A Meditation on Thaïs

In the ancient Egyptian city of Alexandria, built by the Greek architect Dinocrates to immortalize the name of Alexander the Great, the city of the library of the Ptolemies with its manuscripts of Plato, Pythagoras, Philo, Origen, Athanasius, and Clement, copies of Euripides, Aeschylus, and Sophocles, and documents signed by Julius Caesar and Octavian, the port city of lavish white sands and Mediterranean seascapes known to Cleopatra and Mark Antony, on the threshold of an evening in the fourth century, a connoisseur of the flesh is ruminating before her mirror on aging and mortality. She is Thaïs, a figure of mythic elegance, a courtesan, yet full of artistic refinements and imbued with elemental candor. In this moment of her only vulnerability, the monk Athanaël intrudes with his violent admonition from the desert. He is terrifying, driven as much by suppressed desire for Thaïs as by zeal to redeem her for eternal life. If renunciation of the world is the portal of eternity, Thaïs is singularly ill disposed. She sustains his initial assault then reacts with derision and ejects him, but he has disturbed the serenity of her opulence. In the lingering awareness of some strange enticement she begins to weaken. The fruit Athanaël has unseasonably harvested slowly intoxicates her.

The opera Thaïs by Jules Massenet dramatizes the climactic irony of Christian asceticism subduing pagan sensuality. After an evening alternating jubilance and bouts of sobbing Thaïs willingly rejects a wealthy suitor in her thrall to become a virgin seeking the bridegroom. She comes out of her house in the darkness to find the monk. Athanaël is asleep, but she wakes him to ask for spiritual guidance. He knows she will now submit to his discipline and says calmly that he will take her to a convent where she will wait for Christ to come and claim her. Then his severity returns. He commands her to set fire to her house and abandon her possessions, an ordeal to which she agrees, but she hesitates at destroying a piece of art that she loves. In rage Athanaël smashes it, and they trudge off into the wild.

The simplistic dichotomy that sets spirit and sensuality in opposition is bleak beyond recognition now among affluent, accommodating Christians, and born-again pagans who do not seriously consider eternal life an inducement to abnegation of the flesh. The irony of Massenet’s opera and the novel by Anatole France on which it is based is that after the pilgrimage through pain that Thaïs undertakes, she dies in ecstatic transcendence, while Athanaël recognizes in despair that he is in love with her. In abjection he regrets having driven her to this end. Modern Christians and secular humanists alike will feel some sympathy with Thaïs in her contemplation of mortality. Athanaël’s primal dilemma is compelling when desire is constrained by guilt or panic about being made into a eunuch for the Kingdom of God. The irony of our time is that Christians have expropriated the opulence of the world, whether the baroque Pentecostalism of televangelists and swinging mega-churches or the elegance of blue-blooded Episcopalian ritual, while California transcendentalists are surrendering themselves for the sake of enlightenment and following their spiritual masters into the Mojave. Everybody seems satisfied with the role reversal, so why revisit a false dichotomy that was history when Massenet set this primal religious drama to music?

Few have followed Jesus far enough along his via dolorosa to fully comprehend what is meant by his injunction, “take up the cross,” his foreboding that “a man’s foes will be those of his own household,” or that enigma for proponents of family values, “No man can come after me who does not hate father, mother, sisters and brothers, his wife, and even his own life.” In Massenet’s time these eschatological sayings evidently informed contemporary culture to an extent that opera houses could mount lavish productions based on them. The composer of the opera Thaïs claimed in his autobiography that the state of his soul was most apparent in his music. Evidently a veteran of the war of sensuality and spirit, Massenet clearly left the imprint of a strong religious impulse on his operas. Yet he had a reputation for womanizing. If he did battle in the conflict of spirit and sense, how was he able to work? Musical craftsmanship of his order of magnitude is not accomplished in a torpor or guilt. In Thaïs Massenet confronts the most severe injunctions of monastic asceticism. Thaïs, Manon, Herodiade, and Le Cid merge musical motifs and theology so convincingly that one might believe that he had either found a path to resolution of monumental spiritual questions or had equally monumental powers of metaphorical abstraction.

