gardening note: some Liatris I didn't know

My new Garden Spots page is growing nicely, and it's even looking lush already. I decided to include local commercial nurseries and garden centers, and I also added the US Department of Agriculture's PLANTS Database. This I just found when I did a web search for dwarf blazing star or gayfeather, Liatris microcephala, a native of the southern Appalachians which I found while shopping for the more familiar Liatris spicata at Sun Nurseries this weekend. Liatris is a genus of native perennials, and I particularly like the way L. spicata attracts American goldfinches when its flower fronds go to seed later in the season. My condominium let me introduce a specimen of the purple or lilac Kobold* variety in a sunny parking lot island, which we're cultivating with meadow flowers after losing a tree there. I also sneaked in some blue-eyed grass, the miniature native Iris cousin with brilliant blue star-like flowers growing on the ends of the blades. (You can see a smaller variety of blue-eyed grass growing in sunny spots along woodland paths here in central Maryland.)

I bought a specimen of the dwarf Liatris, too, even though I'm not sure where I'm going to plant it yet. One thing I've learned from reading Elizabeth Lawrence: No matter how small or large your garden, you will never have enough space for everything you'd like to plant. So I'll be content with my small area and be glad that our condominium encourages cultivating common areas by individual residents.

*Is the larger white Florestan variety named after the character in Beethoven's opera, "Fidelio"?

links: Ligeti's "Le Grand Macabre" in New York

Just watching developments in the blogosphere and wondering what are the chances for getting a performance of Ligeti's opera in the Baltimore-Washington area. This is a peformance with the New York Philharmonic. Also note that Anthony Roth Costanzo, brilliant young countertenor who I highlighted in a recent post, is Prince Go-Go. (Beyond this, I can't profess any familiarity with this opera, but I'm curious about it.)

~~Alex Ross posts with a photograph of the performance.
~~Monotonous Forest with links to Ross and Tommasini.
~~Letter V in Richmond takes notice with links to Tommasini and Midgette.

Stanford Grill -- Rotisserie and Key Lime Bliss!

(In which F. puskini plays food blog again.)

Welcome to Columbia, Stanford Grill!

Thanks to the HowChow blog for pointing me to this newest restaurant in town. I was glad to find it on this Friday evening as I prowled about for a nice place to dine out. To start, what more could you say about a restaurant where, when you ask for coffee at the end of the meal, you get a plunger-style carafe (French press coffee), which the waiter finishes plunging when he brings it to the table? This coffee was a most delicious roast, too. Surrounding it in the rest of my meal were the spiced and herbed rotisserie chicken, apparently Stanford's specialty, cornbread in an iron skillet and Stanford's famous-in-a-week key lime pie. I decided to add a glass of wine to the feast and chose the sauvignon blanc from Biltmore Estates (highly curious about their wine after making Biltmore and Asheville, NC, a regular vacation destination). (OK, I'm not the wine expert here, but this was a very nice "sauv blanc". I'm still sold on New Zealand sauv blancs, and there was one on the Stanford's list, too.) The total came to $40, and I brought some of the cornbread and pie home.

Lots of stars for the wait staff, enthusiastic and knowledgeable and attentive. I had a specific waiter assigned to my table, but I was encouraged to ask anyone on the staff for help if I wanted to do so.

Ambience is what the Stanford Grill can make of it in its spot on an embankment overlooking Rte. 175 (previously the location of a steak house, which some Columbia residents will recall). They have made the most of it, however, and the restaurant is actually a very attractive new (or renovated?) building. I'll echo the positive comments already made about the gas fireplace which is at eye-level for all diners inside. If you tire of those flames, you can turn your gaze to the chicken turning on the rotisserie behind glass.

So with restaurants as nice as the Stanford Grill and other places in Columbia, where's our opera house?

Links:
~~HowChow's post with readers' comments and links to bloggers who had a preview of the new restaurant before it opened.
~~Stanford Grill's web site

A Splendid Opera Hangover ~~ I can still remember the past season!

I've learned to check Washington Metro's site for delays and difficulties before heading to the Kennedy Center. That still didn't prepare me for the delay coming back last Saturday night, when passengers had to disembark and I was stuck for a long wait on a platform just one station down from where my car was parked as we waited for the train that would have clearance to travel the affected section of track. This is at the end of a very long day devoted to getting to the Kennedy and experiencing the opera, "Hamlet". It was long after midnight by the time I got home, and on Sunday I was a zombie all day with my head feeling like mush. But let's remember that Metro is doing some vital track work after a series of malfunctions and accidents, and I still prefer Metro for getting to the Kennedy over negotiating DC in my own car.

