Washington's Wagner Ring Draws Young and Not So Young

The night before the Washington National Opera's grand opening of its first complete Ring cycle, I was having dinner with friends who commented on the fact that the tickets were sold well in advance and that people were traveling from far and wide to see it. Almost like a pilgrimage, they said. But one gentleman hailing from California bemoaned the future of the opera in general. He said he was seeing only elderly people at the opera and wondered what will happen when this generation is gone. On the opening night Saturday at the Kennedy Center, the audience was far from old. In fact, grey heads were in the minority any many people looked younger than 30. There was not one empty seat in the venue that sometimes has difficulty filling the house for the most popular of operas. What magic is Wagner's Ring wielding to draw crowds wherever it shows up?  

For sure, much of its attraction is due to the timeless themes of love, power and greed. But I think what makes it irresistible is the way in which Wagner wrapped these themes in the tapistry of ancient myths and classical fairy tales, that fascinated us in childhood and continue to speak to our inner child. What woman would not like to be woken up by a kiss from a true hero and what man would not like to wield power over the world, or at least over his own life.  So it is consoling to see the rich, the powerful and the beautiful who are as flawed and as vulnerable as we are, and have to atone for their sins just like we do for ours.  

The opening night suggests that Wagner has young fans...

...and attracts diverse audience

I saw my first complete Ring in the 1980's thanks to the WETA Television broadcast of a Met recording. I planned to "suffer" through it as a matter of education. But instead of dreadful boredom and fatigue I expected, even the longest operas kept me awake and mesmerized.  I could not wait for the next evening to see who did what to whom, just as in the past I had waited for a new season of Dallas to see who killed J.R. And there started my love affair with the Ring.

In his book A Night at the Opera, Sir Denis Forman says: "There was a time when Wagner and especially The Ring divided mankind into the Wagnerites and the rest. Today the war is won." And guess who is the winner!

Das Rheingold, Scene 3, Alberich and the enslaved Nibelungs

On Saturday night at the Kennedy Center, when the first Ring cycle opened with Das Rheingold or The Rhinegold as the WNO calls it, the undisputed winner was Wagner. The first of the Ring operas was last seen here 10 years ago, the other three followed one by one. The production I remembered as being firmly grounded on the American soil - with gold prospectors, robber barons and Erda as a Native American in a fringed suede dress, moccasins and feathers in her hair - has seen much improvement. I liked it well the first time, but the new version has a dreamy quality to it, including video projections of falling water, the mist rising over the river and changes in costuming that suggest universality and timelessness. In another fun new touch, this production has Freia afflicted with Stockholm syndrome, reluctant to  leave her captor Fasolt. 

A couple of chat forums took me by surprise with expressions of outrage that Wagner's gods should be using cell phones and boarding a cruise ship called Valhalla, instead of entering some sort of Norse heaven. For me Wotan, Donner, Frohe, Loge, Freia at alia were not gods even in the original version, but rather a privileged upper class fighting to retain its status. If you believe Bernard Shaw, The Ring expresses Wagner's view of his own society. In his booklet The Perfect Wagnerite, which I highly recommend, Shaw gives a detailed account on the subject. There were greedy industrialists in the 19th century as there are greedy businessmen today. Ecologists could argue that The Ring speaks in defense of the environment and protection of natural resources. In any case, why would it be easier to find Wotan more believable as god than as a CEO of a global corporation? Even the British queen calls her domain "the firm." 

Francesca Zambello had good reason to envision places and characters from the Ring in the United States. As I watched Das Rheingold, every scene and every dialogue made me think of something happening in the world today: Wotan and his group - of the political leaders of our time, weakened by the need for money and their own vanity, Alberich exploiting the Nibelungs - of a Chinese industrialist squeezing the life out of cheap labor.  Laws in The Ring are made to be broken even by those who make them; heroes are naive and therefore vanquished... 

And all this comes wrapped in some of the finest music ever written. Maestro Phillipe Auguin did a great job on Saturday safely guiding a huge ensemble of singers, players and extras through the treacherous waters of the mighty river, which is Das Rheingold opera. Overall, I think I was more impressed than 10 years ago, and I was impressed then too. In terms of portrayals it was good to hear fresh voices.  Lindsay Ammann's Erda, William Burden's Loge, Rhein maidens of Renée Tatum, Jacqueline Echols and Catherine Martin and giants Fafner (Soloman Howard - can't wait to hear him in Siegfried) and Fasolt (Julian Close) stood out for me.  It was a little surprising to see the return of some familiar faces in no less than the main roles. Alan Held as Wotan was as solid as I remember him, and Elizabeth Bishop's Fricka was as bland as I remember her from a decade ago. I could never quite understand Washington's infatuation with Bishop, but there it is.

Overall, it was a memorable opening of the cycle, certainly worth a trip to Washington. Even though I know who does what to whom in the next installment, I still can't wait to see it.

