On Beauty
2022 Year of Aesthetics Series №22
In my opinion, it’s a task in life to train oneself to speak as clearly as possible. This isn’t achieved by paying special attention to words, but by clearly formulating theses, so formulated as to be criticizable. People who speak too much about words or concepts or definitions don’t actually bring anything forward that makes a claim to truth. So you can’t do anything against it. A definition is a pure conventional matter.
They only lead to a pretentious, false precision, to the impression that one is particularly precise. But it’s a sham precision, it isn’t genuine clarity. For that reason, I’m against the discussion of terms and definitions. I’m rather for plain, clear speaking.
Karl Popper
I start, this essay with Popper’s idea of non-restrictive definition, since beauty is something I want to take a look at and I think a rigid definition of beauty limits the discussion. We know the sensations associated with beauty, yet would be hard to give beauty a rigid definition, since what we consider beautiful broad and personal. This essay is my musing on Beauty, as I go through this year 2022 of thinking about aesthetics. My omissions will be legion and inclusions will be my own with as much folly as that entails. I want to speak as clearly beauty as it affects me.
In years past, I have focused on annual themes such as plays, operas, etc., these things were always tied to action or consumption, it was about beautiful things, acts, artifacts, books & performances. At first this was a joke I am reading a lot of plays, this is a year of theater, but as time goes the annual analysis of a theme has had great benefits. At once, beauty is concrete and the next moment indescribable and nebulous. In the past my look at beauty has been focused on more concrete and consumptive of beautiful objects and performances , but this year is more contemplative.
Beautiful things are readily accessible in action and consumption than accessing beauty in the abstract. I am not a Platonic Formalist, I think beauty as Roger Scruton points out is far reaching, nebulous, sometimes rather clear cut and other times very persona and subjective. Beauty also is not bound to the good and is not synonymous what is good. Beauty is used to tempt and coerce. It is at the heart of much folly, envy, it bridges the light and the dark.
Beauty appears to be related to attention. Attention is about observing, viewing, listening, it is sensual and can be quite passive, the beautiful needs to be brought into consciousness and it requires our mind, thoughts and our senses. Beauty is confounded with many other things we detect with our senses. The experience of beauty can seem beyond our control, like when we see a person that captivates us or hear a piece of music we love on the very first hearing. Aesthetics can be cultivated like a taste in wine or slowly developing an interest in one of the arts.
Beauty can be found in attending and contending with beauty. This is less passive, maintaining family heirlooms, polishing the furniture, gardens etc. Attending is enjoying and sometimes confronting or trying to question the thing. It is physically active and involves effort beyond just taking in input. I find this often in the practice of a musical instrument. Rackam’s Freya below as an artistic representation of attending and Freya herself as something that draws in her attention.
Never May the Fruit Be Picked
Never, never may the fruit be plucked from the bough
And gathered into barrels.
He that would eat of love must eat it where it hangs.
Though the branches bend like reeds,
Though the ripe fruit splash in the grass or wrinkle on the tree,
He that would eat of love may bear away with him
Only what his belly can hold,
Nothing in the apron,
Nothing in the pockets.
Never, never may the fruit be gathered from the bough
And harvested in barrels.
The winter of love is a cellar of empty bins,
In an orchard soft with rot.
Contending is where one challenges ideas of the art or beautiful thing, it is in the debate of ideas, criticism, it takes an aesthetic object or concept as a thing that needs to be wrestled with, it is questioning, and less passive. In the poem above Millay is contending with love and its ablity to be carried with us. She is challenging the idea that love is easy portable, always with us and free and easy. She sees it as wonderful, but that it will be consumed and isn’t easily kept or stored in reserve.
I feel that we could easily drop beauty in for love in the Millay Poem, since beauty decays, and disappears over time but at moments is in full bloom is reborn and all around us, it seems handed to us coming from the ether and much of it is wasted or outside our grasp, beyond our ability to hold but one small piece of an unimaginable whole. Yet beauty can be cultivated, and nurtured and we can learn where to find it.
There is beauty that exists and beauty created or generated. The beauty that exists is just there in the world often with no human input, it seems the most approachable and the beauty that has the least need of defense. The beauty we create in our everyday lives, or inventions and our art, competes with our incompleteness, ideology, and our sometimes desire for the cruel and the ugly. Our creations range across vast spaces and bring in many human wonders and most of our flaws. Human attempt to create beauty in art is the most contentious form of beauty and is most open to debate.
Beauty can be something beyond us seems to be handed to us like Freya apples or a thing we gather but cannot carry with us like Millay’s orchard. Remember, Wotton was willing to sacrifice Freya beauty and risk his own immortality for a safe cold keep of Valhalla filled with an army of the dead, sometimes even the gods threaten beauty.
O for a Muse of fire, that would ascend
The brightest heaven of invention,
A kingdom for a stage, princes to act.
Prologue , Henry V -William Shakespeare.
Generation or creation of art, objects of beauty and music create objects different from natural occurring beauty. During the creation of beauty there is a muse like quality, this thing in our head that appears as an idea, a verse, or theme for a painting or an extra dash of cognac in a recipe. The Aesthetic can be generated by human kind, sometimes a muse like idea infects us and we take it along, and at other times it is very much a construction that comes from intense effort and skill.
Creation is in a way a step beyond contention and attending, although contention and attending are often necessary pre-step. Edouard Manet spent his early training coping and attending to the works for Velazquez. Manet tried to work within the rules of the French Academy but after multiple rejections he forced the famous Salon de Refuse, where more contentious and creative paintings found a alternate show place for of viewing of the public to see innovative and rejected paintings, which led to impressionism overwhelming what the academy had judged valuable..
Beauty and the Good
Plato always rears his ugly head. There is the tendency for Beauty to become a form like Plato’s Good or to become Plato’s Good itself. Plato brings this up again and again in the dialogs . Yet we can see from almost every life lived, superficial beauty can overwhelm a truer beauty. Physical attraction has an undeniable beauty problem, and the beautiful physical does not imply beauty with in.
Picasso protected many painting of other and his own from the German’s in WWII. What is beautiful or what is permitted to be called beautiful can be dangerous. It is hard to say where morality and the good mesh into art. Art for generations have contained moral messages , especially religious painter (which I consider some of the best painters) have center their works on examples of extreme moral action or moral hazard. Art can depict the monstrous, the decadent and the corrupt. Art tempts us along moral and immoral lines and plays with our morality.
Oscar Wilde’s play Salome, is marked as part of a decadent school of art in its own time, it inspired Richard Strauss’s Salome. (I also like paintings of the scene). I adore these as dark and monstrous plays. They explore and play with how dark and deceptive beauty can be, the confusion of lust and love, and how the most beautiful woman can be a monster. There is a voyeuristic darkness that you encounter with Salome, and her interaction with Herod, her Mother and John the Baptist. Strauss’s opera amazes me an draws me in to repeated performances, and interpretation and have been captivated by Wilde’s most dramatic text. Beauty even monstrous beauty is hard to pull back from it.
Another example and my favorite play, is Oedipus Tyrannous by Sophocles, it is as dark and monstrous as Salome, and Oedipus suffers the price of the damned for merely existing and trying to escape evil, which accidently he runs head long into. Recently, the trend is to assume art is amoral, and we are amoral observers who stand outside what the art depicts, I think this is harder to pull off than suggested. A lot of what is created today for entertainment is Content, a piece of fill without much questioning of what the filler is. Commoditized content doesn’t ask the about the morality and its aim is not really it isn’t really a serious questioning us. We should step away from Content. We ought to find art to challenging us that asks moral questions. Art can be for escape but it should not only be for escape or it is just an opiate.
It is good to question why for 2500 years, we are still challenged by a play about an incestuous king, a parricide, and regicide whose parents expose him to death as an infant, with his feet bound with a rod through his ankles. Art allows us to explore ourselves and the darker side of beauty.
Simple, Everyday & The Fleeting Aesthetic
Scruton discussed a simple and primary aesthetic in his On Beauty. He brings up the idea of everyday actions as beautiful and describes how this is the means for children to begin to understand beauty. His example is setting a table properly. He goes on to sort of relegate this to a proto-beauty that is a necessary step to more enlightened beauty. I think that Scruton is partially right, but incomplete in two ways.