Was it worth it, just to sit for three hours in the opera house? You're damn right it was. Would I do it again four or five times next season? Well, let me think about that. There are definitely some performances coming up on Washington's stage next season that I'd like to see.

Meanwhile, we're coming down from the 2009-2010 opera season in the area. I'm delighted that I made it to all three productions by Opera Vivente plus one of the parties that are becoming a regular part of Vivente's season...plus a masterclass open to the public! In Vivente's usual sung-in-English practice, we had Rossini's "Cinderella" with characterful singer-actors, including a dandy Dandini, in gorgeous costumes; a stylish distillation of Debussy's "Pelleas et Melisande" called "Impressions of Pelleas" by Marius Constant; and -- still reeling from it -- a star-flaming production of Mozart's "The Magic Flute" set in modern-day Baltimore and setting Baltimore a-buzz.

I only made it to one of American Opera Theater's shows -- "Songspiel" based on the music of Kurt Weill at Theatre Project in Baltimore. We need more Weill around here, and we were lucky to have the fine trio of trumpet, double bass and piano providing the instrumental part for soprano Sylvia McNair and friends.

Out of the Peabody Opera's season for the Peabody Conservatory, I saw this season's chamber installment at Theatre Project: the impressive and provocative "Transformations" by Conrad Susa, a darksome look at already dark Grimm brothers' fairy tales.

From Washington National Opera's stage this season, I'm remembering most of all Rossini's "Il Barbiere di Siviglia" with the stunning young tenor, Lawrence Brownlee; a superb and beautiful "Ariadne auf Naxos" set in the home of a modern art collector; a concert performance of "Gotterdammerung" that as an experience proved to be almost the equal of a fully staged performance; and finally Ambroise Thomas's "Hamlet" in a fascinating staging still in its production run now.

Now I'm anticipating my first experience of Wolf Trap Opera this summer. Next season, I hope to make it to Baltimore Concert Opera. I hoped to go last Friday, but that day was a screwy one for me and I had to take the day off (and Sunday after the trek into DC was out of the question). BCO is getting some illustrious company for its performances, including personalities with ties to the former Baltimore Opera Company, and there are plans to expand from piano accompaniment to an orchestra. However, as expressed before and elsewhere (linking to the Sun's Clef Notes), if you have James Harp at the piano, you almost have an orchestra. I've been lucky enough to hear one recital of opera excerpts with Maestro Harp at the keyboard at An die Musik in Baltimore.

See you this summer at Wolf Trap, perhaps. There's other summer opera to be had, too, including Artscape in Baltimore, which offers the opportunity of free opera or operatically inclined performances.

Garden Spots

To be a list of public gardens and garden-like areas in the region and garden resources. (To go to the main blog page, click on the blog title at the top of this page.)

~~Around Columbia and Howard County, Maryland~~

Howard County Bird Club
Howard County Conservancy
Howard County Master Gardeners -- University of Maryland extension program
Oakland Manor, Columbia Town Center -- The preserved manor house serves as our community center, so scenic in the middle of its hilltop garden.
Robinson Foundation and Robinson Nature Center
Symphony Woods, Columbia Town Center -- The plans look great, but try to see this lovely wooded park before they develop it.
Whipps Garden Cemetery, Ellicott City

Near Oakland Manor and Symphony Woods: The paths around Lake Kittamaqundi and Wilde Lake provide for long strolls or jogs through garden spots and wooded areas. The office building designed by Frank Gehry earlier in his career overlooking Lake Kittamaqundi (or just "the Lake") looks like Columbia's answer to the Hanging Gardens of Babylon.

Commercial Establishments: River Hill Garden Center ... Sun Nurseries


~~The Greater Baltimore-Washington, DC, Area and Maryland~~

Brookside Gardens, Montgomery County
Cylburn Arboretum, Baltimore
Rawlings Conservatory and Botanic Gardens, Baltimore
Smithsonian Gardens -- gardens of the Smithsonian Institute around the National Mall
United States Botanic Garden -- on the National Mall, near the Capitol
United States National Arboretum


~~Further Afield~~

Asheville, North Carolina:
Biltmore
Botanical Gardens at Asheville -- native plants of the Southern Appalachian Mountains
North Carolina Arboretum
WhiteGate Inn -- just a personal favorite among Asheville's many attractive lodging options. The WhiteGate's garden is an inspiration and education in itself.


~~OTHER RESOURCES~~

Home and Garden Information Center -- University of Maryland extension program
USDA PLANTS Database


I hope to include links to upstate New York garden spots eventually. Until then, the upstate NY label at the bottom of this post will take you to relevant photos and links. The Asheville label also features photos.

