Our Word and Welcome to It

While We're At It

2009-11-06T07:20:00.004-06:00

By Mitchell Hadley

By the way, you'll indulge me one last bit on Tosca, won't you? There's been a lot of ink (and pixels) spilled on the Met's recent fiasco - er, production - and there is the misocnception that those who hated it are simply tradition-bound trogs who hate any kind of change.

One of our favorite writers, Alex Ross of The New Yorker, has a very nice piece about why this just isn't so - why the ultimate reason for the Met's failure was director Luc Bondy's fundamental misunderstanding (or at least misreading) of the music was a part of it. And do be sure to listen to the soundbites he uses to illustrate his points - this kind of teaching brings back the good old days of Bernstein's Young People's Concerts. (As well as the recent PBS series Keeping Score, and let's hope we see more of that next season!)

Misunderstanding the Church

2009-11-05T07:06:00.002-06:00

By Mitchell Hadley

If you're like me (and hopefully you can do better than that), you've run into more than your share of people who just don't get Catholicism. (Unfortunately, many of them happen to be Catholics, but we won't go there just now.) Many times you run into well-meaning, good-intentioned people whose notions of Catholicism have been shaped by years of ignorance about what the Church really teaches.

For those times, as well as for your own education, I suggest Anna Miller's brief 10 Common Misunderstandings of the Catholic Church - EXPLAINED! It's a nice overview of those common mistakes people make, as well as some nice talking points you can use with friends - without, hopefully, things turning into an argument. It's a good piece to keep handy, particularly in these times - for if we aren't prepared to defend our own faith, who will do it for us?

Opera Wednesday

2009-11-04T10:42:00.005-06:00

By Mitchell Hadley

One’s reactions to last month’s run of Tosca by the Lyric Opera of Chicago will depend in great part on how you feel about opera in general, and this opera in particular. If you’re of the opinion that opera is stuck in the hidebound past, and that Tosca is little more than a piece of hoary melodrama that needed Luc Bondy’s recent innovations, then you probably wouldn’t much care for this production. If, on the other hand, Franco Zeffirelli's mammoth, opulent setting fits your definition of grand opera, then you were in luck. Count me in the latter camp.

The Lyric purchased Zeffirelli's staging a few years ago from London’s Covent Garden (for whom it had originally been designed) as a 50th anniversary present to itself, and if the sets were starting to show their age a bit, it was still wonderful to see what has become an all-too infrequent occurrence nowadays - the idea of opera as theater. And not minimalist, abstract theater either, but theater as spectacle - grand opera, in other words. While some complain that singers are dwarfed by the mammoth scale of Zeffirelli's sets, I have no sympathy for anyone who fails to be spellbound by the Act 1 finale, the Te Deum sung inside Zeff's massive recreation of the Basilica Sant'Andrea della Valle, jam-packed with altar boys, priests, a bishop vested in mitre and flowing cape, incense billowing about, parishioners kneeling before life-size statues - and yet, in the midst of a stage crammed with people, the lone figure of Scarpia singing of how Tosca makes him forget God, dominates the scene. The set overwhelming the singers? Nonsense.

Many were surprised by the casting of Deborah Voigt and James Morris, better known for heavy Wagnerian opera, as the two leads. However, Voigt portrayed the diva in a concert version of Tosca at the Minnesota Orchestra a couple of years ago, and if it is true that she didn’t bring back the echoes of Callas with her performance, neither was she any less suited for the role than, say, Karita Mattila in the Met’s production.

The Lyric’s rich history with Tosca stretches all the way back to the company’s beginning, with the famed Tito Gobbi, who played Scarpia to Callas’ Tosca in so many great performances. Gobbi was something of a godfather to the newly formed Lyric back in the 50s, appearing as Scarpia in several of those early productions. Perhaps Morris wasn’t quite in that class, but the man who’s become famous as the great Wotan of our time has actually essayed the villainous Baron more times at the Met than he’s played Wagner’s one-eyed anti-hero, making him well aware of the complexities of this deceptive character, who relies on charm in order to wrap his tentacles of corruption through and around his victims. Whereas Bondy was content to portray the police chief as little more than a cheap thug, Zeffirelli (and by extention Morris) understood that, as with the Devil, it is the smooth exterior and unctuous manner that make evil truly chilling. To be able to say that you once saw Morris playing Scarpia is to say a lot.

The real show-stopper is, of course, the showdown between Tosca and Scarpia which closes Act Two (as well as bringing down the curtain on Scarpia himself). It's a scene of immense drama, with Scarpia at his most sinister and Tosca at her most vulnerable. With Puccini's magnificent score as backdrop, it really is possible to imagine this as true drama, the only difference being that the actors are singing rather than speaking their lines. From Tosca's celebrated aria
“Vissi d’arte,” to her sense of utter despair as Scarpia writes her safe-conduct pass, to her sudden and startling discovery of the knife on the table, to Scarpia's smug sense of victory turning stunningly into tragedy, and Tosca's final, frantic escape from the death room - this scene has it all. Were Voigt and Morris up to the task? Absolutely. And for you Bondy fans out there, the candles do make a difference.

As for the third member of this little triangle, Vladimir Galouzine, who plays Tosca's doomed lover Cavaradossi, more than held his own. It's a role for big tenors, from Pavarotti (literally) to Domingo to Corelli and more, but when you've got such famed names at the top of the bill there may be a temptation to make Cavaradossi an afterthought. However, Galouzine wouldn't allow that, particularly in his big first and third act arias, and his performance completes the character's transformation from a doomed man facing execution to a man suddenly filled with hope - only to have it dashed at the end.

But the real star, as is always the case, was Puccini’s magnificent music, and the Lyric's music director, Sir Andrew Davis, brought his orchestra home in style under what could only be described as unique circumstances - the musicians, playing without a contract, actually held an informational picket outside the theater prior to opening night, and the threat of a walkout was present throughout the initial performances.

No fear on this score or any other, for that matter. This was Tosca as it was meant to be, with all the drama, power and lyricism that involves. The Lyric was a winner, Franco Zeffirelli's staging was a winner, and perhaps Puccini himself was the biggest winner of all - after all, if the master could survive a debacle such as that in New York, think how glorious it is when he's given the respect he truly deserves.

A Declaration-Sized Take on this Presidency

2009-10-29T08:07:00.001-05:00

By Bobby Chang

Liberal activists have once again used the Defence Authorisation Bill to stuff policies that are detrimental to the country. Two years ago, a defence funding bill was loaded with an unrelated 40% minimum wage hike to appease liberal activists such as ACORN and union bosses that has led to the current economic malaise, as corporations find this country to be uncompetitive against Asia because of the severe minimum wage hike, and have decided jobs will not be placed in the United States, but in lower-wage countries such as India, the PRC, Mexico, and other rising giants, while real unemployment is over 15% nationally, with much of this area into the 20% range. Our legislators were never informed, and the policy was quietly stuffed by liberal activists such as the dictatorial Nancy Pelosi, who has ensured the elected legislator Mr. Wilson was never heard (which led to his comments on the floor in front of the President).

That reminded me of what happened recently with Mexican pop star Ariadna Thalía Sodi Mottola Miranda , who danced with the President at Fiesta Latina at The White House in September. Mrs. Mottola's 1997 song “Echa Pa'lante,” used by an adult dance class that I participated as part of cross-training, was actually a political protest against the ruling PRI for the ensuing parliamentary elections in Mexico. The real version (not the illegally-altered version used in the movie “Dance with Me”) stated (translated), "Politician, now you're asking for mercy now / After you've plundered the nation's riches / The currency is devalued and corruption prevails / Unemployment is worse and (liberal) pollution grows".

Now, another defence authorisation bill was used by liberal activists to stuff another absurd law into the country that would have never passed except for other states running over us again. The Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Hate Crimes Act, which would never have passed, was loaded into the current bill as a “memorial” to the late Sen. Kennedy to force special protection under law.

The second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence starts, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” Unfortunately, the new law, signed by President Obama in a special event with homosexual special-rights activists, destroys that sentence. Homosexuals now receive special protections and are not created equal, but are given special rights, while others are punished to reward these special deviants.

This has been proven in Sweden, where pastor Ake Green was indicted for a sermon that called homosexuality a sin and in Canada, where two notable Stateside radio shows – Focus on the Family and Dr. Laura Schlessinger – must be edited (and cleared by censors) to purge all references to sinful behaviour as dictated by a federal commission, and also where sharing truth about the dangerous and deviant lifestyle that was listed on the American Psychiatric Association as a psychiatric disorder until activists ran roughshod in 1973 is declared a hate crime. Also in Canada, a Catholic bishop was charged for a hate crime for defending teaching stating marriage is between one male and one female.