First these every day actions of making dinner a bit better, being grateful for the bounty of a diner table, sprucing up meals, nice plates, glasses, a clean home, nice hard bond books etc. all are a form of minor but very important form of beauty in our lives. It can be a chronic pain or a continues joy to attend to the everyday with an eye towards increasing its beauty. I am not for over complication of meals, $1000 wine at table etc. but small things in daily life add up and if you bring beauty into your daily routine. The minor is experienced frequently and daily, but if neglected it can lead to a boring and bland life.
Secondly is a dismissal of the culinary arts. Scruton considers these things have beauty but not really a form of art. After years, I remember diners, and lunches with good friends . I disagree, to pull off a grand diner with the right people, food, drink is like a symphony or an opera with many voices. It is performative and memorable, it combines food, drink, timing, and the right people. I make breakfast on the weekends that while less memorable have a theme of being very oriented to everyone’s desires it has become a ritual that my family enjoys. I practice the art of sausage making and continue a five generational practice. The culinary is fleeting art often and if not treated with respect, but it can be more than just feeding, yet it can rival other arts in a performative nature.
In Roger Scruton’s defense he is one of the few to even take this idea of simple beauty seriously, and he has more access to higher thought and art in analysis and performance. He was a champion of everyday and ritual.
Beauty should facilitate satisfaction and not slavishness. Ritualization should not go to the point where it becomes fetishized, the fetish drives to corrupt form of perceived perfection, there are times also where we have to get things done when beauty is secondary. For example I must balance family life with painting, piano, cooking, reading and writing, I have to have a give and take on my personal interest otherwise my family life suffers. As well, I try to create new painting lines and continue older ones, this brings fresh ideas , improves my technical skills and lets new ideas emerge to a point where they can grow before old ideas stagnate. With piano I was trying to force progress, but now on good advice from my teacher, I always take a part of practice to play just for the joy of it.
I do remember simple meals and times where relaxation and easing of the rules and rituals is part of beauty of life. Cutting things out and simplifying rituals or eliminating them at times may be the right move. To be free in our art and action is good, challenging and considering tradition is as important as considering it worthy of maintaining it, be not blind to the darkness and light sides of ritual.
The Natural, the near and far infinite, the finite and the timeless.
Nature is a realm of extremes, from the most simple to the infinitely complex. What we gather from natural beauty is just what our capacity to take in. We are treated to extremes like a single leaf to a forest, from a snowflake to a snow covered mountain. As well, we see natural formations that last longer than our lifetimes but we see the seasons and the day change with in our time frame. Nature beauty is often based on awe, on the sensation of being part of a larger thing. In contrast simple and small things like excite us in scale and complexity. Also, we can see the parts and the sum of its parts.
Nature to me is more often enjoyed than understood. It also is the realm of the living and the timeless inorganic. It has been before us with us an part of us through out our evolution. Nature is our greatest benefactor and and our destroyer. I can say little more about Nature other than one just must experience it more than talk about it.
Cummings gets to the point that nature by its very nature contains a beauty independent of man.
The Mechanical
Design is a daily beauty we can have in our home and in our hands. Below is a Bialetti Moka Express. It is simple design but has a distinct shape and is extremely functional. I see one form of beauty is this type of design. It is both functional, it makes a damn fine cup of coffee, it is easy to use and it is shiny geometric with two colors, silver with black handles. It is fun to watch as it makes coffee and it involves a bit of art and ritual to operate.
In the mechanical, I like functionality but if design is ugly the machine is a lesser objects. From knives, pots and pans, glassware, to cars, and houses, and sky scraper design, needs to meet its basic function, but the being dull an not ornamented tastefully are design flaws in my opinion. Ornament can be subtle and not overtly impact function. I am am not strongly drawn to the kitsch and gaudy. I like fluid simple designs, but often these are not 100 % functional but have aspects that are just to make them beautiful. A perfect example is glassware, it is best a nice fluid design for a very specific but still flexible function, with just enough added ornament.
My favorite mechanical possession is my piano. A machine that functions on many levels, it is first a beautiful optical object, a luxury piece of furniture and a wonderous generator of music. It is truly mechanical device having the the keyboard, mechanism and those lovely strings and frame. It is a mostly wooden object, the better the wood the better the sound.
Pianos are require upkeep, cleaning, and tuning, they are fragile to time, yet older pianos are often better if they are maintained. They are made to be touched and played and suffer if not used. Pianos are a physical extension of the player, they are filled with possibility, frustration, wrong notes and moments of grace. Every piano I have played is different, and very unique. I think they are an exemplar of the beauty of mechanical design.
Electric instruments can be beautiful, two of my best nights were spent 10 feet away from Greg Allman and his Hamond B3. I have a soft spots for instruments I do not play also.
Music
Interviewer: “Why are you an Anglican? “
Scruton : (Long pause then a smile ) , “They let me play the organ on Sunday.”
Music is nearly universally loved by humans, I find very few not moved by music, and it is rare to find someone who would not argue the case for music they love. Music has a contagious nature, we desire to spread our favorite pieces to others. Music being non-visual makes hard to pin down as what makes it beautiful.
Most of my musical experience has been as the passive listener and collector of music. I go through stages of what I listen too. I agree with Howard Bloom’s “A pop song can be three minutes in paradise.” I have seen great classical and jazz performances. Music is mostly an attending for me personally. As well, there has been much love or hate at first hearing.
There are levels of music, yet I would not underrate pops songs. I have listened to countless hours of pop songs and still do, they bring a magic and can be deeply explored if the right band or artist is involved. We should note that during there era Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Monk, Evans, Davis, Verdi and Strauss wrote popular tunes that were less canonical in their own time.
Listening to music took two forms, recorded and concerts. Concerts are a more complete experience and less repeatable, you have a more active role. Concerts are a shared experience, with friends, people at the venue and the artist interaction with crowd. I am still impressed with P J Harvey Concert on Sept 13, 2001 at the Riviera Theater in Chicago, it was a room full of rage and sorrow, yet Harvey channeled her rage and sadness, and transformed for at least a moment the tragedy of the days prior. Music can express part of the musician personality, and it is a seduction.
Recorded music is a wonderous thing, and each innovation makes it more widespread and accessible. We can now see concerts from years back on demand for free. I have almost no problem listening to anything I want when I want. C.S. Lewis actually feared that the phonograph would ruin music since one could listen to pieces over again and the magic of performance would be destroyed by this repeated listening , it makes me laugh at how far this prediction has failed to come true. Lewis is right though that technology is ever changing music.
Thirdly is performance or playing music. I have recently started to play piano, which requires a lot of time, and patience and PRACTICE. I am seeing how to make sounds that are pleasant and patterns that we like. How cords are built and how things can be mixed together to make a melody. Yet we do not need this level of knowledge to love music. Aficionados of music often know many thing other than theory or performance, so playing is means to music but not a necessity, it gives you an insight into the technical and generation of music, but why does it sound so nice and move us so examined separately from theory.
Scruton’s books on music are a bit beyond me, but I understand his quote that starts this article. He loves playing and it takes nothing more to understand than he wants to do play and experience music. We can love music without scholarship, and often it is when we drop a lot of our critical edge do we really experience it. It some how fires our emotion, and desires. Emotion may be the most aesthetic part of music, but it is hard to determine why music tempts us. Musical taste is so varied even within and across genre that it hard to say why we love something beyond justifying our likes.
I do want to say theory does make one a better musician, it does make playing more enjoyable but it is more making the theory into actual physical mechanics in performance and having the language to discuss what and how you are doing on an instrument rather than why we think it is beautiful, although I am a novice so my understanding is probably not up to the problem of the value of theory and its usefulness on the question, why we love music?
It seems odd too that music and instruments,(singers excluded) are very mechanical, yet we do not hear the music they produce as mechanical. We often anthropomorphize instruments, and treat them as more of a magical machine than purely mechanical. They feel like human extensions, maybe music is beautiful because it is the extension of a human being via sound, (singers most assuredly included.) The voice and the the heart beat were very early precursors of the musical instrument, our first music derives from voice and human rhythms, as music advances we accept mechanical voices and an extension of the human. When I play piano, it feels like I am creating the sound, like the machine is an extension of my ideas (or the composers ideas). I recently have been able to play very soft with use of two pedals, I was complemented on this, but a great deal of it was putting two feet down, and a great deal is the human touch. The instrument is a realization of human conception of sound this is the reason that these machines take on the aspect of the human beings.