A New Countertenor to Watch: Anthony Roth Costanzo

Spotted in the Sound Bites feature of the June "Opera News". Hailing from North Carolina, Costanzo came into the countertenor fach without starting out as a baritone or tenor.

Addendum: Here is Costanzo's web site: anthonyrothcostanzo.com. Let's mention that he is prepared to sing Britten, Ligeti and Lukas Foss as well as the usual Baroque repertoire for countertenor. He's reportedly knocking everyone over with his rendition of an aria from Handel's "Tolomeo".

Drowning (in a good way) in WNO's "Hamlet"

Ambroise Thomas's luxurious French grand opera music; stellar voices in the cast; director Thaddeus Strassberger's interesting staging coupled with Ophelia's watery scene -- I was immersed in this for three hours last night at Washington National Opera's performance of Thomas's take on Shakespeare's "Hamlet". Much is being said about liberties the opera takes in considering the original play, but this should not be a point against it. Let's just say that this opera was "inspired by" as much as based on the original -- something that happens all over the opera and also the movie world. It's just not possible to get in all the details every time, and maybe a composer or film director is using the original as a departure point for something else he has in mind.

I've established a bad record for squandering WNO tickets and ultimately not going to a performance. It's the trek down from my suburban Maryland hideout and trying to anticipate the unforeseen going and returning that gets me down -- certainly not what awaits at the Kennedy Center, and when I do succeed in reaching that destination I'm always glad for the experience. A few things prodded me not to squander yet another ticket: a professional reviewer's teaser urging readers not to miss this one; the prospect of hearing a couple of favorite singers, namely Elizabeth Futral in the star role of Ophelia (Ophelie in French) and John Tessier in the role of Laertes (after hearing his honey-toned turn as Don Ottavio for WNO's "Don Giovanni"); spotting a picture of Ophelia's watery scene as late as the morning before the performance while leafing through the May Gramophone.

So I wasn't disappointed last night, though I could quibble over opera updates that cause contradictions in the libretto. Here we have another opera moved to an Iron Curtain country, but we're still dealing with royalty in the story. Nevertheless, it is handsomely staged, even if Elsinore appears bombed out.

This opera is obviously a good vehicle for a star baritone, and Michael Chioldi sounded great in the title role last night. (Word is that it also would be nice to hear Liam Bonner, who is sharing the role with Chioldi through the production run.) We heard Futral only up to the intermission last night. She sounded fine to me, except that she didn't seem as strong as she was for Baltimore Opera's "Siege of Corinth" a few years ago. After intermission it was announced that Futral was suffering from allergies and had decided to bow out. Futral's understudy, Micaela Oeste, took over, and we have to admire Oeste, who apparently understudied the role as if she knew for certain that she would be appearing on stage. (Oeste is participating in the Domingo-Cafritz Young Artist Program.)

Though sorry that Futral could not perform in what was to follow after the intermission, we were lucky to have Oeste filling the role. Most of Ophelia's music seems to be in the second half of the opera, and, of course, she has one entire act to herself (supported by some muted vocalization from an off-stage chorus). Reviewers seem to want to extol Strassberger's overwhelming staging of Ophelia's demise without giving away the details. I'll just say that with a few modifications it could be the Queen of the Night's appearance in "The Magic Flute". There does seem to be an awkward break in the music, however, when the curtain lowers in the middle of the act and the closing is set up, and it would be nice to see how other productions manage this part of the story.

Let's not forget BaltimoreOpera.com...

baltimoreopera.com has been tracking operatic events around Baltimore and also in Annapolis and keeps a tidy calendar with links.

I'd like to get to Baltimore Concert Opera's Verdi excerpts performance this weekend, perhaps tomorrow evening. Steven White is conducting the cast of singers and Baltimore's esteemed James Harp accompanies on piano. Meanwhile, Steven White's wife, Elizabeth Futral, is singing in Washington National Opera's current production of "Hamlet".

Have a Star-Flaming Good Time at Opera Vivente's End of Season Party (and Next Season)

Director John Bowen has posted about the Opera Vivente friendraiser and tea dance coming up this Sunday. Tickets are still available. Party on the set of the now famous Bawlamer Magic Flute! (Do you say Bawlamer or Bawlmer?) Rumor has it that John Dooley, Vivente's Joey Papageno, will be among the partiers.

Thanks to Mr. Dooley for posting a comment on my previous post about the Magic Flute performance. I've also seen Bowen's post on the Opera Vivente blog about the lesson we can learn from Papageno's example -- a lesson I'll take to heart, though I fear that I've done that before and forgotten it.

