chance to hear world class music from around the world in the city’s embassies, ambassador residences and international cultural centers.

The 20th season kicks off at the residence of the Indian Ambassador, with a unique program from international musical star Rudresh Mahanthappa, a composer and alto saxophone player with a sound that hybridizes progressive jazz and South Indian classical music. Mahanthappa is a second generation Indian-American who leads a quartet named Gamak, which features guitarist David “Fuze” Fiuczynski. The concert is set for Sept. 9 at 6:30 p.m.

The In Series’ “Taking Flight” Season Begins
The In Series’ “Taking Flight” begins with a series tradition, a pocket-opera program at the Source Theater, a new and “edgy” adaptation of Mozart’s light and funny “Abduction from the Seraglio”.

Wolf trap
A Dreamgirl and a dream girl of pop, the always original Lyle, doe-a-deer-a-female-deer, and Hobbits and Elves are among the treats awaiting fans of and visitors to the Wolf Trap outdoor summer series as it winds down.

There’s Jennifer Holliday in a four-night stint in “Dreamgirls” Aug. 22 to 25, the pop queen Carly Rae Jepsen with Hot Chelle Rae, Aug. 28, the like-no-other folk-country-beyond-category singer Lyle Lovett and his Large Band, Aug. 29, the Sing-A-Long Sound of Music Aug. 31, STS9 and Umphrey’s McGee Sept. 1, and last, but not least a screening of “The Lord of the Rings” and “The Fellowship of the Ring” with the City Choir of Washington and the World Children’s Choir.

Gala Hispanic
“Cabaret Barroco: Interludes of Spain’s Golden Age”, kicks off the Gala Hispanic, Sept. 12 through Oct. 6, bringing to the stage an example of the interlude, a form and genre that combined cabaret, street performance and carnival during the golden age of Spanish theater. By Calderon de la Barca, Francisco de Quevedo and Bernardo de Quiros, directed by Jose Louis Areliano.

The Rat Pack at the Strathmore Music Center
Strathmore starts off its season with an unusual offering. “Sandy Hackett’s Rat Pack Show” recreates some of the golden, flashy moments from the original Rat Pack, Las Vegas-style, that includes Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis, Jr., Dean Martin and Joey Bishop. The pack also included at various times Peter Lawford and comedian Buddy Hackett, whose son Sandy has brought the pack back, Sept. 27.

Michael Kahn Directs Harvey Fierstein’s ‘Torch Song Trilogy’ at Studio Theatre
That headline almost sums it up—Kahn, the artistic director of the Shakespeare Theatre Company, lending his directing gifts to a play that has become iconic. Beginning first as a series of one-act plays at La MaMa Etc in New York, it became a full-fledged play, written by and starring Fierstein in 1981. Performances start Sept. 4.

Faction of Fools
Faction of Fools, a newish theater company specializing in old styles, especially Commedia d’ la arte, starts its new season with Moliere’s “Don Juan,” a play which should be right up the company’s stylish alley beginning Sept. 12.

The Shakespeare Theatre Company Measures Up
“Measure for Measure,” a difficult Shakespeare play about love and power, vice and virtue opens the Shakespeare Theatre Company season under the direction of Jonathan Munby, who sets the play in a 1930s fascist state under the evocative hue of a cabaret culture, opens the season, Sept. 12 through Oct. 27. Miriam Silverman stars as Isabella, Scott Parkinson is Angelo and Kurt Rhoads is the powerful Duke. [gallery ids="101432,154573,154579,154556,154561,154565,154568,154577" nav="thumbs"]

Gary Tischler •

Even under normal conditions, the opening of the Washington National Opera season qualifies as an event—it’s an occasion highly anticipated by opera aficionados and music lovers. It’s loaded with anticipation for the season as a whole, a major part of the city’s cultural and social scene.

But by any standard, the opening performance of the WNO’s season-opening production of Richard Wagner’s “Tristan and Isolde,” Sunday afternoon, directed by Neil Arnfield, with WNO Musical Director Philippe Auguin, conducting the WNO orchestra with impassioned fervor, was almost an uber-event.