The Attorney General has blatantly admitted that the new law can be used to punish speech – a violation of the First Amendment – that is not compliant with homosexual activists' requests.

Our Declaration of Independence is now under attack, since now, the President and Congress have declared that certain groups are created special with special rights not available to other people. When God's Word is declared illegal and the “gospel” of homosexual activists is now federal law, the doors have opened to more hazards

That is another facet of the homosexual agenda being pushed by liberal activists with one foot already in the door – they want to eliminate the Defence of Marriage Act and eventually want both same-sex “marriage” legalised federally in the other 44 states where it is not (an episode of Sony Pictures Television's The Newlywed Game 2009 (GSN) featured a celebrity show where one “couple” was a homosexual “married” couple married in 2008 when California courts dictated marriage before Proposition 8 properly reversed the judge's call) and a new “Employment Non-Discrimination Act” that rewards “sexual orientation” as a protected employment class that would reward pedophiles. In fact, the new law was called the “Pedophile Protection Act,” and ENDA, another Kennedy “legacy” bill, would further reward pedophiles since it would be a “sexual orientation” and schools who refuse to hire pedophiles would be in violation of federal law if ENDA was passed.

How dangerous would it be for parents if schools, child-care centres, or other venues where children are involved had sexual predators and pedophiles working in the facilities, and the law rewards them and prohibits punishing them, as ENDA would do in cooperation with the Shepard-Byrd Hate Crimes Act of 2009?

Two years ago, we saw the price we had to pay with an absurd “pork” rider that killed our economy with a severe minimum wage hike as jobs moved overseas. Now we are seeing that our First Amendment rights and the Declaration of Independence are violated in the new Shepard-Byrd Hate Crimes Act of 2009. Both were stuffed into defence authorisation bills.

In learning about this attack on Christians by passing the hate crime bill that rewards one class of sexual deviants while punishing other groups of people, let us look at these lines of the Declaration again.

But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

This paragraph was proven by fast-tracking bills and people cannot read them before voting on them.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

While he hasn't dissolved them officially, opponents are chided and shut out and mocked, as Bachmann and Wilson can prove.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

This is proven by the protection of ACORN and other leftist groups.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

After blocking the Bush judges, now we see new tyrants. The new judges use foreign laws to overturn local, state, and federal laws. The President blocked many of those judges in the four years in power.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

All of the "czars" we have seen is evidence.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

His groups, not the military, have superior power.

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

See the proposed Socialised Medicine and what has passed in Porkulus.

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

Those lines hold true when courts use foreign laws to overturn local, state, and federal laws.

"In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people."

Those paragraphs I have just posted are from the Declaration. This is the dangers of the Hate Crimes Act, and the entire Presidency by just citing the Declaration of Independence.

* NOTE: The term “illegally altered version” reflects how some songs have been altered without permission, and in other cases ruins the song. In 2003, I called a publisher's office in Nashville and then in Manila after popular Filipino star Mary Jane Mendoza (aka “Jamie Rivera”) recorded a Kathy Troccoli song with gross alterations in the lyrics.

Opera Wednesday

2009-10-28T20:29:00.002-05:00

By Mitchell Hadley

The latest issue of Opera News honors this year's winners of the Opera News Awards, and in his tribute to the great Shirley Verrett, F. Paul Driscoll writes that his own favorite Verrett performance was as Eboli in Don Carlo.

Fair enough. Here in this 1971 BBC telecast, is Shirley Verrett singing "O don fatale" from Don Carlo. Exquisite.

Wish I'd Written That

2009-10-27T20:59:00.001-05:00

By Bobby Chang

HARVEST FESTIVAL TRUNK OR TREAT OCTOBER 31. “Trunk or treat” I can understand. Some Mormon congregations do this too. It’s a way to suck all the fun out of trick-or-treating by handing out candy in a church parking lot from a row of car trunks. But “Harvest festival”? Uh, for the last time, people: Halloween is the eve of All Saints’ Day, part of the Christian liturgical calendar! “Harvest Festival” would be the pagan holiday! Not the other way around! This would be like a church replacing “Christmas Eve” with “Yule Festival” because some overzealous Sunday regular is anti-Santa. Okay, pastor, I get that you have some nuts in your congregation telling you that Halloween is all about the worship of Satan and his bastard stepchild Harry Potter. I don’t care. It’s time to man up to the weirdos."

-- Ken Jennings, author and three million dollar game show legend.

The List, Part 2

2009-10-26T05:13:00.001-05:00

By the way, the next time you run across one of the people mentioned here, be sure and tell them you saw them on the Our Word Enemies List. I'm sure they'll be grateful for the recognition.

And now back to the list. Mitchell launches into these people and organizations for whom he has a deep and abiding, if impersonal, contempt:

Rod Dreher – what’s that old saying about “with friends like this”? Having this crunchy con blogger on your side is like going into a gunfight armed with a butter knife. I’m sure Rod’s a nice guy, a good family man, someone you’d like to have as your next-door neighbor; but on his blog he shows a most unbecoming side. He snarks at conservative talk radio for being snarky, and honestly believes conservative bloggers have done more damage to civility than liberal ones. He wonders about Gingrich’s conversion to Catholicism, while he himself has bounced from Protestantism to Catholicism and now to Orthodoxy. He seems to want so badly to be taken seriously by those with whom he disagrees that he bends over backward to give liberals the benefit of the doubt, assuming their good intentions while questioning those of his “fellow” conservatives. (He reminds me of a boss I once had who was perfectly willing to believe every complaint he ever received about his staff, while dismissing any concerns his staff might have had in turn.) I don’t question Dreher’s sincerity; why does he seem so suspicious about that of others?

For his extremely irritating manner, Dreher lands the number one spot on my list by pure merit.

Mark Shea – his brilliant work as a Catholic apologist is frequently obscured by his frequent rants about the "unjust" war in Iraq, his unbecoming snarkiness about the Bush administration, and his unwillingness to grant that those with whom he disagrees might be acting with good faith and sincere beliefs of his own. Sarcasm and irony, when employed effectively, can be an art form - but Shea doesn't have that particular gift.

Shea is a passionate opponent of the war in Iraq. He can make a compelling, if not persuasive, case against it. Shea's overheated rhetoric may be an accurate reflection of his personality, but it does him no favors when it comes to convincing others of his argument. He can be so nasty about the whole thing, and so dismissive of others, that his arguments have the effect of making one passionately disagree with him regardless of what he's talking about. If he were to insist that the sky was blue, I'd say it was red just to oppose him. Having that effect on people is not the trademark of a particularly useful advocate.

For a long time, Shea held first place on my list, but he’s become better about apologizing for some of the things he’s said, and these mea culpas have softened his image in my eyes somewhat. I truly think he regrets much of what he says in the heat of the moment, but by the same token he continues to put himself there, in what we might consider the proximate cause of sin. Perhaps he’s just someone who should stick to writing articles and forget blogging. Or eliminate his combox, at least.

David Letterman – after what I wrote here, need I say more?

ESPN – it was a good idea to cover the story, but now they’ve become the story. And sport itself becomes secondary to its purpose of filling a spot in the network’s schedule: games with ridiculous start times, college football every night of the week, meaningless bowls created by ESPN simply as a source of cheap programming. Not to mention announcers who think it’s amateur night at the Improv, and their incessant self-promotion. Their “This Is SportsCenter” commercials are great, but not enough to make up for the rest.

Jimmy Carter – one of our worst presidents ever, now one of our worst former presidents ever. I know all the talk about what a great humanitarian he’s supposed to be, but he also constantly denigrates this country while giving aid and comfort to our enemies. He’s shown himself to be a bitter, vindictive, little man. Ronald Reagan deserves to be on Mt. Rushmore for no reason other than having ridded us of this meddlesome president. He's a useful idiot for America's enemies - emphasis on idiot.

Organizations with the word "Christian" in their name but not their mission - you know who you are. Shame on you.

Cathy of Alex castigates not a person, but the mindset that governs such people: mediocrity. In doing so, she ridicules those who believe in the following:

We're all the same. Congratulations! You have not won a thing. There are no winners. There is no such thing because then there would have to be losers and our fragile Western psyches can’t handle that.

Thank God I'm not like those sinners. Heaven may or may not exist but if it does you can be sure the almost perfect are in it. They’ve nominated themselves for the honor.