If literature on Wagner is to be believed, few contemporaries liked him except Ludwig II and Cosima von Bulow. His progeny also has a dubious reputation. But even his worst enemies today can hardly deny the glory of Wagner's music. 

On Oedipus, Wagner and GSA

As Washington is getting ready for its first-ever full cycle of Wagner's Ring tetralogy, the British news media are aflush with a story of incestuous love between a mother and son, reunited after years of separation. The son who had been put up for adoption more than 30 years ago, found the mother during his search for biological parents and when he found her, the two fell madly in love. Now the couple is planning to get married and try for a child. They say their relationship is not incest, but a case of GSA, or "genetic sexual attraction."

I have noticed the story from London's Daily Mail on Facebook because of the avalanche of disgust, revulsion and disbelief it has unleashed in Croatia. The reaction must have been similar elsewhere. In the article, the British daily also includes an interview with an Australian father and daughter, both adults, who live as a couple and claim to be happy and enjoying great sex.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3529572/I-m-love-son-want-baby-Mother-falls-son-gave-adoption-32-years-ago.html 

Britain's Independent soon published more on the topic under the headline Gran and Grandson, Brother and Sister, Father and Daughter - the Weird World of Genetic Sexual Attraction.  The phenomenon reportedly afflicts especially family members who have long been separated.

Stories of incest under any name have always fascinated the world, in the way horror stories do.  The couples inspire hatred or pity, depending on whether they have entered the "sinful" liaison willingly or inadvertently.  Take for example Oedipus, the mythological king of Thebes from the ancient Greek drama that gave us the term Oedipus Complex. The tragic hero kills his father and marries his mother, but is as horrified as everyone else when he finds out what he has done. So he blinds himself and leaves Thebes for exile until he is somewhat rehabilitated in the second installment of the Sophocles's trilogy. But his burial place has to remain secret so as not to cause bad luck.

Siegfried, the central hero in Wagner's Nibelung Ring, is the son of twins Siegmund and Sieglinde, who were separated as children and reunited after Sieglinde was already married to Hunding. Although the siblings' father, Valhalla's chief god Wotan, condones their sexual relationship because he expects them to beget a perfect hero needed to save the gods, he is forced to punish his out-of-wedlock children at the request of his legitimate wife Fricka. But Siegfried, the fruit of the incestuous union, himself falls in love and marries a long-lost aunt, Bruenhilde. Naturally, there is no happy end there either.

Wagner, The Valkyrie, Act I finale:  Twins Siegmund and Sieglinde fall in love - photo Cory Weaver for SFO

The Sophocles drama as well as Wagner's Ring are entrenched in their status as the world's immortal classics. They serve to remind that "unnatural" sexual relationships can only end in tragedy.

In real life, it is a little different. In ancient Egypt, it was not uncommon for brothers and sisters to marry if it was in their interest. Cleopatra was first married to one of her brothers before replacing him with Roman conqueror Julius Caesar in a union that gave her more power. Until quite recently, it was perfectly acceptable for cousins in some European countries to marry.  Even Queen Victoria was related to her beloved consort Albert.  

Sexual relationships and marriages between close relatives have been shunned mostly because of the possibility of inbreeding. One of my most beloved fictional characters, Ursula Iguarian from Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude, feared one of her children would be born with a pig's tail because she was married to a cousin.

The stigma attached to sex between close relatives compels those involved to keep it tightly under wraps, giving the impression that it occurs very seldom and only among mentally disturbed people. If a couple is discovered, the older, and presumably more experienced participant is accused of abuse. The younger is advised to seek counseling in order to avoid lifelong psychological consequences.

But sexual relationships between family members are not as uncommon as we would like to believe, and are often consensual.  They are not always a result of lengthy separation either.  Many daughters fall in love with their fathers and want sex with them, at least for a while, and sons also fall in love with their mothers.  In most cases, the attraction is suppressed and eventually outgrown, but not always.  Louis Malle's movie Murmur of the Heart deals with a mother-son relationship, which culminates in an unplanned sex encounter.  The next morning the mother tells the son "I don't want you to be unhappy, or ashamed, or sorry. We'll remember it as a very beautiful and solemn moment that will never happen again..." The experience seems to have liberated the socially awkward boy and prepared him for a more conventional relationship. Though uncomfortable to watch, the movie showed normal people in somewhat extraordinary, but still realistic situations.

In the news media, however, such stories reek of sensationalism and are intended to shock, horrify, repulse and fascinate at the same time. They suggest aberration and depravity - something that does not happen to normal people. When it does, it has to remain a dirty little secret. One person recently revealed in a chat forum that she had been involved in a sexual relationship with her brother for several years before both of them grew out of it and married other people.

"I mostly feel guilty because people say I should," she wrote. "I thought it was pretty great at the time, but it's hard to talk about it without people smashing the stigma in your face. Overall, I don't think it's that big of a deal, really. It was great at the time, nowadays I don't think much about it."

So, if there is lifelong trauma from having consensual sex with a close family member, it seems to stem from the social condemnation rather than from the relationship itself.   

People tend to express disgust for behavior veering away from proscribed social norms, and they like to make it illegal and punishable.  Same-sex marriage was all but unthinkable until recently, and not so long ago, gay and lesbian sex was widely considered to be unnatural. Even heterosexual sex between unmarried couples is still punishable by death in many traditional societies.  In the United States and other western countries, there is a growing movement toward tolerance of diversity in the area of gender and relationships, but now that the same-sex marriage is widely accepted, there seems to be a search for new monsters in the closet.

Meanwhile, the tickets for Washington's first complete Ring cycle are all but sold out. When Wagner's masterpiece starts to weave its magic in the Kennedy Center Opera House, few patrons will stop to think whether Siegfried and Bruenhilde are committing incest or just suffering from GSA.

When in France...

.... you don't have much choice but do as the French do.  That means forget doing any business between noon and 2:30 PM and after 7:00 PM.  At least in southern France where everyone considers it their God-given right (or human right or constitutional right or whatever) to have a leisurely lunch and time to digest it before continuing work.  Every time I go back to Europe I am amazed at how little people seem to work and still do all right.

Naturally, it is much easier to pop home for lunch if you live in a smaller town like Nice or Avignon where you can reach most addresses within 10-15 minutes.  But it's not only that. The cities and towns of France's south seem devoid of workaholism.  There's no competition to do a better job, and certainly no eagerness to serve a client.

I sat at a beach bar in Nice for half an hour before being able to entice a waiter to take my order. When a friend joined me a little later, she could not get a drink at all because they stopped serving.  It was 4:45 PM so one could assume that the bar closed at 5:00 PM. To our American minds, that was still enough time to order and finish a drink. A photo below would suggest that there were no tourists in Nice in March.  In fact, there were plenty. The restaurants just didn't allow them to eat outside proscribed meal hours. 

French restaurants are vacated outside "regular" meal hours....

.....not for the lack of tourists.

The locals know that and head for lunch promptly at noon among other reasons to ensure they don't come too late for the daily special, which could be gone within the first hour.  Since they prefer not to mingle with tourists, you can find them having their Sunday lunch at charming off-the-beaten-path villages, such as Bouzigues, a coastal community near Montpellier, known for its locally grown oysters.  A three course fixed-price lunch in a place like this can be had for as little as $15, sometimes including a glass of wine.  If you come too late, you may have to order à la carte, and pay twice as much for something similar.  We quickly learned to do as the French do.  After all, there is nothing else to do at lunch time but have lunch, so it better be satisfying.  And that it was. No one ever yanked our plates away as soon as we put down the forks, no waiter interrupted our conversation gazillion times to ask if we needed anything else, and most importantly, no one tried to push us out of the door in order to give our table to someone else.  You can spend all of the two or three hours while the shops are closed at that table (and long after you've finished your meal) enjoying the sun and the view. 

Le Marin restaurant in Bouzigues is popular with the locals 

Bouzigues is famous for seafood, especially oysters and this unusual squid

Closures are an important point to consider when planning a trip to France.  For example, I was not able to visit the famous Avignon Cathedral because it was closed for renovation until Easter when I was no longer there, but I was lucky to see the magnificent Russian Orthodox Cathedral of Nice whose two-year renovation had just been completed.  I also miscalculated in leaving my last full day in Nice, which was a Tuesday, to visit the Chagal Museum. As it happens, the museum is open every day except Tuesday. But having had similar experience with France before, I decided to take everything as it came and let nothing ruin my holiday.  Instead of the cathedral of Avignon, I visited the Ste Réparate Cathédrale in Nice and it was more than gorgeous. Since the visit was during the Easter Mass, I even got to see the Bishop of Nice (André Marceau) who presided over the spectacular service.

Avignon Cathedral was scheduled to open for Easter after an extensive renovation

I learned during my previous visits to France not to expect any street signs or directions in English and not too many in French either.  Even the most touristy places in France act as if no foreigner has ever stepped on their soil.  It is helpful not only to speak French, but also to be familiar with local customs and regulations because it will be assumed that you know them, unlike in the US where it is assumed that no one knows anything. If in doubt, head for the nearest Office de tourisme and get all the information you need before venturing out on your own. And remember, even the visitor centers can be closed for lunch as we found out in Aix-en-Provence.

Fortunately, people in southern France are much friendlier than the Parisians and very helpful when you get stuck, as we did literally in the old city of Arles.  It so happened that we had to spend an unplanned night in Arles so we had not learned much about it beforehand. I had always imagined Arles as a huge field of flowers painted by van Gogh, and so it was somewhat of a shock to run into an intricate network of narrow medieval streets while trying to locate our hotel. I got nervous about the very real possibility of damaging the rental car before reaching our destination. Between the cell phone contact with the hotel receptionist (miraculously, the phone decided to work in our moment of need after being dead for days) and the help of three young men passing by, we managed to maneuver the car out of the maze and drag our suitcases uphill to the 12th-century building converted into hotel Logis de la Muette.

Driving in the old city of Arles can be very tricky...

...it may be easier to park outside Arles and walk to your hotel

On the whole, it seems easier to use public transportation than drive a rental car in France, except....  The last time I traveled outside Paris I decided to try the railway.  French trains are beautiful, comfortable, relatively cheap and you can see a lot of the country if you don't have to focus on taking the right exit at hundreds of roundabouts along the way.  What I did not know is that railway stations in France don't tell you from which platform your train will leave until about 10-15 minutes before departure.  At a station with 20 platforms, it is almost impossible to catch your train if you are lugging a heavy suitcase.  I paid more than $100 for a new ticket, after missing a train from Paris to Bordeaux, which originally cost me only $30. So when I missed another train from Toulouse to Lyon, I simply refused to buy a new ticket and boarded the next train with the old one. Two conductors argued with me for about 20 minutes demanding extra payment, but I was adamant that their system was at fault and stuck to my guns. Eventually they gave up because the only alternative was to throw me out of the train. To avoid a similar hassle this time, I decided to rent a car for traveling through the country.

I still took a train for a couple of day trips because I could leave the luggage in the hotel and so it was more convenient than driving. One trip was to Cannes where you don't want to get stuck in traffic. And it would not be worth it. I don't know what I expected - perhaps some sort of European glamor - but I felt like I arrived in Florida or California. The street signs suggested the feeling was justified. Did you know that Hotel California is in Cannes? 

Cannes appears to be fashioned after U.S. coastal resorts

The public transportation in the area is so good that it would have been a waste of money to take a taxi to the Nice airport  (or anywhere else, really).  Just as long as you know which terminal you are going to and can rely on your fellow travelers to tell you where to get off. When the bus stops, you have little way of knowing at which terminal you are.

If you are prepared for all this, muddling through is more amusing than annoying because everything somehow works.  You just need to know how. I laughed my head off reading passengers' comments about the Nice airport while waiting for my plane. One woman, ostensibly American, wrote that she was happy to see a good new restaurant at the airport. But when she and her husband sat down for a meal, no one came to serve them, although the waiters had looked their way. When the couple plucked up the courage to summon one, he said they were no longer serving. These things are so funny when they happen to other people.

My hilarity subsided when half an hour before my flight I still did not have my boarding gate number.  An airport worker assured me it was too early to announce it.  Luckily my big suitcase was checked in and I was ready to break into a run, hell for leather, to catch my plane at any of the 30 something gates scattered around different levels of the airport. 

Migration of Slavs and Other History Lessons

I paid scant attention to Trump's promises to build "The Wall" until I came across an article about the construction of a wall around Baghdad. Trump repeatedly made it known that his wall was inspired by Israel's, but it was the construction of the wall around Baghdad that made me pause. Visions of the Berlin Wall, the Great Wall of China and  walls around medieval cities came to mind and were followed by the images of less historic barriers, such as security fences around concentration camps, prison complexes and American gated communities. Most of them have been built for protection from attacks, but some fences serve only to keep the undesirable in or out. 

One of my first history lessons dealt with the Migration of Slavs  (Seoba Slavena)  from their oldest known homeland in Western Asia to Russia, and from there to Eastern Europe and beyond. The process that might have begun around 2000 B.C. was long and complicated - so complicated in fact that I never learned the lesson properly. The only thing that really stuck was the title "Seoba Slavena," often used in the Croatian slang to refer to any major, or messy, or inexplicable move.

What I do know is that the people populating Europe today have descended from various ancient tribes, whose origins remain a subject of contention, and ever-emerging new demographic theories. One I found interesting recently is the Ghengis Khan-legacy theory, which suggests that a significant percentage of men around the world, including Europe, are descendants of the 13th-century invader.

Ancient Slavs

Mongolian hordes swept through much of Eastern Europe in the 13th century, and as the invaders killed, raped and pillaged along the way, it is quite possible that they left their genetic mark on the local populations. Impregnable fortresses and hefty walls may have slowed them down, but did not stop them. They eventually retreated when a strong Mongolian leader died back home.

It would be wrong to deny the importance of walls in the defense of medieval cities, such as Dubrovnik. For centuries, the Adriatic port had repelled invaders with success. But eventually, the wall alone was not enough to protect Dubrovnik's independence, and the city-state had to pay dues first to the Venetians, then to the Ottomans to avoid war. And, of course, the wall did nothing to stop Napoleon. Today, Dubrovnik's great ramparts serve to attract tourists. The same goes for the Great Wall of China and historic walled cities around the world. 

The Berlin Wall, or what's left of it, also attracts tourists, but not with its beauty or grandeur. Only a few ugly grey concrete blocks remain to provoke horror, rather than admiration, and there is a lengthy section decorated by international artists. It is somewhat unique in that it was built by those living outside to prevent escape into the enclosure rather than the other way round. We know how that ended. I hope the Iraqi government has some long-term plans for the Baghdad wall.

When there's a will  (I almost said when there's a wall), there's a way.  People who want to breach a wall badly enough either to conquer or to escape, very often succeed, and if they don't, time eventually makes the wall irrelevant. History books are full of examples of successful sieges. They also are full of great migration stories.  Even the Bible has one.

Migration stories remind me of weather reports. When there is too much pressure at one end, the mass of air, or water, moves to relieve it and we can be hit by storms, floods, tsunamis and whatnot until the calm settles in. When huge populations start moving at once, they also create havoc and spark fear.  

We live in a world in which about 60 million people are displaced by conflict - more than at any other time in recorded history. One in every 122 humans is either a refugee, internally displaced, or seeking asylum. According to the UNHCR, if those people formed a country, it would be the world's 24th biggest. Many temporary refugee camps have turned into permanent tent cities, with the largest, Dadaab in Kenya, housing half a million people.

Dadaab, Kenya

Since the beginning of the millennium, numerous studies have discussed Europe's and Japan's aging and declining populations that have resulted from low child birth rates. These populations have not seen much conflict since World War Two, with the exception of Yugoslavia's bloody demise in the early 1990s.

Some of the world's poorest countries have very high birth rates and therefore large young populations. In sub-Saharan Africa, more than one third of the people are aged 10 to 24. In the Arab countries, young people are the fastest growing segment.  Some 60% of the population is under 25 years old, making this one of the most youthful regions in the world.  

The unemployment in this age group is as high as 50 % and in many regions even higher, while the prospects of improvement during the lifetime of these young people are minimal. According to researchers, overpopulation combined with poverty and weak governance produces disruptive demographic. Elizabeth Leahy of Population Action International said the restive element is composed of a society's younger generations.

"What we found is that countries in which at least 60 percent of the population was under the age of 30 were overwhelmingly the most likely to have experienced civil conflict. Eighty percent of all outbreaks of civil conflict between 1970 and 1999 occurred in those types of countries that had overwhelmingly young populations," said Leah.  

The pressure of discontent has been growing for years with very little attention paid to it. The Arab Spring was largely unexpected. When trickles of migrants heading for Europe turned into huge waves last year, many people were incredulous and shocked.  One friend asked me: why now?  I answered: why not earlier? Social media went viral with the prophecies of late Baba Vanga, a blind Bulgarian seeress who allegedly had predicted that Europe would be taken over by Muslims.  

Western European governments are dealing with the waves of migrants about the same way they would with victims of a natural disaster, which is to say they house them in temporary shelters and distribute food and clothing.  When floods become threatening, they seek to curb the flow.  Some, like the Hungarians, have put up a fence, which serves to divert the river away from their border,  but creates an overflow in other places.

Trump said: "Walls work. Ask Israel!" In terms of our lifetime, and this year's election, he may be right.  But in a wider context of human history, Dubrovnik may be a better example.  

Dubrovnik

The migrants who make a new life in Europe will add a new coil to the continent's already complex demographic history.  Maybe 2000 years from now some other kid will remember his lesson about a great migration, but his will not have the same title as mine. 

Kurt Weill's Lost in the Stars at WNO

Kurt Weill's last work Lost in the Stars is set in South Africa, but in the new Washington National Opera's production it could be set in the United States or India any other country beset with racial and class divisions. Weill's opera - I would call it a musical - based on Alan Paton's 1948 novel Cry, the Beloved Country explores common humanity among divided people that emerges in the face of tragedy.

I read Paton's book as a teenager and I'd never seen or heard Lost in the Stars before Friday night, so I could watch the WNO performance with an open mind - almost. I lived in South Africa for four years in the early 1980s when apartheid was still firmly in place and that experience could not be entirely ignored.

Sean Panikkar as The Leader in WNO's Lost in the Stars

The first thing I noticed in the WNO performance was the scarcity of the distinctive South African accent except for the valiant efforts by Wynn Harmon, Paul Scanlan and Thomas Adrain Simpson to emulate it. All three were portraying white South Africans: farmer James Jarvis, his son Arthur and the judge. The black singers spoke in accents that could have been from anywhere on the continent or in the United States, but I would not immediately place it in South Africa.

The lack of insistence on the authentic accent works in favor of this production. The more I watched, the more I was reminded of Ferguson and Black-Lives-Matter movements in America, and less of the segregated South Africa I knew. The opera's distinctly American music idiom added to the sense that the story unfolding on the stage is taking place in the United States.

In the Maxwell Anderson's adaptation of Paton's novel black pastor Stephen Kumalo travels from his small village of Ndotsheni to Johannesburg to check on his sister Gertrude and his son Absalom. The former has become a prostitute and the latter a robber.  But when Absalom accidentally kills the son of white neighbor James Jarvis during a botched robbery, the reverend is faced with a dilemma: would he prefer his son alive and a sinner, or dead and righteous. 

Eric Owens owned the role of the rural minister whose family, or "tribe," fell apart after most of it moved to Johannesburg in search of a better life. Owens has distinguished himself in Wagner roles, but it is hard to imagine anyone else doing a better Kumalo than he did.  He shined in the title song Lost in the Stars.

Soprano Lauren Michelle was a charming Irina, the pregnant lover of Kumalo's son Absalom, whose inner strength overcomes her shyness and helps her deal with the ultimate loss. Michelle was a little stiff in her first major aria, but warmed up considerably by her next big number, Stay Well, in the second act.

Eric Owens and Caleb McLaughlin in WNO's Lost in Stars

Other outstanding performers were Caleb McLaughlin as Kumalo's grandson Alex and Cheryl Freeman as fun-loving city girl Linda. They lit up the stage with energy and charisma. One couldn't but wonder how high McLaughlin (sparkling in the Big Mole song) will reach when he grows up. He is already more confident on the stage than many adults. His talent was especially obvious in a joint scene with a peer portraying Jarvis's grandson Edward. Tenor Sean Panikkar was an attractive and striking Leader, although I could not quite understand what his role in the play was  (narrator?). But that's just me. There were also a lot of characters listed in the playbill that I could not identify on the stage. Aleksey Bogdanov as Burton (prosecutor?) was a commanding presence in the courtroom scene. Manu Kumasi's Absalom was earnest, but not quite convincing.

The challenge of Lost in the Stars is in its structure, which is part spoken play and part musical so it requires competent actors as well as singers. The singing in this production was magnificent, with moments of real brilliance and an excellent chorus throughout. But the acting abilities were uneven. Owens's included. Poignant as he was in the moments of tragedy, the acclaimed bass-baritone failed to produce the variety of expressions and nuances required to keep the spectator breathless throughout the performance. The scene in which he comes to plead with James Jarvis to intercede for his son was simply awkward.

Eric Owens and Wynn Harmon, grieving fathers in WNO''s Lost in Stars

In the end, the action of Lost in the Stars actually seems like it is taking place in South Africa. The shared tragedy brings the two grieving fathers together. Their connection, as well as the black and white children playing together in the final scenes, hint at a wider national reconciliation, which for me is more believable in the South African context than any other one.

When they dismantled the apartheid in the 1990s, South Africans established the Truth and Reconciliation Commission that invited victims of egregious human rights violations to give statements. Perpetrators of violence also could testify and request amnesty from both civil and criminal prosecution. Many culprits expressed sincere remorse and many were publicly forgiven by their victims. The process is widely regarded as a key step to a successful transition to democracy in South Africa. Lost in the Stars is a good reminder that we could benefit from it too. 

Who is Lee Hoiby?

Do you know who is Lee Hoiby? No? I didn't think so. Hoiby is an American composer of opera and song, who would be 90 years old this month (February 17) if he hadn't died in 2011. His most renowned work is Summer and Smoke, an opera based on Tenessee Williams's play. Hoiby's work has been described as romantic, lyric and conventional, suggesting a lack of courage and innovation on his part.

I met the soft-spoken composer and his librettist Mark Shulgasser in the summer of 2000 when they came to Washington to present excerpts from Hoiby's new opera Romeo and Juliet. Shakespeare's immortal love story has inspired some of the world's greatest composers: Berlioz, Gounod, Prokofiev, to name a few. But Hoiby thought the theme is inexhaustible, that there are always new layers to be uncovered if you continue to dig, and he set out to create a new operatic adaptation of Shakespeare's work.  He told me the language of the story had always been his favorite and suited his artistic temperament.

Lee Hoiby

"Basically, it gives my lyrical impulse the most room to spread its wings," said Hoiby.

Shulgasser, Hoiby's longtime partner and collaborator, said he stayed as close as possible to the original text, but had to make cuts.

"In Romeo and Juliet, I've eliminated the character of Paris entirely. I have changed the character of the friar somewhat. I have conflated Mercutio and Benvolio into one chanracter and I would say that's about it, really," he said. The opera was completed in 2004, but has never been staged.

Romeo and Juliet was not Hoiby's first work based on Shakespeare.  In the 1980s he composed The Tempest, which premiered in Des Moines and had several revivals.  But after  British composer Thomas Adès presented his version of The Tempest in 2004 to a great acclaim, Hoiby's was all but pushed into oblivion.

It survives in a recording by Purchase College School of the Art.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1P50fgp6dUg

Hoiby's most recognized work is the 1971 opera Summer and Smoke. As it happened, it was staged by Colorado's Central City Opera in the summer of 2002 when I was there on assignment. The charming Victorian theater was built by miners during the Colorado Gold Rush to show performances ranging from opera to circus to boxing matches. (Just shows how sophisticated those miners were). It was a perfect venue for an American opera and the tiny theater was filled to the last seat.  I can't say that Summer and Smoke left a profound impression, but I liked it well enough and had an enjoyable evening.  I am glad I saw it because even his most recognized opera is rarely performed.

