I am jotting down lists for a talk next month to Roanoke's Shakespeare book club on Faust: "Myth and Music."
'Tis the season for lists. Shopping lists, gift lists, wish lists and more. Umberto Eco's fascinatingly quirky monograph, The Infinity of Lists is open on the kitchen table to an excerpt from the Walpurgisnacht scene from Goethe's Faust (I am not planning on replicating Mephistopheles's bewitched recipe, for the record).
The Walpurgisnacht scene is one entry in my notebook of archetypal "journeys to the abyss." Christ's descent into hell another. Also Ulysses's and Orpheus's journeys to the underworld. And Dante's trip with Virgil in the Divine Comedy. One might add a trip to any shopping mall in the US the weekend before Christmas. And so on.
My obsession with mythology can now add James Hollis's Tracking the Gods: The Place of Myth in Modern Life to this year's top-ten list of favorite books.
He quotes Paul Tillich's observation that "the greatest sin of modernism was not evil…but rather the barren triviality that preoccupies us" (Inner City Books, 1995). Which recalls another apt quote from another list.
This one from the pragmatic critic and philosopher, John Dewey. "The enemies of the esthetic are neither the practical nor the intellectual. They are the humdrum...submission to convention" (Art as Experience, 1934. Perigree edition 2005).
I can see the mountains from my apartment in Roanoke, the sea from our bay-side home in Norfolk. Nature is the origin of the aesthetic and an antidote to humdrum convention. Selah.
My list of favorite Italian films would start with several by Michelangelo Antonioni. That list would be ordered by preference for his muse, the mysterious and unpredictable Monica Vitti. Il Deserto Rosso (Red Desert) is at the top of the list. Among other concerns, it centers on the balance between technology and nature. The poetry of modernity. I'd never seen nuclear reactors as man-made volcanos but that is exactly what they resemble in the opening sequence of this visually stunning film (Antonioni's first in color).
It can be viewed as a series of modern art tableaus. Urban landscapes. Toxic beauty (the yellow smoke and sulfuric wetlands embody such oxymoronic tension). Though I don't think the film would make a great opera, it provokes thought on the tense relationship between tradition and progress. Which brings to mind the shifting landscape of classical music in the US, from concert programming to opera production.
But I digress. That tangent was inspired by a quote from Signorina Vitti as she looks dreamily out on the water (I listed it in my notebook, just above John Dewey's).
"It's never still...never, never...I can't look at the sea for long or I lose interest in what's happening on land."
One of the most interesting perspectives on what's happening on land is from an airplane window. I love sitting by the window on a partly cloudy day and glimpsing the curvilinear form of the city-scape as it comes into view upon descent. To trace the arc of a bending road that mirrors a river's curves is to marvel at the beauty of technology and the marriage of the aesthetic and pragmatic. One could expand the list of metaphors thus inspired, from the winding paths of life to the body's curves to "Spoon River" and beyond...
I don't know if that counts as an example of Dewey's aim to "restore continuity" between the experience of everyday life and the aesthetic. But living in a place where that continuity is conscious helps. The list of cities with an admirable commitment to public art might start with Chicago. Within a few blocks of one another are sprawling and fanciful sculptures by Calder, Miro and Picasso, with Chagall's panoramic mural of the Four Seasons in between.
The four seasons reminds one of the quaternity of elements, the stages of humankind, the four corners of the square and the squaring of the circle. The mythopoeic fourfold and the unity forged through diversity.
(There I go again, poeticizing lists, listing metaphors, randomly mythologizing).
One answer to the question "what does one do on one's first saturday off since the summer?" is to make such lists. To "discern the movement of soul" (Hollis) and follow Dr Jung's advice to relate to the infinite in the quest for the "authentic life" of meaning.
'Tis the season to give thanks and celebrate the mysterious beauty of life. To borrow a wonderful metaphor from my colleague, Jim Gates, let us give presence more than presents. Let us count the ways life is rich with meaning. The list is not important. It is the act itself.
Saturday, December 18, 2010
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
In Flanders Fields with Don Carlo
One of the world's most beloved war-time poems is John McCrae's In Flanders Fields. Its haunting, lyrical voice comes directly from the front of the so-called "Great War" (the British term for what we know as World War One).
In flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place, and in the sky,
The larks, still bravely singing, fly,
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
I believe one of the reasons we love tragic art (even if we'd be embarrassed to admit it) is because it touches our emotions so directly we are affected--we are moved--before the experience registers as a powerful affect (thus giving us the opportunity to disavow such affected responses. "Plausible deniability," right?)
I would never deny my deep affection and abiding love for Verdi's Don Carlo. Its historical epoch (the 16th c. reign of Spain's King Philip II) is centuries removed from WWI and even further from us. But one of the functions of pieces like In Flanders Fields is that it not only speaks for its own time, but like all great tragedy, it speaks for all time.
I adopt such an idealist tone, of course, to betray my sympathies with the title character and his freedom-fighter friend, Rodrigo, the Marquis of Posa. Like all great stories, Don Carlo is full of human characters in dynamic relationships--with one another, with the state/church/society, and also with destiny (fate) and history.
Don Carlo is arguably more Shakespearean than Verdi's settings of the Bard. Based on a play by Friedrich "Ode to Joy" Schiller, Don Carlo deals with the complex relationships of six leading characters set against the historical backdrop of the Spanish Inquisition. This produces great tension across the spectrum of relationships, resulting in engaging drama. The Inquisition also conveniently provides the composer with an "excuse" for an elaborate, ballet-like demonstration of operatic "pomp and circumstance" in the auto-da-fe scene (a celebration crowned with the burning of heretics).
So Don Carlo has grand operatic spectacle on an epic scale with characters Shakespearean in dimension. The score is a paradigm of compositional virtue where motivic unity is concerned. That's a fancy way of saying it's "closely argued." Another way of saying it's "tight." One doesn't have to recognize "motivic unity" as such to hear or "get" Don Carlo. It is a cult favorite of opera (and Verdi) lovers because of its great cast of characters and the sheer beauty of their music. It casts its own special shadow full of deep-hued tones. It is beloved for the unusual aura of the deep voices in its cast (1 baritone & 3 basses).
The aforementioned Rodrigo is one of the great Verdi baritone roles (which makes it one of the great baritone roles)! His death scene near the opera's close is one of the most beautifully crafted and moving moments of any male singer in opera. King Philip should be an easy-to-loathe villain--a tyrant who selfishly steals his son's fiancee (via political deal) and rules by oppressive force. He has one of the greatest monologues in opera when he sings of the unrequited love of his wife.
The second stanza of In Flanders Fields identifies the chorus singing voice to the poem:
We are the dead; short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
Don Carlo is full of voices in dialogue and contains some of Verdi's greatest ensemble pieces. The second act alone contains not one but three major duets: the popular "friendship" duet between Don Carlo (T) and Rodrigo (B); a classic "lost love" duet between Carlo and Elisabetta, the prima donna. The act ends with one of the great baritone & bass duets in the repertoire. "Restate" (Stay) is also a chillingly relevant piece of theater in the form of a political conversation.
The new Met production is right on by allowing these voices to resonate. The next "Live in HD broadcast" is a co-production with London's Royal Opera House (Covent Garden). The eminent british director Nicholas Hytner tells the story in bold strokes underscored by great fields of primary color: red, black, and white.
In Great Britain, Armistice Day (what we celebrate as Veterans Day) is marked with near ubiquitous red poppy lapel pins. The scene from Act II mentioned above features poppies strewn about the stage; an entire field of poppies is the "background" to both the "lost love" duet & the great political duet that follows. The symbolism of those bright red poppies would not only have registered palpably with the London audience; it would do what symbolism is supposed to do: it would provoke (inspire) thought & reflection.