This is all there is. Nirvana is probably just a band.

Obamamania. Our nation’s leader, who may or may not be an American, is good for the job (not perfect) because he tells us that as a nation we are not perfect. We should be ashamed of ourselves. We have an entire weight of history that we didn’t even live to atone for. Get on that. Don’t work on improving yourself; work on apologizing.

Education. In school, over 90% is no longer the top grade and an A; now, we are graded on a scale so we can be graded with our peers who may or may not actually know anything.

For these people, there is nothing to strive for, she says in conclusion. Good enough is good enough.

And Paul Drew condemns:

The public school system – really, little more than legalized child abuse. (And this is not to besmirch those teachers in that system that do care – prisoners, I dare say, every bit as much as their students.)

Keith Olbermann – is there, honestly, anyone more wretched, angry, and nasty on television today? I’ve seen programs on Animal Planet where the wild beasts weren’t as vicious as Olbermann. (Perhaps he’ll name me Worst Person of the Day for saying that. I’d take it as a badge of honor.)

Mike Antonovich - the Los Angeles County Supervisor who wanted the L.A. Opera to drop Wagner's Ring Cycle because the composer was anti-Semitic. Earth to Antonovich: where have you been the last few years? Did you just hear about this Wagner guy and find out what he believed in? Love or hate him, the man wrote some of the most sublime music ever, and to suggest that politics pull rank over art is, in this case, rank. What a knucklehead.

Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, et al – why are we even listening to these fools? It only encourages them.

Sportswriters who can’t keep their politics out of their columns - don’t try this at home, boys. Leave the heavy intellectual work to the professional political pundits, boys. (P.S. I probably know more about sports than most of you, too.)

*****And there you have it - the 2009 Our Word Enemies List. Feel free to email us with your additions to the list, or suggestions for next year's. And if you don't see your name here, don't give up hopee - we all need something to which we can aspire. There's still plenty of room for more names!

Opera Wednesday

2009-10-21T07:18:00.002-05:00

By Paul Drew

Apropos of our list-making, here is the world-famous D'oyly Carte Opera Company with "I've Got a Little List" from Gilbert & Sullivan's The Mikado. As is the custom, the lyrics have been updated to include references to contemporary events.

The List, Part 1

2009-10-20T19:09:00.006-05:00

As some day it may happen that a victim must be found,
I've got a little list — I've got a little list
Of society offenders who might well be underground,
And who never would be missed — who never would be missed!
There's the pestilential nuisances who write for autographs —
All people who have flabby hands and irritating laughs —
All children who are up in dates, and floor you with 'em flat —
All persons who in shaking hands, shake hands with you like that —
And all third persons who on spoiling tête-á-têtes insist —
They'd none of 'em be missed — they'd none of 'em be missed!

W.S. Gilbert, The Mikado

As P.J. O'Rourke once pointed out: Santa has a list, Saint Peter has a list, Joe McCarthy said he had a list. Ko-Ko sang about his list (above), while Richard Nixon recorded his.

And now we've got a list, too.

The purpose of the 2009 Our Word Enemies List is, of course, to be entertaining. But after all the fun, keep in mind there's a serious side to it as well. Many of the names on this list - people, institutions, organizations, and other various flora and fauna - are, as O'Rourke said of those on his list, "useless, politically disgraceful, and downright foolish." For all the good points they may have, they've done at least one thing that merits being denounced, at least by someone. That doesn't mean they're necessarily bad people, although some of them come pretty close. We're not trying to attack them personally, even though many of them have no reservations about doing so. Some of us may even venture a few constructive suggestions as to how our honorees can avoid a repeat appearance on next year's list.

Happy reading - and if you're so inspired, feel free to email us with your list of enemies. As long as none of us show up on it, we'll be glad to share.

*****

If you're a regular reader of Bobby's columns, you'll recognize many of the names he offered. Whether they're from the world of politics, sports, entertainment, or "culture," they all have one thing in common - they've made the list based on merit.

Barack Obama - Chicago-style politics and now the idea of seizing political opponents who contributed to his opponents (see the automakers; Wagoner and Nardelli gave to Romney). The late Peter Tomarken would probably have said to America, (Foghorn sounds) "Stop at an Obammy!"

Leo Hindrey Jnr - Even though he owns the Nelson Bible publishing house, he is responsible for corruption (Daschle's tax situation) and printing bad theology.

Rick Warren - The kingpin of the life enhancement instead of God's Word "churches" that are too prevalent anywhere.

Luc Bondy - What he did to Tosca.

GIA Music, Oregon Catholic Press, EMI, Universal, Warner Music, Kona (Integrity) - For bad church music that has no doctrine or theology.

Nancy Pelosi - For imposing her totalitarian regime that led to Joe Wilson's complaints.

MTV - For causing the demise in morals, standards, and music. Witness the rapid demise in church music.

Title IX - For becoming a Quota Queen, making boys second-class citizens in our schools, and telling boys there is no place for them to play sports because the percentage of boys to girls in the school is not enough.

Al Franken - For helping South Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama become irrelevant in the Senate.
Susan G. Komen Foundation - For promoting Pink Sunday in churches to fund them. To declare Pink Sunday relevant and supporting abortion is not a church.

ESPN - For the idea of bad sports coverage, and to make college football for the worse by the premium television package that I believe will lead to pay-per-view BCS Championship Football. And what was with the crazy Monday Night Football gimmick of Bocephus en español during the opening?

*****

Judie's list also includes names from the world of opera and sports. It's short, but to the point. She upbraids:

Peter Gelb, who simultaneously brought thousands of viewers to the Metropolitan Opera thorugh HD transmissions and gave them nothing to see.

Mike Hill, the ESPN announcer who helps each night to ruin the English language with his mispronunciations of words beginning with "ST" by inserting an "H" in between. Got that shtraight?

And, of course, a woman who truly desrves to be denounced - Oprah Winfrey [only Elvis goes by one name around here], for making men believe that she knows what women think.

[Well, Judie, now she knows what at least one woman thinks.]

*****
Are we having fun yet? Yes, we know, too much of anything - even an enemies list - isn't necessarily a good thing. That's why you'll have to wait for part 2. Hope you can stand the suspense. And for those of you who haven't seen your names pop up yet - well, you've still got at least twenty-four hours to mend your ways.

The "Triumph" of Leni Riefenstahl

2009-10-18T21:15:00.003-05:00

By Paul Drew

Since I didn't have anything for you on Opera Wednesday this week, I thought I'd dip into the past for this column from 2006. Hopefully I'll be back with some new material this week.
Finally, Riefenstahl.

It's been so long since I started this thread that's it's difficult to recall what the point of it all was supposed to be. (And I'm glad I haven't been kicked off the blog for being so late in getting this up!)

But this whole discussion started with the death of Elisabeth Schwarzkopf last month. As was mentioned back then, virtually every obit of the great opera star mentioned her past association with the Nazi party in WW2 Germany. And I supposed it's a natural segueway, once you've talked about Schwarzkopf, to look at the lives of two other prominent German artists: Leni Riefenstahl and Richard Wagner. (Günter Grass doesn't really count, since he wasn't part of my original plan and, anyway, I've already talked about him enough.)

And in looking at their lives, we continue to be drawn to the central question of the discussion: what is the relationship between the artist and the art? As Roger Ebert has noted, it raises the “classic question of the contest between art and morality: Is there such a thing as pure art, or does all art make a political statement?"

Leni Riefenstahl was one of the great film documentarians of the 20th century. From Wikipedia: (I'll quote liberally here, since I have no desire to get this blog tied up in a plagerism accusation:

Riefenstahl's techniques, such as moving cameras, the use of telephoto lenses to create a distorted perspective, aerial photography, and revolutionary approach to the use of music and cinematography, have earned Triumph recognition as one of the greatest propaganda films in history. [...] The film was popular in the Third Reich and elsewhere, and has continued to influence movies, documentaries, and commercials to this day, even as it raises the question over the dividing line between "art and morality."

But, as you might have gathered from the above paragraph, there’s that Nazi thing again. Of all Riefenstahl's documentaries, none is perhaps as famous - and infamous - as Triumph of the Will. It is a magnificent, terrible film of a horrible story - the Nazis and their Nuremberg rallies during the '30s. And in telling that horrible story, it also ensured that filmmaking would never be the same again.

