OK—there are some times when opera is not sung, but played. There’s the overture, for example, which starts the opera and which does a couple of things. First of all, it gets people to their seats, if not to stop talking (the tradition had been to ignore the overture and just keep chatting—hint, don’t try it today…). It introduces the themes, perhaps, as well as sets the mood. Finally, it’s just traditional.
Any orchestral music played at any other point in the opera gets called something else. Often, it will be called a prelude, sometimes an intermezzo, perhaps a dance like a waltz or polonaise. And here again, the idea is to set the mood and introduce the themes that will be heard—and sung—later.
So James, in 50 Shades of Grey, has the heroine listening at one point to the Prelude to the first act of Latraviata. And it’s typical Verdi—tuneful, cheerful, and sticky. Get ready, you may be whistling this all week.
Nice, hunh? Right—nothing substantial, but there's a place in the world for light and pleasant.
But if you want heavy, I can give you heavy. In fact, Richard Wagner mines heavy like Reynolds mines aluminum. And here, I gotta come out—Wagner is one composer that makes me want to run screaming out of the opera hall. Nor am I alone—Clara Schumann wrote that the opera from which the clip below is taken “was the most repugnant thing I have heard or seen in all my life.” And a young Richard Strauss said that the opera, Tristan und Isolde, "would kill a cat and would turn rocks into scrambled eggs from fear of [its] hideous discords.”
To be fair, the conductor Bruno Walter said, “So there I sat in the topmost gallery of the Berlin Opera House, and from the first sound of the cellos my heart contracted spasmodically... Never before has my soul been deluged with such floods of sound and passion, never had my heart been consumed by such yearning and sublime bliss... A new epoch had begun: Wagner was my god, and I wanted to become his prophet.”
So there are two camps on Wagner, and very few people who are neutral. Oh, and be sure to eat a full meal before embarking on a performance of any opera Wagner wrote, because after hours five hours of sturm und drang, you’ll emerge famished if you haven’t. Granted, as Mr. Fernández once said, there are beautiful moments in the opera—and hours in between them.
Here, at any rate, is the prelude from the first act of Tristan und Isolde—you be the judge.
Sometimes, for apparently no reason, the people in the opera decide, “hey, let’s dance!” In fact, it was the tradition in the Paris Opera that every opera also had to have a ballet. So Gounod, in his opera Faust, decided to stick a ballet into the last act; in the ballet Faust, having sold his soul to the devil, is presented a series of visions of a particularly ghoulish nature. And though it is often omitted—Faust is an expensive opera to mount, and throwing a ballet into it seriously ups the tab—it adds a lot to the opera.
The final two pieces are right on the border of terminal sweetness. The first, Massenet’s Meditation from the opera Thaïs, is frequently hauled out as an encore piece, as it clearly is here. The second piece, the Intermezzo from Cavalleria rusticana is also frequently performed as a concert piece.
All right, we do many things well down here. Friendships, for example—we have wonderful friends. Oh, and family—also very big. And nobody has ever said we can’t dance, much less party.
But it has to be said: we’re behind in a few areas. Which is why I’ve been rubbing my eyes, this morning, trying to figure out the hoopla accompanying what is a major triumph for LGBT folks—the passage in the Senate of Puerto Rico of a law prohibiting discrimination based on homosexuality in employment, housing, public places, businesses and public transportation.
Does this seem a little 80’s?
Well, it was the topic of morning radio, both yesterday and today, which may be why the essential weirdness of it all seemed greater than perhaps it is—I was half asleep when mulling it all.
Consider, for example, the senator whose vote was seen as crucial. She only voted in favor if the phrase “real or perceived” after the word “homosexuality” was removed.Why? What was her objection? Is it OK to discriminate a perceived homosexual but not a real one? Oh, and another senator popped in to the debate—would couples be forced to demonstrate in a court of law that they were truly homosexual, not perceivedly homosexual?
Then we have the religious leaders—all of whom are saying words like the following:
Respetamos los derechos de la comunidad gay y lesbiana, pero nosotros entendemos que esto es un comienzo. No ha perdido nadie aquí. Esto es una batalla y la vamos a seguir. Entendemos que esto va a llegar a que sea el pueblo el que decida en un referéndum nacional”, dijo Robert Gómez, obispo de la Iglesia Evangélica Jesucristo Fuente de Amor.
OK—short translation:
We respect the rights of the gay and lesbian community, BUT (knew that word was coming, didn’t you?) we believe this is a beginning. Nothing has been lost here. It’s a battle that we will follow. We believe this is going to come to a referendum and that the people will decide, said Robert Gómez, bishop of the Jesus Christ Fountain of Love Evangelical Church.
Well, Robert Gómez, bishop of the Jesus Christ Fountain of Love Evangelical Church, I’m not sure how much respect I have for you. Oh, and by the way, did you get to be “bishop” without taking a class or two of church history? Because there was a time when you guys were not too popular, and might not have fared so well in a referendum.
I don’t get it—this absolute love we have for these crazy Evangelical churches and their loopy ministers. All of my students at Wal-Mart were incredibly devout—even now I wince when I’m on Facebook and wade through the syrupy pastel messages of unconditional love from you-know-whom. All of the students also knew someone who was gay—someone they loved and would do anything for. Oh, and someone they would ardently defend, were he or she actively persecuted.
That said, it was almost a relief to come upon an actual Catholic, though what has become of the Catholic Church recently is terrifying. (I heard Whitney Houston blaring out of a 17th century church recently….)
It’s the blurring of the lines between religion, entertainment, and commerce that gets me. Consider, for example, La Iglesia Fuente de Agua Viva, which in fact you will consider, if you make a left turn leaving the airport. Because soon you’ll come upon an enormous tower, called La Torre de Oración, or The Prayer Tower. Here—have a look…..
The exterior is impressive, but really, it’s the interior that stands out. On entering, after the half mile walk through the parking lot—and no, I’m not exaggerating—you are immediately confronted with shops. Shops selling religious items, candles, books. Oh, but also there is a popcorn stand, and little rides for the kids. It is, in short, not much different from Plaza las Américas.
Oh, but wait until you go in to the Sala de Adoración, or the Worship Hall—you’re in the largest space—oh forget it, just look at the picture below…
Oh, and pews? Nah, let's get comfortable because we're gonna be here for hours, and besides, where to put the popcorn? So we have movie theater seats. And this is just one part of the building, which also houses a radio station as well as a TV station. Because the Fuente has splashed over into Florida, as well. So it nice—you can be connected at all times.
Fussy readers may be wondering about the theological underpinnings of it all, and here I can help, since it was explained to me a decade ago. I remembered it for its startling lack of imagination—hold on, you’re gonna be swept off your feet. Right—so let me present it as a play:
(The scene is the stage of the Sala de Oración. The Reverend Otoniel Font steps out, visible only on the large screen behind him. He extends his arms and looks heavenward….)
Reverend Otoniel: “God wants you to be rich. He wants me to be rich, he wants you to be rich, he wants everyone to be rich. Here’s my wife—honey, come out and show them what you bought at Cartier’s on our most recent trip to Paris, where we stayed in the penthouse of the Paris Ritz!”
(The Reverendess Omayra Font steps forward, wearing a diamond necklace. The diamonds are as big as ice cubes. The crowd roars approval! The Reverendess looks adoringly at her husband!)
Reverend Otoniel: “And how much did that necklace cost!”
Reverendess Omayra: “Who knows! If ya gotta ask, you can't afford 'em!”
(The reverend paces the stage, animatedly telling his story.)
Reverend: “Don’t think we always had money. There were times, right out of college, that I didn’t have money for lunch. We were living check to check, and I hated the thought that Omayra might have to work. But there didn’t seem any way out. One day, I entered a church, began to cry, and then to pray. I asked God for help, and he told me, ‘as much as you give me, as much shall I reward thee!’ And I realized, the secret to wealth was to give, give, give as much as you can to spread the word of God and to allow him to spread his wealth on you. And from that day on….”
Yes, Dear Reader—it’s the oldest song a religious huckster ever sang. And it seemed, for a time, to be working. The church built a Bible Museum, they commissioned an architectural firm to design a huge campus, they got into debt, and then, last October, declared bankruptcy.
Or rather, their two corporations did. So my bank is out 15 million bucks to these idiots, and I, through the bank’s outrageous fees and miniscule interest rates, am paying for it all. In the meantime, the Reverends Font are continuing their message: homosexuality is made, not born, and comes directly from, yes…
…Satan.
Take a look, finally, at the clip below. But first, let me assure you…
Well, maybe Toscanini said it best: “For Strauss the composer, I take off my hat; for Strauss the man, I put it back on.”
Ouch. But there may have been some good reasons for Richard Strauss to be unpleasant. He was born in 1864 into a musical family; his father was a horn player in the Court Opera of Munich, and Richard Strauss grew up attending rehearsals of the Munich Court Orchestra.
He began composing young, and also conducting; he became the protégé of Hans von Bülow, who determined that Strauss would succeed him as conductor of the Meiningen orchestra.
His early compositions are in the tradition of Schumann and Mendelssohn; his work later became progressively more modern. And whatever else he was, he was a master of composing for the human voice, specifically the female voice. That’s not surprising, his wife—whom Wikipedia charitably describes as “irascible, garrulous, eccentric and outspoken”—was a famous soprano.
The couple had a son, who married a Jewish woman, Alice von Grab. In the Second World War, Strauss initially cooperates with Hitler, of whom he had a low opinion. In fact, Strauss became the president of the Reichsmusikkammer, the State Music Bureau. Later, he interceded several times to protect his daughter-in-law, even going to the Theresienstadt concentration camp to plead for the release of Alice’s mother. And he makes it clear in his diary of his contempt for the Nazis, writing, “I consider the Streicher-Goebbels Jew-baiting as a disgrace to German honour, as evidence of incompetence—the basest weapon of untalented, lazy mediocrity against a higher intelligence and greater talent.”
It tarnished him, this association with the Nazis, and may have been the reason for Toscanini’s remark above. But there’s no question, Straus looked at horror at what had become of his country, and wrote, “the most terrible period of human history is at an end, the twelve year reign of bestiality, ignorance and anti-culture under the greatest criminals, during which Germany's 2000 years of cultural evolution met its doom.”
In 1945, he was liberated by the Americans; he was also 81. He wrote his last works, of which the Four Last Songs are perhaps the most famous. He never lived to hear them performed; he died in 1949, the songs were first performed by Kirsten Flagstad in 1950.
There’s some question if Strauss meant the four song to be a unified set; the first three might be, since they are all based on poems by Hermann Hesse, the last is byJoseph von Eichendorff. In fact, it was the publisher who put them together and called them the Four Last Songs.
Whatever he meant, they’re some of the most beautiful, most haunting, most autumnal works around. By the end, Strauss seems beyond sorrow, even beyond acceptance; he seems transfigured.