And Don Carlo has much to inspire & provoke. In addition to the spectral timbre of its sound world, its epic length contributes to its powerful cumulative effect. All grand opera is intended to pack such a wallop to the senses. That we have an-aesthetized those senses through (some of) the trappings of modernism should give us pause enough to invest the several hours required for such a mutually rewarding endeavor as an afternoon spent with Don Carlo.
"There he goes again being an utopian idealist.
Silly tenor.
Next he'll be quoting poetry!" In point of fact, he shall.
The last stanza of In Flanders Fields reminds us why we need (tragic) art to begin, why Shakespeare and Verdi--poetry and music--help us feel more alive by helping us be more fully human.
Take up our quarrel with the foe!
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high!
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
I shall not break faith with Don Carlo as it has generously shared its wealth with me since I started my love affair with it, as an idealistic undergraduate at James Madison University some years ago. Of the 6 productions I've viewed, this new one is my favorite. But I love Don Carlo from his opening aria to Elisabetta's grand scena nearly 4 hours later regardless. Though I loathe the despicable villain, the Grand Inquisitor gets my attention and holds it every second he's on stage (his duet with the King following Philip's great monologue is a coup upon a coup)! Verdi wrote greater tragedies (Otello) and grander epics (Aida), but Don Carlo has a special power that seems to emanate from the mysterious tomb of Charles V of its source. Beware. It just might become your favorite opera, too...
In flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place, and in the sky,
The larks, still bravely singing, fly,
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
I believe one of the reasons we love tragic art (even if we'd be embarrassed to admit it) is because it touches our emotions so directly we are affected--we are moved--before the experience registers as a powerful affect (thus giving us the opportunity to disavow such affected responses. "Plausible deniability," right?)
I would never deny my deep affection and abiding love for Verdi's Don Carlo. Its historical epoch (the 16th c. reign of Spain's King Philip II) is centuries removed from WWI and even further from us. But one of the functions of pieces like In Flanders Fields is that it not only speaks for its own time, but like all great tragedy, it speaks for all time.
I adopt such an idealist tone, of course, to betray my sympathies with the title character and his freedom-fighter friend, Rodrigo, the Marquis of Posa. Like all great stories, Don Carlo is full of human characters in dynamic relationships--with one another, with the state/church/society, and also with destiny (fate) and history.
Don Carlo is arguably more Shakespearean than Verdi's settings of the Bard. Based on a play by Friedrich "Ode to Joy" Schiller, Don Carlo deals with the complex relationships of six leading characters set against the historical backdrop of the Spanish Inquisition. This produces great tension across the spectrum of relationships, resulting in engaging drama. The Inquisition also conveniently provides the composer with an "excuse" for an elaborate, ballet-like demonstration of operatic "pomp and circumstance" in the auto-da-fe scene (a celebration crowned with the burning of heretics).
So Don Carlo has grand operatic spectacle on an epic scale with characters Shakespearean in dimension. The score is a paradigm of compositional virtue where motivic unity is concerned. That's a fancy way of saying it's "closely argued." Another way of saying it's "tight." One doesn't have to recognize "motivic unity" as such to hear or "get" Don Carlo. It is a cult favorite of opera (and Verdi) lovers because of its great cast of characters and the sheer beauty of their music. It casts its own special shadow full of deep-hued tones. It is beloved for the unusual aura of the deep voices in its cast (1 baritone & 3 basses).
The aforementioned Rodrigo is one of the great Verdi baritone roles (which makes it one of the great baritone roles)! His death scene near the opera's close is one of the most beautifully crafted and moving moments of any male singer in opera. King Philip should be an easy-to-loathe villain--a tyrant who selfishly steals his son's fiancee (via political deal) and rules by oppressive force. He has one of the greatest monologues in opera when he sings of the unrequited love of his wife.
The second stanza of In Flanders Fields identifies the chorus singing voice to the poem:
We are the dead; short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
Don Carlo is full of voices in dialogue and contains some of Verdi's greatest ensemble pieces. The second act alone contains not one but three major duets: the popular "friendship" duet between Don Carlo (T) and Rodrigo (B); a classic "lost love" duet between Carlo and Elisabetta, the prima donna. The act ends with one of the great baritone & bass duets in the repertoire. "Restate" (Stay) is also a chillingly relevant piece of theater in the form of a political conversation.
The new Met production is right on by allowing these voices to resonate. The next "Live in HD broadcast" is a co-production with London's Royal Opera House (Covent Garden). The eminent british director Nicholas Hytner tells the story in bold strokes underscored by great fields of primary color: red, black, and white.
In Great Britain, Armistice Day (what we celebrate as Veterans Day) is marked with near ubiquitous red poppy lapel pins. The scene from Act II mentioned above features poppies strewn about the stage; an entire field of poppies is the "background" to both the "lost love" duet & the great political duet that follows. The symbolism of those bright red poppies would not only have registered palpably with the London audience; it would do what symbolism is supposed to do: it would provoke (inspire) thought & reflection.
And Don Carlo has much to inspire & provoke. In addition to the spectral timbre of its sound world, its epic length contributes to its powerful cumulative effect. All grand opera is intended to pack such a wallop to the senses. That we have an-aesthetized those senses through (some of) the trappings of modernism should give us pause enough to invest the several hours required for such a mutually rewarding endeavor as an afternoon spent with Don Carlo.
"There he goes again being an utopian idealist.
Silly tenor.
Next he'll be quoting poetry!" In point of fact, he shall.
The last stanza of In Flanders Fields reminds us why we need (tragic) art to begin, why Shakespeare and Verdi--poetry and music--help us feel more alive by helping us be more fully human.
Take up our quarrel with the foe!
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high!
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
I shall not break faith with Don Carlo as it has generously shared its wealth with me since I started my love affair with it, as an idealistic undergraduate at James Madison University some years ago. Of the 6 productions I've viewed, this new one is my favorite. But I love Don Carlo from his opening aria to Elisabetta's grand scena nearly 4 hours later regardless. Though I loathe the despicable villain, the Grand Inquisitor gets my attention and holds it every second he's on stage (his duet with the King following Philip's great monologue is a coup upon a coup)! Verdi wrote greater tragedies (Otello) and grander epics (Aida), but Don Carlo has a special power that seems to emanate from the mysterious tomb of Charles V of its source. Beware. It just might become your favorite opera, too...
Thursday, November 18, 2010
Let us recount our dreams...
[I posted the following on my Musings blog, and it references earlier posts there. But the opera that prompted this musing is one I want our audiences to experience in a future season...]
The third act of Britten's opera A Midsummer Night's Dream embodies the cliché "from the sublime to the ridiculous." The act opens in a fairy-land evoked by shimmering violins in three-part divisi playing in their upper register. It is among the most beautiful music its composer wrote.
The Fairy King, Oberon undoes the spell he cast on the Fairy Queen, Tytania. She awakens to a recapitulation of the violins' theme that swells in sensual crescendo with the entire orchestra, complemented by cascading harp glissandi. It's a wonderful moment in an act of musical theater that is full of felicities and surprises.
Upon waking her first lines are:
My Oberon! what visions have I seen!
Methought I was enamor'd of an ass.
By my troth, thou wast! For Oberon hath played a trick on the fair Fairy Queen (with the timeless theatrical device of the love potion) which made Tytania fall for the first thing she laid eyes upon. To her shame and the audience's delight, she espied the lovably boorish weaver, Bottom. They would qualify for opera's most unlikely couple were Bottom NOT turned by fairy-magic into the form of a donkey. But an ass he is. Or was.
Britten has been rightly praised for the ingenious ways he evokes the differing worlds of Shakespeare's fairy tale (for kids of all ages). The Fairy land is differentiated from the lyrical but earth-bound music for the pairs of Athenian lovers (themselves victims of love potions and spells). The human realm of the Athenian nobles is marked from the world of the simple "mechanicals," the rustic men who form a rankly amateur theater troupe in their off hours. It is appropriate that Shakespeare's prototypes for the dry, slapstick brand of British humour (en vogue through Monty Python) should be given music that parodies parallel operatic stereotypes.