Film historians have seen Riefenstahl's influence in movies ever since. Star Wars, Citizen Kane, Gladiator, Lord of the Rings - all bear the marks of Riefenstahl's style. The famous opening scene of Triumph, in which the camera moves through the clouds to capture an aerial shot of the city of Nuremberg (to the music of Wagner, naturally) must have influenced Wim Wenders' opening of Wings of Desire. The sports documentarian Bud Greenspan, one of the finest filmmakers of the 20th century (Ken Burns could take a chapter from him), considers her one of the greats.

It's an assertion few would dispute, in the academic sense. But can’t you detect just the smallest bit of embarrassment whenever one praises the work of Riefenstahl? True, Triumph of the Will is a staple of many “best all-time” lists, but there’s this sense that even when we praise Riefenstahl, we must immediately apologize or explain away the praise, lest we fall under guilt-by-association. The closer we get to her work, the more we edge away from it. It’s not likely you’d hear Seinfeld emerge from the theatre saying, “It’s about Nazis! Not that there’s anything wrong with that.” (Warning: Do not insert any Soup Nazi jokes here.)

No, you’ll never hear anyone say there’s nothing wrong with being a Nazi. In our time the Nazi brand is, as I've said before, the Scarlet Swastika, an accusation so accursed that its use has become widespread, indiscriminate, a self-parody. And yet it is a charge that carries power, a negative sort of prestige, a stigma that taints whatever it touches. And we ask ourselves if we should be ashamed by our admiration and praise of the artist’s work, if we can morally separate the ideology of the artist from the art itself.

Riefenstahl’s work does not allow us that luxury. The subject matter of Triumph of the Will is in your face, and you can't ignore it. As the Wikipedia bio puts it, "it is nearly impossible to separate the subject from the artist behind it." She “claimed that she was naïve about the Nazis when she made it and had no knowledge of Hitler's genocidal policies. She also pointed out that Triumph contains ‘not one single anti-Semitic word’“; but it is difficult (although not impossible) to conceive of her as both ingénue and naïve girl, the brilliant and innovative filmmaker who was still a babe in the woods when it came to world politics. This is what she would have liked you to believe, but her actions often belie that contention. Roger Ebert points out, "the very absence of anti-Semitism in Triumph of the Will looks like a calculation; excluding the central motif of almost all of Hitler's public speeches must have been a deliberate decision to make the film more efficient as propaganda." And so, given all this, we’re tempted to see in her films things that aren’t really there, images that dance before us like the ghosts from black & white TV. Only these are real, the ghosts of Hitler’s victims that only become clearer as the picture is drawn into sharper focus.

Therefore, as viewers do we punish the filmmaker because of the subject of her films? Do we hold Riefenstahl accountable for her Nazi associations? And if so, do we also apply the same standards to Sergei Eisenstein, who exploited Russian nationalistic pride in Potemkin and Alexander Nevsky? (Yes, I know Eisenstein had his quarrels with the authorities, but large families often do that.) Eisenstein is often ranked in the pantheon of filmmaking, Potemkin appearing on most ten-best lists, but I rarely see him carrying around the baggage that accompanies Riefenstahl. And we won't even get into the almost-paranoid, conspiracy-laden propaganda of liberal filmmakers like Oliver Stone?

Now, it's true that Eisenstein wasn't a documentarian as was Riefenstahl. Nonetheless, his movies were fraught with nationalistic fervor, clearly designed to influence and inspire the viewer. (The Communists, in fact, thought Eisenstein worried too much about things like art and budgeting, and wanted even more propaganda in the content.) As for Stone - well, we know most of his films have an agenda.

Some like to pair up Triumph of the Will with Frank Capra’s direct answer to them, the Why We Fight series of films. (And, by the way, given how anti-American Hollywood has become, it would have been interesting to see how Capra's reputation might have suffered had he been young enough when he made this series. Surely in the Hollywood of the late 60s through today, he would have been seen as a toady for the government.)

In fact, however, the true companion to Riefenstahl’s masterwork might be D.W. Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation. This truly was a landmark of filmmaking, but most today remember it only as a racist piece of propaganda, glorifying the Ku Klux Klan. True, perhaps, but Griffith's influence, like Riefenstahl's, cannot be denied. True also that Griffith, like Riefenstahl, is held at arms' length by most.

So what's the point here? It's not an apology for Leni Riefenstahl (or D.W. Griffith, for that matter). It's merely an observation on how we allow our politics to color the way we see things. As I've asserted in the past, it is hard to believe that Riefensthal would be held in such contempt had the Triumph in question been Lenin's October Revolution.

As we watch the ridiculous accusations of Nazism that are so commonplace nowadays across the political blogosphere, and perhaps most absurdly from the Muslims who brand the Jews with the contemptuous tag, we are reminded that Nazism is the singular golden sin, the mark from which its bearers cannot recover. It is reminiscent of the "unforgivable sin" that Christ warns us of, though most of those wielding it would fail to recognize that analogy since they don't recognize the source.

National Socialism keeps us in a trance, as perhaps it should. It holds the figures of history hostage, as perhaps it might. But we do not diminish the horror of the truth it represents to assert also that the word "Nazi" is the crown jewel of political correctness, the golden spike to be driven through the heart, the one word that guarantees the discrediting of its intended. Some would wear the title as a badge of honor, an ideology to be embraced, others are shamed with a scarlet letter and their lips burn with Judas' kiss of betrayal, and still others feel the sting of its indiscriminant application.

But while Schwarzkopf shrugged off the label, and Riefenstahl tried to run from it, Richard Wagner might have welcomed it with open arms. But that's for another time.

Wish I'd Written That

2009-10-14T10:35:00.002-05:00

By Bobby Chang

I think Sarah Palin should just challenge (Barack) Obama to a showdown in one of those extreme fighting cages in 2012. It would be a lot easier and less painful (to the rest of us) than a dirty campaign. Plus, I have no doubt she'd kick our pantywaist President's (bravo) to Alaska and back."

-- Jennifer Crawford, on her blog.

Coming Soon!

2009-10-12T14:20:00.001-05:00

The Demise of Columbus Day

2009-10-12T11:03:00.002-05:00

By Bobby Chang

A few years ago, while reading about the fringe activity of the multiculturalist agenda, I learned that the celebration of one Cristóbal Colón and his group arriving in the New World five hundred seventeen years ago this day has been hijacked and ordered removed from calendars, similar to what is happening with Christmas, Easter, Abraham Lincoln's Birthday, and George Washington's Birthday (the last two removed by Congress in 1968), and other days of faith, and even days of American heroes.

When schools now degrade Columbus, Washington, Franklin, and heroes of both faith and the country, and instead promote Communist dictators, activist union leaders who fit a certain ethnicity group, activists promoting forms of deviancy who have died (and are remembered in a bill in Congress that would make them a protected class), what are we teaching our children? This is a continuation of the “multicultural” claptrap in schools that is designed to weaken this country and have a new generation believe in the heroes of liberal activists and ignore our Founding Fathers and other true heroes, such as Ronald Reagan, Douglas MacArthur, Norman Schwarzkoph, and David Petraeus, in favour of people that fit the liberal agenda such as Barbara Lee, Cindy Sheehan, Jeanette Rankin, Harvey Milk, and Matthew Shepard.

The demise of Columbus Day parades, Columbus Day holidays, and the lack of reverence in the Niña, Piñta, and Santa Maria are examples of what has gone wrong. Worse yet, we now have protests of racism and cruelty when talking about him, yet we celebrate Harvey Milk, and we never hear people discuss the type of activism he promoted that has given us absurdities such as Goodridge (the case in Massachusetts that led to courts using foreign laws to rewrite marriage to their own standards). I wonder if liberals will have us celebrate Harvey Milk and César Chávez Birthdays instead of Columbus Day and Christmas each year.

What type of country are we teaching to this generation, and has this allowed us to create a generation of extreme left-wing activists that helped elect the current President, where we glorify appeasers and those who want us dumbed down, while wiping off our map the Greatest Americans?

See Also: The Wall Street Journal, October 10, 2009

Biases

2009-10-09T13:14:00.002-05:00

By Bobby Chang

Search Engines and Political Bias. While searching for the blog of Minnesota Congressman Michele Bachmann, I typed her name in a Google search. The first site that it pointed was a left-wing site that is committed to defeating Mrs. Bachmann in 13 months at the 2010 Congressional Elections. Seems editors want people to toss her out for being on the nose in political issues when the editors want more of the fringe Left in control – they'd want a two-thirds supermajority to pass treaties that surrender sovreignity to other nations. It reminded me of a Democrat political trick in 2000 in South Carolina when liberal leaders decided to cybersquat political opponents by buying domain names of potential opponents so that if you typed their name, you would instead receive a pro-DNC site designed to promote the agenda of the incumbent liberal, James Hodges, who won his election by promoting the expansion of state government with a state-run gambling operation “for the children,” for which the Palmetto State is still hurting today, as the falsehoods of promoting education has resulted in bad schools that many industries will not come to the state, as gambling as a virtue has replaced study, as money has been used to purchase new leftist books and push other teachers' union causes that keep dumbing down schools.

