At the Beginning (Again) With 'Anastasia'

I’m over the moon about the new Broadway musical Anastasia. Because it’s based on one of the movies that defined my childhood.

Christy Altomare as Anastasia (justjared.com)

I remember seeing it in theaters, and then when it came out on VHS my mom said I had to clean my room before I could watch it. I cleaned my room and I watched it. And then I watched it again and again and again. Granted, it was years before I could sit through the nightmare scene (I had that problem with a lot of movies). But I learned all the songs. I knew all the quotes by heart. I loved having a heroine who both (a) kicked butt and (b) wore beautiful dresses. No, seriously, SHE. SAVES. THE. DUDE. AND SHE BEATS THE BAD GUY. SHE FREAKING KILLS HIM. That had NOT been a thing in animated princess movies before then, to my knowledge. And the shot where she steps on the reliquary is immensely satisfying. #GirlPower

And ‘Anastasia’ is just the most beautiful, perfect princess name ever. Not only that, but, as Vlad says in the movie, “The name ‘Anastasia’ means she will rise again.” Funny, how the musical is breathing new life into the fandom. It’s really amazing to be seeing this happen on the Internet.

self-generated

If I had to pick my favorite non-disney animated movie, it would be a tie between Anastasia and Thumbelina. It just did something for me that few other movies could. The story, the animation style, the music...no movie satisfies me the way Anastasia does. The themes and the story tie into a lot of my other fandoms--and, yes, I can’t help noticing the connection with a certain Soviet super-assassin with a metal arm. Hence I feel the need to share this crossover fan art:

Is that Bucky and Natasha or Dmitri and Anya? Yes. (Pinterest)

The movie was my gateway drug to all things Russian. The fairy tale led me to the story of the real Anastasia. The real Anastasia led me to Russia’s beautiful history and culture--golden-domed churches, curved kokoshnik tiaras, Ivan the Terrible, Moscow, Catherine the Great, and of course Saint Petersburg.

One of the other impacts was that it gave me a taste for stories about amnesiac princesses--that became a common trope in some of my childhood daydreams. Also magic necklaces.

When I was older and recovering from the trauma that was middle school, I felt like I had to find myself again. That was when the songs “Journey to the Past” and “Once Upon a December” became real to me.

Hello Giggles

My freshman year at BYU I took an introduction to sewing class. During the lab period the other students and I would take turns playing our music. One day, “At the Beginning” came on and some of our classmates said they’d never heard it before. The rest of us thought that was ridiculous. So a few lab days later, we watched Anastasia in class so they could get the reference. The professor happened to come down that day to check on us--she told us we couldn’t watch movies in lab anymore. But it was worth it.

(Not to mention, I went to a friend's wedding last Friday, and you'll never guess what song they played for the bride and groom first dance).

The last time I sat down to watch the movie was right before I graduated college. More recently, I was able to buy the movie soundtrack at a thrift store. I don’t listen to it nearly as much as I ought to.

Also, this happened on Tumblr a couple years ago:

Tumblr screenshot

I was neutral bordering on, I’ll admit, a little hesitant when it was announced that Anastasia was going to be revamped for a Broadway musical (although I couldn’t tell you why). But the soundtrack, the photos and the stage footage we have seen about it in the last few months is nothing short of phenomenal. It’s really brought back the magic. I have an aunt who is going to see Anastasia on Broadway in September and let me tell you I am so jelly.

The new musical makes significant changes to the story and some of the classic songs as well as adding a lot of new material. I don’t really miss Rasputin and Bartok, tbh. But the changes they made for the stage were a tribute to the real history of the Russian Revolution, the Romanovs, and what came afterward. And honestly, those changes make me want to see it even more.

