Showing posts with label Digital mediating. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Digital mediating. Show all posts
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
Monday, June 20, 2011
Rediscovery of Hurtigruten: beautiful journey along Norway's coast
Thanks to nrkbeta, youtube and creative commons.
Hurtigruten 5 days TV marathon June 2011
SOME FACTS: 8040 minutes of sea and arctic nature - on TV channel nrk2 and the Internet (creative commons).
BACKGROUND. Hurtigruten, the Norwegian Express Line, has for well over 100 years been the backbone of coastal Norway, bringing people and goods up and down the weatherbeaten west coast towards the north of Norway. It has struggled to survive and be prosperous in a mixed economy of private and public support and investments.
COASTAL CULTURE. More than a pure enterprise it is no doubt about a broad interaction and transportation of people and things, in fact, even dead bodies. Hurtigruten thus encompasses both daily and extraordinary transportations, as well as people experiencing nature and how to cope with it in the living coastal cultures. This TV, realworld and social media event uncovers through creative use of multimedia the encounters and experienced beauty of a number of scattered places, regions, inhabitants and families, locals and visitors to Norway's coast.
FLEET. Currently, a fleet of 11 ships service 34 ports from Bergen to Kirkenes, covering a distance comparable to the distance Oslo – Tunisia. Daily, and all year round.
WHY. Why this TV marathon from a coastal sea cruise, although among the most beautiful ones? Why are they - over in nrkbeta - doing this? It has been prepared for some months (*cf. e.g., invitation to an open-source ideation in January 2011, maybe more info to be checked here later). The idea emerged after the minute by minute 7 hours realtime show on TV, nrk2, of the railway experience from Bergen to Oslo, which achieved a lot of media attention and many viewers. But why doing more of this?According to nrkbeta's website, an article by ANDERS HOFSETH, dated 16. June, 2011:
"Primarily because we’re a publicly funded Public Service Broadcaster with a responsibility towards Norwegian culture; a responsibility for covering things important to the inhabitants of a small country, a country that in spite of, or perhaps because of our significant oil wealth has a vulnerable culture. And programmes like this aren’t economically feasible for a commercial channel; to a large amount of the public it probably seems completely useless, but to some of our viewers it can have a very high value, be something they wouldn’t get in any other way, and in twenty or two hundred years, it will be a strange document of life at the edge of civilisation from a different time."
Also, there’s the NRKbeta Doctrine, stating: "The only way to control your content is to be the best provider of it."
EXPERIENCES SO FAR. Indeed, ample evidence suggests that nrkbeta and cocreators have done it again. Provided many with a triggering enduring experience. Because this is not merely about clock-time, it is about enduring time minute by minute. It encompasses both the subjective and intersubjective experiencing of something both locals and spectators may easily relate to, like hurtigruten.
Despite nrkbeta's relatively modest reasoning about it above, #hurtigruten in realtime and on TV, cell phone and twitter etc. has become a huge event and a success already in many ways including gaining hundreds of waving families and engaged or disengaged citizens along the coast and thousands (or sometimes millions) of participating viewers. In many ways, the current journey has become an umbrella and magnet for many kinds of encounters and performances. People are active with their experiencing including often their second screens whether it is a normal mobile, smart phone, iPad or lap top, camera etc. Several twitter reports have pinpointed that even shares in hurtigruten's shipping companies have gone up as well.
Just a wild thought: Maybe some of the key share owners could perhaps consider to give something back, for instance, to the further creative work in some ways?
CONTINUED ACCESS. The live stream is available at nrk.no/hurtigruten from Thursday June 16th 2011 until the ship lands in Kirkenes Wednesday June 22nd. Info on how to download etc. can be found there as well. You can reuse but need to acknowledge the cocreators and rights.
Content licensed under Creative Commons Source: NRKbeta.no http://nrkbeta.no/2011/06/16/hurtigruten-eng/ Norsk versjon av artikkel [...]
http://nrkbeta.no/2011/06/16/hurtigruten/
BACKGROUND. Hurtigruten, the Norwegian Express Line, has for well over 100 years been the backbone of coastal Norway, bringing people and goods up and down the weatherbeaten west coast towards the north of Norway. It has struggled to survive and be prosperous in a mixed economy of private and public support and investments.
COASTAL CULTURE. More than a pure enterprise it is no doubt about a broad interaction and transportation of people and things, in fact, even dead bodies. Hurtigruten thus encompasses both daily and extraordinary transportations, as well as people experiencing nature and how to cope with it in the living coastal cultures. This TV, realworld and social media event uncovers through creative use of multimedia the encounters and experienced beauty of a number of scattered places, regions, inhabitants and families, locals and visitors to Norway's coast.
