Dusting the soul

I am a sucker for beautiful things. During peak pandemic, I was in a particularly bad place psychologically and felt like everything I had to look forward to had been taken away, so I tried to find some source of positivity and fuel for my life. After many tests and evaluations online, it was official that “noticing and appreciating beauty, excellence and/or skilled performance in various domains of life, from nature to art to mathematics to science to everyday experience” was one of my key character strengths. This particularly diagnosis was from the Yale Happiness Course – The Science of Well-Being.

I engage with this aspect of my personality regularly to stay sane. One of the things I’ve always loved about the husband is that he can plunge into a heated conversation about Rembrandt in the middle of a dull afternoon of work and laundry, just because he heard me comment and has some sophisticated input. With the kid now in the picture, I like to troll both of them if they’ve been annoying me, wandering into the kitchen for a slice of cheese and casually dropping “I don’t like Gumilyov”. The instant animation and indignation this causes is delightfully entertaining.

As I child I would spend hours looking through a collection of a little-known Lithuanian artist’s paintings (Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis) – waking up early, tiptoeing into the living room, getting the book and falling into it, losing all sense of time. No one in the household ever singled out or paid special attention to this particular book among many others, but it was my favorite. The art was dark, moody and mysterious and I loved it.

We were always going to museums with my mom. There were stacks of issues of Novy Mir lying around the house, a literary magazine I later learned was somewhat dissident and had a breakthrough moment in the 1980s when it started printing previously banned works like Doctor Zhivago, Nineteen Eighty-Four, Solzhenitsyn’s “The Gulag Archipelago”, Brodsky and others. My mother seems to have seen every play that comes up in conversation and reads incessantly. My septuagenarian father is ferociously battling vision problems – his biggest fear is that they could interfere with his painting. The same father who insisted on taking me to see the world’s best ballets at the Bolshoi in my teens, when I was busy dancing on tables in bars, who loves Viennese opera and can fill you in on any painting in the Tretyakov Gallery, where we spent countless hours wandering. No matter what relationship issues there were, I am overwhelmingly thankful for growing up in this environment and being exposed to all these things.

My mom and me, The Art Addiction Begins

Moving here, I worried about raising our kid in an aesthetical vacuum. We chose the largest, most cosmopolitan city because I’d hoped it wouldn’t be as isolated from the rest of the world, and because life in a generic suburb in a big cardboard house where you drive your big car to a big supermarket to buy big packs of things seemed like a nightmare to me. I’ve never lived in a place without access to cultural institutions, public transportation and events. The pandemic left nothing but ugly buildings, graffiti and dirty streets, making life bleakly challenging. In 2021, I’d had enough of the psychosis of NYC, packed my things, took the kid and the dog, and went back to Moscow for six months. These were six months I will be eternally grateful for, some of the happiest and most eventful of the past decade for me, before the world changed completely. I convinced myself to go back and try again, this time out in the dreaded suburbs which suddenly seemed like a good option in comparison to the disintegration of the city. We ended up in a little cardboard house amid the typical suburban dysfunction, but within commutable distance to civilization.

Growing up, all the kids around me were taken to plays, ballets and museums regularly by their parents as a cultural must. Schools often took classes to performances as well. These visits were free and part of the curricula (Time Magazine had a piece about these Russian parenting practices). As an adult, I fell in love with theater. One of the things I miss most about Moscow is going to see plays. There were so many memorable productions, it was impossible to choose a favorite - historical, comedy, documentary theatre, immersive, one-person acts, experimental. I used to sadomasochistically scroll through the seasonal calendar after I moved, imaging all the ones I’d go to. Here I haven’t explored the theater scene yet because I have been at a loss of where to start and apprehensive of disappointment.

When we just moved to New York, I tried to see some ballets, but after the Bolshoi and Mariinksy they were very underwhelming. Years of conversations with my ballet connoisseur father added up as well – he has been going regularly since he was seven, and has an infinite love for and knowledge of the art. Though I don’t personally connect deeply to the art form, I appreciate its greatness and as a parent feel that it’s my duty to expose my child to it as part of his cultural education. I’m used to the dancers moving their fluid limbs in waves unfathomable to mere mortals, like they have no bones, sublime, soft and almost weightless. You feel like you are witnessing something divine. Here, it was like watching a workout – movements too edgy, you can hear them land with a thud, there is a lack of entrancing magic in the presentation.

I absolutely hate musicals and the only times I’ve been is to take out interested visiting friends. I wouldn’t pay to attend them on my own accord or drag along for free – I find them tacky, primitive and frankly bewildering as a source of art for adults. They are jarring to me, like the equivalent of McDonald’s in the cultural realm.

