{"id":516,"date":"2014-08-09T12:23:37","date_gmt":"2014-08-09T16:23:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nymysteries.com\/?p=516"},"modified":"2014-08-13T07:30:34","modified_gmt":"2014-08-13T11:30:34","slug":"new-york-city-blog-aug-3-aug-9-in-new-mexico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/nymysteries.com\/?p=516","title":{"rendered":"New York City Blog Aug. 3 – Aug. 9 in New Mexico"},"content":{"rendered":"
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My father was a socialist and my mother a social climber. My social climber inner self was fully present at the Millicent Rogers Museum in Taos. Mary Millicent Abigail Rogers (1902-1953) was the heir to the Standard Oil fortune. She was photographed by Louise Dahl-Wolfe, Horst B. Horst, wore Charles James and was married many times, usually to foreign counts – soooo 1930\u2019s. After an unsuccessful affair with Clark Gable, she licked her wounds by settling near a sacred mountain in New Mexico. Oh, yes, the museum. It was founded by the Rogers family in 1956. The original collection was from the vast collections of Millicent Rogers and her mother, Mary B. Rogers. The Millicent Rogers Museum is small by NYC standards and choice. It\u2019s mainly Native American with emphasis on New Mexican pottery paintings, tapestries, arts and crafts, religious art. It\u2019s chock full of treasures, but the atmosphere is one of calm, space and great beauty.<\/p>\n

\"Martinez
Martinez Pottery<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Native
Native American textiles<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

On to a local restaurant:<\/p>\n

\"Hanging
Hanging chilis, looking out the window at Orlando’s<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Then to the Taos pueblo.The photo was taken by Michal Heron.<\/p>\n

\"Taos
Taos Pueblo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

And, channeling my Catholic father, we went to a small adobe church in Chimayo.<\/p>\n

Finally, the River Grande. God\u2019s country?<\/p>\n

\"Michal
Michal Heron’s Rio Grande<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It was a long and satisfying day.<\/p>\n

We went to the 10,000 Waves Japanese restaurant, Izanami, in the surprisingly green Santa Fe outskirts. I had three glasses of different kinds of saki, each paired with different kinds of American (artisan!!) cheese. Small plates of everything from pork belly to Japanese eggplant to plum saki sorbet. It was a very enjoyable evening.<\/p>\n

CARMEN was awful. When Santa Fe Opera changes original settings the result is something only a rich benefactor could love. In 2011 I saw a real stinker directed by Peter Sellers. It was his interpretation of Vivaldi\u2019s GRISELDA originally set in 18th century Italy. In Sellers’s version the cast were arrayed in sunglasses and carried machine guns. Move over, Sellers. The director Stephen Lawless, whose surname is singularly apt, has set Carmen in 1960\u2019s Mexico. The only person on stage who seemed to have understood the original story was Joyce El-Khoury as Micaela. In the final act, Carmen had on a blond wig and a white fur coat. Why, Mr. Lawless?<\/p>\n

On Friday afternoon I attended a wonderful recital (Henri Duparc, Benjamin Britten, Franz Liszt, Sergei Rachmaninoff) given by the tenor Paul Groves. For an encore he asked a colleague to join him. Who should step onto the stage? Kostos Smoignas, the bass baritone who played Escamillo as if he were Elvis Presley. He and Paul Groves sang the tenor-baritone duet from Bizet\u2019s PEARL FISHERS and it was wonderful. Two thumbs up for recitals.<\/p>\n

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