Perhaps he should have chosen less popular themes for his compositions. But most of Hoiby's work is based on well known classical authors such as Turgenev, Tennessee Williams and of course Shakespeare - the authors he liked to read.

"I've always been a reader. I grew to love words very early in my life, I mean from my early teens. And so words meant a lot to me and that's what led me to writing for the voice," he said.

Hoiby had better luck with arts songs and choral music. Set to poems by Rilke, Donne, Walt Whitman and other great poets, his songs caught attention by operatic stars such as Federica von Stade and Leontyne Price.

The Serpentine, set to Theodore Roethke's poem, is one of the most successful.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZplR2ikcVI

The mid-20-th century intellectual prejudice against tonality, lyricism and, God forbid, sentimentality worked against the neo-Romantic composer's widespread recognition.  His music idols were Schubert, Strauss, Mahler and Barber and his music reflects that.  He acknowledged that he did not care for modernist, atonal, dissonant and alienating sound and he remained true to his style despite critics.  

By the late 20 century the attitudes have changed and some of Hoiby's operas have seen revivals, primarily in music schools.  The Manhattan School of Music Opera Theater revived one of his earliest operas A Month in the Country  in 2004 and following a positive response, it revived Summer and Smoke in 2010.  Both were recorded and published by Albany Records.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EvTPrDft-X0

So maybe there is yet hope for Hoiby's Romeo and Juliet.

Winter Blues Dispelled Or Justice in Fashion

When winter gets really dreary and dull, usually between mid-January and the end of February, and especially when the outdoor movements are limited to narrow tunnels between dirty mounds of snow and melting ice, nothing cheers me up as the anticipation of spring: getting out of heavy boots, thick coats and hair-flattening hats. The long wait for that first warm day can be tedious, even as it provides ample time to get ready for stepping out in the latest sartorial fineries. This year, I find the spring fashion especially lovely. Gone are the skimpy cheap-looking mini affairs and in come the classy elongated silhouettes, with hems below the knees - clothes that make a woman look good as opposed to women making the clothes look good, as has been the case for quite a while.

Dries van Note

Dries van Noten

As usual, there is going to be struggle with arranging photos because the Blogger is soooooo inflexible.  In any case, left and right is my favorite Belgian designer Dries van Noten.  His style is immediately recognizable for its combinations of rich colors, playful patterns and luxurious fabrics, this year hinting at Morocco.  Van Noten's fabric designs extend to   his models' arms and legs in the form of Moroccan henna tattoos.  I will never own any of it and would have nowhere to wear it, but it is pure pleasure just to look at the photos.

 

Then there is the more conservative Chanel with its trademark black-toed sandals (above left) and  more sculpted outfits by the Swedish brand Acne, (above right)  known for simple geometrical lines, and the name which is bound to put off many an adolescent. Of course, there is H & M with its still affordable upscale line (below left), not to be sniffed at, as well as the always minimalist Zara (below right).

And girls, if you are not enthralled yet, here's more of the lovely........oops!  Sorry, guys this is for you - from Damir Doma of Milan:

I am pleased to note that the designers follow lifestyle trends as well as setting them.  Since walking is becoming an important part of daily fitness regime, many leading names in fashion now offer comfortable shoes.  Would you believe that the comfy pair below left is by Chanel?   Unfortunately there are still the ubiquitous platforms (below right), which is fine for the women who want to add inches to their stature, but prohibitive for me.  Something tells me I'll have another year of long searches for suitable shoes.

Some designers go to the extreme in their effort to adhere to life's realities.  As the rich-poor gap widens around the world, it is no longer kosher to display one's wealth.  Clochard-style items from the latest collection of New York's Thom Browne look like costumes for a movie about Oliver Twist. The clothes that only the wealthiest can afford look much like something most homeless would reject. There is justice in fashion.

    

Internet and Philosophy

The Internet is truly miraculous. The other day I ran into an essay by Croatian philosopher Mario Kopić whom I met years ago in Dubrovnik. It immediately brought to mind our last meeting, at a wine bar in Dubrovnik's Old Port that served the loveliest mellow red wine from a small barrel on top of the counter. Over the years, I lost Mario's e-mail so when his essay reminded me of that meeting, I attempted to find him on Facebook, Twitter and other social media sites that have helped me find other friends - alas to no avail.

Mario does not seem to write a blog, does not post his philosophical essays online and does not tweet. As he said in a rare interview to a Dubrovnik magazine, he clearly "lives apart." What little of his work can be found online is posted by others. It's not hard to guess why. Few of his essays - profound contemplations on cultural and existential themes - can be skimmed through quickly and superficially as we do most of our online reading. One that I found, titled Church and Nihilism would probably resonate with any online reader if they could understand it. It's not an easy read even for a Croatian native speaker and it's nearly impossible to translate. I will try my best to convey what it says.

