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Conductor John Wilson Among the Women of Glyndebourne’s 2019 Cendrillon; Plus a Couple of 2-Degree Connections to TV’s Frasier, 2023; and John’s Attitude Toward His Female Singers in General

Connection number one: The star of the classic TV show Frasier, Kelsey Grammer, starred in Man of La Mancha at the London Coliseum in 2019. His co-star in that show was popular British TV actor Nicholas Lyndhurst, who played his Sancho Panza and now plays his “old Oxford pal” on the new Frasier show. The Joe Darion-Dale Wasserman-Mitch Leigh stage musical was co-produced by venerable (and gorgeous then, gorgeous still and always) talent agent-turned-producer Michael Linnit, who gave me my first orgasm one July night in 1973 at the St Regis Hotel in New York City, New York.

Connection number two: Also in the cast of the Coliseum’s La Mancha was soprano Danielle de Niese. De Niese’s married to the chairman of the Glyndebourne Festival Opera. Just like late Met mezzo Maria Ewing who was also married to a bigwig (and not just any old bigwig but the hoity-toity SIR Peter Hall which made her a lady, Lady Hall), the ladies like John well enough. And he likes them well enough.

Even “exotic” ladies, as my bonny John described Detroit-born Maria Ewing. Danielle de Niese is a mix of Dutch/Sri Lankan; Ewing’s mix Dutch/African. (I am, if anyone’s interested, a mix of Filipino/Catalonian/Chinese/Irish—Eurasian, in other words, like these fellow lovelies.)

So should this make me jealous? Ridiculous! Pay no attention to the painting in my gallery.

Oh, who am I kidding? Hold my jacket, Vinny. [more after dinner, making Romanian goulash…]

Okay, I’m back. The trick to making good Romanian goulash, by the way, is to let the carrots boil long enough to get soft as stew. Cheap paprika is fine to use but dump it in, it’s never strong enough for the recipe.

Now to fighting for the man I love. After satisfying myself thoroughly, body and soul, with that very lively fantasy (taking place—this is where it went in my head—on the Mean Streets of the Lower East Side—between Vinny the Sardine’s kid sister Teresa, a girl sporting a crucifix and a great right hook—and a bottle blonde puttana, calls herself Lolita) I need to point out John’s propensity for let’s say not being at one with his female singers.

I have here, case in point, a young one named Sierra Boggess in her rendering of that classic song of girl power we all sang while bounding youthfully down the street—from the BBC Proms, 2010: “I Have Confidence”. You stay and listen. I can’t even listen all the way to the end, John and his O just drown out pobrecita, who I have enough sympathy for already, as back in 2018 she had to play the fall guy in the BBC’s cockamamie plan to appear racially woke—while being able to stock their shows with free, unseasoned talent from the local inner city arts school (a very common tactic in the States) for that West Side Story debacle of theirs.

In fact, this subject is making me so mad I need to sweeten the moment—so I’ve decided to sic one of the girls on my darling… Which one will it be? Petula…? Dusty…? Okay, here’s a song by a particular girl singer I get a particular kick out of: side B of “To Sir, With Love”—Neil Diamond’s “The Boat That I Row” sung by Lulu! I’m singing this song dancing to your picture, mi amor.

John Wilson Glyndebourne 1Above John at Glyndebourne, 2019: “Vous êtes mon prince charmant” from Act III of Jules Massenet’s comic opera.

Now, about the 2019 Cendrillon: At the intermission talk with Cendrillon‘s director Fiona Dunn, my beloved John Wilson, mezzo Kate Lindsey, and soprano Danielle de Niese, the topic of debate was, What should Prince Charming look like in the 21st century?