FLEET. Currently, a fleet of 11 ships service 34 ports from Bergen to Kirkenes, covering a distance comparable to the distance Oslo – Tunisia. Daily, and all year round.
WHY. Why this TV marathon from a coastal sea cruise, although among the most beautiful ones? Why are they - over in nrkbeta - doing this? It has been prepared for some months (*cf. e.g., invitation to an open-source ideation in January 2011, maybe more info to be checked here later). The idea emerged after the minute by minute 7 hours realtime show on TV, nrk2, of the railway experience from Bergen to Oslo, which achieved a lot of media attention and many viewers. But why doing more of this?According to nrkbeta's website, an article by ANDERS HOFSETH, dated 16. June, 2011:
"Primarily because we’re a publicly funded Public Service Broadcaster with a responsibility towards Norwegian culture; a responsibility for covering things important to the inhabitants of a small country, a country that in spite of, or perhaps because of our significant oil wealth has a vulnerable culture. And programmes like this aren’t economically feasible for a commercial channel; to a large amount of the public it probably seems completely useless, but to some of our viewers it can have a very high value, be something they wouldn’t get in any other way, and in twenty or two hundred years, it will be a strange document of life at the edge of civilisation from a different time."
Also, there’s the NRKbeta Doctrine, stating: "The only way to control your content is to be the best provider of it."
EXPERIENCES SO FAR. Indeed, ample evidence suggests that nrkbeta and cocreators have done it again. Provided many with a triggering enduring experience. Because this is not merely about clock-time, it is about enduring time minute by minute. It encompasses both the subjective and intersubjective experiencing of something both locals and spectators may easily relate to, like hurtigruten.
Despite nrkbeta's relatively modest reasoning about it above, #hurtigruten in realtime and on TV, cell phone and twitter etc. has become a huge event and a success already in many ways including gaining hundreds of waving families and engaged or disengaged citizens along the coast and thousands (or sometimes millions) of participating viewers. In many ways, the current journey has become an umbrella and magnet for many kinds of encounters and performances. People are active with their experiencing including often their second screens whether it is a normal mobile, smart phone, iPad or lap top, camera etc. Several twitter reports have pinpointed that even shares in hurtigruten's shipping companies have gone up as well.
Just a wild thought: Maybe some of the key share owners could perhaps consider to give something back, for instance, to the further creative work in some ways?
CONTINUED ACCESS. The live stream is available at nrk.no/hurtigruten from Thursday June 16th 2011 until the ship lands in Kirkenes Wednesday June 22nd. Info on how to download etc. can be found there as well. You can reuse but need to acknowledge the cocreators and rights.
Content licensed under Creative Commons Source: NRKbeta.no http://nrkbeta.no/2011/06/16/hurtigruten-eng/ Norsk versjon av artikkel [...]
http://nrkbeta.no/2011/06/16/hurtigruten/
Sunday, October 24, 2010
Live Opera in cinema / Boris Godunov
LIVE OPERA IN CINEMA. Interestingly, live operas from some of the top opera houses such as The Metropolitan (the Met) are now sometimes available in a cinema theatre "near you", here in Oslo. The Met, established in 1883, now regularly transmits a number of their performances to other regions via a HD service thanks to certain sponsors. The calendar is available on the link here..
The Met's BORIS GODUNOV. Yesterday (23.10.10), I saw an excellent performance of Modest Musorgskij's opera Boris Godunov . It was broadcasted from the Met in New York to Oslo cinemas Ringen and Gimle. With a reputation for such cultural events, Gimle was sold out but Ringen could take more people. (In fact, all opera performances scheduled currently at Gimle seem easily sold out, at least it was when I booked my tickets for Boris Godunov on 25 September (for 300 NOK per ticket), whereas Ringen, a larger theatre East in Oslo still had vacant seats). Anyway, quite a large group of people still came to see and listen to this particular live opera performance also at Ringen, as did many people in other local theatres elsewhere, I presume. It was a great experience, because the singing and music by great artists and excellent performers were also dramatized with unifying aesthetic and ethical content, form and deeper meaning.
Here is a video from the initial work by Peter Stein (who later left but the work was continued by Stephen Wadsworth, see cast and production details below).
BORIS GODUNOV is a Russian epic opera - partly realistic in its drawing on Russian history and partly drawing on classical/experimental as well as folk music sources. Both music and libretto was written by Modest Musorgskij, or in English Mussorgsky (1839-1881). It is worth noting that he was inspired by Aleksandr Pusjkin's novel with the same name Boris Godunov (from 1830, though not allowed shown before 1870). Also much of Musorgskij's music were met with skepticism. It was not before his friend Rimskij-Korsakov rearranged the opera into a shorter piece and it later became performed with the brilliant singer Feodor Ivanovich Chaliapin it became an international success. Later, the full complexities of Musorgskij's Boris have been rediscovered, one might say. The new Met version was, to our luck, performed with a mix of the first and second version of Musorgskij's original opera.
