Emmanuel Pahud Performs Mozart's Magic Flute Fantasy

Last night's Utah Symphony concert marked the return of Maestro Thierry Fischer to the podium and it was a wonderful and varied evening of music!  The orchestra began with Symphony No. 12 by Joseph Haydn.  It was performed with a smaller chamber group standing up and I really enjoyed it, especially the woodwinds in the first movement, the somber mood in the second movement, and the burst of energy from the strings in the third movement.  After this came Lyric Suite by Alban Berg.  This piece was inspired by Berg's intense infatuation with Hanna Fuchs-Robbetin.  In an attempt to keep the affair a secret from his wife and her husband, Berg included many secret codes and messages dedicated to her within the music.  It is very expressive and emotional with the first three movements getting progressively faster and the last three getting slower to depict the timeline of a forbidden affair that begins with passion and then ends in despair.  Next the orchestra was joined by the 2022-2023 Artist-in-Association Emmanuel Pahud as the soloist for Magic Flute Fantasy, an arrangement of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's opera The Magic Flute by Robert Fobbes.  This was very lively and playful and Pahud performed it beautifully with a bright and clear sound.  Fischer also got in on the action by playing the pan-flute to the delight of the audience!  After the intermission, Pahud joined the orchestra once again for Concerto for Flute and Orchestra by Carl Nielsen.  This piece is also very playful and I particularly enjoyed the dialogues between the flute and other solo instruments (especially the clarinet and the timpani).  The concert concluded in dramatic fashion with Sinfonietta by Leos Janacek.  This piece is an ode to Czechoslovakia which begins and ends with patriotic fanfares by the brass (featuring 12 trumpets, 2 bass trumpets, 4 trombones, 4 horns, 2 Wagner tubas, and a tuba) and timpani.  It was absolutely epic!  I love ending the week at Abravanel Hall with the Utah Symphony and last night's concert was especially enjoyable!  Tickets for tonight's performance of the same program may be purchased here.

Living

The second movie in my double feature yesterday was Living.  I saw this virtually at Sundance last year and it was so lovely that I decided to see it on the big screen now that it is in wide release.  The always wonderful Bill Nighy is Rodney Williams, a paper-pushing bureaucrat at the ministry of public works in post-war London.  He is mild-mannered, set in his ways, and largely ineffective at his job.  When he receives a terminal diagnosis he chooses not to tell his son (Barney Fishwick) and daughter-in-law (Patsy Ferran) and, instead, withdraws a large sum of money and travels to Brighton where he hopes to live a little but doesn't know how.  He takes a dissolute writer (Tom Burke) that he meets by chance as his guide through the unseemly but this proves unsatisfactory.  Upon returning home he forms an unlikely friendship with a vivacious young woman (Aimee Lou Wood) from his office because he is attracted to her zest for living but this relationship becomes fodder for gossip.  Ultimately, he decides to use the time he has left to make a difference and returns to work to see a project long buried in paperwork to fruition which inspires a young colleague (Alex Sharp).  This is a very subtle character study of a man living with regret about the way in which he has lived his life and it might be too subdued for many but I was incredibly moved by it.  This is due, in large part, to the quietly powerful performance by Nighy (who is nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor).  He conveys more with just a minute change of expression than many other actors do with pages of dialogue, especially in a scene where he reacts to flashbacks from his life.  The production design, costumes (I love that a hat is used as a symbol of transformation), and washed out cinematography are brilliant because this actually looks like it could be a film from the 1950s, particularly the opening credits.  I really enjoyed this exquisite little gem and I highly recommend seeking it out.