Consider that this was artistic director Francesca Zambello’s beginning of a first full season in a world, like many others, where first impressions and efforts count for a lot.

Consider that this was after all Wagner, German and European 19th-century romanticism in high dudgeon in one of the most original—and difficult to stage, sing and perform operas ever composed.

For audience and artists alike, this is a night or day at the opera that requires full commitment. If you arrived at the opening a half an hour before curtain time at 1:30 p.m., taken in three acts and two 20-minute or so intermissions and left right at the end before all the applause and cheers commenced in earnest, you will have taken out pretty much a full afternoon of your life, four-and-a-half hours all told — or the length of close to two Sunday afternoon football games, including another dismal Redskins defeat, an afternoon of brunch and two movies, or a good chunk of season three of HBO’s “Game of Thrones.”

Oh, we almost forgot to mention that just a week before “Tristan and Isolde” was scheduled to open, star soprano Deborah Voigt, after consulting with Zambello, withdrew from the role, generally considering an exhausting, punishing role for body, soul and voice. Swedish soprano Irene Theorin, a Wagnerian veteran who had performed Brunnhilde in “Siegfried” at the WNO in 2009 was brought in to take on the role.

Now, that’s an opera opening that’s — well — downright operatic, creating a stir of expectation, and perhaps not a little dread, such feelings often present at openings for Wagner works. The sheer length and size of the production, the effort in time and attention on the part of the audience was daunting. It was, in the end, also entirely worth it, exceeding any expectations one might have held, and demolishing whatever fears might have existed.

To get the most open-ended part of the evening out of the way, Theorin didn’t just hold her own with the part of Isolde, which is frightingly large and taxing, especially in the first section of the opera, she took ownership of the part. In contemporary parlance, she nailed it, showing her particular gifts which included a powerful voicer that can and needs to hold its own with the orchestra, because this is, after all, Wagner. The opera is more than Wagner, with a score that, as Aguin, a Frenchman adept and expert with Wagner’s methods, suggests, “has the music act as a character.” Theorin seemed physically and dramatically comfortable with Wagner’s idea of a woman consumed by love, in stages. With Theorin, who cuts in an imposing and moving figure. We didn’t just hear Isolde. We felt her anguish, her girlish delights, her discovery of love. That was some potion, that potion.

This production is—in a way—Theorin’s and Aguin’s show. “Tristan and Isolde” is an opera where you really listen to the orchestral music because it cues you, it takes over. Often, it’s an illustration of thought, story and feeling, every bit as the voices and the libretto, the words, written by Wagner himself.

The story comes out of Arthurian tales by way of German writer Gottfried von Strassburg. It is about lovers ill met and then totally entranced, enhanced and immolated by love. Tristan is one of the noblest knights of the Cornish king Marke and has been sent to bring the Irish princess Isolde as the king’s bride after a war in which the Irish were crushed. In that war, Tristan killed Isolde’s bethrothed, a fact of which he is unaware, and Isolde also saved his life with her special healing gifts. The embittered Isolde swears revenge and plans to poison Tristan with a potion, but her loyal maid instead gives her a love potion instead.

Drinking the potion, the two fall instantly, dangerously, totally in love to a point where ideas of love and death almost merge. It is a love as everything, sex, heaven and earth, and, most significantly, night and day, life and death. This is Wagner by way of philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer. It dovetails with his ideas about total theater, the opera, in fact, is almost a guileless demonstration of theory as a work of genius-level art. This is the Wagner we know and love, that is, if you do to begin with.

After the lengthy idyll enjoyed by the lovers in the forest, this cannot have good results and portends disaster. Thanks to the treacherous and jealous Melot, they’re discovered by the king. Tristan is severely wounded, and everything goes to hell or somewhere else.