Fine Arts
Thanks to Ian R. Pearsall for the kind the use of of Hedgerow (Hope)
The Dark Art of Post-Industrial Britain #BlackStreetsDarkHearts
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This will mostly cover thoughts on painting. I will start with an example of a painting that struck me. I only noticed it recently. It is an abstraction, a representation and contemporary piece of art. I see that this was not an easy work to create, it took skill, training and practice. Its beauty draws me it as a depiction full of challenge and life. Complex and full of meaning, it makes me think and it makes me want to keep looking at it. I feel like I am contending with it. I have to have my idea of it I have a story of it in my head, and I am sure Mr. Pearsall has conception of it when he created it that probably varies from mine. It is full of life to me, I love the color the technique, and the way depth is actualized . I to want to be there on that day in that place.
The fine arts to me focus on creating a meaning to the viewer, a depiction and a sense of desire to be involved with the piece of work. The artist should compel you to think on what is before you, and excite your emotions. I find that the desire for these works is more visceral and personal than cerebral. As I spend more time with a piece, I do become more analytical about what I am seeing but, I never get to the stage of being analytical with paintings that are not first emotionally appealing. These are human generated objects, the artist unlike nature has intent.
You are the worst person to speed through a gallery with. ~Linda
This Manet that was shown in the Art and Fashion in Paris at the Art institute of Chicago. This was one of three Manet that made me abandon my friends and free food and cocktails at the member showing. I kept coming back and again because I knew I may never see this painting again, and that I would regret if I didn’t just look and give it the attention it deserved. Edouard Manet has been my favorite painter for many years. He plays with focus detail, softness of tone, color and light. He has control but he chooses subjects and constructs scenes that are compelling. Above is a paintings of his favorite model. This painting is enormous and she is full scale and as the painting hangs you are in the room with her. She is alluring, beautiful and intelligent. She is compelling, she has a meaning that you want to prize out. I was compelled to see this painting for many long viewings during the single night I could see her.
I like this seduction that great paintings have, that draws one in and holds you. The average view time of a painting is 5 seconds in a gallery. I have spent hours with favorites. I recommend go through the show look long enough to see if you want a second look and then go back to view the paintings that speak to you give them attention, look at aspects that intrigue you, whether the subject, color, the technique. I recommend also sometimes visiting museums and galleries on your own, make the viewing about aesthetics and the paintings and not a purely social event.
Ernest, you are the perfect person to see art with you just look at paintings and leave me alone so I can look at things. ~ Jill
If you have a great collection in you local area revisit it. The St. George above is one of my favorites. Dripping with strangeness, the monstrous and meaning. St. George, a pure knight but weary in his tarnished armor is a wonder. Note the colors in this painting are different when first painted the faces going green and blue with time, almost as if time is an aspect of the painting. On my last visit, I took my friends on a very torturous short cut from the modern wing to the impressionist just to go by the gallery with St. George. Great paintings, pieces of music, churches, buildings, are worth seeing more than once. St. George is wonderful every time I see him battle that dragon.
The beauty and democratization of art, where simple everyday people were worth painting, and simple objects. This idea exploded during the impressionist. To paraphrase Degas, one could paint non descript naked bathers instead of Daphne or Venus by the sea. This revolution started in the Salon De Refuse where Manet and other rejected artist decided to show what the academy rejected, it democratized subjects but also democratized the viewing since the Salon de Refuse allow the public to decide instead of the academy. Suddenly from the Salon de Refuse through present day art has expanded including who can paint, what can be depicted and who is allowed to judge the work. Subjects can even be highly simplified or even be completely conceptual.
Literature, Folly and the Monstrous
If there is one place I am promiscuous it is books. Books are the most time consuming and absorbing of time of all the observational forms of art.
While one can spend years developing a form of art or style when one is observing an painting, a landscape, a building etc. one can spend hours or a day observing, books can take months to read and absorb, without even considering rereading. Movies, paintings , dinners, scenic views, music seem less limited because we can consume much more in a shorter time. Readers are faced all to soon with the limitation of how many books and what to read. While this limitation exists with other art forms it haunts us less than our limitation on the books because the time demand is so high .
Anti-library & Ante-Library
Nassim Taleb introduced the idea of the anti-library, the repository of unread books full of wonders and duds that we are blissfully ignorant of or painfully aware of. The idea of anti-library has also become an expression of those books that are in the anteroom just outside our personal library of read books. It is a place of potential but we are limited on how many books can move from anti /ante-library space to our library. I have an active reading shelf with the pile of next to read books a queue of 150 some books, as well as about a 800 book library, but I can access most books written by access to a great library system .
I find two great things about the idea anteroom idea is that you can let friends put books in this space and reviewed books, books you pick off the library shelf, and decide if they will move back to the anti-library or enter ones library. Larry McMurtry who at one time owned more books than any other person the earth discussed that as an owner of books that there will be a time that you will be able to part with books or at least some of your books. I have done major culling of my shelves and honed down the books I want to possess. I want a nice library and a healthy anteroom, but not every book needs to be on the shelf. I am buying better volumes of books I want to reread, there is an aesthetic pleasure to reading a fine volume. Also great public library with good interlibrary loan systems can be great for screening books and can reduce unnecessary book buying. I by less books but ones that are of very good quality, it is always appealing to hold and well bound book in ones hands.
There is also the idea that our knowledge of books is fleeting and very incomplete. That we skim scan and absorb selectively what we want from books without fully incorporating them, it is if some of the book remains in the anti-library and our personal antechamber. Pierre Bayard book How to Talk About Books You Have not Read examines the idea of incomplete and nonreading, it is very inciteful on our limitations. It reminds me of Montaigne struggle with notes and essays to remember what he had read. Montaigne was ever loosing this battle with retaining what he had read and yet felt compelled to read. Juvenal Urbino del Calle in Love in Time of Cholera fought a battle against senility where his memory became a series of notes written to himself but it became pointless since the good doctor kept forgetting the notes and their meaning . Taleb stress books we love we reread we want to gain more from and it is a increased investment of time. He sees this as the highest praise a book can receive.
Borges describes three hellish book related landscapes an infinite library, an infinite book and having all the memories of Shakespeare. Borges understood in an infinite stream of information books would become noise and just infinite variation of the nonsensical and self pleasing noise we would seek out to cater to our own very personal biases. With Shakespeare’s memory in total we would begin to loose ourselves in the other man’s history. His fictions are full of complicated musing on what books and prose are.
The Novel
The Novel name comes from the idea that it was a new form and that because novels were new and innovative and were expected to always innovate. The original aim of the novel is to present a new environment for the reader mind to explore. The novel survives and progress via innovation, although there is decadence of genera novels that can decay into the formulaic. Also, novels can become very era specific and can be bound to the sentiment of their time. Often a novel is very transitory in its popularity over time since it is hard to be new for decades. We have a vast number of novels that are considered long term survivors because of the uncounted failures. Novel’s emerge from a space filled with failures and it is hard to predict what will be a great novel of its time or if a novel will last over time.
I have by far invested the most time of my aesthetic life in a love affair with the Novel, it is a form that develops a long, enticing and rewarding experience when done well. I find my taste in novels is very personal, and hard to explain, but since we are very limited on how much time we can dedicate to reading it is good to get some value out of the experience.
I have a view that the novel is a relatively new form of literature and one that is still in its early stages, it will be interesting to see how my favorite art form fairs. The novel is becoming more accessible with audiobooks and real time access, and also electronic books as well as a renaissance in publishing of high quality books that are works of art from an aspect of design. Since great novels have always emerge out of a vastness of subpar books. I believe we have enough high quality novels emerging to have a bright future for the novel. The demise of the novel is often announced but it has always been very winner take all in a sea of loser type space.
I have in mind two exemplars of the novel both from the early 2000’s. One is the great monster of literature 2666 by Roberto Bolano. 2666 is unique in structure, it is a series of loosely interconnected novellas that create a whole. It plays games with the world of academics, publishing, and has very sophisticated and dark humor. Yet for all the humor and jibes at the academy, it centers on a man who is worthy of examination in two conflicting frames of darkness. A man who has lived through the second world war who will be thrust into the chaos of of todays Mexico. 2666 looks at mankind as a monster emerging into the world as individuals struggle to pull themselves from the maw of the devouring world. The novel uses both the main character and Santa Teresa a city as a vanishing point, it looks deeply into our darkness but shows fleeting bits of light. Its structure of short novels and short chapters makes it flow amazingly, it is innovative in its humor, its shifting perspective that tells 5 tales and one. It has mysteries, the characters can never answer and leaves things that the characters can touch but that the reader is left in the dark about. Bolano is a genius, but 2666 would be inaccessible to me without Natasha Wimmer, wonderful translation which is one of the highlights of prose in English. 2666 was an emergence in literature, nothing was quite like it, and nothing for a long time will come close, it was very new and exciting but has held up upon multiple discussions and readings.