Bowen announced the next season at recent performances, too. Next season, Opera Vivente will stage Puccini's first opera, "Le Villi" ("The Will-o'-the-Wisps"); Handel's "Rinaldo"; and Donizetti's "Lucia di Lammermoor".

Summer Opera and the Getting of Wolf Trap Opera Tickets

Summer! The break from the concert and opera season is almost upon us. Summer! A time of swaying conductor's batons, soaring tenors and sopranos, thundering basses, piping countertenors and mezzos.... If you can't stand sun, sand and surf, you can still go to the opera house in the summer. You won't need to worry about sunburn and oily lotion or sand getting into everything (unless you happen to run into American Opera Theater's original production of "David et Jonathas"). My page of opera companies and organizations down in the blog's margin includes a section of summer opera events in the region. I think they're all there. Feel free to comment here or send e-mail if I've left any out or if there are new sites to add.

My main computer won't play with the Wolf Trap Opera Company's site, so I can't buy Wolf Trap tickets on line (although I include the site on the opera company page for others to view). Enticed by the prospect of finally seeing Britten's "A Midsummer Night's Dream", which Wolf Trap will perform in August, I got a little more determined to go and hear this company's work. Yesterday at the Columbia Borders, I stumbled on a stack of brochures for all the summer events at Wolf Trap and found the phone number for buying tickets. I now have my tickets for Mozart's "Zaide" in June and the Britten opera. (I was after Sunday tickets, and Rossini's "Il Turco in Italia" in July is sold out for Sunday, but I can check back later for availability.)

The phone number for purchasing tickets for any Wolf Trap summer events, including the opera: 1-877-WOLFTRAP. If you don't like the computerized voice, you can get a real person just by saying "transfer".

