The Ultimate Valentine’s Day

Did you remember the roses? How about the truffles? Champagne, too?

Now that the eyes, nose and taste buds are covered, how about a Valentine’s Day present for the ears, the mind and, perhaps, even the soul of the one you love?

With that in mind, Calendar writers asked Orange County arts mavens to count the ways that great artistic creations--the sweetest pop songs, the most touching classical music, the most poetic plays--figure into this day that honors love and romance.

Music John Alexander, Pacific Chorale music director:

Debussy’s “Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun”; the (Love) Duet between Adam and Eve from Haydn’s “The Creation”; something from Mozart’s “Don Giovanni”; something from Bizet’s “Carmen”; Brahms’ “Liebeslieder Waltzes” (both sets); finish with Tchaikovsky’s “Romeo and Juliet” Fantasy/Overture. Encore: Berlioz’s “Romeo et Juliet” Symphony.

Keith Clark, Pacific Symphony music director:

On an old program, we did music from Gluck’s “Orpheus and Eurydice,” Schoenberg’s “Pelleas and Melisande,” and Tchaikovsky’s “Romeo and Juliet” Fantasy/Overture. Today I would do Berlioz’s “Death of Cleopatra.”

Edward Peterson, Garden Grove Symphony music director:

My program would be called “Symphonic Romance: Music for Lovers”: Strauss’ “Don Juan”; Ravel’s “Bolero”; Borodin’s Nocturne for Strings; Strauss’ “Wine, Women and Song” Waltz; Overture to Glinka’s “Russlan and Ludmilla”; Juliet’s Waltz from Gounod’s “Romeo and Juliet”; Tchaikovsky’s “Romeo and Juliet” Fantasy/Overture.

Ami Porat, Mozart Camerata music director:

Mozart, of course: No music quite expresses love, drama or a wider range of human emotions than his. Overture to “The Marriage of Figaro”; “Haffner” Symphony (No. 35); Adagio from the Divertimento No. 15 (K. 287). Also, the Adagio Cantabile from Tchaikovsky’s “Souvenir of Florence.”

John Larry Granger, South Coast Symphony music director:

Tchaikovsky’s “Romeo and Juliet” Fantasy/Overture; a medley of songs from Bernstein’s “West Side Story,” with soprano Kiri Te Kanawa and tenor Jose Carreras; Adagietto from Mahler’s Symphony No. 5; Ravel’s “Bolero,” and the Bacchanale from Saint-Saens’ “Samson and Delila” as an encore.

Chris Pasles, music reviewer, Times Orange County Edition:

The Terzetto (“Sento dire no’ce’ pace”) from Stravinsky’s “Pulchinella.”

Three madrigals by Monteverdi (“Zefiro torna,” “Ohme, dov’ e il mio ben?” “Chiome d’oro”).

Trois bourrees from Canteloube’s “Songs of the Auvergne” (“L’aio de rotso,” “Ound’ onoren gorda” and “Obad, din lou Limouzi”).

“Au fond du temple saint” from Bizet’s “Les Pecheurs de Perles.”

Wagner’s “Wesendonck Lieder.”

(intermission) Brahms’ Sextet in G, Op. 36.

(pause)

Tatiana’s letter-writing scene from Tchaikovsky’s “Eugen Onegin.”

Anne’s aria (“I go to him. Love cannot falter”) from Stravinsky’s “The Rake’s Progress.”

Elgar’s “Sea Pictures.”

Berg’s Lyric Suite.

Encore: Closing trio (“Hab’ mir’s gelobt”) from Strauss’ “Der Rosenkavalier.”

POP

Mike Boehm, pop music reviewer, Times Orange County Edition

Beach Boys, “God Only Knows”

Beach Boys, “Caroline No”

John Cale, “Andalucia”

Bob Dylan, “I Want You”

Everly Brothers, “Let It Be Me”

Aretha Franklin, “A Natural Woman (You Make Me Feel Like)”

Kinks, “Days”

Randy Newman, “Marie”

Otis Redding, “Try a Little Tenderness”

Rolling Stones, “Moonlight Mile”

Ann De Jarnett, singer with rock band Ann De Jarnett and the Falcons

Nico, “My Funny Valentine”

David Bowie, “Wild Is the Wind”

Iggy Pop and the Stooges, “Penetration”

Velvet Underground, “I’m Sticking With You”

Roxy Music, “The Main Thing”

Jimi Hendrix, “Are You Experienced?”

Tom Waits, “Blind Love”

Edith Piaf, “Lovers for a Day”

John Lennon, “Jealous Guy”

Velvet Underground, “Some Kinda Love”

James Harman, blues singer, bandleader

Otis Redding, “My Lover’s Prayer”

Muddy Waters, “Just to Be With You”

James Carr, “The Dark End of the Street”

Sonny Boy Williamson, “Trust My Baby”

Sonny Boy Williamson, “Love in Vain” (not the Robert Johnson song)

Jimmy Reed, “I Know It’s a Sin”

Bobby Bland, “Ain’t Nothing You Can Do”

Bobby Bland, “Call on Me”

Jimmy Rogers, “Ludella”

Toussaint McCall, “Nothing Takes the Place of You”

Tony Lioce, Calendar editor, Times Orange County Edition, and pop critic emeritus

Talking Heads, “Who Is It?”