Infinity Pool

I had a strange (thematically) double feature at the Broadway yesterday starting with Infinity Pool.  I recently saw this at Sundance but I decided to take another dip because I was really curious to see the differences in the theatrical release (also because I am a freak).  James Foster (Alexander Skarsgard) and his wife Em (Cleopatra Coleman) are vacationing at a luxurious resort located in a developing island country.  They are advised not to leave the compound because the island suffers from abject poverty and has a high crime rate with inhabitants who often target wealthy tourists.  However, fellow guests Gabi (Mia Goth) and Alban Bauer (Jalil Lespert) convince them to leave the resort with them in a hired car for a day at a secluded beach.  On the way back to the resort James accidentally hits and kills a local resident with the car.  He is eventually arrested and, according to custom, the victim's next of kin is allowed to kill him for the sake of the family's honor but there is an alternative, offered to tourists and diplomats, which allows him to avoid the execution for an exorbitant fee.  This alternative is reprehensible but he takes it and soon learns that many of the other guests at the resort, including Gabi and Alban, have had the same experience and return to the resort year after year for the freedom it allows them.  James is titillated by what he has done and is soon drawn into the violent and hedonistic exploits of his fellow guests because there are no longer any consequences for his actions.  Even with several scenes edited from the version I saw at Sundance (yes that scene), this is incredibly shocking and disturbing with some really trippy cinematography but it has a lot of interesting things to say about both privilege and morality and I found it very compelling.  Both Skarsgard and Goth, who is completely unhinged in the best possible way, give fully committed performances and you simply cannot look away from them but there is such a feeling of escalating dread, even upon a second viewing, that I often wanted to.  This definitely won't be for everyone but I loved it and recommend it to fans of Brandon Cronenberg.

Jazz vs. Raptors

My friend Angela has a Utah Jazz ticket package this season and she very graciously let me choose several games to attend with her.  Of course I had to choose the Toronto Raptors game because I always love to hear "O Canada" performed!  I'm so glad that I chose this one because it was a really good game (with a great outcome) and I had so much fun with Angela (sometimes I think I talk to much to her when she is trying to watch the game).  The Jazz played really well and led the Raptors during the entire first half (Lauri Markkanen was fantastic and ended the game with 28 points and 13 rebounds).  But they let the Raptors catch up and the lead went back and forth multiple times during the third quarter.  The Jazz missed quite a few outside shots which was a little bit frustrating but then Jordan Clarkson (who was a bit inconsistent) made a really pretty three point jump shot which put the Jazz ahead 73-74 and another three point jump shot from Markkanen a few seconds later gave the Jazz the lead for good for the rest of the quarter.  The fourth quarter gave me a lot of anxiety because the Raptors took a 98-96 lead and then, once again, the lead went back and forth until Walker Kessler got a nice dunk to put the Jazz up 105-108.  The Jazz led by 6 in the final minute but the Raptors really tried (the last minute look at least 20 minutes to play but it was really exciting).  Free throws by Clarkson and Markkanen sealed the deal giving the Jazz the win 128-131.  The crowd was absolutely crazy during the final minutes and it was so fun!

I got to wear my new Clarkson jersey for the first time so I am glad that he won for me!  It is really funny because Angela and I both got Clarkson jerseys but the styles we chose are completely appropriate!

Missing

I am a fan of the screenlife genre of storytelling where most of the action takes place on computer or smartphone screens (such as Searching and Profile) so I have been looking forward to the latest installment Missing.  I finally had a chance to see it last night and I really enjoyed it.  June Allen (Storm Reid) is worried when her mother Grace (Nia Long) does not return home from a week-long trip to Colombia with her new boyfriend Kevin (Ken Leung).  She files a missing persons report with the FBI but encounters a lot of red tape so she decides to investigate herself by using all of the technology she has at her disposal and by hiring Javier (Joaquim de Almeida), a freelance worker based in Colombia.  She comes to suspect that Kevin is involved in her mother's disappearance when she discovers that he has a criminal record and a history of conning women but then she learns that her mother may not be who she says she is.  This was so much better than I was expecting because, even though it is a bit far-fetched, the central mystery had me on the edge of my seat with some twist and turns that I did not see coming.  The technology that is used has been upgraded in this movie (the footage from the home security cameras is especially unsettling and the use of live-streaming brings tension and immediacy to the narrative) and I liked having an eighteen-year-old as the protagonist because her navigation (and hacking) of all of the different apps and programs feels very organic.  I also liked the relationship between a rebellious daughter and an overprotective mother because it raises the emotional stakes and also informs what happens later on.  The performances, pacing, and editing are outstanding because they kept me engaged during the entire runtime.  This is another movie that is better than what we usually get in January and I recommend it.

Note:  I am now going to change all of my passwords and disable the camera on my laptop!