Whales, presidential campaigns, and Die Zauberflöte

In the first hour of yesterday's program, John Williams interviewed Jorge Newbery and Steve Peterson, the faces of American Homeowner Preservation (AHP), an "Investment Fund [that] Helps Foreclosed Homeowners Hang On." Essentially, AHP buys distressed loans from lenders and then works toward "consensual solutions" with the residents. As Deal Estate reports, the "Chicago-based investment fund wants to prevent foreclosures from going vacant in the first place. It wants to acquire those properties and then rent them back to the foreclosed former homeowners at a deep discount."

We heard the program as we made our way into Chicago to see "Whales: Giants of the Deep" at the Field Museum and, later in the evening, The Magic Flute at the Lyric Opera. When explaining why the lenders weren't more readily embracing this approach to the mortgage crisis, one of the guests described the firm's work as a market proposal for a social problem.

Perhaps you can understand why "A Market Proposal for Saving Whales" at Wired Science attracted my attention this morning. The phrase, market proposal, coupled with the subject of the exhibit, whales... As regular readers know, I just love that sort of synchronicity, serendipity, and synthesis.

Seeing the exhibit was actually Miss M-mv(i)'s idea. Her sixteenth birthday is approaching, and we asked what she'd like to do to celebrate. One of the activities on her list was "Whales: Giants of the Deep," but it closes Monday. No problem, I asserted. We'll leave early and see it before The Magic Flute.

What a terrific exhibit! Let me begin by admitting, yet again, that the more I learn, the more I realize how little I know. For example, I did not realize until yesterday that dolphins and whales belong to the same order, Cetaceans. (The Misses did, and I am greatly encouraged by this. Insert wry grin.) And I understood little about their evolution. (Related article here.) Because of the beautiful film Whale Rider, though, I am familiar with some of the Maori mythology involving whales, and over the years, I have learned a bit about the whaling industry, but "Whales: Giants of the Deep" gives all of this information -- science, mythology, business, ecology -- a cohesive narrative that is both intriguing and worthwhile. Good stuff.

After a quiet meander through some old favorites -- "What Is an Animal?" "Animal Biology," and "Mammals of Africa" -- we decided to head to dinner and the opera. Although we had heard on the news that the President was in town for several fundraising events, I'm not sure being prevented from leaving the museum campus when the helicopters arrived at Soldier Field necessarily qualifies as synchronicity, serendipity, or synthesis. It certainly qualified, however, as a somewhat stressful experience. After all, it's intimidating enough to be stopped by a police officer. The addition of what appeared to be Secret Service types really makes one's pulse quicken, I'll tell you. Afterward, police sedans, emergency vehicles, and official cars streamed past us to "the re-election headquarters his campaign opened in May, [where the President delivered] a rally-the-troops message to staff and volunteers who fill one full floor of the Prudential Building."

Unsure how the rolling street closures would affect our path through the city, we headed directly to the Lyric. After a quick bite, we attended the pre-opera lecture given by David Buch, visiting professor at The University of Chicago. Buch likened Mozart's last opera to a Shakespearean play -- that is, an entertainment designed to have the widest possible appeal to the widest possible audience.

And it does. And maybe that was my problem. The music is exquisitely beautiful, and the ol' synchronicity / serendipity / synthesis at work last night was that Nicole Cabell, who mesmerized us last year as Micaëla in Carmen, returned to sing Pamina with graceful skill. Stéphane Degout as Papageno and Günther Groissböck as Sarastro also delivered memorable moments. In fact, Mr. M-mv particularly likes the aria "O Isis und Osiris" and thought Groissböck did a more than serviceable job.

But some of the things that delighted the audience in this fairy-tale opera -- the (badly) dancing animals, for instance, the children clad in Chicago team jerseys, and Papageno's English outburst -- struck me as more "Opera for Dummies" than opera that appeals to the masses (because I really don't think those two phrases were meant to be synonymous). Apparently, John von Rhein shares my view, although writing in Tuesday's Chicago Tribune, he also notes:

Monday's audience seemed to find the gobs of shtick and childlike whimsy in Matthew Lata's restaging of August Everding's well-worn 1986 production to their liking, so perhaps we critical churls who complain about over-familiarity should keep our carping to ourselves.

Well, color me unabashedly churlish, then (even though, with but three operas in my knapsack, I can hardly be called over-familiar), because I left feeling distinctly dissatisfied last night. Unfairly, perhaps, part of my dissatisfaction may have nothing to do with the kitschy staging. You see, while I utterly and completely embrace the idea of appealing to groundlings, and I realize that everyone is an opera virgin once, I just don't think it's uncharitable to ask that said groundlings and virgins behave better than they did last night.

Some carping, then, that I simply can't keep to myself:

❧ Don't share a snack that requires repeated extractions from a loudly crinkling plastic bag.
❧ Don't place your coat or bag in any seat but your own.
❧ Don't laugh too loudly.
❧ Don't talk during the performance. Not even to tell others not to talk.
❧ Don't disregard the request to silence your phone and electronic devices.
❧ Don't evacuate your nasal passages during an aria. In fact, avoid evacuating your nasal passages during the performance. Period.
❧ Don't race for the exit before the program has concluded.

I realize that this is "white whine" of the absolute worst sort -- as in, Oh, Muffy. You would not believe how badly the groundlings and virgins behaved at the opera last night. How loudly they laughed. And their nose-blowing. [*shudder*] Who lets these people in? Shall you call Tony [Anthony Freud, General Director of the Lyric Opera of Chicago], or shall I?

Still, the seeming, shall we say, lack of breeding was pretty feckin' annoying.

I'll conclude on a lighter note, one that wraps up this adventure in a note of synchronicity, serendipity, and synthesis, all right? So. What links a scientific research station in Antarctica with a unique opera performance in Germany's capital?

The answer, unlikely as it seems, is underwater sounds. Since 2005, a remote acoustic observatory has been recording the sounds of the deep sea using underwater microphones placed below the ice shelf. These otherworldly sounds provided the inspiration for an opera that premiered on Sunday night in Berlin.

As you might imagine, this was no ordinary opera. Staged in the breathtaking Neukölln baths, the AquAria_PALAOA took place almost entirely underwater. Fully clothed performers entered the pool up to their necks so that their voices could be heard above the surface as well as below it, whence two underwater microphones broadcast the submarine sounds. Around the water's edge, musicians accompanied the singers. As the drama intensified more of the performers and even some instruments entered the water, creating ethereal and extraordinary sounds, which were interspersed with recordings of whale and seal songs from the Antarctic depths.