Yesterday, I sat through six hours of a Wagner opera...and I loved every minute.
Oaxaca's Teatro Macedonio Alcala is a lavish 19th century french-style edifice. Every couple of weeks, it hosts a live broadcast from the NY Metropolitan Opera. Attending a Met performance must be a great experience, and one day I will be there. However, in the meantime, the High-Definition projections are exciting enough, and provide better visuals. A giant screen filled with Brunhilde's tightly packaged chest, Vs. the view from the back of the fourth balcony? These broadcasts are shown in many cities, including the Bay Area and Israel. I highly recommend them.
Our initiation to "Live from the Met" was the third epic of Wagner's The Ring. Yesterday, we completed the cycle. In between, we filled the gap and saw several other operas, both at the theater, and on our ten-inch screen. To me, the most striking was Philip Glass' Satyagraha, an opera about Gandhi. As a kick, we watched La Bohème, followed by its modern derivative, Rent. Rent was more fun, but I am already hooked on Opera.
I enjoyed the drama of The Ring Cycle, yet I am puzzled, and I need help. Wagner, aside from being an anti-Semite, whose best friends were Jewish, was a prolific writer of philosophy and politics (none of which I read). Therefore, these operas, other than being just a retelling of old Germanic myths, must have a philosophical or political message. What is that message? I cannot come up with an answer. Dear readers, any answers, thoughts or speculations?
P.S. The Met's Brunhilde looked much better.
It's an interesting moral question, whether to boycott an artist work because his personal views are repugnant
ReplyDeleteI would say that after an artist is dead, it's ok to only consider his work, and let his opinions or personality alone.
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