OPERA!!!!

Okay, so, in preparation for my return to Oberlin Conservatory, I went to the library and got 12 hours of opera to upload to the computer.

The List:

La Rondine, Giacomo Puccini

Der Fliegende Holl

Okay, so, in preparation for my return to Oberlin Conservatory, I went to the library and got 12 hours of opera to upload to the computer.

The List:

La Rondine, Giacomo Puccini

Der Fliegende Holländer, Richard Wagner

Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, Richard Wagner

Bluebeard's Castle, Béla Bartók

The Cave, Steve Reich

The Cave is particularly interesting - it's a multimedia piece for live ensemble and video of various speakers.

There is a cave in the West Bank where, it is said, Abraham and Sarah (the ancestors of Jews and Muslims) are buried. It is also considered to be the entrance to the Garden of Eden, and Adam and Eve are said to be buried there as well. It is unique in that it is the one site where Jews and Muslims worship side by side. Reich asked five basic questions of a collection of people: Who is Abraham? Who is Sarah? Who is Hagar? Who is Ishmael? Who is Isaac? In the first act, he asked Israelis, in the second he asked Palestinians, and in the third, he asked Americans.

J*sus Chr*st...I went to a performance of The Cave some 6/7 years ago at the Royal Festival Hall and had to walk out. I was bored stiff by end Part 1 (My snoring was disturbing others who wanted to sleep in peace) I got pissed off for paying about £10 for the ticket. The fashionable critics praised it but my associates stayed just to get their money's worth and so they could have a few drinks after without going elsewhere.

I don't know...I got on with Koyanisqqatsi and Powaqqatsi when Glass performed the music live against the film; and a few Greenaway films and Nyman concerts. But I never got the hang of Reich - not for want of trying.

So, yes, it'll be interesting and I'd like to hear your comments about a recorded performance - is it a DVD? I don't know if it would work without the visual. Their scaffold occupied the entire stage up to the proscenium arch with performers at different heights, the computerists whacking their keys with exaggerated rhythmic strokes!

On another point, Die Fliegender Hollaender seems interesting as a phenomenon - he was working on it roughly the same time as Rienzi; they're about as similar as chalk and cheese; the original Rienzi goes on about 5 hours. The BBC broadcast it a while ago. Seems that Die Fliegender points more to the future while Rienzi was summing up of earlier stuff. (Which, presumably, was kicked out of the Major Works Forum, so never gets performed at Bayreuth. I think that's changed now. Maybe the Mike of the times changed his mind about what was presentable there.) Hmm...why the heck am I talking about Wagger?

:P

M