Says John to the lovelies pictured above: “I think having Prince Charming as Massenet stipulated, it fits beautifully within the whole kind of sonic picture of the whole thing. It’s not a piece that you could say fits on one musical plane, it’s got lots of colors. It’s one of the most colorful pieces he ever wrote… When I said I was doing this piece to people, they would say, Oh yeah, that’s a nice light sort of sweet little piece. It’s not a sweet little piece, it’s a big piece, there’s always another layer to get to and there’s always more detail to explore, always more depth every time. It’s not lightweight…”

EXTRA! The most John Wilsonish piece in Cendrillon.

“Marche des princesses”
from Cendrillon, Act IV
Jules Massenet, composer
Academy of St Martin in the Fields
Neville Marriner, conductor
Capriccio, 1997

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More Crib Notes Just for My Beloved John Wilson, Conductor: “La Borinqueña” in Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story (2021) Plus My Own Brush With the FALN

The scene pictured/heard below is one of the reasons Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story (20th Century Studios, 2021) is the film version that resonates with me more than any other film version that ever was, or will be.

La Borinquena in West Side Story

Above the Sharks: The soundtrack version of the anthem of Puerto Rican independentistas, “La Borinqueña”. And here’s the same anthem in a sweeter version

For one thing, the music remains intact. In fact, the music is better arranged and better placed in WSS2021 than in the 1961 version. More on that later.

For another, the script—meaning the dialogue, character arc, exposition, etc—is far, far better in the hands of Tony Kushner, not only a brilliant scenarist, but a stone New Yorker of my generation, and one of the few writers who knows how to take a big chunk of America in all its complexity and give it back to us in digestible form, no mean feat.

I have other reasons to like Kushner. He scripted the role my son’s godmother was most famous for—the original Angel in his stage work about the AIDS crisis (AIDS took the life of the man I was in love with, in ’91) Angels In America (picture of Sigrid Wurschmidt and Robert DiMatteo here). Here’s a sample of his chewy good dialogue. It comes right after the Sharks break into the anthem of the independentistas and exit stage right, to whistles and applause among the vecinos:

Lt Schrank (to the Jets): We’re outnumbered, boys. Thousands more are on their way…and once they’re here, they pop out kids like crazy, am I right? … Work with me, fellas! Or they’re going to drive you off your turf! … Most of the white guys who grew up in this slum climbed their way out of it. Irish, Italians, Jews… Nowadays their descendants live in nice houses and drive nice cars and date nice girls you’d want to marry. Your dads or your grandads stayed put, drinkin’ and knockin’ up some local piece who gave birth to you—the last of the Can’t-Make-It Caucasians. (beat) What’s a gang without its terrain, its turf? You’re a month or two away from finding out, one step ahead of the wrecking ball. And in this uncertain world, the only thing you can count on is me. I’m here to keep the civil peace until the last building falls. And if you boys make trouble on my turf, Riff, hand to heart, you’re headed to an upstate prison cell for a very long time. By the time you get out, this will be a shiny new neighborhood of rich people in beautiful apartments…with Puerto Rican doormen to chase trash like you away.

Okay, as exposition it’s a lee-tle too much on the nose and just a lee-tle bit too prescient. But yeah, in a little over two hundred words—really, the first big speech in this let’s face it Shakespearean play—Kushner the playwright has given us the genuine patter of a New Yorker.

[more later]

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“Glen Herbertovich Ray” Plus Jazz Waltz No.2 by Shostakovich

From 1 June 2018: I dunno, watching 6 years of The Americans put me in an operational frame of mind…so I’ve been looking back at puzzling scenes and scenarios throughout my own life, trying to put the pieces together into recognizable shape…

Above: The Concertgebouw perform Dmitri Shostakovich’s fetching and popular Jazz Suite No 2 VI, Waltz II called in our house “The Spies’ Waltz” because that’s what it sounds like

For example, that strange meeting in Loring Park under the statue of 19th century Norwegian violinist Ole Bull—was that really Mr Ray getting debriefed by a State Department/CIA guy? He always struck me as a little too European for our little Midwest hidey-hole (Minneapolis) anyway, not to mention his Russian was really, yummily good. Almost everything I know about Russia and the Russian language I first learned from Mr Ray and no one else, not even Mamoulian or Anthony Burgess.