In the end, Tristan lies dying and has to carry the final act, alone with his loyal comrade Kurwenal at his ancestral home, awaiting against hope for Isolde. This is a challenge for tenor Ian Storey as Tristan who has to hold the stage, and be strong enough with his voice to duel with Wagner’s ravishing, challenging music which veers through different styles like a ship battered at sea. Storey does not always succeed. Also at the end, everyone shows up—some to die thankfully like Melot, Isolde too late to heal Tristan, and willing herself to die with him in the famous tear-drawing (lots from many in the audience) “Liebestod” or love death.

There is the certain so-called “Wagnerian” aspect to Wagner’s music—some of loudest, full-orchestra sounds you hear come oddly as no surprise, but the nuanced, quieter parts are delicious and moving in their depth and, surprisingly, in their tenderness.

There’s something else Wagnerian here, too. Opera isn’t known for its “book,” the quality of its librettos as literature. In this case, Wagner also wrote the libretto: after a while, the words, like the chords start to fall down like a sometimes salving, sometimes burning rain. Even in English translation, it’s a very German kind of rain—words and sentences as proclamations, spitting out whole all-embracing ideas, love, death light and darkness, otherness, the sadness of the day. Tristran and Isolde often don’t sing in sentences. It’s all nouns and adjectives: it’s the music that act as verbs, as action, as the heart in total abandon and flight.

Wagner, performed, played, acted and staged this originally. He’s a bully who will not be ignored, chastened, or cut by a minute. And at journey’s end with Tristan and Isolde, even if their boat takes its own sweet time arriving at the shore, it is more than worth it. You don’t have to love opera or like Wagner to be swept up in the waves.
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Mary Bird •

Bob Madigan was saluted by his legion
of media pals and friends wearing sequined
bowties at Carmine’s in the Penn Quarter
for an afternoon reception on Jan. 11 as he
leaves 50 years on the air to head for Maine.
Tommy McFly heralded Madigan’s support of
nonprofits, restaurateurs and his many good
deeds before leading a vocal tribute “with
apologies to Billy Joel,” as “She’s Always A
Woman To Me” was revamped to “Bob, Man
About Town To Me.” Lyrics included “Fifty
years on the air have gone by in a flash. There’s
a hammock that’s calling him and his cat Max.”
It was a well-deserved heartfelt appreciation of
a special friend. [gallery ids="101599,147216,147210,147205,147201,147225,147232,147197,147229,147220" nav="thumbs"]

Ari Post •

2014 is a promising year for the
fine arts in Washington,
with exhibitions of
European master Edgar Degas and American
master Andrew Wyeth on the horizon, both at
the National Gallery of Art. A show of 16thcentury
Japanese tea jars at the Sackler will open
a unique window of history onto our longtime
adoration of this popular and ritualistic drink.
But while we wait for spring to usher in the first
major exhibitions of the year, there is a great deal
to keep die-hard devotees of museums and galleries
happy through the winter. Here are a few
things to see in the coming months:

**A New Era at the Textile Museum**
The new year marks an exciting chapter for
the Textile Museum, which begins its move to a
new museum space on the George Washington
University campus. Though the old S Street location
is no longer open for regular visiting hours,
as the nearly 20,000-piece collection is being
made travel-ready, programs will continue to be
offered at multiple venues during the transition.
One upcoming event is a curator-led tour of
“Workt by Hand: Hidden Labor and Historical
Quilts” at the National Museum of Women in
the Arts on Friday, Jan. 24. Quilts have long
been burdened by conflicting interpretations
– revered as nostalgic emblems of the past,
dismissed as women’s work, yet hailed as examples
of American ingenuity. This exhibition,
which showcases 35 18th- through 20th-century
quilts from the Brooklyn Museum, examines
quilts through the lens of contemporary feminist
theory, revealing the medium’s shifting cultural
status. Tickets are $20 for members, $25
for nonmembers. To register, call 202-667-0441,
ext. 64.

