A Zappa Affair, Zellerbach Auditorium, University of California, Berkeley, CA, June 16, 1984
When Kent Nagano, then director of the Berkeley Symphony, was in Paris at the Pompidou Center, he came across Zappa's name on the list of orchestral commissions by Pierre Boulez.
His curiosity piqued, he contacted Zappa, asking for scores to look at, for possible performance by the Berkeley Symphony.
"I didn't know what to expect these scores to be like," Nagano recalls, "maybe Rodgers and Hammerstein, some insipid sort of thing. But I know I didn't expect to see a work of the difficulty of an Elliott Carter, the complexity of Boulez, the sincerity of Takemitsu, and the driving intensity of Varèse."
The two started working together on four pieces - Bob In Dacron/Sad Jane, Mo 'n Herb's Vacation, Sinister Footwear, and Pedro's Dowry - and soon afterwards Nagano led the London Symphony Orchestra for the recording.
The Berkeley Symphony's "Zappa Affair" marked the first performance in the United States.
Sinister Footwear was premiered on June 15, 1984 at the same place.
Ballet in three scenes and 21 parts
• Scene one (Jake's bedroom, changing to a stylized industrial panorama)
1. Jake who designs it.
2. Somewhere in New Jersey where they make them.
3. Illegal aliens on a lunch break.
4. At the catering truck.
5. Jake eats a molded jello salad.
6. Jake's secretary.
7. Illegal aliens work slower in the afternoon.
8. Jake's secretary reads her magazine.
9. Illegal aliens want to go home.
10. Jake's secretary eats cottage cheese.
11. Ugly shoes on the assembly line.
• Scene two (black velvet backdrop with fun-house mirrors)
12. What you look like when you're wearing them.
13. Sometimes they make you walk funny.
14. Other people pretend not to notice.
15. Sometimes you have to take them off for a minute.
16. Then you put them back on because you think they look so good on you.
17. Children can also have ugly shoes.
18. The foot doctor says you might need an operation.
19. But you're going to wear them anyway.
20. Everybody has a pair somewhere.
• Scene three (surreal night club scene)
21. A place you can go when you've got them on
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