But when I saw the engaging and thoroughly entertaining production of Britten's opera recently in Chicago, I was surrounded by opera loving philistines who neither responded to the double entendre of puns like Tytania's or the ridiculousness of the rustics "play within the play." There were a small handful of subscribers in the upper balcony who laughed out loud--a good production of the play AND the opera IS laugh-out-loud funny. But more people either walked out or audibly voiced their incomprehension at the slapstick antics and raw wit.
To cite one ridiculously funny instance among many, the play "Pyramus and Thisby" features the classical amateur "ham" actor (Bottom) as the hero Pyramus. His beloved Thisby is played by the awkward young man, Flute in drag. They meet on either side of a wall (which is played to hilarious effect by a fellow rustic, Snout) and try to kiss through a chink in said wall. The kiss does not go well and "Thisby" cries in "her" strained tenor "I kiss the wall's hole/not your lips at all!" That's funny. And funnier in a good production. Which this was.
The humorlessness of hardened, "serious" music lovers did not diminish my enjoyment. But it is a reminder of how difficult communication can be and how vital it is for the human channels to stay open. As others have corroborated, a culture that loses its sense of wonder, mystery OR its sense of humor is in trouble.
I think we are even more uncomfortable with raw, in-your-face emotion than we are with bawdy humor. "We" being polite, educated, middle class (mostly white) "culture." Consumers of "serious" music and "high" art.
In one of Alex Ross's recent New Yorker reviews he writes penetratingly about the reception of Leonard Bernstein's serious music. He quotes Bernstein's description of Britten's music as "gears that are grinding and not quite meshing." Ross says Bernstein "might better have been describing his own work."
I think both men--who had an interesting, episodic relationship from Bernstein's conducting of Britten's first opera, Peter Grimes in 1946 through Britten's death in 1976--have been misunderstood. Ross goes on to describe the musical language of Bernstein's opera, A Quiet Place. Before noting that at its premiere it was "criticized as a hodgepodge--nearly every Bernstein score was criticized as a hodgepodge," Ross makes one of those observations that reminds me why he's one of my favorite critics.
"It's as if he [Bernstein] were healing the twentieth century's stylistic divides, with Romanticism as the meeting ground; at several crucial points, the orchestra enters a beautifully ominous space that might be described as Cold War Mahler."
That "hodgepodge" style and the bridging of stylistic distances was something Lenny and Benjie both did quite well, even if they were much criticized for it. Their music is unfashionably conservative from the avant-garde's perspective. The "grinding gears" (which now amount to very mild dissonance--film scores can be much more grating) have been wrongly associated with "ugly" modernism. This still puts off many listeners (those for whom "I know what I like" usually translates to "I like what I know"). I think both factors contribute to the checkered reception history of both composers' works. But I think something else is in play. Their music is emotional and romantic and direct. And such openness makes all kinds of (western) people uncomfortable.
I couldn't choose which evocative world of Britten's A Midsummer Night's Dream I like best. The metaphysical realm of the fairies is wonderful (and has more of Britten's infectiously charming music for children). I love the bel canto opera parodies in the finale's play within the play (they were a wink in the direction of La Stupenda, Joan Sutherland, who'd recently sung in Britten's Gloriana to great acclaim). And the music the Athenian lovers sing upon waking from their dream (which gives this rambling ditty its title) is ravishingly beautiful.
In a recent dream I had I looked up at the night sky and the stars lit up like night-lights, like bright white dots in a pointillistic Seurat canvas, shown in relief against a background of pitch. I have no idea what that image represents, but it was cool.
I'm reading a wonderful book of art criticism, Caspar David Friedrich: And the Subject of Landscape (Joseph Leo Kerner. Reaktion, 1990, 2009). Kerner takes some time to connect the threads of early 19th-century German culture, the birthplace of the "Romantic." I was reminded of a recent post below on "fragments and hedgehogs" (which may well become the title of the book I want to turn this all into) as I read quotes from the visionary romantic poet, Novalis:
"The world must become Romanticized. That way one finds again the original meaning. Romanticizing is nothing but a qualitative potentializing."
Jawohl! Restoring some of the balance our rational, goal-oriented, technology-driven western world has misplaced would involve realizing more of our affective (and metaphysical) potential and might just restore some of the lost "original meaning."
Kerner hasn't referred (yet) to Jung or John Dewey, and his book predates Iain McGilchrist's efforts to give the right brain its due (all referenced in posts below) but the "meaningful coincidence" of synchronicity is there when we have eyes to see and ears to hear.
And like beholding more of the stars, even this reception requires effort. Just a couple of pages after the Bernstein review in the same (Nov 15) New Yorker, John Lahr reviews a new production of Tony Kushner's groundbreaking epic, Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on American Themes. He quotes a note Kushner had written the cast of the opening night run in LA in 1992:
"And how else should an angel land on earth but with utmost difficulty? If we are to be visited by angels we will have to call them down with sweat and strain...and the efforts we expend to draw the heavens to an earthly place may well leave us too exhausted to appreciate the fruits of our labors: an angel, even with torn robes, and ruffled feathers, is in our midst."
Yes it is. I love Tony Kushner. I love his bold, audacious vision, his passion and the range of raw emotions his characters evoke and the all-too-human states they embody. He is a modern-day prophet and poet and the scope of his imagination lives up to such titles. In another example of critical excellence, Lahr writes about "one of the most thrilling of Kushner's verbal arabesques--[in which] Harper has a vision of repair for the ozone layer, whose hole has obsessed her doom-filled days:"
Souls were rising, from the earth far below, souls of the dead, of people who had perished, from famine, from war, from the plague, and they floated up, like skydivers in reverse, limbs all akimbo, wheeling and spinning. And the souls of these departed joined hands, clasped ankles, and formed a web, a great net of souls, and the souls were three-atom oxygen molecules, of the stuff of ozone, and the outer rim absorbed them, and was repaired.
What souls! "What visions have I seen!" I feel like Walt Whitman yawping an open-throated affirmation of life itself. Or like Lenny: "And it was good, brother, and it was goddam good!"**
As the Athenian lovers wake up from their disturbed visions, they sing in chorus,
Why then we are awake; let's go,
And by the way let us recount our dreams.
Let us wake up and connect the dots of our lives into lyrical canvasses that mend the tears by recounting dreams. Why shouldn't we?
(**The quotation comes from Bernstein's Mass, another theater work involving parody & satire, not to be confused with blasphemy &/or gratuitous profanity)
The third act of Britten's opera A Midsummer Night's Dream embodies the cliché "from the sublime to the ridiculous." The act opens in a fairy-land evoked by shimmering violins in three-part divisi playing in their upper register. It is among the most beautiful music its composer wrote.
The Fairy King, Oberon undoes the spell he cast on the Fairy Queen, Tytania. She awakens to a recapitulation of the violins' theme that swells in sensual crescendo with the entire orchestra, complemented by cascading harp glissandi. It's a wonderful moment in an act of musical theater that is full of felicities and surprises.
Upon waking her first lines are:
My Oberon! what visions have I seen!
Methought I was enamor'd of an ass.
By my troth, thou wast! For Oberon hath played a trick on the fair Fairy Queen (with the timeless theatrical device of the love potion) which made Tytania fall for the first thing she laid eyes upon. To her shame and the audience's delight, she espied the lovably boorish weaver, Bottom. They would qualify for opera's most unlikely couple were Bottom NOT turned by fairy-magic into the form of a donkey. But an ass he is. Or was.