THE STORY in brief is zooming in on the ascendance of a new zar (tsar) and his relationship with the people or Russia at large. Boris Godunov, a bojar - who may have come to power by plotting or ordering the killing of Dimitri, the son of the former zar - has increasing doubts about his own role. Musorgskij shows us what this possibly criminal background does to the zar (he becomes haunted by a strange foreboding) and it influences his ethical relationship with the Russian people. He delivers out bread in the hope that people will forget the rumours. The people is however no unified heroic entity but rather expressed in nuanced and subtle ways by the choir as well as some noteworthy figures, for example, a couple of wandering monks (a new kind of character not common in operas at the time). In addition, the opera has a symbolic character, a fool, that tells the truth to the emperor.
THE PLOT. The opera shows the increasing self-doubts of the tsar on an enlarged background of hunger, mistrust, continued oppression of the people by the rich bojars (members of the highest ranks of the aristocracies), and political rivalry and plotting in and around Russia. This includes the false Dimitri, the Pretender, who is actually Grigorij, a former monk novice who hears about the previous political/criminal plot from his teacher, a chronicle writing old monk, Pimen. However, the young Grigorij - of the same age as would be the former tsar's son Dimitri - no more wants to become a humble monk continuing the chronicle writing. Very effectively, the book lies open on the stage floor throughout the opera and in some passages the key actors are literally in or playing on the book pages. Gregorij who reads the chronicle about the child killing, becomes filled with thoughts that he is the same age as Dimitri. Rather than justice or chronicle-writing, he wants to seize the throne for himself. When rumours begin to build up about this renegade "Dimitri", he escapes over the border to Lithunia. Later, pretending to be the next tsar, he engages in a loving relationship with Marina, a princess of Poland, who has her own ambitions for the Russian zarina throne and also is under influence of a Jesuit priest with ambitions for Russia - on behalf of the Roman-Catholic church.
It can be noted that this politically embedded love affair and Polish part of the opera was not in Musorgskij's imagination originally, it was actually inscribed into the opera by suggestion from Musorgskij's friend Rimskij-Korsakov. This latter composer also later made other, shorter versions of Musorgskij's Boris Godunov.
TOP TALENTS. Many top talents are listed in the Met's new compelling long version of Boris Godunov, among these are many excellent Russian singers such as Ekaterina Semenchuk and the German Rene Pape. The opera is sung in Russian, which is a challenge for non-Russians, of course. Rene Pape told the audience in an interview during one of the two breaks that he was "adopted" by all the Russian singers who each and all helped him express the words rightly. The conductor of this new performance is not to forget the highly creative Valery Gergiev from Maryinsky Theater in St. Petersburg, home to the Kirov Opera and Ballet. Gergiev is also connected creatively to the Met as this opera shows.
CAST
Conductor: Valery Gergiev
Marina: Ekaterina Semenchuk
Dimitri: Aleksandrs Antonenko
Shuisky: Oleg Balashov
Rangoni: Evgeny Nikitin
Boris Godunov: René Pape
Pimen: Mikhail Petrenko
Varlaam: Vladimir Ognovenko
THE PRODUCTION TEAM
Production: Stephen Wadsworth
Set Designer: Ferdinand Wögerbauer
Costume Designer: Moidele Bickel
Lighting Designer: Duane Schuler
Choreographer: Apostolia Tsolaki
OWN BRIEF REFLECTIONS ON PARTS OF THE MET PERFORMANCE. There is much to reflect upon in this magic opera. The music and epic story are accumulating into a unifying experience in its deeper-ethical layers and original complex music style as Mussorgsky had it composed. The scene shifts are however done swiftly, without much disturbance in this "new" Boris Godunov, and the costumes are traditionally rich, even against a background on a relatively stripped down modern stage design, which may help us focus on the main drama rather than exotic detailing. We still sense the fundamental consequences of human actions and the evolving gaps between the power elites and the people. Although a relatively clean or simple, stripped down stage can help focus on the inner tensions and outer troubling times, I am not sure whether we actually hear the bells or clocks of the cathedral in the death scene. A few destiny-ringing bells or some other suggestive sounds might perhaps have helped our imagination regarding the sounds of ghosts that Boris seems to hear. But the personal drama of Boris in Rene Pape's physical gestalting comes forward clear enough any way - whether the bells actually toll or not.