The first in a series of free Rug and Textile
Appreciation Mornings begins on Saturday, Jan.
25. History professor Katrin Schultheiss will
discuss the complexity of gender roles in textile
production in the 19th century, when certain fabrics
were deemed worthy of male craftsmanship
and others were regarded as “simple” enough
for women to produce. Reservations are not
required.

**New Editions at Adamson Gallery**
Opening with a public reception on Saturday,
Jan. 18, 6-8 p.m., Adamson Gallery will show
new editions of master photographic prints from
a number of internationally acclaimed artists,
including Marc Babej, Chuck Close, Roberto
Longo and Gary Simmons. Close’s portrait series
of Brad Pitt, for example, shows the iconic actor
in a new and uncomfortably close perspective,
exposing every nook, cranny, wrinkle and
pockmark on his face. The result is a fascinating
examination of the nature of exposure,
privacy and identity, particularly for those who
live their lives in the public eye. The exhibition
runs through Mar. 29, by appointment. For more
information, call 202-232-0707 or email [Info@
AdamsonGallery.com](mailto:info@Adamsgallery.com).

**The Shenandoah Comes to Susan
Calloway Fine Arts**
Painter Ed Cooper reflects the subtleties
of early morning and late afternoon light and
color in his plein-air landscapes, capturing the
interplay of sun and shade on trees, water and
grass. With an opening reception on Friday, Jan.
17, 6-8 p.m., “Ed Cooper: New Landscapes,”
on view at Susan Calloway Fine Arts through
Feb. 15, explores the regional Shenandoah
and Chesapeake landscapes through the tip of
Cooper’s reliably breathtaking paintbrush. A
wanderer, Cooper carries as constant companions
a pochade box for quick oil sketches and
an easel for more elaborate paintings. “While
wandering I am constantly looking for scenes
or objects that evoke an emotional response in
me – something I just have to paint,” he says. For
more information, visit [www.CallowayArt.com](http://www.CallowayArt.com).

**Goodbye to Heiner Contemporary**
After three prolific years in Georgetown,
Heiner Contemporary has moved to Farmington,
Conn. While there will be no brick-and-mortar
space for some time, the gallery will maintain
an active online presence and continue to
offer comprehensive art advisory services. In
Connecticut, Heiner Contemporary will showcase
work through pop-up exhibitions, participation
in art fairs and via Artsy.net. Over the past
few years, Heiner has brought an unforgettable
body of contemporary artwork to Washington,
and given Georgetown’s Book Hill neighborhood
a vibrant shot of life. We wish them prosperity
and success in all future endeavors. [gallery ids="118500,118503" nav="thumbs"]

Mary Bird • January 16, 2014

The Russian Ball reinvented itself this year. Without the presence of Prince Alexis and Princess
Selene Obolensky there were few familiar faces but the princess would be pleased that the hope she
expressed last year that “the young people will continue the ball” was realized. A young attractive
crowd more attuned to social media than presentation at court gathered in the elegant rooms of the
Cosmos Club Jan. 11. Proceeds benefited Russian American Community Services. [gallery ids="101598,147239,147242,147245,147233" nav="thumbs"]

Gary Tischler • January 15, 2014

I’m betting that “If/Then,” the new talent-laden musical in a rare pre-Broadway tryout run at the National Theatre through Dec. 8, will be a hit by the time it opens on Broadway in the spring of 2014.

Which is not to say it’s ready for Broadway yet, or that it’s a perfect show, or that it couldn’t stand some heavy cuts here and there or that it sometimes tries too hard to be clever and cutting-edge cool for its own good.

Still, here’s why I think it will attract a big audience: it’s very much a show about the times in which we live. It’s got a great score. It may be the first big Millennial Generation musical to hit the boards, although its characters run to Gen X age-wise. It is thus is in tune with the changing, renovating, liveable urban scene all over the country, including Washington, D.C., but definitely New York City, where it’s headed and for which it’s a kind of visual and musical love song.