Perhaps the convulsion of abstinence, ecstasy, and despair with which the opera ends is one of the justifications we now have for putting limits on spiritual compulsions. Massenet’s music could possibly inform the beneficiaries of the twentieth-century sexual revolution. Having witnessed Athanaël’s despair, students traumatized by sex might hesitate at the impulse to abandon engineering studies or business school for a communal farm. At any stage in life those who are susceptible to extrapolations from the hard sayings of Jesus are more likely to find metaphors for dealing with them in enduring works of art from the past than in cinematic caricatures of religion or the music they are likely to hear in church. Better if we turn to the dramas Massenet set to music. Universally regarded as a fine craftsman of orchestration, he is the composer of twenty six operas, twenty three of which were staged. He had lavish and widely imitated lyrical gifts. The operas were the most performed of his era in the French musical theater, and they have proved their enduring value over most modern composers’ works, which seldom last beyond the fanfare of new productions.

The bourgeois audiences for Massenet’s operas were far removed from the heroic asceticism of desert monasteries. How might a performance of Thaïs at the Paris Opera have affected bourgeois women? According to Massenet’s biographers they were captivated by his music, which became the standard of the repertoire. It takes little imagination to see that many among the Parisiene would have found Thaïs a sympathetic character. She is urbane, cultivated in her tastes, beautiful, and most interesting of all, independent. A modern sex goddess might be the envy of many women, but she is seldom admired for her elegance. Thaïs is characterized as a woman of intelligence and grace as much as voluptuous allure. She entertains the Alexandrian nobility in sumptuous refinement in her own palatial home. She owns artistic masterpieces. Nicias, the only suitor who appears in the opera, is high caste Alexandrian. He has been a friend of the monk Athanaël since their youth and hosts the renunciate in his home. It is Nicias who has the influence to get Athanaël admitted to the home of Thaïs. Nicias has spent a fortune for a week in her company, but she has the power to eject him at will, and she does in order to retreat to a convent with the holy man.

Contemporary literary theorists find oppression of women in Western art and culture, yet here in a bourgeois French opera is a woman of independent means who voluntarily follows erroneous counsel to a conclusion that eviscerates her mentor, himself a spiritual athlete, while she is indestructible. The illogic of renunciation leads to her death, yet even in death Thaïs is indomitable. The husbands and lovers of the Parisiene would have been more the equivalent in property, influence, and character of the suitor, Nicias, than of Thaïs. Like Nicias, bourgeois men would have been willing at times to spend extravagantly on desirable women, but what could they have made of Thaïs? Shouldn’t they have considered her an affront? The opera was not extremely successful in early productions but it survived despite this protagonist of the supposedly oppressed gender. In every phase of her pilgrimage Thaïs embodies innate charm. Her musical motifs are gentile and forthright throughout her transformation from regal courtesan to saint.

Anatole France reportedly commented while working on his novel Thaïs, “I have only two enemies: Christ and chastity.” In the novel the monk Athanaël is characterized in even more rigorous excesses than in the opera. An episode, not used in the opera, has him take refuge from Thaïs on top of a column in a deserted city. The spectacle of him in the ruin becomes a tourist attraction, and the city is rebuilt and flourishes. Masssenet’s librettist, Louis Gallet, transformed the monk of this incident into the austere, tormented, yet impressive, Athanaël. The agony of love sublimated in evangelistic zeal remains in the opera but little of the scorn for him apparent in the book. One can only conjecture that in this contrast, librettist, composer, and box office patrons preferred a treatment of religious asceticism that was cognizant of the fact that in Augustine’s time it was considered the manly embodiment of saintliness. Witnesses to this outrage of renunciation contra indulgence now recognize it as fanaticism.

For as long as human beings have pondered mortality, renunciation of the world for spiritual purity has been one option for dealing with the horizon toward which we continually sail. Believing there is a reality that transcends the world we inhabit has for many inspired a compulsion to gaze so adoringly on the horizon that living in the present world becomes mainly a distraction. Platonic and Neoplatonic philosophy provides a theoretical framework for abnegation of the physical world for an immaterial, ideal realm. Christian theologians in fourth century Alexandria fought a never completely successful battle with the hyper spirituality of Greek metaphysics. Physical indulgence as evident in the pagan religious ethos provided a stark contrast to the philosophers’ quest for eternal form underlying nature. In this context a religion that began with John the Baptist and culminated in the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus seemed more consonant with the acetic world view than that of the pagan remnant.

The theological resolution that is often neglected is, of course, the doctrine of the Incarnation, in which the eternal transcendent God takes on human flesh and shares time-bound human existence. The Christological controversies of the third and fourth centuries proved just how difficult this is to deal with intellectually. Kierkegaard said it was an insurmountable intellectual problem comparable to the moral atrocity of Abraham offering his son Isaac on the altar. Without trying to disentangle the many threads of this discourse, we will only suggest that the resolution of the dilemma of Athanaël and Thaïs requires a thorough analysis of the doctrine of the Incarnation. Listen to the Thais Meditation.

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Fear Mongering East and West

This post was written by Michael Dodaro, and posted on October 13, 2008 | Filed Under culture, music and religion, music | Double-click any word for more info | View other posts by Michael Dodaro | 2 Comments | For info on this author, visit http://operaciv.blogspot.com/

If you are a Chinese bureaucrat or an administrator of arts endowment funds in any of the Western democratic powers, it might help you keep your job if you evidence distaste for and disinclination to fund, or even tolerate, art that is based on religious themes. Most notably, you might benefit by showing aversion to the Western musical tradition that began with Gregorian Chant and culminated in the musical masterpieces of Bach, Handle, Mozart, and works of even many anticlerical composers such as Brahms or Verdi. Christian theology so permeates Western music that it is impossible to disentangle the theology and the art. The headline Western sacred music banned in China is reminiscent of the Maoist era in China and seems a bit startling when Wal-Mart and Costco are trading partners with China on a scale larger than any remaining Communist state. It is a bit more of an offense when a noteworthy British composer warns that atheist liberals are using “increasingly aggressive” means to drive religion out of public life and culture.

On reflection I’m more surprised by China’s ban on music with Christian themes than by the hostility to faith James MacMillan identifies in the “metropolitan arts, cultural, and media elites” of his milieu. The cathedrals of Britain and Europe, though still acknowledged architectural marvels, are not anymore anchors of culture as they have been historically. Young ministers in what has come to be called the “emerging church” speak of Christianity as again a subversive influence. On this view, the era of Christendom has come and gone, and the church, if it is to remain viable, must acculturate to postmodernism. This tends in the direction of pop music idioms and the same kind of art one finds in trendy galleries, but surprisingly, some of these groups are suddenly discovering liturgical chant, incense, and candles.

I asked a Chinese friend what she made of the ban in China on The Messiah and his ilk. After this friend took her children to the Olympics, she commented on the strenuous attempt to find historic spiritual roots for Chinese culture that she saw in the opening ceremonies. Her father is a scholar of historic Chinese culture, so she said she could see things in the Olympic ceremonies that were opaque to most Chinese. Apparently the authors and designers of this presentation had to go back the sixth century BCE and Confucianism to find something worthy of celebration.

About the recent ban on religious music Jing says:

“I am not surprised about this development. It seems that government is concerned about things that are powerful yet, hard to compete with. Historical European music that has a strong Christian background can be seen as a challenge that could alter people’s minds. Sacred music is very powerful. But I am sure that there are people, including government officials, who continue to listen to them either in public or in private. Anything that is calling for peace, is good for the human soul, no matter where we live. “

When I sent the link to the article on the Chinese ban to a discussion list at work, I got the following reaction from an atheist:

“They’re scared out of their wits of Christianity. They’ve been studying some history most likely.”

This is typical of the stereotypical identification of Christianity with the Spanish Inquisition and the supposed persecution of Galileo. Reading Rodney Stark’s great book, The Victory of Reason or Robert Royal’s similar historic analysis, The God that Did Not Fail will dispel any nostrums about the supposed historic suppression of progress by the church. The truth about science, religion, and the Galileo affair is also quite contrary to the current myths.

One more perspective from a rather surprising source of inspiration: Ayn Rand. Another respondent to my query on the work discussion list sent this:

“Per James MacMillan – ‘They are also impractical, unattractive and, I suggest, oppressive. A true sense of difference, in which a genuine pluralism could thrive, is under threat of being reduced to a lowest common denominator of uniformity and conformity, where any non-secular contribution will automatically be regarded as socially divisive by definition.’

Don’t know if you are familiar with Atlas Shrugged or The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand. While I disagree with her beliefs about God, she was dead on about how socialism affects the arts or any creative sphere. Socialism doesn’t aspire to greatness - it aspires to equality. And that equality by definition means that success is has to be the lowest common denominator so that everyone is able to reach it. Any reaching beyond that is a threat to their status quo.

My wife pointed out that this doesn’t apply to the Chinese in areas such as gymnastics, but it may well apply to the popularizing and postmodern trends in the the West. I’m going to have to get to work this morning, but I’ll conclude for the moment by noting that Christianity has always been controversial. The gospels of Matthew and Luke both attribute to Jesus the following unnerving discourse:

Matthew:

“Do not think that I have come to bring peace on earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and a man’s foes will be those of his own household.”

Luke:

“Do you think that I have come to give peace on earth? No, I tell you, but rather division; for henceforth in one house there will be five divided, three against two and two against three; they will be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against her mother, mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.”

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Lohengrin as Dramatic Theodicy

This post was written by Michael Dodaro, and posted on August 24, 2008 | Filed Under culture, religion, music | Double-click any word for more info | View other posts by Michael Dodaro | Leave a Comment | For info on this author, visit http://operaciv.blogspot.com/

Lohengrin as Dramatic Theodicy

The myth Wagner set to music in the opera Lohengrin is a marvelous portrait of romantic chivalry. The mystery of the enduring power of this story may be explained by analyzing it as a dramatic theodicy. A philosophical theodicy poses an answer to the problem of evil in a world supposedly controlled by a God who is good. How atrocities can be permitted under the sun by a benevolent and omnipotent God is a question that does not completely relent under logical analysis. Dramatic renderings of the issue have had wider appeal and greater staying power. One of the oldest examples of dramatic theodicy is the story of Job in the Bible. Job suffers even in his innocence, and his complaint reaches the court of heaven where God permits the ordeal to continue, apparently to negate Satan’s taunt that Job is faithful only because God rewards him for his virtue. Making Job into an object lesson does little to relieve him, but, eventually, there is a thunderous conclusion in the firmament, more in resonance with operatic crescendo than philosophical abstraction.

Elsa, the heroine in Wagner’s Lohengrin, is accused of fratricide and trysting with an illicit lover by her antagonists, Telramund and his sorceress wife Ortrud. These two conspire in a plot as nefarious as that of Shakespeare’s Macbeth. Their intent is to usurp headship of the Duchy of Brabant, which rightfully belongs to Elsa’s brother, Gottfried, heir to Brabant’s Christian dynasty. Gottfried, now strangely absent, is presumed dead, and Ortrud is progressively corrupting her husband by her false testimony that Elsa has murdered him. The collapse of Telramund’s nobility under the influence of his wife is a significant subplot of the opera.

When King Heinrich arrives to investigate the strife attending succession of the Duchy of Brabant, Telramund has bought Ortrud’s lies wholesale and takes up her false witness against Elsa. Elsa is called upon to defend herself, but she only replies by relating a dream of a knight who has promised to defend her cause. A herald calls repeatedly for the defender, but none appears. Elsa prays that the chivalric knight of her vision will now come to her aid. At last, transcendence breaks into the world of human injustice. In the romantic illumination of Wagner’s music the knight Lohengrin appears on the River Scheldt in mythic splendor in boat drawn by a swan.