The second novel, I would like to discuss is a piece of historic fiction by David Mitchell, The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet. Jacob De Zoet is my favorite character in literature, he is flawed, faced with tedium, and strains on his loyalties. We see him use his ablity to his advantage as well as driven and repulsed at times by his ambition. Few books as well held together by there central figure. His disappointments are real and as you read the book he faces the world with an incomplete vision that we all share, he squanders moments and has regrets that hang with him. While he is a success in many ways, he is thwarted in his chief desires, yet he lives on. Mitchell ties a series of stories together to make a unified whole, he takes men to test under tedium and petty jealous and xenophobic thoughts. He challenges what it is to be enlightened and is willing to put the unflattering words in his main characters mouth’s and wisdom into the mouths of lesser men. His work is new; he plays constantly with prose and structure, and is a phenomenal writer in English. He traps us in a small space to see how wide the world is.
Both books are monster, 2666 is three novellas and two novels in one volume, it is a serious investment in time. Goes into the darkness of a city filled with murder dragging in the innocent and guilty alike. Bolano death has saved 2666 from being threatened by expanding beyond its current size and complexity, it may be a near perfect thing since it is now independent of its author.
The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet is part of Mitchell’s Meta novel which is now at nine volumes, which contain a single universe but until the last two novels had each novel has stood alone. The scope of such a monster can be unruly and shifts the perspective of the novel a great deal. I think it was not until The Bone Clocks that Mitchel turned this from loosely connected novel to a single work of fiction with a cannon. I worry that Mitchel may focus too much on the unified whole now instead of novels that were always unique. There is a trap of becoming bound by having to maintain a large set of rules and consistency in the novel and that we will get serialization instead of unique novels, I have high hopes for Mitchell all the same.
The Essay
The Essay, introduced by Michele de Montaigne was in his mind an attempt, an attempt to examine the limits of himself, the limits of his understanding and mans understanding and what ever diversion interested him. The quality of his prose and his investigation into his own and are astounding. What makes them beautiful is that Montaigne looks at himself very honestly, he is willing to discuss his lack of ability to know things, the opacity and path dependence of the world, but not to abandon duty and responsibility in spite of the uncertainty of the results of his actions. His essay are beautiful because for the most part they are honest and interesting. It is like listening to a dear friend speak without the need to interrupt. He always looks to contradict his own view and finds examples readily. He deals with his own limitation and the success he has seen in spite of those limitation.
Donald Frame translation of the Essays are my gate way to Montaigne and English readers are heavily in his debt. I have to say that Montaigne with his digressions and wandering often gets to the most salient of points and this may be the greatest expression of prose that I have read. Montaigne aesthetic is personal and explores the uncertain. Montaigne see beauty in following wonderful digressions that sometime surpass the core idea of the essay, as they are attempts; he is not sure what will work or how to pull of what he is trying to achieve, it leads to an open wonderful conversation style essay that rivals Shakespeare as the voice of that era.
“In times of universal deceit, telling the truth will be a revolutionary act.” ― George Orwell, Facing Unpleasant Facts
The only essayist who rivals, Montaigne may be George Orwell, whose honesty won him few friends, but who in his essay and his column As I Please , examined the simple joys of life along side exposed large dishonesties that often he clarifies in prose of the highest caliber, always honest clear and with exposed unpleasant truths. Orwell is a true exemplar of both the novel and essay. Orwell is able to point out when nuance is abused to hide something and he will point out truths that are covered up by others. His beauty is in facing Unpleasant Facts and in away it seems impossible for Orwell to not do so. His writing is clean and necessary, and he has the talent to write with great passion and clarity about the simple to the complex, and from the most profane to things he holds sacred.
The Religious/ Mythical
Old Texts draw many deep into the past. It is hard to know if it is more than a patina of the old that draws us in or the idea that wisdom is hidden in the past. I have been captivated by ancient texts after reading Edith Hamilton’s Mythology. These texts have mysteries and are not bound by the traditional rules of consistency. The classical authors barrowed and created from a rich repository of old inconsistent traditions. I studied classics and I was taken in by the epic of Homer and Virgil but my true love of my youth was Ovid’s Metamorphoses, a string of inconsistent and outrageous stories, which are captivating to this day. The mythology from the epics to the plays of the tragedies are filled with contradictory paths of myths with no time line yet they have a strange wonderful unification to them.
Over the last three years I have also been working through the old and new testaments. They have an evolving aesthetic which encompass men and their flaws in a world of a single god. The books of the bible are not consistent in the modern literary sense, but they surprise with strange ideas and mysteries that harbor much thought. They challenge one to think non-naively and are a great cornerstone of western literature. I see so far in my incomplete reading the flawed, manipulative Jacob as one of the most interesting characters in literature, who while the most chosen regrets his life full of evil often of his own making.
The grand mistake is that we can only learn by agreeing with these texts, but we learn from exploring and thinking in a way not our own. We see the greatness and charisma of Gilgamesh but also the horror of his reign and the depth and incompleteness of the man and his best friend who are both all too mortal.
On Alice and Phileas Fogg
There are few children’s books that have had staying power and always draw me back. I am captivated by Alice that least strange of strangers in the strangest of lands. Alice is the most tenacious and risk-taking character in literature, she faces indifference, cruelty and folly at each turn, but it is safely rooted in nonsensical world and Alice has the wit and compass to face the lot of the wonderful antagonist. The White Knight frail yet kind is the only person who shows Alice consistent kindness and is a great foil to the rest of the cast. As well the book is full of puzzles, twisted ideas, puns and magical impossibilities.
Verne’s Around the World in Eighty Days has the opposite of Alice in Phileas Fogg, a proper unemotional unattached man who travels he world indifferently, but at the end of his travels as he is about to loose all finds that he has found love, adventure and a true friend. The tale is full of excitement and desperations and twists. It is the novel that I have read the most time.
Drama and Opera
Plays
In high school we read Julius Caesar and Mac Beth and not many other plays, I find these plays to not jump off the page like other Shakespeare plays. I had a teacher in my sophomore year who kept talking about Cyrano, I went to a library and saw only version was a play and rejected it. Later I found a paper back in a used book store and mistook it for a novel. This tattered edition translated by Brian Hooker excited me as few pieces of literature have, it is a comic-tragedy, a problem play, that makes us cry after all the laughter. My high school also had a serious theater director and he directed student productions of The Crucible by Arthur Miller and Aristophanes the Birds. He also taught debate and he discussed plays and discussed Oedipus The King, which at 17 is still remains the great literary wonder of my life.
It only took this handful of great plays to addict me to performance on stage and the endless reading of plays. Plays are maybe the most neglected from of literature in written form. But they are compact, potent, demonstrative and can play in our heads. We should strive to read more plays and take our children to see performances and read plays themselves. Plays should be read and plays should be seen.
The Greeks
“Many are the wonders yet nothing is as wonderfully terrible as man.” ~ Antigone
Three poets in a festival celebrating Dionysus's festival have created a foundation for western theater that has lasted for more than 2500 years. These plays were a fierce competition between three great rivals Sophocles, Euripides and Aeschylus. Out of there multitude of plays we have 32 and none of their contemporaries. We have lost so much, some plays in this canon survive by luck but most are exceptional innovative and breath taking. From monstrous gods, hubristic kings, to petty men and witches and slaves these plays are a multitude. The tragedy, the tragic comedy and the romantic comedy all arouse as forms among from these plays.
Part of the magic of the plays is they are set in a distant barbarous past where the Athenians could explore the their current day, war and destruction, abandonment of lovers and children, tyrants going beyond their human limits to rival gods, sanctification and forgiveness of Athens, war prisoners and murders all are brought to life. I am very happy with Green and Latimore’s edition of the complete tragedy as well as Penguin book editions.
These are plays in verse, but it is well worth looking at them even so, there are multiple translations and adaptation, and even very good prose editions. I have found them the most rewarding sets of play I have read. I read a bit of them in Greek when I had Greek but now I rest solidly on good translations. Shop for a good translation that suits you and you may even find that you will read more than one version of the same work.