State-Run Gambling, Casinos, and Pete Rose. The idea that a state-run “casino” “for the children” is a virtue has created a sad state of affairs where promoting gambling has become the state's most important ideal, as states envision the state “casino” the biggest revenue maker in the state, more than any industry. What is even worse is we see state-run “casinos” advertise at sports stadia and both radio and television broadcasts across the country alongside Indian and regular casinos. Wasn't it twenty years ago Pete Rose was banned from baseball for his involvement in betting on his own team, and ninety years ago eight members of the Chicago White Sox were involved in a betting scandal at the World Series that would take 86 more years before they won another championship? What would it say today if Pete Rose is banned from the Hall of Fame for betting on his own team, but today's baseball teams are advertising state-run and private casino gambling in the ballparks? A visit to Turner Field on Peachtree Weekend this year proved my worst fear, as I observed the first-base side of the stadium had advertising for an Indian (or as G. Gordon Liddy says, aborigine) casino. Why are stadiums advertising for state-run or other forms of casino gambling when players are told they cannot participate in gambling events?

Media Bias. The Miss America Organisation announced Rush Limbaugh to be a judge at the 2010 pageant, set for January 30 (8 PM EST, TLC). Something just doesn't cut it with it being in Las Vegas, just like the NHL Awards (moved from Toronto) or the NASCAR Sprint Cup banquet (moved from New York). I'm sick of seeing Las Vegas get everything and it seems we are now seeing how gambling is a virtue since Las Vegas is the capital of major events. The Las Vegas Sun even wrote some politically charged leftist slants in the article discussing the rumours. Of course, Mr. Limbaugh as a judge at the pageant should be different than what happened when the Trump Organisation, General Electric, and Vivendi's Miss Universe organisation had when Mario Lavandeira posted a loaded question at the pageant in order to give people who opposed his deviancy agenda a zero. It just doesn't look right to see Miss America held in “hype week” (the week before the Super Bowl) on a basic cable channel in Las Vegas. I miss the days of it being held in September in Atlantic City just two weeks after the Sprint Cup race in September in Florence*.

Speaking of Loaded Questions. A report on The O'Reilly Factor noted Harry Connick Jnr had criticised a “minstrel” show on Nine's Hey, Hey, It's Saturday (Australia) by putting a zero score on the performer. The “minstrel” show in Australia had a group perform in blackface to a Jackson Five routine and one “whiteout” artist performing similarly to the late Michael Jackson in a tribute to the performance on the show many years earlier. What they did not know was they had a Louisiana native as a judge who has learned the minstrel shows are not norms in the States, and they learned cultural differences mattered. And as for Michael Jackson, I cannot believe the local downtown group has a “Michael Jackson tribute” concert set Tuesday, and a dance troupe will have a “Thriller” dance for their Halloween show. Give me a break, I'm tired of the Michael Jackson worship!

Stupid Advertising. An ad that appeared on certain ESPN Web sites posted by the Homestead-Miami Speedway for NextEra Energy Resources SpeedJam (a Grand-Am and IRL race weekend) this weekend has a static image with the IRL logo and the phrase “Sexier Drivers” for people to buy tickets to the event. Here we go again, another group advertising “sex sells” by making a clear reference to all three women of the Indy Racing League, two of which have made risqué pictures, and the third (in her full Nomex uniform) presenting an Indianapolis 500 Showcase (including doing her own speaking parts) on her home-state The Price Is Right (The host and announcer are both from the Cleveland area).

Thought Crimes. The Congressional supermajorities have decided that thought police deserves to be in the Defense Authorisation Bill for Fiscal Year 2010. I've seen this trick before, used on the minimum wage increase of 40% that has caused this economic crisis, and now they are trying to make “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” protected classes, this in essence making child molesters a protected class, and to make the preaching of God's Word a crime if the pastor makes an attempt at saying the truth of sexual deviancy. We've engrained a generation of youth into the idea that alternative lifestyles are legal, and now we are doing everything to push their lifestyles. There will be a similar tactic in another authorisation bill to force us into state-run Communist-style inefficient “health care” that will create rationing and inferior care. And don't forget about the support of ACORN, who stole Norm Coleman's legitimately won seat in the Senate and handed it over to Al Franken to help create the No Debate No Discussion Obama Is The Gospel Congress that makes too many Southern states irrelevant.

Pink Sunday. To a man, pink symbolises either intimidation or their cars. The former was used by Hayden Fry at Iowa by painting Kinnock Stadium's visiting locker room pink, and today has become part of sports lore. Some coaches thought pink would intimidate an opponent, so they would paint (as some stadia have done) the visitor's hallway or locker room pink. The latter is a reference to the “drag racing for pink slips,” (vehicle titles were printed on a pink slip of paper), and led to the inspiration of the title of the illegal street-style drag racing Pinks franchise, and also Gas Money (where the actual retail price of the car is on a pink slip) on The Price Is Right.

Now churches are promoting October 25 as “Pink Sunday” for the Susan G. Komen Foundation, an organisation that has drawn the ire of this blog in the past. At a prayer meeting Wednesday night, we were informed of the Pink Sunday gimmick, wanting everyone to wear pink. When the younger generation is familiar with just tee-shirts of every sports team is suitable church clothing, they will not have any problem fitting with the “in” crowd with pink tee-shirts, especially in a society that believes suits are out and there should be no dress code..

But to betray Sanctity of Human Life Sunday is something I cannot find myself supporting, and having associated myself with the South Carolina Citizens for Life since college, including two National Right to Life banquets, and having met Kathy Troccoli, Steve Mosher, Olivia Gans, Norma McCorvey, Jill Stanek, Vera Lord, Duncan Hunter (senior and junior), Jennifer O'Neill, Wanda Franz, and other champions of the pro-life movement in my twelve years of association with the SCCL and NRLC, I cannot understand why churches think Pink Sunday should be supported when it goes against the Sanctity of Human Life, but considering the day is no longer observed by the White House of Congress, what gives when we're promoting Planned Parenthood at churches but not the Sanctity of Human Life?

* NOTE: Darlington Raceway is in the eponymous Florence suburb, and part of the Florence-Myrtle Beach television market.

Opera Wednesday

2009-10-07T08:51:00.001-05:00

By Mitchell Hadley

Now here's a group I could join! David Pryce-Jones outlines exactly what's wrong with today's opera producers:

The destruction of opera has been the aim of opera-house managers and producers for a good many years now. It isn't too difficult an objective. Ignore the composer's intention in order to insult and offend the audience, which in any case has no right of reply. Recast the setting to make some present-day social point, most usually to do with sexuality. Design brutalist sets, for instance furnishing a Renaissance palace with tank traps or oil drums, and if at all possible getting in some reference to Auschwitz, with barbed wire or striped prisoner garb. The predictability is boring beyond boredom.

The house managers and producers do all this for fear of being taken as elitists, catering to people with a taste for an art form requiring appreciation and knowledge, and therefore not for everyone.

Predictably, Pryce-Jones didn't think much of the Met's new Tosca, about which we opined last week:

The poverty of imagination at work here is truly stupefying. Puccini was famously angry with whoever took liberties with his scores; he made clear how he wanted this supreme opera to be staged, and small-minded men like Gelb and Bondy do not know better than the great composer. Tosca finishes with a firing squad and a summary execution. My Association is taking note.

This isn't to say that opera has to remain static. I must disclose an idea I've had for some time, that of staging Romeo & Juliet in East Berlin at the height of the Cold War. As it is, the actions of these two often seem particularly folish as I've pointed out before, young people have always been impetuous but Shakespeare's young lovers have to be two of the dumbest in literature) - but if you put them in the middle of a dull, lifeless Communist dictatorship that impetuousness starts to make sense. After all, why not take a mad chance at love, they might reason, when there's really nothing else worth living for? And the two warring families, who always seem little more than petty and vindictive, perfectly symbolize the crumbling corruption of the Soviet regime. Throughout the opera the Berlin Wall is seen, from different angles, far away or close up.