I took Russian from Mr Ray for two years (1967-69), during which time: 1) I graduated from junior to senior high; 2) Mister Grumble was drafted, sent overseas and got shot at by the Ruskies; then halfway in 3) there were the assassinations of Martin and Bobby; and then to top it all off, 4) Richard Nixon finally gets elected president. Some ride, huh? I got in on some of the weirdness of that era, this is just one little piece.

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Theme and My Favorite Music from The Americans (2013-2018) and a Note on Yuri Nosenko

I cry at this scene every time.

For Nadezhda and Mikhail

From 30 May 2018. Selections:

NOTE: Yuri Nosenko was a false defector. The fact that he didn’t crack under three years of intense US interrogation satisfies me that he was a well-trained plant who was lying when he believed he was telling the truth / telling the truth when he believed his was lying. Thank you, KGB “doctors”. Why important? Philip and Elizabeth Jennings appeared on the scene the exact year he defected to America—1964. The year, too, my high school Russian teacher, Glen Herbertovich Ray (real name?) was debriefed after his own mysterious trip to the USSR.

More ruminating at The Assassinations here.

More notes on The Americans here.

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My 2nd Anniversary of Being In Love with John Wilson, Royal College of Music Alumnus, Who Conducts His Alma Mater’s Symphony Orchestra in 2018, and the Sinfonia of London in 2022, in Ravel’s “La valse”

From 4 May, 2020. For two years, longing for my beloved John Wilson has impinged on my usual output of actual writing, which once dealt mostly with The Assassinations+the occult and I have got to channel that particular energy somewhere…

Now, on the second anniversary of The Day I Fell In Love With John Wilson, what should I stumble upon but this video of the Royal College of Music playing Ravel conducted by my beloved alumnus (1990-94).

RCM Symphony John Wilson.jpgMaurice Ravel described his work, written in 1919: “Through whirling clouds, waltzing couples may be faintly distinguished. The clouds gradually scatter: one sees at letter A an immense hall peopled with a whirling crowd. The scene is gradually illuminated. The light of the chandeliers bursts forth at the fortissimo letter B. Set in an imperial court, about 1855.” In the accompanying podcast bonny John asserted that “La valse” is about social disintegration. Another reason for me to get into his head. Above: Audio of John conducting the Sinfonia of London in this piece for Chandos (2022).

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A Special Letter Featuring Scott Fitzgerald to My Beloved John Wilson, After His Appearance with the Sinfonia of London at The Glasshouse, Gateshead UK, 11 November 2023

See the name up in the title of this posting, The Glasshouse? Got it right this time. The only reason I kept the out-of-date jpg up on your schedule, John, is because I love this picture of Gateshead so much and got too lazy to change to the new name. Expect that pic to crop up again in some other impersonation in the future.

Number two. This picture. Okay, I will admit to a sudden unexpected and totally unfamiliar onrush of an irrational emotion. But if you don’t understand how you get to me there’s no hope for you or your generation.

Number three. This picture. An honest artistic statement. Yeah I stole your selfie. Come and get me, coppers.

Number four. The matter at hand. I got the strong impression last night, John, that you were still in Gateshead (you’ve probably finished your Liverpool gig by now) and needed some sort of psychic “Daphne Moon” boost from me. Glad to oblige. I’ll tell you the story, long overdue, of how my dad and mom met and got married. It has to do with two of my aunties not-really-aunties-but-older-cousins—years of letter writing—and the Jai-Alai Building in Manila…

Shoot, time passes…now I’ve got to go be with Mister Grumble for a while. Tonight we’re listening to (my baby angel’s blind, remember?) the near-beginning of The United States of Socialism by Dinesh D’Souza; the middle of The Con Man by Ed McBain (“Mendo-zaaaaaaaah!”); and the last chapter of The Simulacra by Philip K Dick. Oh! And streaming the fifth season of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.