I have seen Agamemnon, Medea, and The Oedipus Cycle in performance, these plays still captivate from the stage after thousands of years.
William Shakespeare
…the play’s the thing wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the king… ~ Hamlet
For the Shakespeare, if you get the opportunity to see a play you would like to read see it first. Much of Shakespeare is farcical, comedy, which is good to see before you read, or has very high end archaic language that often comes across well when depicted by actors. I recommend reading if you cannot see the play. Note you can see excellent movies of a majority of the plays. I find many of these adaptations to be beloved films.
The Greeks have one true rival and that is Shakespeare, who has 37 plays that are completely attributed to him and a few (very good ones e.g. the Two Noble Kinsmen that were collaboration.) So we have a good deal of Shakespeare. I have seen his plays on film and on stage and they are some of my favorite cinematic and stage experiences. Shakespeare is highly adaptable, scenes can be shifted cut, gender bent, have music added, be brought down to the barest elements or be grand pageants on the stage. His words and scenes and characters are flexible, interpretable, and magically shape shifting.
Two Henraid’s are his master works, Richard II, Henry IV parts 1 and 2, Henry VI parts 1–3 and Richard III, are eight plays in two sets of four that go from the Plantagenets to The Tudors, the war of the roses and the culmination of the Tudor line in Shakespeare's own time. I think the BBC Hallow Crowns is an excellent film version of the eight plays if you substitute in Branagh's Henry V for the BBC. I have read them serval times and it gives a feel for England and through its flawed , charismatic and corrupt kings.
He is the master of complex, gender swapping plays, mistaken identity's, he puts fools with princes and makes folly tempting to all. He has written plays like Hamlet and Lear (See Ran) that change as you age and gain perspective. His comedy is so rich, I believe As You Like It and Much Ado About Nothing are wonders of English, Stage, Poetry and Narrative, and enjoyable in may good versions.
Of all the comic wonders, there is nothing as wonderous, or as petty or drunk or foolish or boorish or human as John Falstaff, a creation who Shakespeare lets us feel all our own follys and vice but allows us to laugh at ourselves.
Falstaff, Henry IV Part II :
But to say I know more harm in him than in myself, were to say more than I know. That he is old, the more the pity, his white hairs do witness it; but that he is, saving your reverence, a whoremaster, that I utterly deny. If sack and sugar be a fault, God help the wicked! if to be old and merry be a sin, then many an old host that I know is damned: if to be fat be to be hated, then Pharaoh’s lean kine are to be loved. No, my good lord; banish Peto, banish Bardolph, banish Poins: but for sweet Jack Falstaff, kind Jack Falstaff, true Jack Falstaff, valiant Jack Falstaff, and therefore more valiant, being, as he is, old Jack Falstaff, banish not him thy Harry’s company, banish not him thy Harry’s company: banish plump Jack, and banish all the world.
I would recommend seeing Midsummer’s Night Dream in performance it is just not the same on the page, it is wonderful with the right cast. Also Anthony and Cleopatra is wonderful on the stage with two really exceptional leads.
Other Greats of the Past
In Shakespeare’s time there is one play that rivals his great work and that is Faust. I adore Marlow’s play Doctor Faustus and Gounod’s Faust and Boito's Mephistopheles and Mamet’s Faustus are all worth reading. I have seen Avant guard productions of the play with new and innovative scripts.
I think two perfect plays and a third good one, (all which are still performed as plays and operas) are Pierre Beaumarchais’ Barber of Seville, The Marriage of Figaro, and The Guilty Mother. Beaumarchais covers so much about the folly of love, and even in the mist of this solves the problem of Oedipus, in a beautiful comic scene. See the Opera read the plays, they are well worth it.
Modern Favorite
I love all the plays of Anne Baker, see her work read her plays, she is of our times and her characters have real souls and conflicts her work is not manufactured for agenda, but to let the characters play through a beautiful sad and comic arc. She is easy to read and easy to understand in performance, I think John and The Flick are two great plays, I also loved her translation and staging of Uncle Vanna.
I love Tennessee William’s Street Car Named Desire, see the Brando version and the Gillian Anderson National theater version is exceptional and worth paying to see.
Glen Garry Glen Ross, The Spanish Prisoner, and The Winslow Boy by David Mamet have exceptional casts for movies and really get to the heart of these plays.
I would say that Woodie Allen is an exceptional playwright and recommend reading Manhattan, Hannah and Her Sister and Star Dust Memories and then reading the screen plays. Annie Hall is good to read since you really see how much Keaton and Allen added to the script by their performances.
There are countless others but many a friend has said I always have to many favorite.
Theaters
Theaters are wonderful places of human interaction. They are costly and hard to maintain, but they give us a window to a space of imagination. The stage is a great innovation in human communication, with its invisible forth wall that let us peer into a constructed world. Innovation in lighting, sound, and set machines have made the magic of theaters an astounding complex peace of technology. Yet simple minimalist sets, and a projected human voice often are enough. Both large opera houses to small theaters have there own charms. I have seen some of the best performance in the Owen Theater the small theater at the Goodman, while a smaller space, it is hard not to be close to the actors and one is allowed to hear the voices directly from the stage. My favorite hall is he Lyric Opera of Chicago which has wonderous acoustics and very innovative stage craft, but you can be far from the stage. I see that many are priced out of performances in the theater. I think if one can afford to expose ones children to the experience of theater early it is money well spent.
Opera
Aficionado and First Operas
I am an Aficionado of opera, like Hemmingway with the bullfight I have an overwhelming passion for experiencing opera, I have seen as many in performance all over the world, and seen as many as I can in performance. I am passionate about the singers, the staging, the directors, orchestras, composers, conductors etc. First operas is often the only shot most people will take on opera, so I am making a few suggestions on ones that would make the best possible impression and lead to a desire to see more.
2020 and 2021 being what they were I watched most of the Mets on demand catalog, also I had time to read a lot of source plays, libretto and history of opera. I made these years the year of theater and opera, so if it seems that I have a lot to say due to the fact that this is very recent in time and at a level of saturation that I am not normally afforded. I read source plays and libretti and histories of opera.
I first was exposed to Opera via PBS productions of the Met Opera and was hooked by Amadeus based Peter Shaffer, exceptional play. Three of note were Tosca, Macbeth and Julie Taymor’s directed, Oedipus Rex, still maybe my favorite opera production. My first live opera was Le Nozze Figaro at Chicago Lyric Opera, with Renee Fleming singing just as she was becoming recognized as the Sweet Voice.
Some bits of advice, see a good company or recording (DVD or streaming or at the movie theater) look for reviews there are bad productions of very good operas. If you like comedy see a comedy, if you like tragedy see a tragedy. Most opera houses have supertitles projected above the stage, but it is good to read a synopsis if you want to be familiar with the story.
Below is a guide to first operas, it cannot be all inclusive. If you think you would like to see something first that may be a good enough reason to see it. Also if you love a composer then you may gravitate to someone on this list. I find opera approachable in all languages, so I don’t think one language is better to start with than any other. I am listing a quite a few first options because it is an art form with a vast history and so much to see, also the best for one person is not best for all.
Met in HD, DVD, B-ray and YouTube
Met In HD is a low cost options ~25 dollars to see live sim-o-cast at theaters, very high Metropolitan Opera Performances. I have seen there entire catalog and have not found anything that is not well done. (subtitled in English). Many of the operas below can be streamed or found on DVD from the Mets vast HD catalog.
Note I have seen most operas streaming form the Met or on video, first it saved me about 3500–10000 dollars to see opera at the volume I did in 2021–2022. Met in HD has an excellent streaming catalog with membership and single opera viewing options, opera vision on YouTube also has exceptional operas also. Libraries have vast catalogs in interlibrary lone system also. The camera work and sound is very controlled in these performances. You get close ups that are better than most opera seats and the sub-titles at the bottom of the screen allow better viewing than subtitles above the stage. It is also nice to run to a local theater when one has the time or sit down with a DVD which allows one to watch longer operas in a sitting or two. I have seen almost all the operas that Anna Netrebko and Renee Fleming have sung, which would be impossible in Chicago.
That said the 30 live operas I have seen have brought me great joy, the magic of the theater and the projection of voices across the hall. If we do not support houses there will be no on demand catalog.