In fact, the final scene could take place inside the tunnel through which the two had planned to escape to the West. We chuckle ruefully when Romeo thinks Juliet is dead and takes the poison, knowing that what he really needs is for someone to remind him that there are other fish in the sea. However, if he feels her death leaves him lost in the grey sea of hopelessness that is Communist Germany - well, who couldn't blame him for feeling as if there's nothing left to live for?

The political subtext is there - an indictment of the dehumanization of Communism - but I like to think that this staging really does bring some logic and clarity to what is (in my opinion) one of Shakespeare's lesser efforts. It's still all about the trials and tribulations of young love, but at least we've given them some motivation for their actions. Call it method opera, if you will.

Alas, I have little hope that this production will ever see the light of day; not when Communism is implicitly the heavy. If I'd found a way to make Ronald Reagan the villain, I'm sure it would be snapped up in a moment. Although having Anna Netrebko in the cast would certainly help.

*****

Speaking of Tosca, two things: first, a particularly good piece on what's wrong with the Met's new production. (Money quote: "The failure is basically the result of a supremely talented star soprano, a director, and a designer set to work on a piece for which they are intellectually, aesthetically, and temperamentally unsuited. The result is a dull hodge-podge of unconvincing effects in an unattractive package.")

Second, we were in Chicago over the weekend to review the Lyric Opera's production of Tosca, starring Deborah Voigt and James Morris in the original Zeffirelli staging (including the sets). You'll be reading about that shortly, along with a look at the Minnesota Opera's new staging of Bizet's The Pearl Fishers, and the Minnesota Orchestra's Russian Festival.

Crossing Over

2009-10-06T21:24:00.001-05:00

By Mitchell Hadley

A bit belated, but it was fifty years ago last Friday that this program made its debut:

The Scarlet Letterman

2009-10-05T16:13:00.002-05:00

By Mitchell Hadley

One has to admit a certain satisfaction in seeing David Letterman, whose nasty, smirking brand of “humor” mocked people for the better part of three decades, get caught in one of his own Stupid Human Tricks. Heaven forbid what he might have had to say if one of his favorite targets – Sarah Palin, say, or Bill O’Reilly – had been caught pursuing the same kind of hanky-panky.

After hearing the story come out on Friday, Judie turned to me and asked what the big deal was. With all the water that’s passed under the dam over the years, it’s hard to imagine many people getting worked up over all this. She’s probably right, although there are some intriguing angles still to be pursued, such as the question feminists (and human resources departments) love to pose, namely whether there can ever be truly consensual sex in an employer-employee relationship. Then too, there’s the question as to whether Letterman and his abrasive personality have offended the wrong people at some point in time, weakening the good will coming from his years of service at CBS.

The viewers are sure to have something to say in all this. Letterman was always seen as being far more cutting edge than “Vanilla Jay” Leno, but his is an aging hipsterism now that has become painful to watch (when one can even watch it), and on that front he faces challenges not only from Conan O’Brian but from his own network running mate, Craig Ferguson (who would probably be having a field day with this were he not an employee of Letterman’s production company). Letterman, like Woody Allen before him, may come out of all this looking like a lecherous, dirty old man.

As a matter of personal curiosity, I’m intrigued by the point Letterman’s camp repeatedly stresses, that he was not married at the time these dangerous liaisons took place. This might be a more powerful point in Letterman’s favor were it not for the fact that he was still involved in a long-term, presumably committed relationship with the woman who bore him a child and whom he later married. Does it make a difference whether the woman on whom you’re cheating is your wife or simply your longtime companion and the mother of your son? I wouldn’t think so, but then I’ve been accused in the past of being hopelessly old-fashioned, so I don’t know. I guess when the spark goes out, it doesn’t matter whether you’re married or not.

Look, nobody wants to pile on someone who’s obviously been hurt by what has happened, and who may well be aware of the number of people he himself has hurt through his actions. But eventually everyone has to pay the piper, and for David Letterman, the man who’s made a career out of laughing at the misfortune of others, the piper soon may be playing his tune. Right now my money would be on him hanging on, but not without scars. He’s in his 60s, and there’s been speculation he would step down when his contract expires. That decision may now be out of his hands, as this little contretemps would certainly make it easier for CBS to decide to ease him out, citing budget concerns or something equally innocuous while casting their eye on someone like Jimmy Kimmel.

But all is not lost, Dave. After all, you’ve been doing an excellent job as a paid apologist for the Obama administration, so if things really go south, I’m sure your friend in Washington can find a place for you. Just watch out for those interns in the White House – word has it getting involved with them can get kind of messy.

Wish I'd Written That

2009-10-02T09:05:00.000-05:00

By Mitchell Hadley

If you sit down by the riverbank and wait long enough, you will see the bodies of your enemies float by."

Patrick Jane in The Mentalist

Headline News

2009-10-01T09:00:00.000-05:00

By Paul Drew

Mark Steyn loved this headline, and I agree with him one hundred percent:

Andy Williams Accuses Barack Obama Of Following Marxist Theory

No, it's not by The Onion, and no, Andy Williams isn't kidding. Read more about it here. And in the meantime, let's celebrate with one of Andy's biggest hits.

Opera Wednesday

2009-09-30T15:24:00.000-05:00

By Mitchell Hadley

By now, I suspect most people with an interest in this sort of thing have heard about the fiasco at opening night of the Metropolitan Opera. The New Yorker's Alex Ross has perhaps the best, most balanced take I've read on Luc Bondy's new production of Tosca, and what's wrong with it.

Some have commented on the apparent blasphemy of the production, with Scarpia rather sexually fondling a statue of the Virgin Mary during the Te Deum that concludes Act 1. And as the picture below demonstrates, while it’s true nobody knows for certain what Mary Magdeline actually looked like, I feel somewhat safe in assuming nobody ever painted her looking quite like that. I suppose Bondy could claim that his efforts to give us a new Tosca required him to make a clean breast of the whole thing, but I digress.

Above: tenor Marcelo Alvarez as the painter Cavaradossi
with his rendition of St. Mary Magedeline.

The thing of it is, I’m not even sure what Bondy did was intended to be blasphemous. Were he to argue that he was merely trying to demonstrate Scarpia’s monstrosity, I might be inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt. It was probably just part of his larger effort to be provocative, to bring what he would call a new dimension to Puccini's classic.

While the bulk of the critics' appraisal of this performance has been, well, critical, there have been some who've welcomed Bondy's efforts to inject some new blood into what they saw as the moth-eaten Franco Zefferilli production which the Met has been using for the last umpteen-some years. The audience's loud reaction to the production is further evidience, they would say, of the public's unwillingness to accept anything that smacks of new and different. We're just too stuffy, it would seem, to appreciate great art when we're presented with it.

And this brings me to the point of this essay: the question of change. Opera has to change with the times; the theater is not static, but a living organism that constantly adapts to its environment - well, you've heard all the arguments.

*****

Why do people purchase DVDs of movies? Is it to watch them once and then dispose of them like a cheap camera that's done its job? No – you have Netflix for that. People buy movies because they want to see them over and over again – they like the fact they know not only what's coming next, but how it happens. We watch our favorite movies, we know our favorite parts by heart, we delight in the anticipation of hearing “I’m shocked, shocked, to find gambling in this establishment” over and over again; we even nudge your companions as if to say, “Here it comes!”

At the same, however, you never stop seeing something new, even in a movie you’ve seen fifteen or so times. I have a friend who’s watched It’s a Wonderful Life every Christmas for decades, and he still finds some little bit he hasn’t noticed before, something that gives him a fresher insight into the movie.

Does that prevent stories from being retold over the years, with different directors, actors and designers? Of course not. Technologies change, things that weren’t possible years ago have now become commonplace, insights – whether into human psychology, history, or filmmaking itself – allow us to try new and different things. Sound and color itself were major innovations, and they were put to good use when the silent classic Ben-Hur was remade in 1959. Sometimes these things work, sometimes they don’t, but often they’re worth trying.

And occasionally the new version is superior to the old – the 1959 Ben-Hur won 11 Oscars, and it’s difficult to remember anyone other than Charlton Heston in the title role. Batman Begins was a reimagination of the beginning of the Batman myth that introduced a much denser psychology into the origins of the Caped Crusader, and along with the sequel The Dark Knight helped elevate this morality play beyond the normal confines of the comic book.

But movies such as Batman Begins are often called “relaunches” rather than “remakes,” and for good reason. It’s not just a story that’s being redone: it’s an entire image of what the story represents. Batman Begins didn’t simply retell the standard Batman story – it became an entirely different story, one that simply shared some elements with the original (and subsequent remakes), but was far more original itself. It’s rather like calling the Ford Mustang a remake of the Model-T – sure, there are some parts that they have in common, an engine, four wheels, a driveshaft – but the new far outweighs the old.