Because

Just like

Every other

Nineties kid

I went home

And learned about

The real

Anastasia

And I learned to like

that version too

And I can understand the need to make a story originally produced for the big screen fit better for a 2-hour stage performance where all you have to work with are humans. I took a Theater 101 class in college. Film and stage share some elements of visual storytelling, but the stage is three-dimensional and tactile to an audience and some story elements cannot be conveyed to the same effect as they would on screen. You have to tell the story differently. Yet the nods we do have to the original film give you chills: the blue gown that Anya wears to the ballet, the absolutely stirring performances of “Journey to the Past” and “Once Upon a December,” a few measures in “Stay, I Pray You” borrowed from “In the Dark of the Night”, the ghosts of the Romanov family. It’s familiar and brand new at the same time. .

justjaredjr I mean HOOOOLY CRAP

I was able to listen to the soundtrack almost all the way through last weekend, thanks to YouTube. Christy Altomare brings an innocence and freshness to Anya’s character, at least in her singing. “In My Dreams” is my favorite new song. It’s a waltz like “Once Upon a December,” but with more major notes, and it conveys the depth of the loss and trauma that Anya has experienced as well as her hope.

I can’t really say much about the new villain, Gleb, without having seen the stage show. But the songs he sings hint at not only his internal conflict but his keen awareness of how revolutions bring out the worst in humanity. And the point is, the bad guy wants to kill her.

I have to admit, I don’t really like the new finale. Probably because I was expecting a reprise of “Journey to the Past,” “Once Upon a December” kind of kills the optimistic vibe about Anya choosing to be herself and go with Dmitri. But, I haven’t actually seen the performance and I don’t know when I’m going to, so I’ll give the jury more time to deliberate on that. So far I still like the movie better--but the musical does a lot for me. It can stay.

Pictaram

I don’t blame the creators of the stage version wanting to go back and explore some of the themes that were hinted at in the film, because there is a LOT to work with.

The Soviet Union and Communism was never mentioned directly in the movie, although we had a couple of cues (Vladimir’s passport, the “People’s Orphanage,” people calling each other comrade. The musical, however, lets us know all about that.  In the new version of “A Rumor in Saint Petersburg,” we open with a speech from Communist party leaders and people complaining about bread lines, and a brief mention of Saint Petersburg being renamed Leningrad. I went to a Russian Choir concert at BYU around easter, and the choir sang a lot of wartime Soviet ballads--let me tell you, “Stay, I Pray You” really draws from that genre. But it also conveys the idea that Russia is still Russia no matter who is in charge of it.

Dmitri, Vlad, and Anya in the Hartford stage production (pre-Broadway) (Hartford Stage)

Anastasia is the story of a young woman who is trying to figure out who she is in terms of both where she came from and who she can be, a journey from the past (Saint Petersburg) to the future (Paris). If you know anything about history, you would know that Paris during the roaring twenties is a major artistic and intellectual hub for people suffering post-World War I Disillusionment. The musical shows us the Russian expats who escaped the Revolution and expressing their bitterness in “Land of Yesterday”. In real life, we had a lot of American expats living and writing in Paris at the time, most notably Gertrude Stein and F. Scott Fitzgerald. A person who walks into that kind of a scene might be provoked to ask certain questions. World War I destroyed a lot of faith that people had in the old way of doing things--monarchy, empire, aristocracy, religion, morality, and so on. Paris, more relevant to the story overall, represented the forward-thinking and forward-mindedness of the future, and it is a place where Anya has to come to terms with what she really wants. Russia at the time is a Communist country where the government dictates the economy and brainwashes people to be loyal to the State, it represents stagnation. Capitalist, glittering Paris is a gateway to opportunity, freedom, and exploration of self.

The movie is probably best thought of as a fantasy that represents working through your inner demons. Rasputin and his minions are a reminder that childhood is, from a child’s perspective, scary. The things that are trying to separate you from what you want are simply understood as monsters and demons and dark magic. You also live in a world where adults say one thing but mean something else. If you don’t believe me, someone at The Atlantic had similar comments to say about Jim Henson’s Labrynth. But, anyway, back to Anastasia, the movie goes to show, those monsters can be slain. The “good magic” if any, comes from what is safe and familiar--the ghosts of her lost family, the lullaby, finding her grandmother again.

The Broadway musical, I guess, is about adulthood, about transitioning into the world emotionally and spiritually. You’re physically an adult, but inside you still have to do some growing up. It is also a reflection of today’s world where there is so much social upheaval and young adults like me go through a lot of displacement, from home, to college, to the job field, and then the challenge of trying to figure out who they are. Anya’s stage journey from Saint Petersburg to Paris is an analogy of this, where we’re coming from versus where we’re trying to get to. Which brings me to another point: somehow I relate more with the lost Anya the Orphan than the snarky teenage IRL Anastasia, because Anya doesn’t know who she is or where she belongs, and she has to find that out for herself. And that’s a journey people tend to get lost on.