Britten has been rightly praised for the ingenious ways he evokes the differing worlds of Shakespeare's fairy tale (for kids of all ages). The Fairy land is differentiated from the lyrical but earth-bound music for the pairs of Athenian lovers (themselves victims of love potions and spells). The human realm of the Athenian nobles is marked from the world of the simple "mechanicals," the rustic men who form a rankly amateur theater troupe in their off hours. It is appropriate that Shakespeare's prototypes for the dry, slapstick brand of British humour (en vogue through Monty Python) should be given music that parodies parallel operatic stereotypes.
But when I saw the engaging and thoroughly entertaining production of Britten's opera recently in Chicago, I was surrounded by opera loving philistines who neither responded to the double entendre of puns like Tytania's or the ridiculousness of the rustics "play within the play." There were a small handful of subscribers in the upper balcony who laughed out loud--a good production of the play AND the opera IS laugh-out-loud funny. But more people either walked out or audibly voiced their incomprehension at the slapstick antics and raw wit.
To cite one ridiculously funny instance among many, the play "Pyramus and Thisby" features the classical amateur "ham" actor (Bottom) as the hero Pyramus. His beloved Thisby is played by the awkward young man, Flute in drag. They meet on either side of a wall (which is played to hilarious effect by a fellow rustic, Snout) and try to kiss through a chink in said wall. The kiss does not go well and "Thisby" cries in "her" strained tenor "I kiss the wall's hole/not your lips at all!" That's funny. And funnier in a good production. Which this was.
The humorlessness of hardened, "serious" music lovers did not diminish my enjoyment. But it is a reminder of how difficult communication can be and how vital it is for the human channels to stay open. As others have corroborated, a culture that loses its sense of wonder, mystery OR its sense of humor is in trouble.
I think we are even more uncomfortable with raw, in-your-face emotion than we are with bawdy humor. "We" being polite, educated, middle class (mostly white) "culture." Consumers of "serious" music and "high" art.
In one of Alex Ross's recent New Yorker reviews he writes penetratingly about the reception of Leonard Bernstein's serious music. He quotes Bernstein's description of Britten's music as "gears that are grinding and not quite meshing." Ross says Bernstein "might better have been describing his own work."
I think both men--who had an interesting, episodic relationship from Bernstein's conducting of Britten's first opera, Peter Grimes in 1946 through Britten's death in 1976--have been misunderstood. Ross goes on to describe the musical language of Bernstein's opera, A Quiet Place. Before noting that at its premiere it was "criticized as a hodgepodge--nearly every Bernstein score was criticized as a hodgepodge," Ross makes one of those observations that reminds me why he's one of my favorite critics.
"It's as if he [Bernstein] were healing the twentieth century's stylistic divides, with Romanticism as the meeting ground; at several crucial points, the orchestra enters a beautifully ominous space that might be described as Cold War Mahler."
That "hodgepodge" style and the bridging of stylistic distances was something Lenny and Benjie both did quite well, even if they were much criticized for it. Their music is unfashionably conservative from the avant-garde's perspective. The "grinding gears" (which now amount to very mild dissonance--film scores can be much more grating) have been wrongly associated with "ugly" modernism. This still puts off many listeners (those for whom "I know what I like" usually translates to "I like what I know"). I think both factors contribute to the checkered reception history of both composers' works. But I think something else is in play. Their music is emotional and romantic and direct. And such openness makes all kinds of (western) people uncomfortable.
I couldn't choose which evocative world of Britten's A Midsummer Night's Dream I like best. The metaphysical realm of the fairies is wonderful (and has more of Britten's infectiously charming music for children). I love the bel canto opera parodies in the finale's play within the play (they were a wink in the direction of La Stupenda, Joan Sutherland, who'd recently sung in Britten's Gloriana to great acclaim). And the music the Athenian lovers sing upon waking from their dream (which gives this rambling ditty its title) is ravishingly beautiful.
In a recent dream I had I looked up at the night sky and the stars lit up like night-lights, like bright white dots in a pointillistic Seurat canvas, shown in relief against a background of pitch. I have no idea what that image represents, but it was cool.
I'm reading a wonderful book of art criticism, Caspar David Friedrich: And the Subject of Landscape (Joseph Leo Kerner. Reaktion, 1990, 2009). Kerner takes some time to connect the threads of early 19th-century German culture, the birthplace of the "Romantic." I was reminded of a recent post below on "fragments and hedgehogs" (which may well become the title of the book I want to turn this all into) as I read quotes from the visionary romantic poet, Novalis:
"The world must become Romanticized. That way one finds again the original meaning. Romanticizing is nothing but a qualitative potentializing."
Jawohl! Restoring some of the balance our rational, goal-oriented, technology-driven western world has misplaced would involve realizing more of our affective (and metaphysical) potential and might just restore some of the lost "original meaning."
Kerner hasn't referred (yet) to Jung or John Dewey, and his book predates Iain McGilchrist's efforts to give the right brain its due (all referenced in posts below) but the "meaningful coincidence" of synchronicity is there when we have eyes to see and ears to hear.
And like beholding more of the stars, even this reception requires effort. Just a couple of pages after the Bernstein review in the same (Nov 15) New Yorker, John Lahr reviews a new production of Tony Kushner's groundbreaking epic, Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on American Themes. He quotes a note Kushner had written the cast of the opening night run in LA in 1992:
"And how else should an angel land on earth but with utmost difficulty? If we are to be visited by angels we will have to call them down with sweat and strain...and the efforts we expend to draw the heavens to an earthly place may well leave us too exhausted to appreciate the fruits of our labors: an angel, even with torn robes, and ruffled feathers, is in our midst."
Yes it is. I love Tony Kushner. I love his bold, audacious vision, his passion and the range of raw emotions his characters evoke and the all-too-human states they embody. He is a modern-day prophet and poet and the scope of his imagination lives up to such titles. In another example of critical excellence, Lahr writes about "one of the most thrilling of Kushner's verbal arabesques--[in which] Harper has a vision of repair for the ozone layer, whose hole has obsessed her doom-filled days:"
Souls were rising, from the earth far below, souls of the dead, of people who had perished, from famine, from war, from the plague, and they floated up, like skydivers in reverse, limbs all akimbo, wheeling and spinning. And the souls of these departed joined hands, clasped ankles, and formed a web, a great net of souls, and the souls were three-atom oxygen molecules, of the stuff of ozone, and the outer rim absorbed them, and was repaired.
What souls! "What visions have I seen!" I feel like Walt Whitman yawping an open-throated affirmation of life itself. Or like Lenny: "And it was good, brother, and it was goddam good!"**
As the Athenian lovers wake up from their disturbed visions, they sing in chorus,
Why then we are awake; let's go,
And by the way let us recount our dreams.
Let us wake up and connect the dots of our lives into lyrical canvasses that mend the tears by recounting dreams. Why shouldn't we?
(**The quotation comes from Bernstein's Mass, another theater work involving parody & satire, not to be confused with blasphemy &/or gratuitous profanity)
Thursday, November 4, 2010
7 Reasons to Hear Richard Zeller Nov 7
Opera Roanoke is celebrating National Opera Week with an "opera unplugged" recital November 7 featuring "one of America's foremost baritones," Richard Zeller.
We've been offering promotions in honor of the celebration all week, and we'll be giving away tickets at our "free-for-all" booth outside Center in the Square at the Historic Roanoke City Market Friday from 11-1.
Since inquiring minds want to know what this recital thing is and what to expect, I offer the following annotated list.
7. A Sunday matinee of live music is one of the best ways to add some variety to a fall season of game-days. Add some cultural spice to your weekend ahead of the holiday shopping rush. Give yourself a gift. Feed your senses and your soul by spending 90 minutes with Richard Zeller Sunday.