Delbert McClinton, “Lovey Dovey”

Prince, “Kiss”

Jerry Lee Lewis, “Breathless”

Bo Diddley, “Dearest Darling”

Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys, “My Life Is a Pleasure (And It’s All Because of You)”

Allen Toussaint, “With You in Mind”

Jackie Wilson, “Higher and Higher”

Gene Pitney, “Every Breath I Take”

Fats Domino, “It’s You I Love”

Bill Medley, Righteous Brothers singer

Kenny Rogers, “Lady”

Skyliners, “Since I Don’t Have You”

Johnny Mathis, “Misty”

Simon & Garfunkel, “Bridge Over Troubled Water”

Platters, “My Prayer”

Roy Orbison, “Crying”

Leon Russell, “A Song for You”

Beatles, “The Long and Winding Road”

Dan Hill, “Sometimes When We Touch”

Mike Ness, singer with Social Distortion

Rolling Stones, “Wild Horses”

Rosie & the Originals, “Angel Baby”

Elvis Presley, “Love Me Tender”

Temptations, “My Girl”

Johnny Cash, “Ring of Fire”

Stacey Q, dance-pop singer

Beatles, “Girl”

Rolling Stones, “Wild Horses”

David Bowie, “God Only Knows” (his version of Beach Boys song)

Beatles “It’s Only Love”

Marvin Gaye, “I Want You”

David Bowie, “Wild Is the Wind”

Beatles, “Anna”

David Bowie, “Lady Stardust”

Crowded House, “Into Temptation”

Charlie Sexton, “Impressed”

Jon St. James, dance-pop producer of Stacey Q and Bardeux

10cc, “I’m Not in Love”

Percy Sledge, “When a Man Loves a Woman”

Roxy Music, “Avalon” (LP)

Moody Blues, “Nights in White Satin”

Big Brother and the Holding Company, “Piece of My Heart”

Beach Boys, “Surfer Girl”

Yes, “Close to the Edge” (LP)

Elton John, “Your Song”

Beatles, “Strawberry Fields Forever”

Bardeux, “When We Kiss” (“Sort of a special song for me because I wrote it on Valentine’s Day with my girlfriend, Acacia, who is in Bardeux.”)

Theater Douglas Rowe, artistic director of the Laguna Playhouse in Laguna Beach:

“Elizabeth the Queen” by Maxwell Anderson.

We’ll be doing the play next year. It’s about how the leadership of the Western world is set aside for the sake of romance. Essex gives up his career and his life for a woman who is very obviously his senior, Queen Elizabeth. It has beautiful, romantic language as well. It speaks poetry.

“Cyrano de Bergerac” by Edmond Rostand.

This is an obvious choice. Again, love is shown to be the pre-eminent impulse in life.

“Play It Again, Sam” by Woody Allen.

This choice comes to mind because of how I met my wife, Katherine. On closing night of (“Sam”) we fell in love at the cast party. I had wandered into the empty theater feeling the usual post-partum depression. The set was down, and there was a cherry picker in the middle of the stage.

I climbed into the cherry picker and pressed the button. On the way up I began reciting the nose speech from “Cyrano”: “The face that launched a thousand ships and burned the topless towers Illium. . . . These are the things you might have said had you some tinge of letters or of wit.”

When I got to the top of this 20-foot arc, I was finishing up the speech, and I took off my hat and sailed it into the empty theater. Katherine had walked in without my knowing, and sat down and--this is a true story--my hat landed in her lap.

Well, she jumped up and said, “I want to have your child!” A year later we were married. We now have two kids. I guess she got more than she bargained for.

Thomas F. Bradac, artistic director of the Grove Theatre Company in Garden Grove.

“Romeo and Juliet” by William Shakespeare.

This play is about the passion of young love and the blindness of doing anything for love.

“Cyrano de Bergerac.”

“Cyrano” is about unrequited love, the pure love of giving oneself for the love of another.

“Venus and Adonis” by Shakespeare.

This is not a play, it’s an epic poem. But we presented it in a dramatic one-man version last summer. It’s very passionate and sexual.

The interesting thing is that all of these choices have tragic endings. You don’t walk off into the sunset hand in hand in any of them. You pay for love.

“Two Gentlemen of Verona” by Shakespeare.

I would choose this one for silly romance. . . . We all are a little silly when we fall in love.

Robert Cohen, chairman of the UC Irvine drama department:

“Much Ado About Nothing” by Shakespeare.

This is the most romantic play ever written. It’s a very modern play about the crisis of love. How do you balance the privacy of the individual and the need for love and companionship? How do you have both? That is what Benedick and Beatrice and Claudio and Hero are trying to do.

Martin Benson, artistic director of South Coast Repertory in Costa Mesa:

“The Playboy of the Western World” by John Millington Synge.

To me, this is the most romantic play of all time. It is gorgeous stuff.

“Cyrano de Bergerac.”

It’s hard to go wrong with that one.

“Romeo and Juliet.”

It captures people falling in love--the “limmerance,” if you will.

David Emmes, producting artistic director of SCR:

“Cyrano de Bergerac.”

I put “Cyrano” in a class by itself because of its great lyricism and because of the non-demanding, selfless love that we see manifest there.

A distant second and third are “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” (by Shakespeare) and “Fool for Love” (by Sam Shepard). “Midsummer Night’s Dream,” because it is about youthful, exuberant love and sexual awakening. “Fool for Love” because, in its bizarre way, it is about consuming, compelling visceral love, an almost ineffable love.

Pat Terry, artistic director of the Alternative Repertory Theatre in Santa Ana:

“The Eagle With Two Heads” by Jean Cocteau.

The two characters would rather be dead than not be in love. They want an idealistic understanding. The language is beautiful.

“Much Ado About Nothing” and “Cyrano de Bergerac,” of course, would be my classical selections.

For a contemporary choice I would say Tom Stoppard’s “The Real Thing” because it grasps the modern dilemma of falling out of love with your spouse and falling in love with someone else, and all the pain and guilt that accompanies that.