One of the most important meta posts ever written about any movie (Pinterest)

Just because we have this new version of the Anastasia legend does not mean we have to discard any version that came before. The good thing about telling stories is that they can be told over and over again. And if you tell a story in a different way each time, then you learn something new from it. It's still something you can enjoy without being uptight about the (lack of) historical accuracy. The important thing is not who or what Anastasia is about but about the journey the characters go on, and what we learn from going with them. The message has always been, and will continue to be, that following your heart is the most important thing. When you know who you really are, then everything else will fall into place. Anastasia is a story that was important to me in my childhood and teen years. It is a story that I continue to find a lot of meaning in.

20th Century Fox/Pinterest

Christmas Favorites from the Mormon Tabernacle Choir

You know what one of my favorite things about Christmas is? It's listening to all of my Mormon Tabernacle Choir Christmas albums. This includes Christmas With the Mormon Tabernacle Choir from like the late 80s-early 90s, mostly because my family would play the cassette on repeat during the holidays and I like the familiarity of it. I also have the not-as-well-known A Mormon Tabernacle Choir Christmas, and then their brand-label Sing, Choirs of Angels and a stack of their Christmas Concerts.

2010 Concert (Temple Square)

But I love love LOVE the Mormon Tabernacle Choir!!!!!!! Not only because of their spiritual and inspirational work, don't get me wrong, I appreciate that. But their music is just amazing. You don't get a choral sound like that anywhere else. You don't get a single group that produces work that is haunting and beautiful but also fun and exciting along with the religious stuff. Especially with the orchestra and the organ and musical geniuses like Mack Wilberg and Ryan Murphy arranging and conducting. Like all my favorite music, Tab Choir feeds into my daydreams. Especially at Christmas.  And their concerts? Always amazing. And their Christmas concerts, the musical numbers and dancers and processions are astounding.

These are just a few of my favorite Christmas pieces from the Tab Choir, but I've selected them because they're Christmas songs I wouldn't have been exposed to therwise (and some of them, yes, I listen to year-round through headphones because I can't live without them). The nice thing about the Mormon Tabernacle Choir's Christmas programs is they always have a balance of repritoire pieces with carols that don't get as much recognition.

Joseph Dearest, Joseph Mine

Every Christmas, I have a theme carol that I listen to more often or try to learn on the violin or both. 'Joseph Dearest, Joseph Mine' is the theme carol for this year. I decided that months ago. I chose it as kind of a wish to find safety and rest, since that is what the melody and what I can make out of the lyrics make me feel.

Ring Those Christmas Bells

This is a fun one from the Choir's 2013 Christmas concert. Out of the four live concerts I have been to, the 2013 one is by far my favorite. The entire concert was just so much FUN, but if you could capture the spirit of that performance in one song this is it. This carol by itself I have never heard anywhere else. The choir and orchestra perform this piece with a lot of energy and enthusiasm that really gets me into the Christmas spirit. It's one of the few Christmas songs I've heard them sing that even mentions Santa Claus!

I should probably mention this now--I'm sorry this post isn't very organized. I don't have a lot of superstitions about the man in the red suit. But one of the few I do have is that the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and the Orchestra at Temple Square are some of his favorite helpers.

Wexford Carol

One of the first girls I ever visit taught introduced me to this carol, telling me it was her favorite. It's easy to see why because it's beautiful. The version I listen to the most is a male soloist singing it in Spirit of the Season with the Choir doing vocals. The Tabernacle Choir uses a similar arrangement for the music video that they put out for the holidays this year.

Ding Dong! Merrily on High

If you wonder where my childhood Christmas fantasies came from, it's from hearing the Tabernacle Choir sing this carol in one of the medleys on te 90s album This Is Christmas. The single was featured in their concert album Rejoice and be Merry but for some strange reason not featured on the performance DVD and I have yet to find a video of them actually performing it. Bottom line, 'Ding Dong! Merrily on High' is my absolute favorite Christmas carol.