I’ll return on my next writing day, which fortunately is tomorrow.

I see they’re making you travel from Gateshead down west to Liverpool and then back up north to Glasgow and then back down to Nottingham and finally over to Manchester. Jeez, what a schedule for you and your people.

So you want to hear more about my dad. Okay! I’ve owed you this for a while, sorry for the lateness, juggling a lot of balls, including a heart episode, not to winge. Continuing what I wrote in “25 May—Two Birthdays: My Dad’s and My Beloved English Conductor John Wilson’s“…

Well, after that whole thing about not being able to marry the woman he wanted to because of the miscegenation laws of the state of California, my dad and his white fiancee (never found out her name but it was the late 1940s so I bet it was something pretty like Helen or Margaret) went back to her home in Missouri where, like in most of the interior states, there were no legal barriers.

[4:30pm 13 Nov 2023 Pacific Time. Have to go now, Mister Grumble’s dictating his new novel to me, his sixth…be back as soon as I can…]

Mister Grumble is calling his latest novel The Last Bohemia. It’s about our old neighborhood, New York’s East Village, during the cheap-rent artsy 1980s. I’m really looking forward to it.

Back to my dad. So John, the marriage didn’t work out, of course, name me another interracial couple who made it work in the midwest in the 1940s-50s. So when they broke up in St Louis, my dad I guess was at a crossroads. There were two things he knew how to do, box (he was a small-time prizefighter in California in the 20s, a flyweight like his hero, Filipino 1923 champion-over-Welshman-Jimmy-Wilde, Pancho Villa)—and cook.

This is where that Minneapolis railroad tycoon comes in and where the story enters Scott Fitzgerald country in more ways than one.

[2:20pm 14 Nov 2023 Pacific Time. If it doesn’t rain I promised to take Mister Grumble out for a beer, he can’t go out anymore by himself. (He has a red-tipped cane, but sighted people just don’t pay attention and the sidewalks are too littered anyway.) Still, the IPAs here are pretty good, so… ]

[WHOEVER’S READING THIS WHO ISN’T JOHN: If you’re around him during this tour and you can pass him a couple words when he won’t bite your head off, just let him know CANTARA GOT HIS DAPHNE and will try to write more soon. Right now I’ve got to talk about Kennedy]

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My First Music: Geraldo Among the Filipinos, 1963

God, Danny Sibolboro was such a weenie. Taken December 1963 at one of the many, many dances of the Moveable Filipino Club, Minneapolis, Minnesota. Geraldo was playing. Filipinos love Geraldo.

Cantara Dancing with Danny Sibolboro

“Hit the Road to Dreamland“
Harold Arlen, Johnny Mercer (1943)
Shall We Dance?
Big Band Arrangements of Geraldo
John Wilson Orchestra
John Wilson, conductor
Vocalion, 2002

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Cantara Christopher in Sadie (Bob Chinn director, Mitam Productions, 1980) as Indexed in the Database of the British Film Institute; and “Pictures of Lily” by Pete Townshend

This isn’t the picture of me at the BFI Database. It was sent to me by “John Fairfax”, who saw my posting on Twitter about my last feature film and my irritated comment about how I thought the British Film Institute had mixed me up with another (probably Asian) actress. And the dear chap actually went through the grueling task (in the name of research, of course) to find proof positive that the girl in the sarong in the other screenshot is not me, mostly because of the arms, hair, and height. And he sent it to me! So here I am in Sadie, a softcore version of Maugham’s story “Rain”, entertaining two men on the island, presumably Borneo. The bloke in the cap is my husband Doc, the only one on the island allowed to touch my goodies.

Above: The Who and Pete Townshend’s love song to sex workers everywhere, “Pictures of Lily”.

This was not only my last feature, but the last film of any length (including loops, shorts etc) I did during my screen days in San Francisco, before I got pregnant and eloped with the father of my child to New York’s East Village.