A few years ago the classic thriller The Manchurian Candidate was remade. The decision to remake the movie was less controversial than it might have been, since there was full cooperation from the Sinatra family, but the movie itself was a bomb. The new movie borrowed the title and the general idea, that of a presidential candidate whose strings are being pulled by an outside group, but the entire focus was changed: the evil puppetmasters were not the Red Chinese, but a sinister multinational corporation. Better that they should have changed the name of the movie altogether and settled for being called a Manchurian Candidate-like film, then suffer the comparisions to the original that inevitably come with a remake. The same could be said for Planet of the Apes, Rollerball, you name it.

*****

Opera is no different. I know committed opera fans who have perhaps half a dozen different recordings of the same opera. They have the Callas recording of Tosca, of course, but they also have Renata Scotto, Montserrat Caballe, Renata Tebaldi - they all bring something different, some new shading to the role. And although many fans have their favorites, they savor the opportunity to compare and contrast, to debate the merits of each of the leading ladies and their supporting cast. In many cases they may even have multiple recordings of the same singer; there are probably at least a half-dozen different recordings of Callas - live and in the studio, spread over a number of years - and they can tell you how her voice changes over the years, how what she lacks in vocal power in her later years might be offset by her dramatic prowess, things like that. If you were to take that choice away - if you told people there was only one definitive version of Tosca - you'd have a lot of unhappy people.

This applies to the current Tosca, of course. As fabulous and well-loved as Zefferili's staging is, there's no reason it has to be the only one. There's room for more than one Tosca, if you make this important proviso: it has to be faithful to the text and to the psychology of the characters.

Case in point: Bondy's Tosca omits a number of nuances, gestures and the like. For one example, after Tosca fatally stabs Scarpia, she places two candles next to him, one on either side, and a Crucifix on his chest. Bondy omits these gestures. They're very familiar, as familiar as Hamlet carrying that skull while muttering "To be or not to be." One has to be tempted to make a change, just to be different if nothing else. But Tosca's Catholicism is an important part of her character. Her gestures with the candles and Crucifix are entirely in keeping with it. Remove them, and you haven't just tampered with a stage direction - you've started to mess with the character's psyche.

Another case in point: the stabbing itself. Traditionally, Tosca finds a knife or letter opener on a desk in Scarpia's office. As he comes to complete his "seduction," she stabs him with it. The killing is, in other words, anything but premeditated. If Tosca winds up getting hauled into court, she can claim self-defense. Bondy's production (as well as some others) portrays Tosca bringing the knife with her into the room. We then are subjected to her frantic begging with Scarpia, knowing the whole thing is a ruse if she's just going to stab him anyway. Not only does it mess with the character's motivation, it changes the entire dramatic dynamic: Tosca winds up looking even more manipulative than Scarpia.

Again, my point is that while some aspects of a production are there for no reason other than tradition (check out the many versions of A Christmas Carol to see what I mean), some of them are more than that - they play a crucial part in character development, the evolution of the story, what have you. When you start to tamper with that, for whatever reason, you're asking for trouble.

*****

And that brings us to the ultimate question – does art exist as entertainment for its patrons, or does it exist for its own sake? A complicated question, to be sure, but try this on for size: if it’s functional, or meant to serve a purpose, it had better do it. If you charge money for it, it’s entertainment. If you display it for free, you can call it whatever you want.

Charging admission for a performance means that a piece has to serve a purpose, namely to provide entertainment for the patrons who purchased the ticket. It’s all well and good for an artist to talk about the purity and truth of his art, but if you’re going to ask people to fork over money to see it, you’d better give them something for their money. If you’re going to lecture them rather than entertain them, if you seek to provide education instead of (or in addition to) diversion, then you owe it to them to let them know up front. If your work bombs with the audience, and they stop buying tickets to see it, then it doesn’t matter what you call it, because we’ve already come up with a name for it: failure. Perhaps only in the short term (plenty of the operas we know and love bombed in their premieres), but failure nonetheless.

When that happens the artist has options: he can go back and make changes, trying to identify and deal with the shortcomings identified by the audience; he can withdraw the work altogether, hoping that a later generation will appreciate something that the current generation can’t (or won’t) see; or he can berate the audience for failing to live up to the standards set by the artist himself. It’s our fault, you see, for not recognizing the obvious genius of the artist, which is surely apparent – at least to the artist himself.

(In the same way we can say that any commissioned work has a purpose to serve, at least to the person who commissioned it. We can call a well-designed bridge a work of art, to be sure, but if it proves unable to support the weight of the load it’s expected to carry, then it’s a failure, no matter how cool it looks. And I suspect the taxpayers would agree.)

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The inspiration for this essay began with the talk of blasphemy, and to drift off into other areas does not diminish the importance of that. Not only does the blasphemy appear nowhere in the orginial libretto, much of it runs contrary to the common sense of the story. Besides which, it's offensive for no good reason. Lord knows, we have enough in the world that's truly offensive without going out of our way to add more to it.

But I do have a larger point here, and it's this: it's perfectly fine to introduce alternative versions of a story, as long as you're willing to let the marketplace decide, and you don't insult the paying customers if they reject your version. There are two prominent opera companies in New York: the Met may be the bigger and better known, but for many years the New York City Opera was the more adventurous, presenting new works, new interpretations of old works, seldom-performed works, and so on. The two companies maintained a nice balance that way. If you wanted traditional, grand opera, you had the Met; if you were looking for something with a little bit of a twist, you went to NYCO. They both survived, at least until the recent economic downturn. But now that the Met is poaching, so to speak, on the City Opera's turf, what will happen? Good question.

It was with more than a touch of sadness that the Met retired their mammoth Otto Schenk production of Wagner's Ring Cycle last season. The Schenk Ring was classic, traditional, realistic. If you were looking for the abstract, the provocative, or the metaphorical, you were looking in the wrong place. With the exception of Seattle's opera, it was the only such Ring production left. Now that the production has been retired, we wonder what the new Ring will be like. We only know this - that one more option for the opera-going public has disappeared, and that the only alternative will be to retreat to DVD.

So to conclude: there's nothing wrong with change, as long as you don't destroy choice in the process. And if you don't like the Tosca that the public apparently likes, you're more than welcome to write your own Tosca, call it Zelda, and do whatever you want. It doesn’t even have to be better than the original – if it allows you to tell the story your way, and if it finds an audience that likes it, then it works.

Until then, if you're going to do an opera based on Tosca and you're also going to call it Tosca rather than Zelda, I’d suggest trying something more radical – sticking to the original story.

William Safire, R.I.P.

2009-09-29T08:02:00.000-05:00

By Mitchell Hadley

My first encounter with the powerful words of William Safire came from a novel he'd written shortly after leaving the Nixon White House, a political thriller called Full Disclosure that told the story of a president who had been blinded during an assassination attempt, and was now the target of political enemies who sought, under the terms of the 25th Amendment, to declare him incapacitated. It was a terrific read, full of everything a thriller should have – sex, blackmail, intrigue, deception – you name it.

What I remember most about that book was that there was no sense of the former White House staffer out to settle grudges, pursue ideological agendas, or the like. It may well have been present – in fact, given the vivid character portrayls, I’m fairly sure he might have used some real people as models along the way – but it didn’t overwhelm a book that moved at lightning speed. It was also rare in that it avoided proselytizing and pious moralizing and came at you more like a potboiler than a poli-sci textbook. (That came in his second novel, Freedom, a Civil War story that again gave us vivid characters but was so entwined with real events that it was forced to move at history’s slower pace rather than the breakneck speed of the novelist.) And it an age where we’ve gotten used to famous political figures of the past and present putting out sordid political thrillers with the assistance of ghost writers, there was no doubt that Safire was the author of every word between the covers.

Safire had been a terrific speechwriter; he was the author of the famous Spiro Agnew line “Nattering nabobs of negativism,” which should have put him in some kind of hall of fame for the alliteration alone. He was, I’d guess, one of the first of the celebrity political speechwriters, which I suppose means we have to hold him accountable for gadflies like Peggy Noonan, but given everything else he did, I think we can give him a pass on that. You can’t always blame the sins of the sons (and daughters) on the father, after all.