If I shall dare to point to something more suffusing that could be improved, it is one aspect that comes to my mind. In Yesterday's performance, I found the Dimitri character perhaps the most "weak" one ("weak" in relative terms because they are all high-performers in terms of singing!). Nonetheless, the dramatic acting of this and a few other key roles (also prince Shuisky) could be somewhat improved, e.g., the novice monk part by the Dimitri character was not so credible. For example, he did not seem to have been spending his time in a cell as a novice with the old monk Pimen, nor did he act particularly well as a thirsty wannabe ruler. He was more credible as a man longing for love though. As to the Polish acts, however, I really enjoyed the highly seductive song and tight interplay of Marina and the Jesuit priest Rangoni, both ridden by power ambitions and sexual undertones in a credible and memorable way.
Most moving for me was, nonetheless, the whole complex of music going on and on including the expressive singing and excellent acting of the self-doubting Boris (performed by Rene Pape), such as his dying act with his children present and also the various symbolic scenes with the fool.
The last Kromy scene in the woods - when people take violently revenge over bojars and their soldiers and a woman in vain try to stop the mob's cruelties and is slaughtered while finally the fool expresses all the sorrows - shows that this scene was not meant as a simplified "revolutionary" or heroic tale of the people, it rather shows a mob seduced - in-between rival oppressors.
MORE ON THE MUSIC BACKGROUND. How could Musorgskij at a relatively young age come up with this moving, complex music? His opera Boris Godunov was first allowed to be performed in 1874 (and Musorgskij died already in 1881, at age 42). The work was composed between 1868 and 1873 in Saint Petersburg. It is Mussorgsky's only completed opera and is considered his masterpiece.
Some enabling aspects may be his own dedicated creating and his particular teacher in a creative milieu with a handful of composing friends. As far as I have read, Musorgskij did not travel much but devoted himself to music composition (and alcohol), perhaps not surprising because his family went bankrupt and he also met much skepticism among his music contemporaries. See for example, Andras Batta (2001) Opera, p. 404.
Musorgskij's TEACHER. Although taking piano lessons from his early boyhood, Musorgskij had no full classical education. However, he was regarded as an eminent pianist, and eventually (from 1857), he started to study composition with his friend Mily Balakhirev (or Balakirev), who is regarded as the founder of the Five, a handful of composers, and its new Russian music school.
According to a Wikipedia article, I found this passage (courtesy to Wikipedia, link here):
In conjunction with critic and fellow nationalist Vladimir Stasov, in the late-1850s and early 1860s Balakirev brought together the composers now known as The Five—the others were Alexander Borodin, César Cui, Modest Mussorgsky and Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. For several years, Balakirev was the only professional musician of the group; the others were amateurs limited in musical education but possessing enormous potential. He imparted to them his musical beliefs, which continued to underlie their thinking long after he left the group in 1871, and encouraged their compositional efforts. While his methods could be dictatorial, the results of his influence were several works which established these composers' reputations individually and as a group. He performed a similar function for Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky at two points in the latter's career—in 1868-9 with the fantasy-overture Romeo and Juliet and in 1882-5 with the Manfred Symphony.
As a composer, Balakirev finished major works many years after he had started them; he began his First Symphony in 1864 but completed it in 1897. The exception to this was his oriental fantasy Islamey for solo piano, which he composed quickly and remains popular among virtuosos. Often, the musical ideas normally associated with Rimsky-Korsakov or Borodin originated in Balakirev's compositions, which Balakirev played at informal gatherings of The Five. However, his slowness in completing works for the public robbed him of credit for his inventiveness, and pieces that would have enjoyed success had they been completed in the 1860s and 70s made a much smaller impact.
COMPLEX CREATIONS. According to several sources, Boris Godunov, among major operas, shares with Giuseppe Verdi's Don Carlos (1867) the distinction of having a complex creative history and the greatest wealth of alternative material. The composer created two versions—the Original Version of 1869, which was rejected for production by the Imperial Theatres, and the Revised Version of 1872, which received its first performance in 1874 in Saint Petersburg, according to Wikipedia. These versions constitute two distinct conceptions, not two variations of a single plan. It is noteworthy that the Met version seeks back to much of the original version while also including scenes from the second one. Thus, it became an approximately 4,5 hours opera but I really enjoyed also the length - of a magic evening. Many seems to agree with this rich experience of "original Boris".
The Met's BORIS GODUNOV. Yesterday (23.10.10), I saw an excellent performance of Modest Musorgskij's opera Boris Godunov . It was broadcasted from the Met in New York to Oslo cinemas Ringen and Gimle. With a reputation for such cultural events, Gimle was sold out but Ringen could take more people. (In fact, all opera performances scheduled currently at Gimle seem easily sold out, at least it was when I booked my tickets for Boris Godunov on 25 September (for 300 NOK per ticket), whereas Ringen, a larger theatre East in Oslo still had vacant seats). Anyway, quite a large group of people still came to see and listen to this particular live opera performance also at Ringen, as did many people in other local theatres elsewhere, I presume. It was a great experience, because the singing and music by great artists and excellent performers were also dramatized with unifying aesthetic and ethical content, form and deeper meaning.