Carol to the King

This number was the processional for the Tabernacle Choir's Christmas concert with Audra McDonald and it was featured in the concert Rejoice and Be Merry. My uncle who had joined the Tabernacle Choir sent the CD to my grandma Cole the year I was living with her in Arizona and I spent most of November and December listening to it. It was getting 'Carol to the King' stuck in my head as a college freshman that made me beg my other grandma to buy the CD for Christmas. This video is REALLY POOR quality but the performance is still amazing.

Sussex Carol

For Rejoice and Be Merry! this carol is set to a stirring arrangement with the full Choir and Orchestra and Bells, and features the Tab Choir's repeat guest artists The King's Singers. My favorite lines are these: "Then why should men on earth be so sad/Since our Redeemer made us glad?" The Atonement of Christ enables us to overcome the world, and because of it we have the potential to recieve Eternal Life. This carol is a reminder to not only be grateful for those gifts but to find happiness in them. It doesn't do any good to be sad because of all the gloom in the world. We have a lot of reasons to be happy. I think that is one of the most important things that the Tabernacle Choir expresses in its music. This video is from a performance that the King's Singers did more recently with the Choir and the arrangement is slightly different.

The Cat and the Mouse Carol

My first Christmas Concert with the Tabernacle Choir was in 2010 with David Archuleta. Now, the thing you should know about me is, I didn't listen to a lot of pop music or watch a lot of mainstream TV shows, so I didn't really have a good idea of who David Archuleta was when he was announced as the concert guest. After the announcement came, I went and looked him up on YouTube and watched the music video for Crush. I was blown away. But I was blown away even more when I saw Archuleta with the Tabernacle Choir. He is an impressive classical singer and also his Spanish is perfecto. After making his entry with 'Joy to the World," he introduced 'The Cat and Mouse Carol," a song which prior to this concert even he hadn't heard before. But the simple story it tells is entertaining to someone who likes stories about talking animals, and the melody is enchanting.

(Side note: David Archuleta's 'Silent Night is the best arrangement of Silent Night ever IMO.)



Candelight Carol

This was one of my 'theme carols' from last year. Not a sad song but a slow one, one that makes you feel hopeful. Not a loud carol but one that stays quiet.

Every year there's a difference in what kind of Chirstmas stuff I can get around to. Here it's the ninth of December and I've already listened through all of my Tab Choir albums and I only want more. But, playing their stuff on repeat is a pleasure I never have to feel guilty about. 

If you want to enjoy the sounds of Christmas with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir or watch clips of their amazing performances, you can visit their website or YouTube channel. You can also tune into their 24/7 livestream via the Mormon Channel, the Tab Choir website, or the Mormon Tabernacle Choir App (Yes, there is an app for that, cliche but I had to say it).

Self-generated meme. That's a tall order!

(And yes--I was at the concert where Alfie Boe sang 'Bring Him Home. Surreal. But I was there)

Getting Into Thanksgiving

The celebration of Christmas is a sticky issue, considering how people have responded to its commercialization. The internet has become a battlefield for the campaign to take back Thanksgiving by slandering early Christmas sales, early decorating, and Christmas music in November. What, you guys? I thought Christmas was supposed to be a good thing! For heaven’s sake, elves that kill baby reindeer for every person who decorates early? That is not the Santa Claus I believe in!

Odyssey--I MEAN DOESN'T THAT MAKE YOU SICK?

If I had my way, I’d listen to Christmas music openly year round.  I do acknowledge that there is a time and a place for it. But I’m not an extremist. I like to start my Christmas music (privately) in November. The first three weeks of December can get busy and you don’t get around to all the Christmas stuff you planned on way back last year.

I do admit, though, Thanksgiving can be a frustrating holiday because there isn’t really a lot of special music for it the way there is for Christmas, and not really as many special decorations you can do beside pumpkins and turkeys. Smack right between the two biggest holidays of the year, it can seem like the only thing that matters about Thanksgiving is the family dinner and gratitude and...well, food.  And Black Friday is fun when you get to go shopping with friends and family, but it does seem like the emphasis on all the Christmas sales right after Thanksgiving can take away from your turkey.