ADDENDUM: This post attracted an e-mail from Wolf Trap, concerned about my online ticket buying attempt. Thanks for the attention. I responded and explained further that there are no problems with Wolf Trap's and others' sites. It's my outdated computer set-up at fault. One day I'll upgrade. Meanwhile, I save money and buy more and better opera tickets.

~~~~~~~
On a sad note, I see that Summer Opera Theatre at Catholic University has ceased operations.

Opera Vivente: Isis and Osiris, Inc., the Three Moody Teenagers....

I feel a need to give a spoiler warning, as we like to do in movie reviews, but I won't spill everything. Opera Vivente's transfer of Mozart's "The Magic Flute", which I saw yesterday afternoon, to modern-day Baltimore in OV's English translation and in a chamber setting inspired some guessing as to how certain elements of the opera would work out. I'd actually forgotten about the giant serpent that menaces Prince Tamino at the beginning and wondered how it would be presented as conductor Jed Gaylin and the small orchestra played the overture. Well, I don't want to tell you how it was done, if you haven't seen this yet, but it was one of the production's brilliant strokes. Ditto, the magic glockenspiel that charms Monostatos and his men later in the story -- that article becomes something else here, and it makes perfect sense in the context, probably the most apt interpretation of what the glockenspiel stood for in the original setting.

Costumes were lavish in their own way, despite my little jest in a previous post. We have to admire the way the Queen of the Night, the Three Ladies, the Three Spirits (moody teenage girls) and birdcatcher Papageno turned Orioles fan were done, not just in attire but the singers' portrayals. Baritone John Dooley was the over-the-top comic Papageno here, demonstrating wonderful versatility after his demonic-erotic Ashmodeus in Opera Vivente's production of Jonathan Dove's "Tobias and the Angel" in a recent season. As for Joy Greene's star-flaming Queen of the Night, I live for this Queen and her two manic arias every time I see this opera. Here on Vivente's small stage, Greene certainly brought power and personality to bear and was as stunning as any Queen of the Night.

If you go to this Flute, don't miss the pre-performance talk which usually begins 45 minutes before the show in the Emmanuel Episcopal Church's lounge. Director John Bowen and conductor Jed Gaylin explain much about the opera and this production and made me feel more comfortable about why I have not grasped all the meanings behind the story after seeing three or four other productions in the past. My personal perspective as I try to figure out this story: I'm reminded of the British TV series of "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy", when a huge computer is designed to answer the question of the meaning of life: "you know -- life, the universe and everything".

There are two more performances coming up this Thursday and Saturday. Yesterday was sold out. I haven't checked here yet, but I understand that there are tickets still available for these last two shows.

Gardening After the Blizzard; Discovering a Garden Writer

This time last week, I was near the end of a week-long stay at the Whitegate Inn in Asheville, North Carolina. A friend here in Maryland suggested in my absence that I was probably sitting by the pool drinking a beer. I corrected him: I was sitting by the koi pond drinking wine at the Whitegate's daily social hour.

That koi pond is one of two connected by an artful artificial mountain stream and series of miniature cascades surrounded by the Whitegate's English cottage-style garden. Once again, this garden proved to be a retreat and an educational experience in the middle of trips to the gardens of Biltmore Estate, the North Carolina Arboretum, the Botanical Gardens at Asheville and the natural gardens of the nearby Blue Ridge Parkway. The Parkway is undergoing repairs and mass tree surgery after last winter's severe storms, and there were still two significant detours while I was in the area last week. The Whitegate's master gardener reports that this was the first winter in a decade of running the inn with his partner in which he had to go out and bust open frozen koi ponds. Last week, however, the Whitegate's garden was thriving in famous splendor again.

Back here in Maryland, yesterday in perfect warm but not humid gardening weather, my neighbors and I pooled resources to clear up the blizzard damage around our condominium. The main trunk of the tortured holly tree by my back fence never recovered from being bent over by the snow, so we sawed it off and saved the other stems. In the process, we cleared out the tangle of branches lower down on the tree and on another small tree next to it. This cleared out a new area for gardening! Hostas, azaleas, native ferns? We'll see...

If you've been gardening in America for long or read much about gardening, you might know the name of Elizabeth Lawrence. I discovered her for myself while browsing Malaprop's Bookstore on Haywood Street in downtown Asheville. There is a new collection of this great gardener-writer's letters, "Becoming Elizabeth Lawrence", and a collection of her "Through the Garden Gate" column written for the Charlotte "Observer". Lawrence wrote some classic American gardening books, which I hope to investigate in the near future.

link: anticipating Opera Vivente's "The Magic Flute"

I like the look of that set, and check out those lavish period costumes. (This Flute is set in modern-day Baltimore, or "Bawlmer".)

Just back from vacation and need a sanity check: I was keeping up with OV developments on Facebook, and posts there made it sound like this production run had started already and I was confused about dates. Obviously, the Facebook chatter was about rehearsals and the audience of people viewing the rehearsals. Official opening night is May 14, and I will see the show on Sunday, May 16.

Biltmore Estate -- Neuschwanstein of North Carolina mountains?

OK, the comparison between George Vanderbilt's stately home on the French Broad and Mad King Ludwig's most famous Bavarian castle has to stop at their mutual admiration of a certain composer. Vanderbilt was certainly kinder to the economy and well-being of the region and of the nation while he was alive than Ludwig was for his own country's. But they both liked Wagner's operas and showed it in their respective homes. I was touring the Biltmore mansion a few days ago, and in the dining room or banquet hall I noticed the stone crests on the wall on either side of the pipe organ. One crest clearly had Gounod's name carved into it. The other crest was obscured from full view, but one of the docents on station in the room informed me that Wagner was the composer honored on that crest. She further pointed out that all the carved wood scenes along one end of the room and a stone bas relief scene over the massive fireplace were from "Tannhauser".

"Never mind the posts -- feel the links." ~~ playlist

I fiddled with the links in my margin again: caught up with Opera Vivente blog's new location; found Baltimore Concert Opera's new blog, Voce Vero; added the new Opera Pulse site to the resources links.

Opera Pulse also has a presence on Facebook, and it's encouraging interaction with opera fans while keeping up with nationwide opera news. Apparently, they were just in town making a video about opera in Baltimore.

~~~~~~~
Road music: It's sad, I know, but long trips on the Interstate have turned into some of my best CD-listening time vice sitting in front of the stereo in my living room. Before I head out the door, I'll grab a selection of albums that includes new purchases and older acquisitions that I've been meaning to hear more...

~~ "The Darjeeling Limited" soundtrack
~~ John Williams and Timothy Kain's "The Mantis and the Moon" guitar duo album
~~ Aaron Copland; Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco's collection
~~ viola concertos (that's viola, not violin) by York Bowen and Cecil Forsyth on Hyperion
~~ Stephen Stubbs and Teatro Lirico album -- another look at the old Folia ground used by so many Baroque composers and a few modern composers (this is gorgeous stuff)
~~ Karajan and the Berlin in Beethoven's 4th and 7th (thanks, Wes Anderson, for reminding me how great Beethoven sounds in the car; see the Darjeeling Limited soundtrack)
~~ Klemperer's classic recording of Beethoven's 3rd and the orchestral arrangement of "Grosse Fuge"