Carmen
Carmen is an opera that music comes up often concert performance as instrumental adaptation or as recital performance by singers, so most people will know most of the songs in the opera; this makes it very approachable and familiar. Carmen is a fem fatale who, evokes the jealous of woman and men, she embraces lawlessness, and loves and hates in turn with passion. Bizet music is perfect and will be in your brain hours after the performance. It is loved by all and is a great place to start. Sung in French.
Eugene Onegin
One remarkable realistic story that is a very complete experience is Eugene Onegin, written and composed by Tchaikovsky. It has very organic choruses, dances and arias which are very poetic, it even has a aria, which encompasses a letter. It has as much folly and darkness as Wagner’s ring but in a real world setting by a man who sabotages his own life and those around him. The music was composed for conservatory students. This is a very complete opera and I would recommend it as a brilliant first opera for anyone to see. Sung in Russian.
The Met has three excellent versions one with Renee Fleming and TWO with Anna Netrebko
Cavalleria Rustica & Pagliacci
Two short operas which are often performed together are two great short tragedy. From a theater point of view these are two exceptional plays and two perfect short realistic operas. They are two tales of jealousy that do not end well. One is an Easter festival that does not end well and one is a play with in a play with the saddest of clowns. Most of the populations have heard the songs from the opera in pop culture and these are two experience worth seeing for the music and the beauty of the play. Sung in Italian.
La fille du régiment
Donizetti comedy about a poor girl (who is a lost rich girl) who is raised by an regiment of soldiers, is one of the best comedies. It touches on subject of loyalty to family, those who you love and duty in a very comic way. It is an opera that you will laugh at full of wonderful slap stick. I would recommend his comedy Don Pasquale and The Elixir of Love are also great first comic options for comedy lovers. All in Italian.
The Barber Of Seville
Again most will be familiar with the music, it is a fun plot and full of good mirth and slapstick. It is played by most houses almost every season. I have seen it multiple times. It is based on an exceptional play and Rossini is musical fireworks with huge finales.
Cosi Fan Tutte
This is my favorite comic opera, but it is a problem play if you like the Shakespeare borderline comic-tragedy this is a sight to behold. Mozart and De Ponte are at there best. I love the slapstick and it reminds me of a mix of Love Labors Lost. The recording below is exceptional, and is well worth seeing at home. Mozart loves these characters and their flaws, it is his best music in my opinion.
THE DEEP END
There are those who love classical music or choral music who may want to dive in the deep end, or those who want the most immersive experience possible. I love these three operas with all my heart and they are great first or second operas. They are vocal and instrumental masterpieces and exemplars of opera.
Der Rosenkavalier
This is my favorite comedy, which is full of folly balanced by wisdom. It like all great comedies goes deep into human failing. It introduces one of t he greatest character in Opera, the Marshallian, a field marshals wife, who realizes that her infatuation with a young lover will not last, that she will grow old and lose this love, then she plots for him to fall in love with a young girl. She also comically dismantles the proposed marriage of her cousin comically, so that the young girl marries her young lover instead of the horrible cad who is out for wealth and connection and not love. Strauss is at his very best in the music and I like only one Strauss opera more.
There are several recordings of this opera and I recommend any with the greatest Marshallian of our age, Renee Fleming, her last performance was recorded by the Met in HD series. It will be great to see live but Renee has given up the role if you like this opera see this performance. Sung in German
Salome
My favorite Strauss opera, but it is the darkest opera maybe ever written (Other than Strauss Elektra). It is based about the Salome selling herself to King Herod for the head of John the Baptist. It is a gruesome horror filled opera, not for your grandmother (unless your grandma love that sort of thing) or children. Nadja Michel is the best Salome currently, and is captivating and monstrous. The orchestra is one of the largest in all operas, it is bold, dark, monstrous and deeply moving. Sung in German
The Ring Cycle
Wagner’s Ring Cycle is four operas. I have heard many going in for a four opera season and seeing this first. Often with a love of opera as a result but know you are going for four performance and 16 hours of music going in. It is a vocal and orchestral masterpiece. It is a complete mythology. It is filled with Gods and humans both cursed and tragic. It has long instrumental sections and is sung as a continuous poem so no arias, it is a completely different musical experience. The Met has a great HD offering which I have seen twice. Make sure if you see it live that you are going to see a production you like I would do serious investigation before seeing it live.
The Modern
L’Amour de Loin ~Saariaho
Saariaho is a brilliant composer and Susanne Philips and Eric Owens are wonderous in the Mets version of this. The staging is wonderfully light driven setting letting the singing take the lead in a magical world. The title translates as Love From Afar, it is a romance set to moving and challenging music. Robert Lapage is a staging genius. Sung in French
Tempest ~Ades
Ades is an exceptional composer and this adaptation of Shakespeare is the very best. The cast is hand picked by Ades, Robert Lapage does the sets to perfection and Ades conducts. It rivals Verdi’s Shakespeare opera in excellence.
Stravinsky -Oedipus Rex
If you love Stravinsky than this is what you should see as your first opera, there is an exceptional staging by Julie Taymor, with Philip Langridge and Jessye Norman who are exemplars of the roles. The staging is magical. This is my favorite opera of all time, I saw this on PBS as my first full opera, it is still magical. Best stage effects in opera, the best singers and the best chorus. I think the best version of the Oedipus myth set to stage. Sung in Latin. Libretto by Jean Cocteau. English narration between scenes translated by ee cummings.
Complete and Incomplete
Gesamtkunstwerk was Wagner’s term for a total work of art. Wagner wanted a complete work of language sound, stage craft, orchestra and singers all as an instrument of the composer. . Gesamtkunstwerk was an attach on Italian Grand Opera, which Wagner saw full of extraneous song driven performances and recitatives that were less musical that drove along silly plots.
Wagner attempted make the play a sung text replacing arias and recitatives with the music a continuum of a unrepetitive sung lines, a dramatic text instead of a series of aria linked by short burst of exposition. Wagner’s greatest opera does achieve this singing form. Yet his Ring Cycle has a very incomplete and mythic plot, full of incest, dragons, giants and failed gods. The text is very exciting in performance and he really achieves a unity of concept in sound but his plot has glaring unreality. I think his Parsifal is the closest we get to Gesamtkunstwerk, even though it is mythic also, it does unify a coherent story with a inspired orchestration and utilization of the human voice.
Wagner chief opponent is Giuseppe Verdi who was a champion of the an improved aria driven opera, which was in direct response to Wagner. Don Carlos maybe the grand opera exemplar was driven by duets, and trio and choruses, it did not have Wagner’s continuous line, but it did respond in a way along Wagner’s line. Verdi’s Don Carlo, Falstaff, Othello and Mac Beth all seem to achieve in spirit Gesamtkunstwerk in being a complete work of art, all were based on excellent plays by Shakespeare and Shiller and that they did not follow Wagner’s theory of a sung play. In this complete work the Gesamtkunstwerk Wagner actually wanted to remove arts such as Ballet music and Dance, Aria, and wanted the libretto to be more of a poem than a play.
The great synthesis of both men’s ambitions came in the operas by Strauss with his continuous line Salome and his complex and grand Der Rosenkavalier and Ariadne Aux Naxos. A great deal of operas while being very enjoyable have a problem of being very incomplete, often having silly convoluted plots and over melodramatic construction. Two examples are the middle act finales of Barber of Seville and Marriage of Figaro where there is very exciting vocal and orchestral fireworks but it has little do with the plot, it sort of explodes in a lovely mess, then you get the rest of the opera, which ignores this explosion. I think if there was not a curtain and intermission these mid opera stopping points would be a problem, but the intermission allows us to reset and we are just able to have drink and wonder at what we have just seen.
Gesamtkunstwerk is far from a necessity to enjoy opera, there are many people go for the singing, some for the staging, and some just to be seen in a box seat. I love most of opera and I have come to enjoy very complete works and very incomplete works. Donizetti Three Queen Trilogy, are completely inaccurate and romanticized but they have excellent singing and music and plots that tell a historic fiction worth contending with. I like the silly comedies and forgive finales that are silly or contrived if they are wonderfully sung.
Composer and Librettist
Opera is vocal music, the debate over words verses music has always been with opera. In my opinion operas can survive and do survive weak librettos but no libretto has saved a weakly composted opera. Yet when the two come together words and music wonderous things happen. There are some opera plots that are a unholy mess and are held together solely by the beauty of the music. Many operas have good stories as myth or fairy tales.
