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April 6, 2008
Turandot--Orlando Opera
Friday night we went out to see the last opera of the season. This year it was Turandot. (For anyone curious that is pronounced pretty much as spelled in english--Tur-ahn-dot.) And it was magnificent. Orlando Opera company had gone all out to make certain that this 50th season closer would be a set of performances to remember, and they handily accomplished the goal. The sets, costumes, and staging were all spot-on, the orchestral unusually fine under the baton of Anton Coppola, and the singing by both hired talent and the company professionals, top-notch.
The story of the Opera is pretty repellent and ridiculous, and had me half alienated to start with--but as it played out, I was won over--which speaks to the power of Puccini's music.
The Opera is in Three Acts and starts abruptly, without an overture. I speculated that this may have been because Puccini never finished the Opera--it is his last and the music he composed for it ends somewhere in the third act. I speculate and suggest that Overtures may be among the last pieces composed for an Opera, requiring, as they do, a full range of the ideas in the remainder of the music. However, that is speculation.
What is not speculation is that while this is Puccini, it is Puccini in 1922 or so, and it reflects some of what was going on in music through the early twentieth century. There is some discordant and dissonant scoring, largely masked by the fact that the Opera takes place in China and Chinese harmonics are evident throughout the score.
Unlike Madama Butterfly, which to my mind had a single powerful, gorgeous, memorable aria--the music throughout this Opera has several memorable themes, not the least of which occurs in act three when Calaf, the hero, sings what for lack of a better analogy might be called his "Rumpelstiltskin" aria. Turandot, the Princess, is busy torturing and threatening the people of Peking to find our heroes name so that she will not have to marry him in the morning. While the people and Ping, Pang, and Pong (somewhat comic relief characters) plead with him for the sake of all to reveal it, he sings a powerful and memorable aria, which even the most casual classical listener is probably familiar with--"Nessun Dorma." (For better insights into the libretto and the meaning of all the weird goings-on, you might check out this site wherein I found the lyrics to the aria.
The performance of this aria with chorus caused a collective peril of anoxia in the audience--not a sound, not a rustle, nothing--still, quiet, attentive, rapt. And, of course, that was the intent of the composer. Probably the most magnificent of all of his Arias, in what is undoubtedly the capstone (both literally and metaphorically) of his career in Opera.
I had gone ready to hate it, from the story, from my previous Puccini experience, from the fact that I could just barely keep my eyes open. And I came away wanting to have a copy of this Opera so that I could listen to it regularly.
If anyone from the company happens to read this, Bravo and Brava. Magnifico.
Later: Our Local newspaper's review with film clips including Nessun Dorma.
Posted by Steven Riddle at 7:59 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
April 9, 2008
Cayo Hueso, Cont.
The Friction of Trees
In this grey, loud noise
who would think that
it is the friction of trees,
bushes, grass, rocks, roads
that weeds the winds of the storm?
What seems a sandpiper's hop
from the shore, and yet
when the wind winds through,
combed and pulled by
leafy limbs, clawed by sawgrass
and palmettos, threaded and
braided by bush, brush, and grass
it is thinned from roar to shriek.
Posted by Steven Riddle at 7:45 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Another for Cayo Hueso
The True Disciple
God's holy hate sanctifies my own
for hear these words He has uttered
Jacob have I loved but Esau have I hated
so simply He blesses me when I blast
those who do not know Him and many that do
the people who have abandoned Him and those
who lyingly stayed nearbyHe blesses every thought that passes through my head
they all are holy as He is holy
placed there by the Lord who is the God
who made me as I am
Holy in my lust
Holy in my hate
all my desires are sanctified by His will
all my spite righteous through His might and love
Posted by Steven Riddle at 7:51 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Poem in a confessional vein
I have to admit that it scares me a little to bring this one to light because it may be one of the more raw and for that one of the more true poems that I have ever written. Not true in the sense of portraying objective reality, but true rather in the grasping at a sense of the interior reality that sometimes becomes known to us.
So, as the audience is so tiny, and consists mostly of the sympathetic, I garner the courage to place this among the poems of the recent past.
Advent
They say a season of light
but this light comes from fuel
of the human heart and thus becomes
a season of ash and dust
a season of endless lament
as we wait for a joyless birth
as we wait for the disappointing
consummation of all.In the vast meaningless
emptiness of what we see and do
Advent is the hardest darkness
because the heart that has been
indurated cannot bear nor even see
the light.For some joy, for others an endless
tunnel and this hand is dealt out
blindly. God allows what He allows
and there is no stinting on it.
For some the love of God is made
manifest in this bitterness
in the taste of ash.
I can pretend no longer
His absence cracks my heart
and releases nothing
chained as I am to dust.
Somewhat more bleak (rueful grin) than some of the others--but a glimpse of the landscape. For those who have seen it, think of the Anthony Hopkins version of Titus Andronicus and the finding of the sister and you have a sense of it. It comes and it goes and it does not torment even as it does and I can't explain it any more than that--chained as I am to dust.
Posted by Steven Riddle at 7:57 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack