Music
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“It is cruel that music should be so beautiful.”
It is cruel, you know, that music should be so beautiful. It has the beauty of loneliness of pain: of strength and freedom. The beauty of disappointment and never-satisfied love. The cruel beauty of nature and everlasting beauty of monotony. Benjamin Britten (1913-1976) English Composer
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Truth cannot be known to mortals*
If truth cannot be known to mortals, why is the word in our vocabulary? *The words of Klytämnestra, in “Electra”.Opera in one act, by Richard Strauss (1864–1949).Clytemnestra, in Greek mythology, is a goddess, wife of Agamemnon, and mother of Electra, Chrysothemis, and Orestes
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Anna Bolena — tragically interrupted
Anna Bolena wrapped her long hair in one hand, lifted it above her shoulder, arm stretched, and walked decisively a few steps before an abrupt stop, swinging her black tail frontwards in an arch over her head where it hung before her forehead, as she took a drastic bow that exposed her neck to the…
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Words at the Opera — Hamlet
The wiser among us are the madmen. Hamlet / Grand Opera in five acts (1868) by Ambroise Thomas
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in this moment
…listening to the “Aeolian Harp” — a piece from 1923, by Henry Cowell (1897-1965). It is one of the first piano pieces composed for extended piano techniques, including plucking and sweeping of the actual piano strings. Black tea goes well with it.
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Words at the Opera — we know enough
Wotan: Your cryptic words fill me with awe. Stay, and advice me further! Erda: You heard my words. You know enough. Wotan (Odin), is the chief God in Scandinavian mythology, and leader of the possessed. Erda is the Norse Goddess of the earth.
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Words at the Opera — fear
Siegfried: Is it some skill I need? Tell me! What is this “fearing”? Mime: If you’ve never felt that, you don’t know what fear is. Siegfried: How strange a feeling that must be! “Siegfried”Richard Wagner — music and libretto
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When a Day foretells itself in Absence
That was the Richard Wagner week. The New York Metropolitan Opera streamed some of his masterpieces on a daily basis. Today I will be delighting in yesterday’s streaming of Parsifal. Knowing the schedule in advance, has allowed me to prepare each day accordingly, more or less around the operatic work. I knew, therefore, this day…
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The Imprisoned in Paradise School for an all encompassing Life with Circumstances
A fear began to simmer as twenty/twenty began. Twenty twenty is a symbol of good vision — actually, a common measurement for average good sight. By March, the entire globe was hiding, like true globalism in unexpected fashion. Very soon I embraced the idea of being imprisoned in paradise. Limitations became the opportunity to unfold,…
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Voice of a Young Sailor
Westwardsthe gaze wanders;eastwardsskims the ship.Fresh the wind blowstowards home:my Irish child,where are you now?Is it your wafting sighsthat swell my sails?Blow, blow, you wind!Ah, alas, my child!Irish girl,you wild, adorable girl! Voice of a young sailor(heard from a height, as if from the masthead)in “Tristan and Isolde”by Richard Wagner
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Words at the Opera
“Humans are humans, cast out by the elements, long ago torn from the roots of the earth” — Ježibaba, a witch, in Rusalka, by Antonin Dvořák, libretto from poet Jaroslav Kvapil
Sila Blume 