The 2001 Green Umbrella performance of Pierrot Lunaire with Fassbinder star Barbara Sukowa was one of the most amazing theatrical experiences of my life. This might be another.
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October 2011
The English Concert with Andreas Scholl @ Disney Hall
The 13 instrumentalists of the English Concert ensemble presented a sonic landscape last Tuesday that was so delicate and fine that it took some effort to hear. It was something outside the typical present-day alteration between amplified pop music and the big sound of a full classical orchestra. It was quieter than most chamber music recitals.
Partially it was the fact that they hardly ever all played simultaneously. Partially it was the very organic antique instruments, which were not designed for modern concert halls (One advantage of sitting close to the stage was hearing the clatter of the valves on the oboe, like the scampering of very agitated mice.) Above all it was the music—mostly by Purcell—which is dramatic, but a very intimate, introspective kind of drama.
Hence Andreas Scholl was the hero of the evening, because he not only sang the intricate music fluently, but dramatically realized the various moods of love (“Sweeter than roses”), semi-comic creepiness (“What power art thou”), bawdy (“One charming night”), religious rapture (“Now that the sun hath veil’d his light”), patriotism (“Fairest isle, all isles excelling”), overwhelming despair (“When I am laid in earth”), ….
His performance was always in character—he never used the music to show off. Though it’s obvious that he really got a kick out of the repeated word “drop” from “Music for a while”—he repeated it as his encore.
It was an intense experience. In our row there were a group of students furiously taking notes throughout the performance. And the woman next to me was in tears. As Dryden wrote, “Music for a while, / Shall all your cares beguile”.
The two halves of the program were prefaced by instrumental pieces by Heinrich Biber (1644-1704) and Georg Muffat (1653-1704) that were more than curiosities; they were delicious.
[Image: Veronese, The Choice between Virtue & Vice, 1565]
Mozart @ Dorothy Chandler
Così fan tutte @ Dorothy Chandler last night.
The story is silly. So much of the interest and excitement happens in the music, that the words are almost irrelevant. Almost, but not entirely. While the music would still be thrilling if the singers sang the text of the Facebook privacy policy, the scene, characters and situation enact a drama that is the opposite of silliness. One way to say what it’s about would be “Romantic sentiment exaggerates the the personal element of romance, and underestimates the accidental.” Another would be, as Don Alfonso advises at the end, “Embrace each other and laugh”.
The situation is not only not absurd, but typical. Ferrando and Guglielmo pretend to be visiting Albanian noblemen. Dorabella and Fiordiligi pretend to be just passing the time until Ferrando and Guglielmo return from the war. It’s the story of a love between people who lie about their identities and people who lie about their intentions.
There’s something dark at work here. Don Alfonso and Despina teach the two couples how to be dishonest. They say they’re teaching them about reality. Despina clearly enjoys doing this, but she’s no Mephistopheles. For all her worldliness, she’s a child at heart. She just a hedonist. Don Alfonso is more difficult to read. He is constantly seen making trouble happen, frequently voicing ironic commentary on the action. But it isn’t malice. His vice is liking to be right too much. And in the end he exhorts the disillusioned couples to give up their absurd regrets, and be happy.
What happens? Ferrando and Guglielmo end up enjoying their game of seducing the girls. It’s a competition.
The response of the girls is more nuanced. One of them—Dorabella doesn’t see anything wrong with entertaining an entirely new love. Fiordiligi, on the other hand, makes a spectacle of her fidelity and undying devotion. But in the end she succumbes to the disguised Ferrando.
Why? What reasons are given for unfaithfulness?
1. Boredom.
2. A bird in the hand.
3. Does anyone honestly dislike flattering attention?
4. Delight in being given an opportunity to pity and care. The scene where the Albanian visitors pretend to drink poison is of course very silly, and played for laughs. But it provides the opportunity for the girls to drop their reserve and feel sorry for the strangers. The pleasure of this charitable feeling is the beginning of their love.
Any music not Mozart is a waste of time.
W. F. Jackson Knight, Roman Vergil
Epicurus was a saint, and he started a kind of religious community, intensely bound together by friendship. Ostensibly the one moral principle was pleasure, but the theory was several stages away from crude hedonism, which had already been tried. To the early Epicureans pleasure was most itself when it was shared in society by people of sensibility and unselfishness.
Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment
Raskolnikov on his sister’s shifty fiancé:
He’s an intelligent man, but it takes something more than intelligence to act intelligently.
Katerina Ivanovna …
… was naturally of an easily amused, cheerful, and peaceable character, but continual misfortunes and failures had made her wish and demand so fiercely that everyone live in peace and joy, and not dare to live otherwise, that the slightest dissonance in life, the least failure, would at once send her almost into a frenzy, and in the space of an instant, after the brightest hopes and fantasies, she would begin cursing her fate, tearing and throwing whatever she got hold of, and beating her head against the wall.
[Image: William Blake, illustration to Dante's Inferno]
Watch out for the new front step
The renovation saga continues ...