6. The songs Richard will be singing are ravishingly beautiful. The pop ballads that have been crooned in showers and cars for generations owe their provenance to the 19th century Romantic "art song." And you don't have to understand German, French or Russian to appreciate how gorgeous the songs of Schumann, Brahms, Duparc and Rachmaninoff are. Their meaning will be obvious through Richard's performance. And the basic human emotions of longing, love and loss have never been set to more ravishing music.
Schumann's bicentennial is this year, but we don't need an excuse to program the music of this romantic who was a prototype of the tortured artistic genius. Besides being one of the great composers after Schumann, Brahms was one of music history's most talented babysitters, looking after the Schumann children while he cut his teeth as a composer.
Duparc left us only a handful of songs, but what exquisite miniatures they are. If a single song can be a self-contained world unto itself, Duparc's are a perfect example. And if you've never heard a great Russian song, then Rachmaninoff's are worth the recital alone. The beautifully haunting lyricism that perfumes the music we associate with the "Russian soul" is embodied in these songs.
5. The arias (that is, "songs" extracted from operas, not to be confused with the stand-alone "art" songs) Richard is offering feature music that will put a smile on the faces of all: young & old, opera buff and newcomer. The Toreador Aria from Carmen is one of the most beloved tunes in the world, and if you don't recognize the title you will recognize the tune (and want to hum along)! This great aria--full of life and spirit--is a prime example of why opera is not the distant, remote, inaccessible art some still think it is.
4. The standards from the Broadway stage are American classics. Some Enchanted Evening is one of the most popular songs of all time, and if you've never heard a voice like Richard's sing this music --burnished, resonant, full-bodied (and un-amplified)--then you have never heard it the way it was intended to be sung. As familiar a song as it is, I cherish the chance to hear a singer like Richard sing it.
3. And speaking of American classics, Richard is including a wonderful slice of "Americana" in a set of songs by Robert MacGimsey. "Sweet little Jesus Boy" is a classic of the American folk song tradition. One would be forgiven for thinking it was the product of the African American spiritual tradition. In fact, its composer was a caucasian man who studied and worked with black artists and paid tribute to his apprenticeship by adopting his teachers' style.
2. If you've been to a recital by a great classical singer like Richard, you know what a special experience it is. Words like "magical," "transcendent" and "powerful" are but a few of the adjectives to describe this concert featuring one voice accompanied by a single piano. The "opera unplugged" moniker is an apt one. Whatever you call it, recitals like this are a special occasion; we are fortunate to have them here at Opera Roanoke every season.
1. The single best reason to come on Sunday is Richard Zeller himself. Richard's voice is a mirror of his person--warm, rich, strong and full of character. When a great singer like Richard opens his throat to sing the listener is offered a window into his soul. The opportunity to enter into the world of an opera singer through the solo recital is a singular experience.
To be invited & lured into this realm heightens the magic of the experience while rendering its expressiveness even truer to life. Why else do we call such voices "larger than life?!" To be captivated & entranced by such resonant tones emanating from a singer only a few feet away is thrilling. If you've ever been impressed by a singer on a show like "America's Got Talent" then you're in for a treat. America has talent indeed, and a supreme example of it will be in Roanoke for one day only November 7 at 2:30 pm on the Shaftman Performance Hall Stage at the Jefferson Center in downtown Roanoke. I hope you will be there too.
www.operaroanoke.org
We've been offering promotions in honor of the celebration all week, and we'll be giving away tickets at our "free-for-all" booth outside Center in the Square at the Historic Roanoke City Market Friday from 11-1.
Since inquiring minds want to know what this recital thing is and what to expect, I offer the following annotated list.
7. A Sunday matinee of live music is one of the best ways to add some variety to a fall season of game-days. Add some cultural spice to your weekend ahead of the holiday shopping rush. Give yourself a gift. Feed your senses and your soul by spending 90 minutes with Richard Zeller Sunday.
6. The songs Richard will be singing are ravishingly beautiful. The pop ballads that have been crooned in showers and cars for generations owe their provenance to the 19th century Romantic "art song." And you don't have to understand German, French or Russian to appreciate how gorgeous the songs of Schumann, Brahms, Duparc and Rachmaninoff are. Their meaning will be obvious through Richard's performance. And the basic human emotions of longing, love and loss have never been set to more ravishing music.
Schumann's bicentennial is this year, but we don't need an excuse to program the music of this romantic who was a prototype of the tortured artistic genius. Besides being one of the great composers after Schumann, Brahms was one of music history's most talented babysitters, looking after the Schumann children while he cut his teeth as a composer.
Duparc left us only a handful of songs, but what exquisite miniatures they are. If a single song can be a self-contained world unto itself, Duparc's are a perfect example. And if you've never heard a great Russian song, then Rachmaninoff's are worth the recital alone. The beautifully haunting lyricism that perfumes the music we associate with the "Russian soul" is embodied in these songs.
5. The arias (that is, "songs" extracted from operas, not to be confused with the stand-alone "art" songs) Richard is offering feature music that will put a smile on the faces of all: young & old, opera buff and newcomer. The Toreador Aria from Carmen is one of the most beloved tunes in the world, and if you don't recognize the title you will recognize the tune (and want to hum along)! This great aria--full of life and spirit--is a prime example of why opera is not the distant, remote, inaccessible art some still think it is.
4. The standards from the Broadway stage are American classics. Some Enchanted Evening is one of the most popular songs of all time, and if you've never heard a voice like Richard's sing this music --burnished, resonant, full-bodied (and un-amplified)--then you have never heard it the way it was intended to be sung. As familiar a song as it is, I cherish the chance to hear a singer like Richard sing it.
3. And speaking of American classics, Richard is including a wonderful slice of "Americana" in a set of songs by Robert MacGimsey. "Sweet little Jesus Boy" is a classic of the American folk song tradition. One would be forgiven for thinking it was the product of the African American spiritual tradition. In fact, its composer was a caucasian man who studied and worked with black artists and paid tribute to his apprenticeship by adopting his teachers' style.
2. If you've been to a recital by a great classical singer like Richard, you know what a special experience it is. Words like "magical," "transcendent" and "powerful" are but a few of the adjectives to describe this concert featuring one voice accompanied by a single piano. The "opera unplugged" moniker is an apt one. Whatever you call it, recitals like this are a special occasion; we are fortunate to have them here at Opera Roanoke every season.
1. The single best reason to come on Sunday is Richard Zeller himself. Richard's voice is a mirror of his person--warm, rich, strong and full of character. When a great singer like Richard opens his throat to sing the listener is offered a window into his soul. The opportunity to enter into the world of an opera singer through the solo recital is a singular experience.
To be invited & lured into this realm heightens the magic of the experience while rendering its expressiveness even truer to life. Why else do we call such voices "larger than life?!" To be captivated & entranced by such resonant tones emanating from a singer only a few feet away is thrilling. If you've ever been impressed by a singer on a show like "America's Got Talent" then you're in for a treat. America has talent indeed, and a supreme example of it will be in Roanoke for one day only November 7 at 2:30 pm on the Shaftman Performance Hall Stage at the Jefferson Center in downtown Roanoke. I hope you will be there too.
www.operaroanoke.org
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
Celebrate NOW with Opera Roanoke
It's National Opera Week: Celebrate NOW with Opera Roanoke! Click on the link below to read about daily ticket specials. Share this with your friends on Blogger, FB, Twitter and join us for an "opera unplugged" recital with one of the greatest voices in the country, Met opera baritone, Richard Zeller. I'll write more on his program later.
http://myemail.constantcontact.com/Celebrate-NOW-with-Opera-Roanoke.html?soid=1102184341655&aid=M-KYVuHtVVA
http://myemail.constantcontact.com/Celebrate-NOW-with-Opera-Roanoke.html?soid=1102184341655&aid=M-KYVuHtVVA
Thursday, October 28, 2010
The Soul of Russia: Boris Godunov
In the middle of the 19th-century, shifting political winds and rapidly changing regimes were accompanied by tides of nationalism across Europe. The arts manifest such currents through various means (achieving a variety of ends). Opera has been a primary artistic vehicle for such historical representations. Though this may not be an obvious conclusion to draw today, Opera was a populist art form until the 20th century. But that is another essay. One example should suffice. Not only the operas but the name of Verdi became a literal acronym for Italy's nascent movement of independence (Viva Emanuele, Re d' Italia).