For years I’ve talked about my porn career like it was a lark—a daredevil stunt I pulled and lived to tell the tale. I certainly was never more physically beautiful than when I was in my early 20s, and really, I’ve got to tell you, it is a kick in the first flowering of old age to know that somewhere, somehow, even now yet still, someone is probably doing the stroke dance with one of your pictures. Because as long as a buck can be made from it, porn will never disappear.

Now here comes the freakin’ British Film Institute to spoil my fun. Now I have to consider myself a lousy but legitimate actress rather than a pretty good porn one? Do you Brits have to put a damper on everything?

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My 7 January, 2022 Birthday Treat; Plus a Quick Note to My Beloved English Conductor, John Wilson Before His January Tour with the National Youth Orchestra of the Netherlands

John mi vida— It may be likely that we’ll actually meet up sometime or another, since I give not only to the Academy but to the College as well (although I’m thinking of becoming a Friend of the College this year because one, Pru and Emma at the main office have been very kind, and two, I’d like to visit the RCM’s brand-new museum), and so perhaps my few dollars might wangle me an invitation to one of those “Meet the Fellows” wine-and-cheese thingies you as a Fellow are encouraged to attend. If that happens, how about coming over and saying hi to me? I won’t bite. I forgave you for Oklahoma! a while ago.

My birthday treat: Knightsbridge March from London Everyday by Eric Coates and Conducted by My Excellent John Wilson with the BBC Philharmonic. Video clip of John conducting this piece with the BBCSO in 2010 on my YT channel here.

Everyone else, find John’s schedule for January and following, including his tour with the NYO Netherlands, at:

“Following My Beloved John Wilson’s Concertizing 5 November, 2021 Through 10 February, 2022”

and including his appearances at the Royal College and the Royal Academy:

“My Beloved John Wilson’s Concert Schedule March Through May, 2022”

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Christmas, 1958 with Cantara; Plus Johnny Mathis Sings “Sleigh Ride” by Leroy Anderson and Mitchell Parish

Christmas, 1958Above: The full audio of Johnny Mathis’s 1958 hit*. And here’s Leroy Anderson’s original 1948 concert version, played by the Calgary Symphony and conducted by Karl Hirzer. Courtesy of adam28xx.

*And at 59:45 in “A Selection of Pop Christmas Classics”.

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Cantara Christopher as Simona Wing in the Porn Classic, Beyond Your Wildest Dreams (1981, Gerard Damiano director), Just for the Man I Love, BBC Conductor John Wilson

From 2020. Yesterday, Thanksgiving, a fan (thanks, Brian!) sent me a screenshot from one of my later movies, Beyond Your Wildest Dreams.

I’m looking at you, John Wilson.

Beyond Your Wildest Dreams 940x512For Dream Girl #1: Carlos Santana’s hit “Oye como va” which I danced topless to in the 70s.

Lead in this feature was a fascinating woman named Juliet Anderson (here’s her interview in The Rialto Report), a classroom teacher who, in early middle age (39), started in porn and quickly became a star due to her talent in enthusiastic penilingism, plus she photographed well doing it. I was a little more delicate going about it but I think no less effective as an Oriental love doll. Fan Brian likens this pose to the one in “Cantara, 1973” except in 1973 I was 18 and this flick was shot 8 years later on a proper set.

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Cantara, 2009

Wearing Mother’s Day gift, a pendant from The Kid, who started adolescence as an Emo Goth.

Cantara 2002 Lightning

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Cantara, 1980

The producer of my first movie took this on his patio near the hot tub. Sorry, but he kept the nude shots.

Cantara, 1980.jpgMy youthful attempt to emulate Marlene Dietrich in Blonde Venus

PS – If you’re looking for my id, here it is.

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My 2012 Memoir, A Poet from Hollywood: Love, Insanity, Stephen Gyllenhaal, and the Creative Process

Reprint, originally published 2012 at Academia.edu. PDF download available here.

EXTRA! Mister Grumble and Stephen Gyllenhaal in Brentwood, 2007

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