oboeinsight

Just now, as we’re having dinner, the phone rings. It’s a telesales person for the orchestra, trying to push further tickets. I asked him whether my wife gave them express permission to be called. His answer was “not necessarily”.

I’m going to guess that those who do the calling don’t care, but I agree with this. Getting phone solicitation from a performing group after buying tickets to something is terribly annoying.

Fortunately, the last time San Francisco Opera called me for another contribution I told them that I would donate once a year but no more. The woman I spoke with said she’d note that on her card and I’ve not received a call since. Nice.

I’m all for contributing to things I like to support. I just don’t want to be hounded. I wish all charitable groups had a box we could check that would allow us to choose to be notified only by email (no paper!), and another to ask that we only be contacted once per year. That would be nicer still.

Mark Adamo doesn’t write glowing things about Dr. Atomic.

I don’t know Mr. Adamo’s music. At all. I’ve looked online occasionally to see if emusic has his work, and so far they don’t. I do want to hear his music, so I suppose I’ll have to venture out of emusic and go elsewhere.

I would guess that critiquing another composer’s work takes guts.

Me?

I’m wimpy. Everyone knows I’m wimpy by now. Aside from being honest with students, I don’t like to say or write negative things about much of anything or anyone. I hate confrontation. I don’t like to hurt anyone, and I hate getting anyone angry. I’d rather walk away than get into an argument. I’d rather seethe in my little room than be honest about something that really has me upset, if it causes distress between another person and yours truly. It’s not that I’m better than anyone else and want to be a peacemaker. It’s that I’m wimpy. Really.

If I write about fellow oboists it’s nearly always because I’m impressed by them. I don’t need to comment on those I’m less impressed with — I suppose my silence speaks a bit anyway, yes? I’d rather remain quiet on the negative and loudly proclaim the positive. But you can bet that if I say anything positive about a performer or a performance I mean every word of it. I have made a promise to myself to never flatter or compliment when I don’t mean it. Really.

It’s not because I’m better than anyone else. I’m just not the brave sort who can critique negatively and deal with any backlash. But I am the sort who believes we can use all the honest compliments we can get in this business. It’s too darn stressful, don’tcha think?

But back to the opera … I liked Dr. Atomic. Dan (my husband), saw it twice, so he clearly liked it. But I’m just an oboe player. I like what I like and don’t like what I don’t like and can only very poorly — if at all — explain why.

Heh. DK (yeah, I know you’ve already seen this!), you don’t look at ALL like this bassoonist. In case you were wondering. ;-)

Tosca.

This got me to check out YouTube for other Tosca clips. Below is one that was, from what it says, done in real locations. Hmmm. Gonna have to read up on this, I guess. (And there are more from the same production if you’re interested.)

I say … let there be oboe reeds! Oboe reeds for all who need them! Oboe reeds for those who even don’t think they need them.

Now wouldn’t that make the world a better place? There’d be happy faces all around. I’m sure of it. No more frustration. No more tears.

Yeah, I was looking at reeds today. Sigh. I looked and looked. And still they stayed the same.

Okay, I should really work on them too, eh? But I’m actually waiting to get my oboe back. I’m afraid if I work too much on these beasts I’ll get my main oboe back and find that the reeds aren’t quite right for it. So we’ll see, after tomorrow morning, what the reeds say when they meet my repaired instrument. I’m really looking forward to getting it back!