Opera is another story entirely. Before moving here, I’d only been to a few operas, my favorite being Borodin’s Prince Igor, which I still love. I felt like I knew half the arias, for instance Prince Igor’s «Ни сна, ни отдыха измученной душе, мне ночь не шлет отрады и забвенья» (“No sleep, no rest for my tormented soul, night denies me comfort and oblivion”) was something my mother would always say when things were intense and she was tired. It’s become a common saying many people use. Similarly, Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin is made up of passages from Pushkin’s novel in verse that every Russian can recite by heart. The operas I saw were classic pieces, with intricate costumes, historical settings and odes to tradition. I regret not seeing so many more, for instance Shostakovich’s Lady Macbeth of Mtsenk.

Here in NY, I fell in love with the Metropolitan Opera. My favorite operas so far have been Madama Butterfly and Florencia en el Amazonas. I’m not a fan of overdone productions like Zeffirelli - they are a visual assault and require resting your eyes in a dark room afterwards. While not everything I’ve seen at the Met was inspiring (Zeffirelli’s Turandot and the latest Rigoletto that I posted about come to mind), experiencing these works of art is precious to me and an important part of my life.

Being more accustomed to traditional staging, I am impressed with modern ways of presenting opera here, not compromising the art form or its grandeur. Anthony Minghella’s production of Madama Butterfly is breathtaking and very moving, the best thing I have seen so far and one I would love to see again. Mirrors placed above the stage give the whole performance haunting depth and a surreal feel. Elements like Bunraku-style traditional puppets are eerily affecting. The costumes, use of light and motion all come together flawlessly. It is both minimalist and painted in bold, bright strokes, leaving you with flashbacks for months. The production conveyed the tragedy and beauty of the story in a raw and sincere way that gave me goosebumps.

There’s an interesting distinction between perception of opera in languages you speak and those you don’t. For me, when it’s in German or Italian, for example, it is a distilled experience with the singing melting into the music completely like another instrument, especially if I’m listening in the car or at home, not looking at subtitles during the performance. When you understand what they’re singing, the meaning of the words gives the whole substance layers like oil separating from water.

I saw Florencia en el Amazonas a year ago, getting my hands on a couple of tickets last minute. As someone with a soft spot for magical realism, from Bulgakov to Borges, I couldn’t resist a production inspired by Gabriel García Márquez. It was highly hyped as the first opera sung in Spanish at the Met in a century, and one of a couple such operas ever performed there. It’s also contemporary and I had serious doubts going in, concerned that it might be a modern uglification of everything. I was bringing my kid that night too, who was going to the opera for the first time.

After seeing this my child fell in love with opera. It was magical and dreamlike, gripping from start to finish. The story is about a ship sailing along the Amazon river to Manaus, passengers on their way to hear a famed opera singer perform there. Secretly traveling with them is the diva herself, pining for the lost love of her youth, a butterfly hunter from Manaus. The supporting cast characters of the other passengers all have side stories as well. The production was distinctive and not afraid to be its quirky self. I loved everything about it, from subtitle projections onto set walls, hallucinatory kite-like creatures, color scheme and scale to the choreography and phantasmagoric costumes.

Florencia en el Amazonas, photo Ken Howard/Met Opera

My kid will still occasionally belt out “Cholera! Cholera!” when there’s a sudden alarming situation, because of a dramatic scene when this was sung as chimerical creatures appeared in a creeping river of fog to signify a cholera outbreak on land. I later read in Vogue that Croatian costume designer Ana Kuzmanić said the creatures were inspired by “This specific type of eagle that lives on the Amazon and is called harpy eagle, they have very unusual features. It is in dark color and the sleeves of the garment are created in folds that could emulate wings.” In other scenes, there were dolphins like fantastical, wildly colorful Calder sculptures made of paper, floating through the air in the background. It was a visual feast, saturated and impeccably paced, a light but at the same time touching opera.

Florencia en el Amazonas, photo Ken Howard/Met Opera

Even the new production of Carmen last year, much maligned in the media, was fun. British director Carrie Cracknell set it in an American industrial town in the middle of nowhere, with a barbed wire fence and armed guards around the tobacco factory. At one point, a huge trailer truck diorama was center stage, where Carmen and her friend held court. The toreador was now a rodeo star who makes his entrance in a red sports car with an entourage of rednecks on pickup trucks. There was a 1990s Baz Luhrmann Romeo + Juliet air to the whole thing, with outsized rusty Chevrolets on stage, along with dingy denim and cowboy boots against a background of strobing lights. In the end, José kills Carmen with a baseball bat. I liked the allegorically American setting and the boldness and absurdity of the interpretation. This sort of unapologetic kitsch works better for me than gaudy caricatures of classic stage sets done a million times before. Aigul Akhmetshina, only in her twenties, owned the whole show, passionate and enthralling, as was the musical performance in general. Cannot wait to see her in Il Barbiere di Siviglia this spring.

It makes me happy to live within commutable distance of the Metropolitan Museum and the MOMA, two museums I cannot get enough of. There are always interesting exhibitions of some kind going on in the city, from Rodin to the world of tiny things.

