{"id":13941,"date":"2013-10-16T19:26:46","date_gmt":"2013-10-16T23:26:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.musicalamerica.com\/mablogs\/?p=13941"},"modified":"2014-03-15T12:33:00","modified_gmt":"2014-03-15T16:33:00","slug":"who-am-i-is-this-the-asylum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.musicalamerica.com\/mablogs\/?p=13941","title":{"rendered":"Who Am I? Is This the Asylum?"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Albert Innaurato<\/strong><\/p>\n

Well, Alberto (that\u2019s me) does babble on a lot. And that reminded me of a little known Rossini Opera,\u00a0Ciro in Babilonia<\/em>. Poor Ciro does have his problems, though talking too much isn\u2019t one of them (on the other hand,\u00a0in my case, \u2026). It\u2019s one of the happy\/sad realities of a troubled time for the arts, that we can fairly easily encounter\u00a0Ciro<\/em> on DVD and CD; a score has been prepared that is fair to Rossini. And we can find out by reading that score, or experiencing one of the DVDs that\u00a0Ciro<\/em> is fascinating, phenomenally orchestrated, and full of great tunes. Ciro\u2019s enemy even gets one of the great tenor mad scenes in opera.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s happy because it\u2019s a fine opera. That\u2019s sad because it\u2019s\u00a0not<\/strong> new, just unfamiliar. It\u2019s a very old opera, in a very old style with a very old story. Art is about us, now. One shouldn\u2019t have to be like a soldier fighting battles, to believe that arts that can\u2019t renew themselves die.<\/p>\n

I always wanted new sounds. When I was studying music (for eighteen years) I always wanted to know what was being created right then. And then I took a wrong turn (probably) and began to write plays. I got to Broadway and Europe and even to Asia and everything was new; my life was about my creating, and about my measuring myself against what others were creating.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not that I didn\u2019t love older plays. And I was never indifferent to the stratagems of Beethoven and Debussy and crotchety old Johann Bach. It\u2019s just that discovery was always just as thrilling. Even if technology has given us a way of reconstructing virtually the entire past of Western music, and great masters are always being uncovered, someway has to be invented to persuade those under thirty, said to be watching three screens at once, to pay attention. And in some sense it has to be, however subtly or indirectly, about the new kind of lives they are living now.<\/p>\n

And as for opera, well, let\u2019s be frank, it\u2019s a mental illness. I have it. Electroshock won\u2019t help. But the most thrilling evenings in my life were seeing\u00a0Lulu<\/em> for the first time, or\u00a0Nixon in China <\/strong><\/em>or L\u2019amour de loin<\/em>.<\/strong> It\u2019s not a contest; great operas have been written from the beginning, but the remarkable new is always more thrilling than one\u2019s fiftieth <\/strong>exposure to a MASTERPIECE <\/strong>from a fast\u00a0receding\u00a0past.<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/strong>I have the voice sickness too\u2026 I\u2019ll be chattering about those things. But who even knows about \u00a0much of this, really? I know I\u2019ll be babbling to many. One thing\u2019s for sure, I\u2019m a tenor!! Bring on the mad scene!<\/p>\n