In Russia, a circle of largely self-taught composers based in St Petersburg represented the Russian soul in music and were dubbed "The Mighty Handful." Borodin, Cui, Balakirev, Rimsky-Korsakov and Mussorgsky effectively launched the "Petersburg School" that inspired Russian composers from Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninov to Prokofiev and Stravinsky to Shostakovich.
According to the writer Solomon Volkov, the music of the so-called Petersburg school is characterized by "brilliant orchestration, exotic harmony, emotional 'wavelike' development of material a la Tchaikovsky and dramatic 'Dostoyevskian' contrasts a la Mussorgsky."
The last description is central for understanding the masterpiece of Russian opera Boris Godunov is. The Mighty Handful (or Russian Five) were interested in bringing a dose of realism to the palette of musical drama and looked to Dostoyevsky as much as any Russian writer.
Boris is based on a drama of Alexander Pushkin (the source of Tchaikovsky's most famous operas Eugene Onegin and The Queen of Spades, among other seminal Russian musical dramas). Mussorgsky's style more closely aligns with Dostoyevsky's expressionist realism than Pushkin's lyrical romanticism. One of the novelist's specialties was the confessional monologue (the tortured conscious of Raskolnikov in Crime and Punishment). The composer adapts this technique and the title character has dramatic solo scenes rather than traditional arias. This "cross breeding" of music and prose happened parallel to Wagner's through-composed style of music dramas. Without Boris Godunov the operatic masterpieces of composers disparate as Debussy (Pelleas et Melisande) and Shostakovich (Lady McBeth of Mtsensk) would not be what they are.
Like Pelleas, Boris is a "slow burn" of a piece. Over three hours of music, much of it dark-hued and brooding, brings to life a tale wrought with woe. The received wisdom on Boris is that the opera has two protagonists: the title character and the Russian people. This duality works on a number of musical and dramatic levels and palpably affects those who yield to the power of this great opera.
Synopses are widely available so I will share a few examples from the opera and the new Met production available now thanks to the "Live in HD" broadcasts. The work is framed by huge ensemble tapestries that voice the people's discontent. That these scenes mirror and parallel one another is more than a formal nicety. The director of the Met production, Stephen Wadsworth (whose 11th hour ascension to that role is itself operatic) says "the opera is about history repeating itself." This is nowhere more apparent than in the scenes of "regime change" that open and close the opera. "The tragedy of history," as the Met's Season Book quotes the director, "[is] that we always forget its lessons and make the same mistakes."
If Boris is an epic political-historical drama on one level, it is a family-character drama on another. The opening scenes of the opera are great choral tapestries (lovers of Russian choral music can luxuriate in the timbre of the Met chorus which has never sounded better). The 100-voice chorus heralds the "coronation scene" where Boris accepts the Tsar's crown. Rather than the expected "pomp and circumstance" of a victory speech, his first words are "my soul is sad." Until his death in Act IV-in one of the most moving scenes for a character on any stage-Boris is haunted by his great crime. Like a tragic Shakespearean king, ambition led Boris to have the rightful heir to the crown murdered (years before the opera opens). Boris' confessional monologues throughout the opera underscore the duality of his shame and regret and his futile attempts to purge his guilt by ruling as peacefully and benevolently as he can. The intimacy of the scenes between Boris and his two children (perfectly cast in the Met production) strengthen our ties to this tortured soul and help define Boris as a fully drawn, three-dimensional tragic hero. The Met has the Boris of the present generation in the great German bass, Rene Pape. In the 15 years I have been avidly following Pape's rock-star like ascension on the world's operatic stage, he has never been more engaging than in this compelling production.
Space does not allow for the various versions, revisions and posthumous attempts to "correct" Mussorgsky's opera. Again, synopses of these facts are widely available. The composer's original 1869 version lacked a female lead and was uniformly rejected. Mussorgsky's revised 1874 version added an act set in Poland to kill several operatic birds with one stone. The "Pretender" Grigory (a heretic monk who assumes the identity of the murdered heir to the crown) flees to Poland and romances the princess Marina (the opera's prima donna is a mezzo soprano). The scheming Jesuit priest Rangoni uses this relationship in his attempts to place the Pretender on the throne and with the help of the imminent (Polish Catholic) Tsarina convert Russia to the mother church (the composer's contempt for institutions did not stop at the academy).
The so-called Polish Act thus gives Boris Godunov a prima donna, a love story, ballet music (a la Polonaise) and the grist of sub-plot intrigue. The ardent singing of the Latvian tenor Alexanders Antonenko (Grigory) and the oily, pitch-perfect characterization bass-baritone Evgeny Nikitin brought to the Jesuit Rangoni sustained my attention during an act I usually skip at home. Whether the Polish Act enhances or detracts from the work as a whole is in the eye (and ear) of the beholder.
It does lengthen an already long "song." But time plays a central role in Boris, metaphorically speaking.
T.S. Eliot famously wrote near the end of his musical poems, The Four Quartets:
Time present and time past
Are both perhaps present in time future,
And time future contained in time past.
If all time is eternally present
All time is unredeemable.
(from "Burnt Norton")
One of the recurring motifs in the score is the sound of tolling bells. At the start of the coronation scene pealing chimes are punctuated by the brass with the most notorious of intervals, the tritone (an augmented 4th or diminished 5th). Known as "the devil in music" this unstable interval has been both sign and symbol since it was so termed in the medieval period. In the opera's context the portentous tolling of the bells represents time as progressive and cyclical. The tolling bells also illuminate the protagonist's diminishing grasp on reality (like Lucia, Boris disintegrates from hallucinations to death).
When the bell struck at the death of Boris, nearly 4 hours into the evening, I was not the only one in my circle of friends at the Met Monday night who wept.
And if Boris were a more conventional opera (the Polish act notwithstanding), it would end with the title character's death. But the aforementioned crowd scene which mirrors the opening is essential to Boris as a whole. The "unredeemable" quality of time is present in the mob that tortures and kills the figures it earlier feted.
Though not unique to Mussorgsky the "Holy Fool" (or "village idiot," the simpleton or yurodivy, in Russian) is a secondary-and central-character in the drama. From Shakespeare's fools and jesters to Beckett's tramps, these outcasts are prophetic voices of insight, wisdom and truth (with a capital T).
In the Met production, a larger-than-life-sized book haunts the scenes like a specter (into which the aged monk, Pimen writes his chronicle of history, ending with a chapter on Boris' crime). The yurodivy's first appearance in Act IV ends with a pivotal confrontation with Boris. In one of the most haunting moments in an evening that has lingered in my consciousness for days, the Holy Fool lies down in the book and folds one of its pages over his battered body like a blanket.
Mussorgsky identified with the Holy Fool in his own life. His friends referred to him as a yurodivy. The lament with which the entire ensemble opens the opera is assigned at the end to the lonely prophetic voice, poignant, "eternally present" and ultimately tragic as this great opera:
Flow, flow bitter tears.
Weep, weep, Christian souls!
Darkness darker than night.
Weep, weep, Russian people,
Hungry people!
[Boris Godunov is broadcast in Roanoke October 30 at 1 pm at Virginia Western Community College. For more information visit vwcc.edu or operaroanoke.org. Save the date for Opera Roanoke's next "Opera Unplugged" recital, November 7. Hear Met opera baritone Richard Zeller sing songs of Rachmaninov and much more! 540-982-2742]
In Russia, a circle of largely self-taught composers based in St Petersburg represented the Russian soul in music and were dubbed "The Mighty Handful." Borodin, Cui, Balakirev, Rimsky-Korsakov and Mussorgsky effectively launched the "Petersburg School" that inspired Russian composers from Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninov to Prokofiev and Stravinsky to Shostakovich.
