The Fortuitous Yet Fickle Finger of Fate

Not every relationship is meant to last or be strictly monogamous. Some people prefer casual sex, whether it takes place as a one-night stand, a "friends with benefits" relationship, or an annual reunion like the one memorialized in Same Time, Next Year.

For people whose careers involve frequent travel, the deciding factor in building relationships may be geography. Whether a member of a flight crew maintains steady squeezes in several cities or a traveling salesman can always count on a pair of open arms waiting to embrace him as he drives from Portland to Palo Alto, Pasadena, Phoenix, Plano, Peoria, Paducah, Pittsburgh, Poughkeepsie, and Philadelphia, finding one's preferred form of affection, sex, and intimacy has become much more efficient thanks to dating apps like Tinder, Grindr, and Scruff. Consider the difference in musical styles in these songs from 1944's On The Town and 1970's Company.

Strangely enough, some relationships end on a wistful rather than an angry or sour note. These two songs from 1964's Anyone Can Whistle and 1971's Follies remove the bitter from bittersweet.

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The 2019 Frameline Film Festival contained three shorts whose wry sense of humor had a strong appeal. Trevor Anderson's four-minute short entitled Docking (which the filmmaker describes as a sci-fi horror film about his fear of dating) offered a hilarious send-up of space exploration films. Docking begins with a man's voice saying "I've always been single. What's with that? What am I so afraid of?" Anderson's short then delivers a saucy salute to films like 2001: A Space Odyssey. As it moves out of darkness, the camera travels along what might be an asteroid with a very uneven, pink surface. However, as more light fills the screen, the shape of the object become unmistakable. The camera is traveling along the underside of a giant erection.

As two strings of flashing lights close in on one another, it becomes apparent that the viewer is watching a pair of enormous penises (positioned to resemble NASA's finest additions to the International Space Station) as they hook up high above the Earth. Instead of accomplishing a rendezvous with its "mother ship," as the meatus-to-meatus docking process begins, a foreskin emerges from the smaller penis and moves forward to cover the glans and length of the "father shaft." Accompanied by an orgasmic scream, the final moments of Anderson's short emphasize the film's subtitle: "In Space No One Can Hear You Cream."

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Set in Recife, Brazil, Reforma/Renovation is a 15-minute short film written and directed by Fábio Leal (who stars as Francisco, a gay man who has plenty of love to share but is not fully comfortable about living in a slightly chubby and very hairy body). While his sister, Flávia (Mariah Teixeira), tries to offer emotional support, her ideas about (a) settling for someone, and (b) settling down, don't quite match the demands of Fábio's sexual appetite and the anguish caused by his low self image.

Fábio Leal stars as Francisco in Reforma / Renovation

Ironically, Francisco has the potential for a "friends with benefits" relationship with Raul (Paulo César Freire), a handsome man who doesn't flinch at a request to shave Francisco's hairy back. With a poet's way of expressing himself, Raul lovingly tells Francisco "Your stretch marks are beautiful. They look like waves, as if your skin were an ocean."

Paulo César Freire (Raul) and Fábio Leal (Francisco)

in a scene from Reforma / Renovation

As Francisco continues to obsess about his body image, his insecurities don't prevent him from hooking up with various men. However, Raul keeps coming back to Francisco's apartment for sex, intimacy, and tenderness. After making love one night, when Raul asks if Francisco would like to go out with him to a bar or for dinner sometime, Francisco can barely believe what he's just heard.

Poster art for Reforma / Renovation

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While a lot of the animated films screened by Frameline are fairly routine, I had a blast watching Topp 3, which had its world premiere here in San Francisco. The plot line is fairly simple: Anton is a control freak who, in the process of overthinking everything in his life, organizes most of his thoughts into lists of three items. After meeting and falling in love with the affable and easygoing David, Anton slowly comes to the realization that he and David might not want the same things from their relationship.

Poster art for Topp 3

Narrated in Swedish by Erik Ernerstedt (as Anton), Topp 3 also features the voices of Jonas Jonsson as David and Caroline Johansson Kuhmunen as their friend, Miriam. Written and produced by Simon Österhof and gleefully directed by Sofie Edvardsson, this 45-minute animated short has a sweet musical score by Felix Martinz and Patrik Öberg. The artwork for the film is just delightful, with a color palette that reminds me of Nina Paley (Sita Sings The Blues, Seder Masochism). The best thing about Topp 3 is that, by the end of the film, you'll find yourself with a idiotic smile on your face and the feeling that you've just watched something fresh, new, and deliciously gay. Here's the trailer:

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Mel Brooks is famous for boasting "If you got it, flaunt it!" If one were to judge the success of any opera production by the number of performances it received in a given season, Georges Bizet's 1875 gypsy adventure, Carmen, would certainly have won top prize for the San Francisco Opera's 2019 summer season. If judged by mere statistics, Carmen (which received two more performances than either Rusalka or Orlando) is a bigger and more labor-intensive production. This factoid only serves to confirm the rumor that "Size isn't everything." As the old saying goes: "It ain't a matter of how big it is, it's what you do with it that counts!"