Here is a video from the initial work by Peter Stein (who later left but the work was continued by Stephen Wadsworth, see cast and production details below).
BORIS GODUNOV is a Russian epic opera - partly realistic in its drawing on Russian history and partly drawing on classical/experimental as well as folk music sources. Both music and libretto was written by Modest Musorgskij, or in English Mussorgsky (1839-1881). It is worth noting that he was inspired by Aleksandr Pusjkin's novel with the same name Boris Godunov (from 1830, though not allowed shown before 1870). Also much of Musorgskij's music were met with skepticism. It was not before his friend Rimskij-Korsakov rearranged the opera into a shorter piece and it later became performed with the brilliant singer Feodor Ivanovich Chaliapin it became an international success. Later, the full complexities of Musorgskij's Boris have been rediscovered, one might say. The new Met version was, to our luck, performed with a mix of the first and second version of Musorgskij's original opera.
THE STORY in brief is zooming in on the ascendance of a new zar (tsar) and his relationship with the people or Russia at large. Boris Godunov, a bojar - who may have come to power by plotting or ordering the killing of Dimitri, the son of the former zar - has increasing doubts about his own role. Musorgskij shows us what this possibly criminal background does to the zar (he becomes haunted by a strange foreboding) and it influences his ethical relationship with the Russian people. He delivers out bread in the hope that people will forget the rumours. The people is however no unified heroic entity but rather expressed in nuanced and subtle ways by the choir as well as some noteworthy figures, for example, a couple of wandering monks (a new kind of character not common in operas at the time). In addition, the opera has a symbolic character, a fool, that tells the truth to the emperor.
THE PLOT. The opera shows the increasing self-doubts of the tsar on an enlarged background of hunger, mistrust, continued oppression of the people by the rich bojars (members of the highest ranks of the aristocracies), and political rivalry and plotting in and around Russia. This includes the false Dimitri, the Pretender, who is actually Grigorij, a former monk novice who hears about the previous political/criminal plot from his teacher, a chronicle writing old monk, Pimen. However, the young Grigorij - of the same age as would be the former tsar's son Dimitri - no more wants to become a humble monk continuing the chronicle writing. Very effectively, the book lies open on the stage floor throughout the opera and in some passages the key actors are literally in or playing on the book pages. Gregorij who reads the chronicle about the child killing, becomes filled with thoughts that he is the same age as Dimitri. Rather than justice or chronicle-writing, he wants to seize the throne for himself. When rumours begin to build up about this renegade "Dimitri", he escapes over the border to Lithunia. Later, pretending to be the next tsar, he engages in a loving relationship with Marina, a princess of Poland, who has her own ambitions for the Russian zarina throne and also is under influence of a Jesuit priest with ambitions for Russia - on behalf of the Roman-Catholic church.
It can be noted that this politically embedded love affair and Polish part of the opera was not in Musorgskij's imagination originally, it was actually inscribed into the opera by suggestion from Musorgskij's friend Rimskij-Korsakov. This latter composer also later made other, shorter versions of Musorgskij's Boris Godunov.
TOP TALENTS. Many top talents are listed in the Met's new compelling long version of Boris Godunov, among these are many excellent Russian singers such as Ekaterina Semenchuk and the German Rene Pape. The opera is sung in Russian, which is a challenge for non-Russians, of course. Rene Pape told the audience in an interview during one of the two breaks that he was "adopted" by all the Russian singers who each and all helped him express the words rightly. The conductor of this new performance is not to forget the highly creative Valery Gergiev from Maryinsky Theater in St. Petersburg, home to the Kirov Opera and Ballet. Gergiev is also connected creatively to the Met as this opera shows.
CAST
Conductor: Valery Gergiev
Marina: Ekaterina Semenchuk
Dimitri: Aleksandrs Antonenko
Shuisky: Oleg Balashov
Rangoni: Evgeny Nikitin
Boris Godunov: René Pape
Pimen: Mikhail Petrenko
Varlaam: Vladimir Ognovenko
THE PRODUCTION TEAM
Production: Stephen Wadsworth
Set Designer: Ferdinand Wögerbauer
Costume Designer: Moidele Bickel
Lighting Designer: Duane Schuler
Choreographer: Apostolia Tsolaki
OWN BRIEF REFLECTIONS ON PARTS OF THE MET PERFORMANCE. There is much to reflect upon in this magic opera. The music and epic story are accumulating into a unifying experience in its deeper-ethical layers and original complex music style as Mussorgsky had it composed. The scene shifts are however done swiftly, without much disturbance in this "new" Boris Godunov, and the costumes are traditionally rich, even against a background on a relatively stripped down modern stage design, which may help us focus on the main drama rather than exotic detailing. We still sense the fundamental consequences of human actions and the evolving gaps between the power elites and the people. Although a relatively clean or simple, stripped down stage can help focus on the inner tensions and outer troubling times, I am not sure whether we actually hear the bells or clocks of the cathedral in the death scene. A few destiny-ringing bells or some other suggestive sounds might perhaps have helped our imagination regarding the sounds of ghosts that Boris seems to hear. But the personal drama of Boris in Rene Pape's physical gestalting comes forward clear enough any way - whether the bells actually toll or not.