My own sporadic artistic impulses sometimes leave the basement floor covered in disassembled painted furniture or shards of glass from my rigorous mosaic cutting. There’s never any time – a few stolen hours here and there – and hardly anything is premeditated, mainly me improvising and filling the house with tiled coffee tables and other unexpected objects.

Film and independent animation have always been a cause for elation. Last movie I watched was the The Seed of the Sacred Fig (Iran, 2024), shot in secret and illegally. Before I’d only seen Children of Heaven (1997) and A Separation (2011) from Iranian cinema and found it a unique microcosm in such a restricted society - poetic, sincere and full of humanity. I am appalled that something as ugly and pedestrian as Anora (wrote about it here) won the Palme d’Or this year. The Substance (France, UK, USA 2024) is on a cinematically incomparable level – pure art, a finger to so many status quos, the director is something else in her audacity and mastery. Unforgettable, surprisingly visually appealing, grotesque, tragic, stupefying film.

I try to watch at least one or two films that come out of major festivals like Cannes, but in recent years have developed a backlog and need to catch up. Listing all the masterpieces that moved me even in the past decade would be too long and exhausting, because there’ve been so many, especially Asian films (Japan, Korea). If I had to choose a recent film to rewatch right now for sheer aesthetic pleasure, it would be Paweł Pawlikowski’s Cold War (Poland, 2018) because it was exquisite, romantic and sweeping, cinematic perfection in every way. The female lead is mesmerizing, a pocket-sized Vodianova meets Monica Vitti, absolute fire on screen, it was impossible to take your eyes of her. The male protagonist is gorgeous too, like everything else about the film. I thought it captured a certain aspect of Slavic women – how haunted the heroine was, child-like, damaged, the self-destructive streak, the lack of moderation and scope of self-sacrifice. The rough and complicated ways of Eastern Europe in general resonated with me, as well as the emptiness of exile and the inescapable call of the homeland that can’t be drowned out.

I’m looking forward to taking my kid to the The Count of Monte Cristo (2024, France) that comes out in the US in a few weeks, having played everywhere else months ago, but better late than never.

The most memorable animated films I’ve seen in the past fifteen years are Wolfwalkers (and earlier Song of the Sea by the same Irish studio, Cartoon Saloon), Persepolis and The Illusionist (both French, whose animation is an absolute powerhouse with many incredible films made in the past two decades). I wholeheartedly recommend these as examples of real, hand-drawn animation - an endangered species in modern times. They are works of pure dazzling genius made by artists, not the instantly merchandisable drivel from CGI mass production clone factories that majors have been churning out this century. My exception to this CGI aversion is this year’s The Flow (Latvia). It was visually striking, with unique camera movement and POV, so emotionally gripping that I had a knot in my stomach the whole time. The threadbare climate change messaging doesn’t put you off as it is nuanced and outweighed by artistry.

Another thing I enjoy in NYC are auction house exhibitions. In my years here I’ve learned that they aren’t only about seeing exciting private collection art you wouldn’t otherwise get a chance to see, but also the highest concentration of good-looking, well-dressed people to be found in this city.

One minute you’re in the horror of Midtown, with the acrid stench of burnt oils of unknown origin coming from streetcarts, bums pissing themselves and yelling abuse at passersby, clueless tourists and uniformly outfitted office workers throbbing together like a gigantic ant colony in neon lights, and the next those Rockefeller Plaza doors take you through the looking glass. Inside everyone is tall, thin and immaculately elegant. Heels hushed by carpeting, flowing silk skirts, men in properly fitted suits with scarves thrown on. Foreign languages everywhere, like a portal to Europe.

Highly recommend as a quick free fix of the finer aspects of civilization or some often needed escapism. The art can be hit and miss, but the people always deliver. Sometimes the exhibitions are quite spectacular, like the one at Christie’s this November, two full floors of beauty including paintings, sculpture and ceramics. It was the one where they sold the Magritte for $121 million. I always feel like a child in a jewelry store at such events - the adults are shopping and you’re just quietly frenzied about all the glorious shiny things.

Picasso ceramics at Christie’s this November 2024

Outside the city, one of my favorite art places is the Storm King Art Center, an open-air sculpture park. I first encountered the concept of a sculpture park in nature ten years ago in Denmark, at the Rudolph Tegner Museum & Statuepark. Situated on the Northern coast of Denmark, on the heather-clad hills of North Zealand, and starring 250 of the Danish sculptor’s works, it left a profound impression on me. Ironically, the park is located in an area called Rusland, Danish for Russia, deriving from the remoteness and unique landscape of the place. Storm King is over ten times bigger than Tegner’s Statuepark (202 and 17 hectares respectively) and set in the spectacular scenery of the Hudson Valley, featuring hills and meadows, wetlands and ponds, tall feathery grasses, hayfields and woods. It is particularly stunning in the autumn.

Storm King Art Center, New York

Pablo Picasso said, "Art washes from the soul the dust of everyday life." I personally feel that I need regular dusting of this kind and am addicted to the process.