The issue, then, is how to make Thanksgiving more special without bruising our Christmas spirit in the process. Here’s something I’ve been thinking about. Why not during the month of November celebrate with American folk music and spirituals? Folk music is as much a part of our roots as pilgrims and pumpkin pie. And for good measure, you can listen to folk hymns during October or when you want to get religious without feeling like Halloween has to dominate everything during that month. We celebrate the autumn with fall leaves and harvest decorations--why not music about similar themes of gratitude and rejoicing?  This is something I want to try as well.

Amazon

I am a huge fan of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, so bear with me, this isn’t a paid plug, but they do a lot of great arrangements of folk songs and spirituals. You can tune in to their YouTube channel or check out some of their albums. I highly recommend Come, Thou Fount of Ev’ry Blessing--this post was mostly inspired by the fact that the cover of that album is an autumny color.

This was going to be a small post but I ended up writing a lot, as usual. But I hope this suggestion will provide a useful outlet for your anti-early-Christmas angst.

Some Musings on Making Music

I mentioned to my therapist last week that I hadn’t practiced my violin for a while, and she kind of told me off for “burying my talent” in favor of other pursuits. Over the course of the last week, I have gotten out my violin to practice, mostly in anticipation of a performance at an upcoming family reunion that I should have started preparing for weeks if not months ago. But these are a few thoughts I’ve had on the subject.

I don’t like playing my violin. I have to get it in and out of the case nearly every time I use it, and I’m not very good. I practiced for hours on end when I was in middle school and high school simply because my violin teacher(s) asked me to. I didn’t take much pleasure in it.

My immediate and extended families, mostly my dad’s side, are very music-oriented. Music is an important part of our family traditions and I learned violin partly so I would be able to participate. There was kind of an expectation that when I got to college that I would study music on top of whatever else, if not make that my major. But that wasn’t what I wanted for myself. And of course as soon as I got to BYU and figured out how competitive and labor-intensive the music program there is I knew that wasn’t happening.

I enjoy listening to music but making it is kind of an offense to my inner sloth. Since moving out to college, I have gotten out my violin only for the Fourth of July and Christmas. In fact there aren’t a lot of my friends who know I play the violin at all. But in addition to satisfying my own self-indulgence, not making my violin a part of my regular hobbies has been a kind of rebellion against the family paradigm, or at least my perception of it.

So last week I started playing again. I’ve not only been practicing the piece for my upcoming performance, but I’ve also been playing old Suzuki pieces and favorite hymns to warm up. In light of recent personal struggles, taking time to make music has been refreshing. Somewhere in between and after all the hard hours of practice, I forgot that there are violin pieces that I enjoy playing. I forgot what all those hours of hard work were for--so that I could play the music.

I moved to Arizona my junior year of high school. One of the perks was playing in the high school orchestra. I got my violin in and out of its case every day for eight months. At home I would practice on my aunt’s violin, and I would pick out the hard parts and play them over and over again so I wouldn’t trip up when performance time came. Belonging to a legit high school orchestra was one of the best experiences of my life. I practiced my parts the best I could so that I could felt like I’d earned all of it--because the field trips and the friendships would have meant nothing to me if I’d gone home and slacked off. The last orchestra concert of the year we played a medley from Pirates of the Caribbean with the band and it was amazing. I practiced and practiced and PRACTICED because I love Pirates, I love the music from the films, I went on the ride twice when I went to Disneyland, and I wanted that final performance to be the best it could be--and I wanted my part to be the best it could be.

E! Online

After high school, I told myself that I would keep playing the violin and singing in church choirs so that I could make other people happy. I’ve done ward choir a lot less than I would have liked, especially after graduation, and I’ve touched my violin even less. But I remembered something last week. I do the things I do--the cosplay, the writing, the fan art and memes--for the same reason that I need to keep up with my music. It’s not about me, it’s about the happiness I can bring to other people when I share my gifts. And those other people include, oddly enough, myself. I practice so that when I’m called on to perform, I can do ____ to the best of my ability. You have to practice hard in order to be good at something, and you learn something ahead of time so you can enjoy it later. You have to master the basics in order to do the hard stuff.

Yes, focusing on my chosen field of study in college was important, but, now especially after graduation, it is also important to focus on all of my talents and interests, to enrich myself in as many ways as possible. Listening to beautiful music is wonderful, but being able to make it is a gift in itself.