If I shall dare to point to something more suffusing that could be improved, it is one aspect that comes to my mind. In Yesterday's performance, I found the Dimitri character perhaps the most "weak" one ("weak" in relative terms because they are all high-performers in terms of singing!). Nonetheless, the dramatic acting of this and a few other key roles (also prince Shuisky) could be somewhat improved, e.g., the novice monk part by the Dimitri character was not so credible. For example, he did not seem to have been spending his time in a cell as a novice with the old monk Pimen, nor did he act particularly well as a thirsty wannabe ruler. He was more credible as a man longing for love though. As to the Polish acts, however, I really enjoyed the highly seductive song and tight interplay of Marina and the Jesuit priest Rangoni, both ridden by power ambitions and sexual undertones in a credible and memorable way.
Most moving for me was, nonetheless, the whole complex of music going on and on including the expressive singing and excellent acting of the self-doubting Boris (performed by Rene Pape), such as his dying act with his children present and also the various symbolic scenes with the fool.
The last Kromy scene in the woods - when people take violently revenge over bojars and their soldiers and a woman in vain try to stop the mob's cruelties and is slaughtered while finally the fool expresses all the sorrows - shows that this scene was not meant as a simplified "revolutionary" or heroic tale of the people, it rather shows a mob seduced - in-between rival oppressors.
MORE ON THE MUSIC BACKGROUND. How could Musorgskij at a relatively young age come up with this moving, complex music? His opera Boris Godunov was first allowed to be performed in 1874 (and Musorgskij died already in 1881, at age 42). The work was composed between 1868 and 1873 in Saint Petersburg. It is Mussorgsky's only completed opera and is considered his masterpiece.
Some enabling aspects may be his own dedicated creating and his particular teacher in a creative milieu with a handful of composing friends. As far as I have read, Musorgskij did not travel much but devoted himself to music composition (and alcohol), perhaps not surprising because his family went bankrupt and he also met much skepticism among his music contemporaries. See for example, Andras Batta (2001) Opera, p. 404.
Musorgskij's TEACHER. Although taking piano lessons from his early boyhood, Musorgskij had no full classical education. However, he was regarded as an eminent pianist, and eventually (from 1857), he started to study composition with his friend Mily Balakhirev (or Balakirev), who is regarded as the founder of the Five, a handful of composers, and its new Russian music school.
According to a Wikipedia article, I found this passage (courtesy to Wikipedia, link here):
In conjunction with critic and fellow nationalist Vladimir Stasov, in the late-1850s and early 1860s Balakirev brought together the composers now known as The Five—the others were Alexander Borodin, César Cui, Modest Mussorgsky and Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. For several years, Balakirev was the only professional musician of the group; the others were amateurs limited in musical education but possessing enormous potential. He imparted to them his musical beliefs, which continued to underlie their thinking long after he left the group in 1871, and encouraged their compositional efforts. While his methods could be dictatorial, the results of his influence were several works which established these composers' reputations individually and as a group. He performed a similar function for Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky at two points in the latter's career—in 1868-9 with the fantasy-overture Romeo and Juliet and in 1882-5 with the Manfred Symphony.
As a composer, Balakirev finished major works many years after he had started them; he began his First Symphony in 1864 but completed it in 1897. The exception to this was his oriental fantasy Islamey for solo piano, which he composed quickly and remains popular among virtuosos. Often, the musical ideas normally associated with Rimsky-Korsakov or Borodin originated in Balakirev's compositions, which Balakirev played at informal gatherings of The Five. However, his slowness in completing works for the public robbed him of credit for his inventiveness, and pieces that would have enjoyed success had they been completed in the 1860s and 70s made a much smaller impact.
COMPLEX CREATIONS. According to several sources, Boris Godunov, among major operas, shares with Giuseppe Verdi's Don Carlos (1867) the distinction of having a complex creative history and the greatest wealth of alternative material. The composer created two versions—the Original Version of 1869, which was rejected for production by the Imperial Theatres, and the Revised Version of 1872, which received its first performance in 1874 in Saint Petersburg, according to Wikipedia. These versions constitute two distinct conceptions, not two variations of a single plan. It is noteworthy that the Met version seeks back to much of the original version while also including scenes from the second one. Thus, it became an approximately 4,5 hours opera but I really enjoyed also the length - of a magic evening. Many seems to agree with this rich experience of "original Boris".