According to the writer Solomon Volkov, the music of the so-called Petersburg school is characterized by "brilliant orchestration, exotic harmony, emotional 'wavelike' development of material a la Tchaikovsky and dramatic 'Dostoyevskian' contrasts a la Mussorgsky."
The last description is central for understanding the masterpiece of Russian opera Boris Godunov is. The Mighty Handful (or Russian Five) were interested in bringing a dose of realism to the palette of musical drama and looked to Dostoyevsky as much as any Russian writer.
Boris is based on a drama of Alexander Pushkin (the source of Tchaikovsky's most famous operas Eugene Onegin and The Queen of Spades, among other seminal Russian musical dramas). Mussorgsky's style more closely aligns with Dostoyevsky's expressionist realism than Pushkin's lyrical romanticism. One of the novelist's specialties was the confessional monologue (the tortured conscious of Raskolnikov in Crime and Punishment). The composer adapts this technique and the title character has dramatic solo scenes rather than traditional arias. This "cross breeding" of music and prose happened parallel to Wagner's through-composed style of music dramas. Without Boris Godunov the operatic masterpieces of composers disparate as Debussy (Pelleas et Melisande) and Shostakovich (Lady McBeth of Mtsensk) would not be what they are.
Like Pelleas, Boris is a "slow burn" of a piece. Over three hours of music, much of it dark-hued and brooding, brings to life a tale wrought with woe. The received wisdom on Boris is that the opera has two protagonists: the title character and the Russian people. This duality works on a number of musical and dramatic levels and palpably affects those who yield to the power of this great opera.
Synopses are widely available so I will share a few examples from the opera and the new Met production available now thanks to the "Live in HD" broadcasts. The work is framed by huge ensemble tapestries that voice the people's discontent. That these scenes mirror and parallel one another is more than a formal nicety. The director of the Met production, Stephen Wadsworth (whose 11th hour ascension to that role is itself operatic) says "the opera is about history repeating itself." This is nowhere more apparent than in the scenes of "regime change" that open and close the opera. "The tragedy of history," as the Met's Season Book quotes the director, "[is] that we always forget its lessons and make the same mistakes."
If Boris is an epic political-historical drama on one level, it is a family-character drama on another. The opening scenes of the opera are great choral tapestries (lovers of Russian choral music can luxuriate in the timbre of the Met chorus which has never sounded better). The 100-voice chorus heralds the "coronation scene" where Boris accepts the Tsar's crown. Rather than the expected "pomp and circumstance" of a victory speech, his first words are "my soul is sad." Until his death in Act IV-in one of the most moving scenes for a character on any stage-Boris is haunted by his great crime. Like a tragic Shakespearean king, ambition led Boris to have the rightful heir to the crown murdered (years before the opera opens). Boris' confessional monologues throughout the opera underscore the duality of his shame and regret and his futile attempts to purge his guilt by ruling as peacefully and benevolently as he can. The intimacy of the scenes between Boris and his two children (perfectly cast in the Met production) strengthen our ties to this tortured soul and help define Boris as a fully drawn, three-dimensional tragic hero. The Met has the Boris of the present generation in the great German bass, Rene Pape. In the 15 years I have been avidly following Pape's rock-star like ascension on the world's operatic stage, he has never been more engaging than in this compelling production.
Space does not allow for the various versions, revisions and posthumous attempts to "correct" Mussorgsky's opera. Again, synopses of these facts are widely available. The composer's original 1869 version lacked a female lead and was uniformly rejected. Mussorgsky's revised 1874 version added an act set in Poland to kill several operatic birds with one stone. The "Pretender" Grigory (a heretic monk who assumes the identity of the murdered heir to the crown) flees to Poland and romances the princess Marina (the opera's prima donna is a mezzo soprano). The scheming Jesuit priest Rangoni uses this relationship in his attempts to place the Pretender on the throne and with the help of the imminent (Polish Catholic) Tsarina convert Russia to the mother church (the composer's contempt for institutions did not stop at the academy).
The so-called Polish Act thus gives Boris Godunov a prima donna, a love story, ballet music (a la Polonaise) and the grist of sub-plot intrigue. The ardent singing of the Latvian tenor Alexanders Antonenko (Grigory) and the oily, pitch-perfect characterization bass-baritone Evgeny Nikitin brought to the Jesuit Rangoni sustained my attention during an act I usually skip at home. Whether the Polish Act enhances or detracts from the work as a whole is in the eye (and ear) of the beholder.
It does lengthen an already long "song." But time plays a central role in Boris, metaphorically speaking.
T.S. Eliot famously wrote near the end of his musical poems, The Four Quartets:
Time present and time past
Are both perhaps present in time future,
And time future contained in time past.
If all time is eternally present
All time is unredeemable.
(from "Burnt Norton")
One of the recurring motifs in the score is the sound of tolling bells. At the start of the coronation scene pealing chimes are punctuated by the brass with the most notorious of intervals, the tritone (an augmented 4th or diminished 5th). Known as "the devil in music" this unstable interval has been both sign and symbol since it was so termed in the medieval period. In the opera's context the portentous tolling of the bells represents time as progressive and cyclical. The tolling bells also illuminate the protagonist's diminishing grasp on reality (like Lucia, Boris disintegrates from hallucinations to death).
When the bell struck at the death of Boris, nearly 4 hours into the evening, I was not the only one in my circle of friends at the Met Monday night who wept.
And if Boris were a more conventional opera (the Polish act notwithstanding), it would end with the title character's death. But the aforementioned crowd scene which mirrors the opening is essential to Boris as a whole. The "unredeemable" quality of time is present in the mob that tortures and kills the figures it earlier feted.
Though not unique to Mussorgsky the "Holy Fool" (or "village idiot," the simpleton or yurodivy, in Russian) is a secondary-and central-character in the drama. From Shakespeare's fools and jesters to Beckett's tramps, these outcasts are prophetic voices of insight, wisdom and truth (with a capital T).
In the Met production, a larger-than-life-sized book haunts the scenes like a specter (into which the aged monk, Pimen writes his chronicle of history, ending with a chapter on Boris' crime). The yurodivy's first appearance in Act IV ends with a pivotal confrontation with Boris. In one of the most haunting moments in an evening that has lingered in my consciousness for days, the Holy Fool lies down in the book and folds one of its pages over his battered body like a blanket.
Mussorgsky identified with the Holy Fool in his own life. His friends referred to him as a yurodivy. The lament with which the entire ensemble opens the opera is assigned at the end to the lonely prophetic voice, poignant, "eternally present" and ultimately tragic as this great opera:
Flow, flow bitter tears.
Weep, weep, Christian souls!
Darkness darker than night.
Weep, weep, Russian people,
Hungry people!
[Boris Godunov is broadcast in Roanoke October 30 at 1 pm at Virginia Western Community College. For more information visit vwcc.edu or operaroanoke.org. Save the date for Opera Roanoke's next "Opera Unplugged" recital, November 7. Hear Met opera baritone Richard Zeller sing songs of Rachmaninov and much more! 540-982-2742]
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Faust & Furious: A Ride with the Devil!
I began this morning at the (for me) ungodly hour of 5 am on WDBJ 7's Morning show. You should be able to cut and paste the following link into a new window (I'm not a savvy enough blogger to know how to disguise these codes): http://www.wdbj7.com/videobeta/b190987a-f873-45f7-8121-519ce3b69566/News/Opera-Roanoke-presents-Faust-and-Furious
In between our spots discussing Opera Roanoke's season opening concert, Faust and Furious: A Ride with the Devil! we heard updates on the rescue of the Chilean miners. Tag-lines like "hear Heaven and Hell battle it out before your very ears" assumed an uncanny resonance as the story unfolded before the rapt attention of the world.
