It's what you - or more particularly, I - don't know that comes as such a delightful though sometimes disturbing surprise to me over and over again. F'rinstance, I know a bit about opera. Perhaps more than just a bit or I suppose someone else would be writing this blog and I would not be able to use the soubriquet Operaman without producing a chorus of sniggers. I am well aware that I am not in any way an opera expert but I am cognisant enough of the general canon that if someone mentions Monteverdi I don't think they are discussing a light and fruity white from the hills surrounding Florence and I can immediately pitch-in with a smattering of talk of opera in early 17th century Venice.
Alex Ross, on the other hand, is most definitely an expert on music including opera and I both admire and respect his views. So when I read of him being all a-twitter about a performance that is to take place at Lincoln Center of Die Soldaten by Bernd Alois Zimmerman I asked Mr Google to give me some information about a work about which I knew nothing by a composer of whom I had never heard. I was directed to Wikipedia where I learned that Herr Zimmerman was a West German composer who lived from 1918-1970 and that his opera Die Soldaten "is regarded as one of the most important operas of the 2oth century". It is? What, like up there with Lulu and Peter Grimes and Salome and The Rake's Progress ? It's not that I doubt the writer of these words (although they do seem a tad hyperbolic to me, but still); it's that I am discovering almost daily that my ignorance runs both broader and deeper than I am comfortable with. So, what to do? Should I spend more time boning-up on opera at the expense of trying to keep abreast of cultural matters and world affairs generally? Or is it okay to accept that I am something of an intellectual grazer, happy to chew on the tasty buds of knowledge while leaving the roots to those who are made of sterner academic stuff?
I hope you all had a wonderful July 4th. I am proud of myself. For once I did not keep on saying how we English are so happy to have granted you independence (an annoying habit which was sure to result in me being punched on the nose one day. And well deserved it would be!) and I forebor from pointing out to anyone that the tune to The Star Spangled Banner originated as an 18th century English drinking song known as To Anacreon in Heaven. I did attend a barbeque at the home of Elizabeth and Holly, drank beer and ate hot-dogs. I think I may finally be becoming culturally assimilated.
In less happy news La Stupenda, Dame Joan Sutherland broke both of her legs a couple of days ago while gardening in Switzerland. I am sure we all wish her a very speedy recovery. I wonder whether she swears as broadly in French as she does in Australian....
If it's July it must be time for the Annual Wagner Orgy otherwise known as the Bayreuth Festival. As I have mentioned here before getting tickets to this event is about as easy as securing seats behind home plate for a World Series game. But this year the festival's organisers having seen the success with which the Met has brought its opera to the masses has decided to go one step further and stream its opening performance live over the internet. The main difference is that in this case the masses will be watching on comparatively tiny screens and will be paying the comparatively not-tiny sum of $77 a head for the privilege. That was not a typo, gentle readers...I really did write and mean $77. I hate to be a dog-in-a-manger but I hope it is not a commercial success. If Peter Gelb in his office at the Lincoln Center reads of hundreds of thousands of people being prepared to pay seventy-seven bucks to watch opera on their lap-tops how long do you think the HD transmissions to movie theaters are going to be priced in the twenty dollar range?
Over in the Parterre Box La Cieca recently held another regie contest in which she posted several photographs of a modern operatic abortion production and invited guesses as to the identity of the opera. The picture at the top of today's post was one of those very photos. As usual there were many guesses and witty responses. My favourite: "If that's a hat the guy is holding it's Fanciulla. If it's a bedpan, it's Bohème!"
Keep enjoying Summer and come back for more here next week! I leave you with this:
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