Opera's Second Death

[Dave Monroe]

Very quickly ...

--- The Great Quail <quail at libyrinth.com> wrote:
> >that Feldman piece
> 
> I love it, but it seems to scare most people out of
> the room. My girlfriend calls it "That crazy Star
> Trek opera."

A must have, then ...

> >Familiar with Luciano Berio's Sinfonia?
> 
> One of my favorites -- in fact, I wrote a review of
> it:
>
http://www.TheModernWord.com/beckett/beckett_berio_sinfonia.html

Oops. Duh. Forgot with whom I am speaking here, which
is not the first time that's happened, recently or
otherwise (sorry, Bandwraith, Mutualcode, both of whom
I will inevitably confuse with William Gibson's
Wintermute as well) ...

> >and you no doubt will disagree with a staement
> >like Dolar's "I share the view held by many that
> >the opera is emphatically finished"
> 
> Oh, my! Yeah, that sort of view might tend to raise
> my eyebrows. Though it might be a good read anyway,
> it sounds like they make some nice points about the
> opera that they do admit into their circle of 
> study....

Well, of course, you can't cover everything, and Z&D
do seem to have their particular purposes.  Not quite
sure what they are yet, but ... but, again, I've been
browsing, skipping around.  Might yet deploy some of
the stuff on Mozart (Dolar's half of the book; Zizek
covers Wagner) here, as it is largely on WAM, the
Masons, and the Enlightenment.  See also ...

Branscombe, Peter.  Die Zauberflote.
   New York: Cambridge UP, 1991.

Brophy, Brigid.  Mozart the Dramatist:
   The Value of His Operas to Him, to His Age
   and to Us.  New York: Da Capo, 1990 [1964].

Till, Nicholas.   Mozart and the Enlightment:
   Truth, Virtue and Beauty in Mozart's Operas.
   New York: W.W. Norton, 1993.

None of which I've much even opened yet, but cover the
whole Mozart/Enlightenment/Freemasonry thing.  Make
opera, not war ...

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Check out Yahoo! Shopping and Yahoo! Auctions for all of
your unique holiday gifts! Buy at http://shopping.yahoo.com
or bid at http://auctions.yahoo.com