This reverberation was underscored when I returned to my office mid-morning (following a visit to a local middle school to talk about opera in general and Faust in particular). One of the Roanoke Symphony Chorus members had left a thoughtful message and shared this quote from the 2nd miner to be rescued, Mario Sepulveda:
"I was with God, and I was with the devil. They fought, and God won."
She noted the proximity of the miner's metaphor to the Faust story the chorus has been rehearsing in preparation for our gala-style concert October 16.
Faust is the most famous work of literature in the German language, and one of those tales that can truly be called immortal. None of the middle schoolers raised their hands when I asked them if they'd heard of Faust, but most of them acknowledged familiarity with the Charlie Daniels' Band song, "The Devil went down to Georgia."
The Faustian Pact or Bargain is synonymous with moral &/or ethical compromise made for material gain. "The devil made you do it," "selling your soul" and "giving the devil his due" are just a few catch phrases for the Faustian arrangement which forfeits the soul for temporal satisfaction.
So everyone knows who Faust is. Many may be unfamiliar with Goethe's Faust or the Doctor Faustus of Christopher Marlowe or Thomas Mann (an allegory for Germany itself in the Nazi era). But Faust has inspired movies from The Devil and Daniel Webster to The Devil's Advocate to Angel Heart (with Robert DeNiro playing the devil with the subtle name of Louis Cyphre). Gordon Gekko in Wall Street can be viewed as a "Doppelgänger" character of Faust and Mephistopheles.
A recent article on a theatrical adaptation of Fitzgerald's great jazz-age novel, The Great Gatsby, described it as "a classic American tale of reinvention, self-delusion and broken dreams." That's an apt description of Faust, who reinvents himself with a little supernatural assistance from Satan to revel in youth and sensual pleasure.
On October 16, Opera Roanoke will present excerpts from the three most famous operatic adaptations of Goethe: Gounod's Faust, Boito's Mefistofele, and Berlioz's The Damnation of Faust. Some of the music will be familiar to nearly everyone, as Gounod's lyrical melodies, rapturous duets and ensembles earned him the title "the composer of love." And even music which may be unknown to many, like Boito's evocation of the "music of the spheres" in his "Prologue in Heaven" to Mefistofele has the ring of familiarity because of its elemental quality.
The image of heaven and hell in conflict evoked by Mr Sepulveda also reverberates back to the Biblical book of Job. Boito mirrors the introduction to Job by pitting the voices of heaven (the chorus) against Satan (a bass solo, sung by Opera Roanoke favorite Jeff Tucker) over the question of Faust (both Faust and Marguerite are sung by Roanoke audience favorites. Tenor Dinyar Vania and soprano Barbara Shirvis complete our all-star cast of archetypal characters).
During the breaks this morning between the TV interviews, we commented on the story of the miners and the rumor that a movie of the saga was already in the works. I couldn't help but leap to the question of what kind of music would partner the story. The live and unedited coverage needed no soundtrack other than the sounds of human voices and applause. When soundtracks are called for, they work best when using the styles and techniques of musical drama. In opera, music IS the soundtrack that evokes the entire range of emotions, relationships and conflicts that shape human life from cradle to grave and intimate towards the beyond.
Ultimately, Faust is a tale of redemption. Gounod and Boito reinforce this with endings that are nothing short of ecstatic apotheoses. Berlioz stays true to his title (the Damnation of Faust) and literally goes to hell and back. He serves up an example of musical onomatopoeia in his "Pandemonium" that will take your breath away. You may not have time to catch it again before Gounod and Boito enact transcendence itself with some of the most rapturous music ever written. All three composers have enlivened an immortal tale with music of engaging vitality worthy of this complex existence we call the human condition.
In between our spots discussing Opera Roanoke's season opening concert, Faust and Furious: A Ride with the Devil! we heard updates on the rescue of the Chilean miners. Tag-lines like "hear Heaven and Hell battle it out before your very ears" assumed an uncanny resonance as the story unfolded before the rapt attention of the world.
This reverberation was underscored when I returned to my office mid-morning (following a visit to a local middle school to talk about opera in general and Faust in particular). One of the Roanoke Symphony Chorus members had left a thoughtful message and shared this quote from the 2nd miner to be rescued, Mario Sepulveda:
"I was with God, and I was with the devil. They fought, and God won."
She noted the proximity of the miner's metaphor to the Faust story the chorus has been rehearsing in preparation for our gala-style concert October 16.
Faust is the most famous work of literature in the German language, and one of those tales that can truly be called immortal. None of the middle schoolers raised their hands when I asked them if they'd heard of Faust, but most of them acknowledged familiarity with the Charlie Daniels' Band song, "The Devil went down to Georgia."
The Faustian Pact or Bargain is synonymous with moral &/or ethical compromise made for material gain. "The devil made you do it," "selling your soul" and "giving the devil his due" are just a few catch phrases for the Faustian arrangement which forfeits the soul for temporal satisfaction.
So everyone knows who Faust is. Many may be unfamiliar with Goethe's Faust or the Doctor Faustus of Christopher Marlowe or Thomas Mann (an allegory for Germany itself in the Nazi era). But Faust has inspired movies from The Devil and Daniel Webster to The Devil's Advocate to Angel Heart (with Robert DeNiro playing the devil with the subtle name of Louis Cyphre). Gordon Gekko in Wall Street can be viewed as a "Doppelgänger" character of Faust and Mephistopheles.
A recent article on a theatrical adaptation of Fitzgerald's great jazz-age novel, The Great Gatsby, described it as "a classic American tale of reinvention, self-delusion and broken dreams." That's an apt description of Faust, who reinvents himself with a little supernatural assistance from Satan to revel in youth and sensual pleasure.
On October 16, Opera Roanoke will present excerpts from the three most famous operatic adaptations of Goethe: Gounod's Faust, Boito's Mefistofele, and Berlioz's The Damnation of Faust. Some of the music will be familiar to nearly everyone, as Gounod's lyrical melodies, rapturous duets and ensembles earned him the title "the composer of love." And even music which may be unknown to many, like Boito's evocation of the "music of the spheres" in his "Prologue in Heaven" to Mefistofele has the ring of familiarity because of its elemental quality.
The image of heaven and hell in conflict evoked by Mr Sepulveda also reverberates back to the Biblical book of Job. Boito mirrors the introduction to Job by pitting the voices of heaven (the chorus) against Satan (a bass solo, sung by Opera Roanoke favorite Jeff Tucker) over the question of Faust (both Faust and Marguerite are sung by Roanoke audience favorites. Tenor Dinyar Vania and soprano Barbara Shirvis complete our all-star cast of archetypal characters).
During the breaks this morning between the TV interviews, we commented on the story of the miners and the rumor that a movie of the saga was already in the works. I couldn't help but leap to the question of what kind of music would partner the story. The live and unedited coverage needed no soundtrack other than the sounds of human voices and applause. When soundtracks are called for, they work best when using the styles and techniques of musical drama. In opera, music IS the soundtrack that evokes the entire range of emotions, relationships and conflicts that shape human life from cradle to grave and intimate towards the beyond.
Ultimately, Faust is a tale of redemption. Gounod and Boito reinforce this with endings that are nothing short of ecstatic apotheoses. Berlioz stays true to his title (the Damnation of Faust) and literally goes to hell and back. He serves up an example of musical onomatopoeia in his "Pandemonium" that will take your breath away. You may not have time to catch it again before Gounod and Boito enact transcendence itself with some of the most rapturous music ever written. All three composers have enlivened an immortal tale with music of engaging vitality worthy of this complex existence we call the human condition.
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