Francesca Zambello's 2006 staging of Carmen debuted as a co-production between the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden and the Norwegian National Opera. Designed by Tanya McCallin, the scenery and costumes seen on the stage of the War Memorial Opera House (and originally created by Opera Australia) are part of a co-production between the Washington National Opera and San Francisco Opera. The physical production clearly signals its major assets as being generic and rentable.

SeokJong Baek (Morales) flirts with Anita Hartig (Micaëla)
in a scene from Bizet's Carmen (Photo by: Cory Weaver)

In the 92 years since Carmen was first staged in San Francisco (with a cast headed by mezzo-soprano Ina Bourskaya and tenor Giovanni Martinelli), numerous artists have sung Bizet's music for Bay area audiences. Making her professional role debut as the title character, J'Nai Bridges shows a great deal of promise, both vocally and dramatically. However, to my mind, the show really belonged to tenor Matthew Polenzani, whose portrayal of Don José was one of the finest I've witnessed in my operagoing experience (the evening's real strength came from conductor James Gaffigan).

Matthew Polenzani co-stars as Don Jose in Carmen

(Photo by: Cory Weaver)

No one should be prissy about the fact that Carmen is a sexual creature or that this opera is about how sex can be used to manipulate people. In her program note, Zambello writes:

“Carmen is a truly modern woman. When you study the score, you see her strength, her intelligence, her will, and her honesty. She embraces her sexuality, pursues her desires, and achieves her ends using charm and wit alone. For every choice she makes, she is aware of the consequences and fully prepared to face them on her own. I think she is the ultimate feminist. Her description of love could just as well be a description of herself: maddening, powerful, and utterly irresistible. Having directed my first production of Bizet’s opera more than three decades ago, it’s been fascinating to keep revisiting her character (especially as the larger cultural conversation around gender, sexuality, and power continues to evolve). The #MeToo movement, which shines a spotlight on the prevalence of sexual harassment and assault, has been a call to reconsider the implicit messages around sexuality and consent in the standard repertory (which is full of predators and victims). Carmen lives life on her own terms, even when she knows it will be her undoing. If men are deceived by her, it’s because they choose to be. In public and in private, she tells everyone exactly who she is and what they can expect.”

J'Nai Bridges stars in Bizet's Carmen (Photo by: Cory Weaver)

“Unlike some of the more notorious #MeToo stories that have come to light, Carmen is not in a position of power over the men she pursues. She’s affiliated with a band of roving thieves, which puts her outside the bounds of an ordered society. Outlaw societies operate by their own set of rules, yet Carmen refuses to play by these rules, as well. Carmen is different from all those other female characters who die at the end of their operas. She is not consumptive, kept, or backed into a corner (physically or metaphorically). She does not set out to destroy Don José; in fact, she does her best to use the truth to free him from his obsession. As the opera draws to a close in Act Four, a different kind of character might have heeded Frasquita’s warning and fled to safety. Or perhaps she might have called on Escamillo, who have would undoubtedly delighted in confronting José. But not Carmen.”

Anita Hartig shines as Micaela in Carmen (Photo by: Cory Weaver)

Soprano Anita Hartig made an impressive San Francisco Opera debut as Micaëla, although I found Zambello's decision to include this character in the final scene rather bizarre. Whereas the soprano's duties are finished by the end of Act III, in Zambello's staging she reappears at the end of the opera, looking down from one of the bullfight arena's walls as Don José stabs Carmen to death. In a plot twist that deserves to be called "Micaëla's Last Stand," it forces the audience to ask: "What the fuck?" It just doesn't make sense.

One can assume that the young woman went back to her village to console Don José's dying mother after encountering him in the hills with a band of gypsies. Even if Micaëla couldn't stop stalking her childhood friend, the soprano shows no reaction at all to the argument between Carmen and Don José or the gypsy woman's subsequent murder (Zambello could have achieved the same effect with a mannequin on a stick).

Kyle Ketelson and J'Nai Bridges in a scene from Carmen

(Photo by: Cory Weaver)

Other than that, the singing was highly commendable, with Kyle Ketelsen returning to town as Escamillo, Natalie Image as Frasquita, Ashley Dixon as Mercédès, Christopher Oglesby as Dancairo, and Zhengyi Bai as Remendado. David Leigh (Zuniga) and SeokJong Baek (Moralès) appeared as two of the guards in Don José's unit. As expected, everyone loved the horse (Drogen).

Kyle Ketelsen (Escamillo) arrives at Lillas Pastia's tavern on
horseback in a scene from Carmen (Photo by: Cory Weaver)