Rarely is the writer of music and libretto the same person. Most operas are collaborations. Wagner is famous for creations of his own ‘poems’ and his own music and is a great exception to this rule. There are three great collaborations that come to mind in Opera Mozart and De Ponte, Verdi and Boito, and Strauss and Von Hofmannsthal.
Mozart and De Ponte created three operas, Le Nozze Figaro, Don Giovanni and Cosi Fan Tutti, of exceeding beauty both in plot and complexity of song. Two operas are adaptations while Cosi Fan Tutti was original and may be both men at their dramatic, comic and musical best.
Othello, Falstaff and Simon Boccanegra are exceptional works for bass and baritone. The two Shakespearian adaptations and are two of my favorite depiction of Shakespeare’s work, they show the flexibly of Shakespeare and the genius of Boito librettos and Verdi’s Music. Three masters co-exist in these adaptations.
I adore all the operas, Strauss and Von Hofmannsthal that I have seen, but Elektra is the darkest and closest to the Greek roots of theater that may exist, it is primal, distant, barbaric, yet calls for an incredible orchestra and the loveliest of singers. Der Rosenkavalier has notes of the Merchant of Venice, the passing of an era, and the tension between age and young love. It’s has the comic gender swap of Shakespeare with the Tragedy of The Marschallian, who gives up her young lover because he deserves young love and to protect a young woman from a marriage of convenience. It calls for two great sopranos and an exceptional mezzo soprano and a exceptional bass.
The Singers
The thing that attracts me to opera is taking a human voice to the limits its potential beauty in combination with glorious music. Opera productions are most times unamplified sound, having lived in the cheap seats it is amazing when a voice can file a 3000 seat hall and compete with an entire orchestra. These musicians often have to be good actors who have to physically act and show emotion while singing, but the sound of the voice is the great enhancement to the play and gives a very inner voice to the character. Often the aria is an internal voice that while sung in front of people is the hidden ideas of the character, it is a trope of opera that gives it great power you often know things that the characters on the stage are unaware of.
The voice has pitch range and singers are defined often by the range they can sing, male falsetto, to female soprano, female mezzo soprano, male tenors, male baritones and basses are key ranges and composers write music especially for each range, great singers bridge their range and extend into an adjacent range.
I am most attracted to sopranos and mezzo. My four favorite of my life time are, the great Anna Netrebko, Renee Fleming, Nadja Michel and Suzanna Philips. All are exceptional actresses and are worth seeing in performance, they have never disappointed in my experience.
Chorus
The Chorus goes back to the Greek theater which opera originally attempts to emulate. The chorus is often a public voice commenting on the action of the opera, it can range from a permissive to prudish, often the chorus also comes in at big moments in the action and often are to add backing voices to the primary singers. They are often the most popular and beautiful parts of operas and without them opera would be lesser. They play both a character role of the community and a vocal orchestration that enhances the opera.
Music, Orchestra and Conductor
Opera has two musical components the singer and the orchestra. In opera’s development the orchestra was for accompaniment of the singers but as opera has progressed a has increased orchestration has arisen, this has driven some operas to the point of being rarely performed because of limitation of singers that can compete with the pit, but these are some of the most well attended operas because the music and the singing are the most deep. Limitation of the opera pit size has lead to some smaller houses limiting their reparatory, or going with a leaner orchestra. I love balance between singer and the pit, but my favorite operas are by Strauss, so I lean towards heavy orchestration and love the new instruments that were invented by Wagner’s for his operas.
There various ways to tell the story so we should discuss the recitatives. Early operas had play story line told in spoken words, and then evolved to simple harpsicord accompaniment to sort of artificial sung line this is rather popular and long running idea in opera. As opera progressed, the recitative improved and become more complex especially as full orchestration of the recitatives came into practice, also as recitatives never became aria but they became more song like as time progressed. Wagner departed from the recitative and the aria completely with continuous singing to move the plot in a more play like sung poem, which has greatly influenced modern opera. Strauss may have taken this to its apex in Salome.
The company , the orchestra, and the singer is lead by the conductor. Conductors are vital to the house and productions, they are key to the level of rehearsals and selection of singers and integrating the production with the music. They are grand organizers, leaders and tyrants of the pit and stage. My two favorite have Chicago connections the greatest opera conductor of my life (as well as the CSO) is Daniel Barenboim, he gets it all out of his performer and the orchestra. He is one of the worlds greatest pianist in the world today as well.
The most operas I have seen in performance were conducted by Sir Andrew Davis, he is the conductor of my house the Chicago Lyric, he has lead the house, since I started attending operas and I hope his tenure last as long as possible.
Directors
Stage direction can be very complex using elevators, flying sets, moving sets, rotating sets, cranes, machines etc. Art work on stage from painting to sets has to be integrated by performance. Modern opera directors are becoming to be as much of a draw as the performers. Also opera sets are expensive so a director may have an affect on an opera house or multiple house for decades.
Director, also have to work with set designers, costume, wigs, make up artists. But they have to pull the singer and the orchestra into the performance.
Two exemplars of great modern production are David McVicar who has done excellent production for the Met and Royal Opera house and whos opera production affect many houses, he has played with idea of plays with in plays and used Goya are to wonderful effect and Robert Lapage, and his grand machine for Wagner’s ring (which required the met build structural reinforcements to the stage), has pushed technology to wonderful organic limits, his production of The Ring and his L’Amour de Loin are wonders of beauty along a new path.
Cinema
Movies have the joy of being usually contained in about a 2 -3 hour story, which is very easy to consume and evaluate as you are viewing. Movies are very different from books because they play with the imagination and trick our mind like books but much more is concrete and easier to absorb, we are shown things and hear dialog, we are allowed to comprehend actions more and thoughts less unless verbalized.
Cinema and movies is similar to books and novels is that it is the place where we most risk the new. Cinema has elements of escapism. Not to say movies need can not be ascetically complex and sophisticated. Cinema is almost wandering into a dream, or even choosing the type of dream we are about to have. As it is a play, it is character driven and narrative driven. This means players and the screenplay are center pieces of the performance. Like the Play and the Novel they hinge on being novel, they are an emergent art. Time sorts cinema and determines the staying power of a film. It is hard to pin-point a formula for films, and films suffer once a formula is implemented based on past films. Formula may even work from time to time but if the film does not have novel ideas it will not have staying power.
Gimmicks and twists are are part of movies, but novelty must go beyond this if a movie has to be great. Notorious ending is exciting because everything is falling apart but Grant is saving Bergman at all cost and despite obligations, the gimmick is that Grant blackmails the villians but the novel idea that he trust what his lover has become trumps his other duties. The novel nature of this movie is that Grant and Bergman cannot come to terms with each other and fight each other in spite of attraction and love. Beauty of a movie often involves a twist but a twist alone doesn’t make a movie beautiful.
Movies tap into narrative and human action and draw us in as a voyuerisic observers. Cinema plays all the arts, it has elements of sound and music, it has light and visual capture of photography, it has artistic design, it plays with color or absence of color contrast etc. All these visual and sound elements can contribute to the beauty of a film. In the move Pig we see a wrecked man who is trying to recover a pig, which is last cherished thing he loves in the world. We want to see into this world and the world of strange underworld and restaurants of Portland, but we go into the narrative of the characters just enough to make them interesting, and much is not explained but we understand enough of the narrative to be in that world, but as insulated observers, who can empathize and feel catharsis but it is only a passing pain without long lasting suffering. It is a trial ground for minds to visit to experience while not fully living what is before our eyes.
Cinema is a bit different then a play it is a captured and edited play, the players can take multiple shots from multiple angles, with various camera, framing, sets, lighting costume etc. Then it is edited. It is basically an edited sound-tracked moving picture. Editing is an important part of film making and without it films suffer from unnecessary materials that make it less novel.
Camera and sound design is also central element to capture. The camera is controlled by directors and the cinematographer, the amount of work and ingenuity put into lighting, great camera work, framing and good clean sound is very important to determine if a film will last. Four films by Stanley Kubrick, The Shining, Dr. Strangelove, Barry Lyndon and 2001 show how detailed shots, precision and development of camera technics and sound design enhance masterpieces. These worlds even the surreal world of Strangelove or impossible hotel of the Shining come to life in the near perfection of every shot. Barry Lyndon maybe the most beautifully shot movie I know of for all the human folly and immorality of it, its beauty carries us through the narrative as much as the exceptional acting and story. 2001 is a great master piece of effects that keep the slow paced movie alive with complexity and reality of a totally synthetic world.