Sunday, June 13, 2010
a 5,500-year-old leather shoe found 2010
Courtesy for photo and text: Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Areni-1_shoe
The oldest piece of leather footwear in the world
FOUND IN CAVE BY POST-GRAD STUDENT. The Areni-1 shoe is a 5,500-year-old leather shoe found in good shape in 2010. It was found in the "Areni-1" cave located in the Vayots Dzor province of Armenia. According to Wikipedia, the shoe was discovered by Diana Zardaryan, an Armenian post-graduate student, in the course of excavations by a team of archeologists of Armenia’s Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography as well as from Ireland and the United States.
The team's findings were published on June 9, 2010 in the journal PLoS ONE. Interestingly, this is an open access online scientific journal. See their article "First Direct Evidence of Chalcolithic Footwear from the Near Eastern Highlands" here
Plos ONE Output
In 2006 the journal was launched in beta version and published 138 articles; in 2007 it published just over 1,200 articles; and in 2008 it published almost 2,800 articles, making it the largest open access journal in the world. This was also the year when the journal started to publish on a daily basis. In 2009, 4,406 articles were published, making PLoS ONE the third largest scientific journal in the world (by volume), tells Wikipedia. See here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PLoS_ONE
Interesting! I learned all this navigating from an old shoe rediscovery!
Sunday, May 16, 2010
Relevance: Will Diaspora need to SCALE to "hundreds of millions"?
Today I posted this comment following up Jonathan Higgins comment regarding Diaspora (see a recent post for intro):
Will Diaspora or other alternative distributed friendsfeeds solutions need to SCALE to "hundreds of millions" to be relevant? Good Q Jonathan!
On the one hand, I guess perhaps not (though I do not know the technical details).
Because I guess socially, Friendsfeeds can still become very relevant IF it can attract many cliques of friends and thus gain some critical mass also among smaller networks of friends. If it becomes popular, the new practices can then become endemic spreading further.
On the other hand, "users" have actually got new habits through FB and its huge scaling. Some might enjoy to continue friendsfeeding and group connecting through the possibilities of a huge mass social medium. While others may rather wish to move on to more free and "true" friendfeed networks. Thus it might differ among us where and how we may wish to continue. This is only some preliminary thoughts... wish to learn more!
Posted on the website ReadWriteStart by: Birgit | May 16, 2010 3:13 AM
Friday, May 29, 2009
Wave is here! New conversational beta email
How would a new email or digital conversational tool look like if we could start anew?
Wave is here from Yesterday 28 May 2009, as beta /Google wave.
Congrats, exciting news.
See an exclusive probably first interview here with the founding team incl two Danes Brothers Lars and Jens Rasmussen and Stephanie Hannon (the two brothers are serial innovators, see the originating of what became Google maps elsewhere):
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Languages, School Books+Net, daring new combinations
Again there is a problem of managing to get books ready for school start up. Why can't texts be published on the internet in combination with books on paper? I know it can be done, cf. Zoom, a new project I just read about in a newspaper: http://www.aftenposten.no/kul_und/article2594648.ece
In Norway we have 2-3 languages but two are the official ones every pupil has to learn. It takes time to translate a whole book in "bookish" Norwegian into socalled New Norwegian. (New norwegian is actually the most original one constructed from various dialects and would enrich the books I guess).
Why can't we have a mix of language texts in the same book, that is, some written in the one and some written in the other of the two different Norwegian languages - and why not also pockets of Swedish and Danish texts as well to get familiar with other closely related Scandinavian languages in the same book? The newspaper Bergens Tidende does have a practice of mixing the same issue with articles in either of the two Norwegian languages, they have had it for years without any protest as far as I know. Since this newspaper is a regional one on the Western coast, the Oslo people have perhaps not noticed this good mixture?
Saturday, February 2, 2008
Say it, show it, web it Polytechnic society, Oslo
MONDAY POLYTECHNIC AFTERNOON 28 January, 17.00-19.00.
Klubben in Håndverkeren, Rosenkrantzgate 7 - a discussion club for Norway's Polytechnic Society - was packed with people, invited by the ICT group and the Culture and Media group of this Society.
On the agenda: a panel of new media highly experienced persons discussing trends and challenges for multimedia editorial offices when facing "one medium traditions."
Polytechnic Society's ICT group leader Espen Andersen (an assoc prof at BI Norwegian School of Management) first introduced the afternoon's topic - Si;D, Vis;D, Web;D - by pinpointing that we will "all be working in several media" and adding to the audience of journalists and other media interested people; "I think you will all become net journalists."