He was a long-time columnist for The New York Times, and I always had the impression that his experience there pushed him ever-so-softly toward the political center. (He endorsed Bill Clinton in 1992, but given that I’d campaigned for Pat Buchanan and had no great love myself for Bush, I suppose this too was a forgivable offense.) I didn’t agree with him on everything, but he was a pundit – Buchanan, with whom he had a regrettable falling-out in later years, is another – with whom you’d better be prepared to articulate your disagreements, because he could be most persuasive to a great many people.

His best work, however, might have been those delightful pieces on language, which were those of a man who in turn took delight in the language, finding it a wonderful linguistic sandbox that combined the precise nature of mathematics with the creative flair of the artist. The last book of his I bought was a collection of speeches by the famous and not-so-famous, valuable not only for the rhetorical brilliance of the speeches themselves, but also for Safire’s brief introductory notes, pointing out such things as the rhetorical tools and devices that made Lou Gehrig’s farewell speech so effective.

Safire was a fixture on shows like Meet the Press, but he was – first and foremost – a writer. It reminds me that one of the heroes of Full Disclosure was a young White House speechwriter who also happened to be quite the stud in bed. Coming from some writers, this would have fallen somewhere between audacity and self-aggrandizement, but in Safire’s hands, it seemed more tongue-in-cheek, an inside joke he couldn’t resist. I think that served William Safire well. He was very sharp, witty, brilliantly erudite – but you got the feeling that he didn’t really take it all that seriously.

At the same time, though, perhaps he was reminding us of the power of words, and of those who can put them together. Writing the powerful speech, as well as being able to deliver it, really is an art form. There’s an old saying that when Demosthenes spoke men applauded his courage, but when Cicero spoke, men said “let us march.” Pretty words can still make men march, but likely as not they’ll arrive at their destination (if there is one) wondering what it was all about. Pretty speakers can give pretty speeches that move the masses to tears, but an examination often shows little more than a vapid collection of phrases strung together, full of sound and fury but signifying nothing.

William Safire died Sunday of cancer. Fortunately, as is the case with many craftsmen, he left behind much for us to appreciate.

Stupidity in Government: Leno Promotes Obama Cars

2009-09-28T07:38:00.002-05:00

By Bobby Chang

Did anyone notice that Rush Limbaugh's participation in Jay Leno's version of the BBC's Top Gear segment "Star in a Reasonably Priced Car" features a celebrity driving a car built by the government that fits the feds' standards?

The 2011 Ford Focus electric plug-in, based on the Mazda Axela (also called the Mazda3), is smaller than the current Focus, and seemingly has Ford offering (except for the Mustang, Taurus, and F-Series) badge-engineered Mazdas, which makes Hiroshima the centre of Ford's operations, not Dearborn. It was recently uncovered they had accepted $5.9 billion in taxpayer funds to convert a plant that made trucks into one that made the Obama Approved Electric Cars such as the Focus plug-in demonstrated on Leno's new primetime programme. Of course, remember that GM and Chrysler were seized mostly because neither automaker built their product lines around the sub-compact, mini, and microcars that Ford told the feds they would offer, instead of the profit-making trucks and their variants that GM and Chrysler made as the majority of their vehicles.

What Leno is doing with the Top Gear style segment is to promote the type of cars the government wants us to drive, and turn us into Europe in the auto industry too with the tiny cars. This is taxpayers funding social engineering again by promoting small electric cars as part of their "save the earth" mantra that may not carry many, but saves the earth. And that reminded me of the report recently that taxpayer money went to a few electric car manufacturers to help push their variants of electric cars -- first Tesla (in the same lot that gave Ford and Nissan their cash), and now an electric car company pushed by Al Gore.

At this rate, can families even have a car once we get through this disturbing idea that the government should force us into electric cars?

Opera Wednesday

2009-09-23T21:07:00.003-05:00

By Paul Drew

Those of you with an operatic bent have probably heard about the tumultuous debut of the Met's new production of Tosca on Monday night. I've been talking with Mitchell about this - well, different - production, and I believe he's got something in the works in the next few days.

But in the meantime, let's revisit a piece I did - can it be, over three years ago? It's a look at a real production of Tosca, and (with all due respect to Karita Mattila) a real diva in the role: Maria Callas, at her 1964 Covent Garden performance with the incomparable Tito Gobbi as the villanous Scarpia.

*****

It was said that Callas didn't much like the character of Floria Tosca, whom she thought of as a "weak girl." Here, as her lover Cavaradossi is being tortured by Scarpia's henchmen, she sings one of the most famous arias in opera, Vissi d'arte. "Vissi d'arte, vissi d'amore" – “I lived on art, I lived on love." In other words, it's all about poor me - what did I do in life to deserve this? Forget Cavaradossi - what about me?

(This isn't entirely fair, of course - Scarpia's blackmailing Tosca, claiming that he'll release Cavaradossi in return for one night of passion. I'd probably be inclined to wonder what I did to deserve this, myself.) Tosca goes on to kill Scarpia (in a clip I'll put up later on), and after a desperate attempt to save Cavaradossi's life fails, she commits suicide in despair. I trust I haven't ruined the ending for you.

Reading the YouTube comments on this is almost laughable. Everyone has an opinion on Callas (some of them quite insightful, actually), and a venomous attitude toward anyone who disagrees with that opinion (which doesn't really add much insight at all). What a lot of people forget is that opera is theater, not just music, and theater isn't always about the finest technical performance. It's about the experience. As for me, I don't pretend to be an expert, but I know what I like. Callas may be past her singing peak at this point but she can still bring it, and the drama of this scene with her old partner Gobbi - the experience, if you will - is thrilling.

I've heard the arguments about opera being dull, preposterous, difficult to follow, you name it. There's a lot to those arguments. But I'll defy you to feel that way after seeing Callas' anguish in this performance.

Putting the Stamp on Classic TV

2009-09-22T19:09:00.003-05:00

By Mitchell Hadley

Terry Teachout has another nice piece on classic television, triggered (pun intended) by the new Dragnet postage stamp. Teachout discusses the significance of Dragnet in the history of television, and it prompts yet another pang of realization that there are entire generations out there who have no idea what we're talking about when we say, "Just the facts, ma'am"; or, if they do, they think of it as a campy punchline to the 60s revival.

Fact is, as Teachout points out, Dragnet was one of the grittiest of cop shows, presenting viewers with a new, entirely different view of police work - and, as Joe Friday called it, "the city." In watching the 50s Dragnet, it helps to remember that this is from pre-Miranda days, when interrogation methods were a bit more - shall we say - liberal.

As was the case with so many early series, Dragnet began life as a radio series before making the transition to television. One item that Teachout doesn't mention is that Dragnet was also the first television show to get the big screen treatment, in 1954, directed by star Jack Webb and featuring the original cast. The question Warner Bros. faced: would people really pay to see something they could see for free in their living rooms? Their answer: give them something they can't get at home. And so the 1954 Dragnet was shot in color, a fact of which the opening scene (two gunmen walking across a field) took full advantage. Suddenly the city looked different once again.

On a related note, for fans of hard-hitting 50s and 60s cop shows, don't forget Lee Marvin's only television series, the gritty, tough-as-nails M Squad, which was the unintentional inspiration for the hilarious, genre-ridiculing Police Squad. Here's a hint of it for those of you who haven't seen it.

Avast, Ye Mateys!

2009-09-19T16:40:00.005-05:00

By Mitchell Hadley

Aye, sure and it be International Talk Like a Pirate Day, so as always it be only fittin' that we be part o' the fun.

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(And now, as a public service, we present Bobby's earlier post entirely in Pirate Talk.)

Aye, decline o' the Daytime Serial and Rise o' Premium Cable Aye.

Arrr, as the news this week relates t' Friday's conclusion, after 56+ years on tele'ision, and o'er 72 years o'erall includin' radio, o' Procter & Gamble's (The) Guidin' Light (the article was originally used in the early years), one intarstin' discussion came up in articles that war discussin' the demise o' the daytime serial drama (thar be only se'en remainin'; Gar, Where can I find a bottle o'rum?

Arrr, it brin's closer t' an end the era o' why a daytime serial drama was called a "soap," as in the past ten years Procter & Gamble has now lost two o' the shows they had, and have been dropped t' just one. Aye.

Arrr, we have sadly put "sleaze" and the National Academy o' Tele'ision Arts and Sciences as the arbiters o' what is quality tele'ision. Aye, me parrot concurs.

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Finally, here be some o' our Pirate favorites.

Pirate Sports:

Pirate Opera:

Pirate Cartoons:

Ahoy, tis' sure great t' be a pirate, at least for one day. Gar.