Personally, I think cinema is the greatest place to explore comedy. I remember seeing Rushmore twice in the same night in the theater because it was a great comedy, with its own beautifully constructed world and the greatest comic script I have seen, the casting was perfect. Film allows jokes and comic ideas to be played and edited together, and it often captures timeless comedy, it also allows for long complicated jokes to be developed.
Cinema is a great vehicle for the tragedy and horror. The Shining and Alien to me seem perfect on film and I am not interested in a prose version. Aliens and the Shining need action and suspense and the setting for the ideas to come alive, and the players feel like they are in true peril, we are with them but safely with them as they face both human and inhuman monsters. I love the movie Blue of the tri-color, because of how much emotion that Juliet Binoche can convey, I think that it would be impossible to capture her tragedy or the tragedy of those around her or the beauty of the human soul even in saddens in a play or a novel, there is to much focusing on objects with memory, of emotion shown and hidden that could not come out other than in cinema.
Art, Beauty evaluation and critique…
I started thinking about the need to discuss evaluation of art, and beauty, but as I thought about this I am perfectly happy with doing little evaluation beyond my personal preference. I do believe there is a lot of trash in the art world, collectable commodities and the kitsch, and things made to be degrading, and ugly, I see these things but they have always had a fleeting effect on me. They are the easy to digest and need little interpretation but they carry little meaning. These things do not strike me or compel me to contend with them. I seek out art that has meaning and purchase with me that is what I think is beautiful.
Unlike Paris, I know making aesthetic judgements is fraught with perils. Yet for Paris folly he did make the honest choice (all be it with a rather lovely bribe/bride as his reward). Art should have an honesty, and gimmicks in art are fleeting.
Artistic evaluation is often justified by criteria outside of beauty, the history of the artist, the movement they were in, the technical skill in execution, the rules they followed, the rules broken, who likes it who hates it, how old it is, what did it sell for etc. These criteria are stand in for what is beautiful but they are not beauty itself. We should ask ourselves why we see beauty and be willing to make judgements. Most of the time our aesthetic judgements are in the realm of low cost errors.
Beauty when it is depicted well, is done with sophistication, and technical skill in fine art painting, I see more in the old masters than the modern and contemporary abstract painters. I recently went to the Art Institute of Chicago with friends we went to modern gallery first and spent a long time there. Then went to see the old masters and religious paintings, it was amazing the contrast. The old masters of course had more realistic depictions but they showed a tradition and skills that the modern painters did not. Is technical skill part of beauty, I think so, but also the modern paintings tended to communicated much less. Is beauty informational or narrative, for me it is if it is to have meaning beyond a simple thrill. The old masters capture me with there depictions of meaningful subjects, even if I do not know the story of the painting.
During the same visit I walked into a room full of Rothkos, whose work I love, and I cannot really make a case for Rothko, but I never feel compelled to, they are very technically hard paintings to execute, your ten year old isn’t going to paint a Rothko. I was exhilarated after the Red Room in the Tate modern and was literally dragged out by my jet-legged wife and children. Rothko is truly abstract, I think I prefer the concrete to the abstract in aesthetics, but I keep running into Rothko and his ilk that draw me with little explanation.
I met a docent at a very particular venue with works by a single artist, the venue was built to house a special collection of the artist works, a very modern abstract painter, she told me as I was the last to leave that most people didn’t linger. Told her that the paintings and the building were truly beautiful. She had the thickest glasses I ever saw on a human being, she told me she was loosing her sight. She said “I can see them now, I will work here until I cannot see, these are the last things I want to see.” These were very abstract paintings but they were technically complicated and sophisticated. She had made her judgement and she was happy with her choice. I never questioned her judgement, few of us know the last thing we want to see in the world.
I see a lot of art and listen to a lot of music and I have hierarchies in my mind. I feel the trick is not to look at to much low end art, but I risk seeing things and wasting time for a gem or two. I screen and pick favorites as I roam through galleries and go back and visit my favorites with a second look before I leave.
I am not saying that there is not anyone today not going beyond creating art, I relish all of Annie Baker’s plays because she is always taking a look at what makes humans tick. Nor is she the only example. I think the book that has asked some of the most moral questions in Bolano’s 2666. A constant diet of Content only is consuming the bland instead finding beauty.
Sometimes a song, a human being, a conversation, a wine will just captivate you and you will remember it forever as beautiful. Most art that I consider beautiful is at first site, and similarly with music. I make evaluations and pick favorites, but a lot of it is very organic and based on things that speak to me from the first.
I agree with Scruton that we can make an evaluation his Lady Gaga vs Bach example is a good defense of aesthetic judgement, it is based on sophistication and complication of Bach’s music. Bach requires thought, and patience and a degree of being grown up to love. The aesthetic merit of Bach or Strauss or Bill Evans, or Thelonious Monk, maybe a more difficult to evaluate.
As a confession, I have listened to significantly more hours of Rolling Stone, The Police, Talking Heads, Pink Floyd, Cowboy Junkies and PJ Harvey than the great composers above. As Howard Bloom said, “ A great pop song is 3 minute of paradise that you can listen to again and again.”
I see aesthetic judgement in the non falsifiable space, except for the most obvious extreme comparison. This means that aesthetic judgements are more wagers than scientific determinations. The cost of error is often low for these wagers, but one can use them to manage time and what ones sees and hears. We are ever flooded with a diet of content, I would rather wager on discerning the value of art works even if I am in error to lead away from content driven pabulum that the worlds media wants to feed us. I think we need to decide if it is better to go to a concert or view a gallery, go see the mountains or visit a museum. These wagers are often about personal taste, and we should curate our tastes to see a wide range of things of exceptional quality. We need to judge for ourselves where art is valued vs our work goals our family etc. Experiencing art and creating art are costly and time consuming, and for most financially nonprofitable, so we have to also evaluate how much time and money we can expend on art.
Nanay makes the argument that aesthetic experience can be decoupled from aesthetics judgement, but I find this decoupling impossible. In fact I almost always have an initial judgement to any art object. It actually takes tremendous effort to withhold judgement. He argues that judgement reduces past experiences , but I have found it leads to more enrichment of experience. When I roam galleries or go to concerts I always choose favorite, very visceral judgements, I circle back to see favorite. I experience and judge art in in tandem. Reminding me of Popper criticism of Bacon , I will have preconceived notions going in I only get better by challenging them. This will lead to change in evaluation and passion for various things which I liked in the past, but so be it artistic passion is often better fed by hunting out the best than trying to stop our passionate response to art. Yet good day with good art should be a good enough day, without having see perfection. Go back and visit the best and very good before exiting the gallery.
Nanay in addition very much pushes for global aesthetic as if we only have a Western one. My aesthetic is broad but has western roots. Our museums in America are very embracing of a world wide art experience. My favorite galleries include , Chicago Art Institute Japanese print galleries, the Native American Northern tribe art gallery and Columbian art galleries of the Field Museum, and I like art from current day to the first paintings we have recovered from caves. As well, painters, musicians and architects borrow and steal from other cultures, impressionism was heavily influenced by Japanese paintings, and the Beatles were influenced by Indian Music. Furniture and interior design has been highly Orientalized in Europe . So I do not see the global aesthetic as something missing as something that is already here. We should be able to criticize and comment on these aesthetics systems and point to what we see as strengths and limitations of each system.
Epilogue
Rosalind knew how to make an exit.~Me
I leave you with this good epilogue, since mine is lesser.
Any folly above is my own, but I hope that even if you disagree that you will take a look at beauty around and in your life and may you garner a few of the golden apples from the trees.
Vale.
Further Reading
On Beauty -Roger Scruton
Aesthetics: A Short Introduction -Bence Nanay
The Black Swan ~ Nassim Taleb
Love in Time of Cholera -Marquez
The Fictions -Borges
The Essays — Montaigne
2666 Roberto Bolano
The Short History of Opera (rather long) Grout
The Thousand Autumns Of Jacob De Zoet David Mitchell
How to Talk About Books You Haven't Read Bayard
Around the World in 80 Days Jules Verne
DISCLAIMER Ernest Boehm is completely self-patronized and will not incur any financial benefit from any Medium article, this is personal choice and he is not against for profit endeavors but does not want to make his writing for profit. He is not financially affiliated with any links included in this article.