London Symphony Orchestra - Pedro's Dowry (Frank Zappa) The Barbican, London, UK, January 11, 1983

Kent Nagano - conductor
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David Ocker — solo clarinet
Chad Wackerman — drums
Ed Mann — featured percussionist

Program notes:
A WOMAN WITH OCEAN FRONT PROPERTY waits for a guy named PEDRO to sail into her back yard.
PEDRO is the kind of a guy who ties his shirt in a knot at the bottom and stands up in a rowboat.
When he arrives they perform a romantic pantomime duet. She pretends to be a viola. He pretends to be a trombone.
She prepares for him a special drink to arouse his passion.
Eventually, animal activities are performed on the floor in the living room, during which she loses her pearls.
PEDRO smokes a cigarette and a male housekeeper named MERLE cleans the rug.
Most of the stage is occupied by the interior of an expensively decorated beach house with the wall supposedly facing the water removed, as if it were a large sliding glass door completely opened. This structure fills 3/4 of the stage from mid-left to right. The left 1/4 of the stage has a small fake ocean, as indicated by two pieces of fiberboard cut to look like waves, painted blue and white, mounted on elastic bands and moved back and forth in front of each other in a surf-like motion. Behind this apparatus, the small boat which will deliver PEDRO to the beach house appears, also mounted on machinery causing it to rock in a motion contrary to the fake ocean.
As the ballet begins A WOMAN WITH OCEAN FRONT PROPERTY wearing a transparent turquoise blue negligee with blue fur around the bottom, blue fuzzy slippers, many strands of abnormally large pearls and starched blue hair, stands in the empty area where the sliding wall would have been, fondling her pearls. She waits for her fantasy lover PEDRO to arrive and provide her with some exciting recreation.
PEDRO is dashing (indicated by the fact that his shirt is tied in a knot at the bottom), brave (indicated by the fact that he stands up in a little boat while it gets bounced around) and sensitive (indicated by the way he jumps almost directly from the boat into her arms).
The rest of the choreography shows THE WOMAN WITH OCEAN FRONT PROPERTY seducing him in an elaborate ritual which includes the preparation of a mysteriously stimulating beverage (complete with smoldering dry ice).
Under the influence of her animal magnetism, PEDRO is subjected to bondage and humiliation, leading to a climax in which her pearls explode all over the floor. At this point, a male housekeeper named MERLE enters, clad only in a small ruffled pink apron, wielding an industrial vacuum cleaner. As the curtain close, THE WOMAN WITH OCEAN FRONT PROPERTY has collapsed on the sofa, PEDRO smokes a cigarette and MERLE cleans the rug.

Photo by Michael Putland

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