Espen then outlined some key differences of writing for net-based media and paper-based newspapers and journals, e.g. in terms of a daily writing in more frequent and modular ways etc.
He then delineated three trends in this transition towards more netbased practices and I'll try to summarize according to my own quick notes:
1. Putting together different ways, information becomes lego pieces.
2. Starting to link into the text, also f.ex. links to competitors if interesting for the reader (even to another local newspaper).
3. Using alternative interfaces, for example, the perception of a main entrance into a site will be challenged because most people now tend to use search engines thus entering into the site through a multitude of ways.
See more thoughts from Espen Andersen here: http://www.espen.com/
Later, when editing this... I see his introduction as well as the whole panel discussion are video-recorded and thus available via his blog. So I just mention who participated.
The panelists were the following:
Torry Pedersen, responsible editor, VG nett
Petter Merok, Microsoft's local technology director.
Eirik Newth, author and independent blogger
Eirik Solheim, media developer and project manager at NRK.
I just like to mention that Solheim organized his talk around three points; Quality, Social interaction ("Alt dette sosiale"), and "NRK before and now." Eirik pinpointed that "for the first time in history, people are sitting at home producing with better quality than we can in NRK." Furthermore, Eirik Solheim and also Erik Newth referred to the great potentiality of opening up NRK's archives.
See more on Eirik's activities and experiences from http://eirikso.com/
--------------------
Own reflection: By the way, I just bought a collection of DVD's "100 år med historie (hundred years with history) 1900-1999," a documentary edited by Gary Tarpinian based on archives material from both BBC and Pathe. I've explored one of the DVD's, 1940-1949, as a way to learn key events in history together with my 18 year old son. We both agreed it was useful ...but we also need to remember the material from the 2nd WW is coloured by one side, as my son said.)
Anyway, I really hope NRK will explore this potentiality of its rich archives without not necessarily merely "selling DVDs" but indeed consider opening up its archives at least to some extent for free.
Why? There seems to be a need for differentiating and recreating what a publicly organized and funded national broadcasting media house can and should offer. This may be a good opportunity to contributing to this nation's culture and learning processes.
Klubben in Håndverkeren, Rosenkrantzgate 7 - a discussion club for Norway's Polytechnic Society - was packed with people, invited by the ICT group and the Culture and Media group of this Society.
On the agenda: a panel of new media highly experienced persons discussing trends and challenges for multimedia editorial offices when facing "one medium traditions."
Polytechnic Society's ICT group leader Espen Andersen (an assoc prof at BI Norwegian School of Management) first introduced the afternoon's topic - Si;D, Vis;D, Web;D - by pinpointing that we will "all be working in several media" and adding to the audience of journalists and other media interested people; "I think you will all become net journalists."
Espen then outlined some key differences of writing for net-based media and paper-based newspapers and journals, e.g. in terms of a daily writing in more frequent and modular ways etc.
He then delineated three trends in this transition towards more netbased practices and I'll try to summarize according to my own quick notes:
1. Putting together different ways, information becomes lego pieces.
2. Starting to link into the text, also f.ex. links to competitors if interesting for the reader (even to another local newspaper).
3. Using alternative interfaces, for example, the perception of a main entrance into a site will be challenged because most people now tend to use search engines thus entering into the site through a multitude of ways.
See more thoughts from Espen Andersen here: http://www.espen.com/
Later, when editing this... I see his introduction as well as the whole panel discussion are video-recorded and thus available via his blog. So I just mention who participated.
The panelists were the following:
Torry Pedersen, responsible editor, VG nett
Petter Merok, Microsoft's local technology director.
Eirik Newth, author and independent blogger
Eirik Solheim, media developer and project manager at NRK.
I just like to mention that Solheim organized his talk around three points; Quality, Social interaction ("Alt dette sosiale"), and "NRK before and now." Eirik pinpointed that "for the first time in history, people are sitting at home producing with better quality than we can in NRK." Furthermore, Eirik Solheim and also Erik Newth referred to the great potentiality of opening up NRK's archives.
See more on Eirik's activities and experiences from http://eirikso.com/
--------------------
Own reflection: By the way, I just bought a collection of DVD's "100 år med historie (hundred years with history) 1900-1999," a documentary edited by Gary Tarpinian based on archives material from both BBC and Pathe. I've explored one of the DVD's, 1940-1949, as a way to learn key events in history together with my 18 year old son. We both agreed it was useful ...but we also need to remember the material from the 2nd WW is coloured by one side, as my son said.)
Anyway, I really hope NRK will explore this potentiality of its rich archives without not necessarily merely "selling DVDs" but indeed consider opening up its archives at least to some extent for free.
Why? There seems to be a need for differentiating and recreating what a publicly organized and funded national broadcasting media house can and should offer. This may be a good opportunity to contributing to this nation's culture and learning processes.
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