Here are other virtues for this head-spinning show: it has Broadway pedigree written all over it. With this much talent involved in the show, whatever fixes are needed ought to be completed by the time it really matters. You can make your way along a path that runs from “Rent” and “Wicked” through the much acclaimed “Next to Normal” and find most of the people involved on stage and backstage in “If/Then.”

Tom Kitt, who wrote the music, and Brian Yorkey, who wrote the books and lyrics, and Michael Greif, who directed, all worked together on “Next to Normal,” as did producer David Stone. Stone also produced the hugely successful “Wicked,” which made a big Broadway star out of Idina Menzel when she played the role of the green-skinned witch Elphaba. Greif also directed the other big smash “Rent,” which got Menzel her first Tony nomination for her portrayal of Maureen. (Menzel won a Tony for “Wicked.”) Co-star Anthony Rapp was also in “Rent” with Menzel. This may account for a certain comfort zone among the performers and the scene on stage, although that connection needs to be established more with the audience as well.

Menzel is another big asset for “If/Then.” She is a genuine Broadway diva star in the best sense of the word. She’s got acting chops—and a voice that ranges all over the planet and is liqueur smooth, powerful as a train which knows where it’s going, emotionally on target. Without Menzel, you haven’t got much of anything. She convinces the audience that all of this is important and makes perfect sense with every musical note and facial expression. It doesn’t hurt, of course, that she’s enormously appealing and beautiful, green witch aside. She plays a character who has the serious romantic attentions of at least three men in the cast—her boss, an old college sweetheart who’s also gay, and a two-deployment veteran (and a doctor, no less) who drops his duffel bag and falls in love the first time he sees her.

This may be the first musical in recorded history that has an urban planner as its heroine. How cool can that be? This is a show about choices, if you haven’t guessed from the title. Elizabeth in her late thirties has come to New York and is fresh from a broken marriage, trying to start over. She has made an instant friend in kindergarten teacher Kate (the high-flying, terrific LaChanze from “The Color Purple”) and re-united with college flame Lucas, a squatter and housing activist. She meets Josh, the returning vet in uniform who stirs her heart. But Beth is a bit of a data nerd, as well as an idealist. So, her choices are: take the hot, urban planning job from potential (but married) mentor Stephen (Jerry Dixon), take up with best friend Lucas, or take a teaching job and marry the stone-cold tender hunk Josh from Nebraska.

Life, Kate tells her, is all about chance meetings and events that come from them—decisions to do this or do that.

What’s a girl to do? Well, the book has her do it all—she slides in and out of two lives, often awkwardly, so that we get to see and hear the results of both choices, an often clumsy process where you don’t always know who’s there. Clarity is not yet a part of the menu here, and that goes for the songs which aren’t always clearly identifiable. When Menzel sings “Here I Go,” you get in one not the exact, long length of the journey. This structure, though—Liz and Beth, in and out—hasn’t been fully worked out to avoid puzzlement by the audience.

I’m not a prude, but it seems to be almost an established sign of cool to work the f-word into any contemporary theatrical proceedings, in titles and dialogue, but now in songs, too. Mamet could do this well. Here, it’s just a kind of cheap laugh which I hope doesn’t make the song an anthem. I understand the sentiment but not the need for its expression musically.

The show has another plus: Mark Wendland’s crisp, sparkling, almost breezy set design, allowing for the instant incarnation of bedrooms, boardrooms, trains and such, as well as a paradise-type park, aided and abetted by a big floating wall-to-wall mirror used inventively.

A pre-Broadway tryout is a rarity in D.C. these days, and you can tell there’s a lot riding on this. There’s been plenty of talk and buzz on Facebook, and in early peek-a-boo mentions, most of which are excitable and favorable, but not all.

A good gauge were comments I heard from two youngish, 30-something women: “We thought it was a little long and ought to be cut, but I think it spoke to our demographics.”

It didn’t speak to my demographics (baby boomer). Nevertheless, I have to admit that the show moved me, almost in spite of myself and itself. That, I think, is due to the really splendid cast—and, for sure, the voice and heart of Idina Menzel, a true Broadway star, still defying gravity.
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