The basis of the Christian ethos is love, which is also in the core of the Christian belief, says Kopić. This essence of Christianity has been obscured by the Church's efforts to achieve and maintain power and domination.  Mind you, this is a simplified, unauthorized interpretation of the original text. The author is much more sophisticated and nuanced. 

While he talks about Christianity in general, it seems clear to me that Kopić refers mostly to the Catholic and the Eastern-Orthodox Church. He says the Church has deviated from the Christian ethos of love for the divine to hatred of everything it perceives as contrary to its preaching. The Church also has taken away from man the right to act according to his own conscience. That right, Kopić asserts citing the Bible, was God-given to mankind through Adam, making the original sin, the birth of Christ and the Resurrection possible. By denying individuals their freedom of conscience, the Church assumes the role of lawmaker and law-enforcer, not unlike the state. In fact, the philosopher notes, the Church has, whenever possible, used the state to help impose its will on the people. By placing the church law above love, it has changed man's status from that of an autonomous God's creation to that of a church member. In this and many other ways, the Church annihilates man's God-given autonomy as much as the secular state does.

Furthermore, instead of promoting the sanctity of life except by banning abortion, Kopić notes, the Church even today tolerates death penalty and blesses armed forces, in some cases even war criminals. 

Kopić further states that no law or religion should replace individual conscience, but stipulates that conscience is not possible without awareness, i.e. understanding of one's own self and the rest of the world.  Human dignity, he argues in an elaborate fashion, results from a person's ability to contain his/her own desires out of love or deference for others. The ability to control oneself cannot be enforced by Agents or Supervisors appointed by the Church or the State, says Kopić and concludes that without love, neither God nor people have much of a future. 

The essay is about Christianity, but its basic ideas can apply to any religion. And Kopić is not the only one to promote them. Years ago, I asked a renowned Muslim scholar, Khaled Abou El Fadl, Professor of Law at the University of California, how God judges a person who has been instructed by his imam to go and kill in the name of religion. Here is what he replied: “The Quran is very explicit about the individual accountability of each person, fully and completely, for their own actions and that they will not be allowed to say in the final day that ‘this person told me’ or ‘that person convinced me.’ That message of individual responsibility and individual accountability is critical [to Islam].” 

Fadl also said a Muslim has to make efforts to understand the Quran and he has to go out of his way to befriend non-Muslims. "God created different people because only through the understanding of human race in all its diversity can people gain true understanding of the Creator," he said.

Interviewed for the same story, late Rabbi Harold Schulweis of Valley Beth Shalom in Encino, California said that Judaism, Islam and Christianity can be compared to different languages teaching the same basic things. The role of religious teachers is to facilitate communication among groups that use these different languages.

“All of us believe that God created the individual in his own image, regardless of race or gender or religion. We are invested with an inviolability - with a divine potentiality. We all come from Adam. And Adam, we must remember, was not a Jew. He was not a Christian. He was not a Muslim.”

Rabbi Schulweis said all men and women, regardless of their religion, are  created by God.  So "to love God, but to hate his creation, is not only a contradiction, it is the uttermost blasphemy.” 

Jewish or Muslim?

There is now near universal agreement among scholars that most world religions, especially the monotheistic ones, share common ethics, although the rites and traditions differ.  A Muslim might be surprised to learn that Christianity's New Testament requires women's subservience and invisibility, not unlike the strictest Islamic law. In his First Letter to the Corinthians, St. Paul said that women must be veiled, and you can still see Catholic women in many countries covering their hair when they enter a church. It is believed that St. Paul also wrote  (Corinthians I, 14:33-35 ) "the women should keep silence in the churches, for they are not permitted to speak, but should be subordinate, as even the law says. If there is anything they desire to know, let them ask their husbands at home." Ultra-Orthodox Jews also require that women cover their hair and submit to the husband's rule. (On that topic I highly recommend the Israeli movie Gett: The Trial of Viviane Amsalem).

It is the outward demonstrations of diversity rather than true religious differences that provoke tensions between religious groups. Catholic theologian James Wiseman, professor at The Catholic University of America, said there is something in the human nature that compels us to differentiate between "us" and "them". But he said religions do evolve with time and so in the 1960s, the Vatican affirmed for the first time the sanctity of non-Christian religions. “The Church has a high regard for the manner of life and conduct, the precepts and doctrines which, although different in many ways from her own teaching, nevertheless often reflect a ray of that truth which enlightens all people,” said Wiseman.

The Internet could make inter-religious communication easier than ever. It even has translation engines to lower down, if not diminish, language barriers. But when did you last see a civilized intellectual discussion on any topic on the Internet? Most online exchanges, religious or secular, are controlled by "Agents" and "Supervisors," including anonymous commentators who revile in the crudest language anyone who disagrees with them, powerful groups that control the thinking of their members, purveyors of hatred and authors of clever and catchy phrases that promise to stick. Philosophers like Kopić reserve their thoughts for readers who would make more effort.