Lohengrin betroths himself to Elsa and answers her prayers for aid on the condition that she will never ask his name or lineage. He announces that he will prove her innocence in mortal combat, and King Heinrich prays that justice will be established in the ordeal. Lohengrin and Telramund draw their swords. The contest that follows is brief and decisive. The virtuous knight subdues Telramund. With blade poised above Telramund’s heart, Lohengrin says he will spare the accuser’s life. He exhorts him to spend his borrowed time in repentance for the evil he has perpetrated against Elsa.

The first act of Lohengrin has established the basic premises of a theodicy. Elsa’s innocent suffering poses a dilemma of the sort that, left unresolved, casts doubt on God’s goodness. The premise that God is powerful is assumed. A transcendent being unable to overcome the actions of human malefactors would not be God. Even in absence of Elsa’s prayers, God must act in her defense, or there must be a satisfactory explanation, should God permit the injustice to continue. Theology in a Calvinistic vein that sustains the inscrutable sovereignty of God against human comprehension does not play well on the stage. Sending the defender of Elsa’s virtue shows God’s benevolent intentions, but resolution of the problem in Act I would not provide sufficient time for Wagner’s music to elaborate.

Ortrud and Telramund plot in the night to reverse Elsa’s good fortune. When the opportunity arises, Ortrud attempts to dissuade Elsa from trust in the heroic virtue of her betrothed: if Lohengrin comes anonymously and inexplicably from a place that must remain a mystery, will he not someday depart as abruptly, leaving bereft both Elsa and the Duchey of Brabant of which he now has been proclaimed guardian? Magical in her own right, Ortrud calls upon her spirits to deceive Elsa and overthrow her defender. She invokes the ancient Gods, Wotan and Freia, of the Norse pantheon. Telramund listens to her oaths of vengeance and her invocations in service of the betrayal of trust she is building with Elsa. Telramund now understands that he was deceived by Ortrud’s lies about Elsa. He laments the loss of his virtue and recalls his valor in defense of land and people who gave him honor, now lost. Yet in full cognizance of the deception that, with Ortrude, his actions sustain, he enlists four nobles to strive with him against his new rival.

To compound the pathos of Elsa’s innocence, she tries to befriend Ortrude, even as Elsa is being undone by Ortrude’s insinuations. She pities Ortrude’s destitution, assuming that her husband invented the accusations from which Elsa was miraculously delivered. She invites Ortrude to join with her in the wedding procession at the cathedral and makes Ortrude her maid of honor. In return, as Elsa’s bridal procession is entering the cathedral, Ortrude and Telramund block the procession and demand to know the name and origin of the groom. Lohengrin’s enigmatic reply is that he is bound to no one, save Elsa, for an answer. Since she, in good faith on her agreement, refuses to ask the forbidden question, King Heinrich and the people of Brabant conclude that the wedding is legitimate and that it shall proceed.

It is clear in the story from which the composer began that Elsa’s faith is the critical factor in her relation to the figure of her redemption. She has every reason to trust the man who confounded the lies of her accusers and saved her from death or exile. As long as she doesn’t waver on her agreement, the romance continues. Ortrude and Telramund are now again in disgrace. The bride and groom retire to their nuptial bed. All is well until Elsa’s trust gives way to the suspicions planted in her by Ortrude. She begins to probe his anonymity. He first evades her queries then reminds her of her vow. She persists, and her inquisitiveness becomes more intent on having an answer. At the critical moment, when she finally insists on knowing her husband’s name and lineage, Telramund and his cohorts storm the house. Telramund’s sword is of no avail even in ambush, and Lohengrin slays him. Instead of the sexual evocation of a Wagnerian climax, this thrust disgorges Telrumund’s entrails on the bridal bed. A determined foe has been slain, but Elsa’s question has dislodged the balance that secures her place of safety in the universe of this drama. Her husband sadly tells her that he will publicly give answers to her questions.

In the morning, the assembled people of Brabant learn the name and status of their guardian. His song begins as the strings evoke the transcendent realm of his origin. “In far off land, to mortal feet forbidden, there is a castle, Monsalvat by name.” In the ethos of medieval chivalry Monsalvat is the sanctuary of the Holy Grail, the sacred challis Jesus shared with his disciples when he instituted the Eucharistic memorial of his death. The Holy Grail appears from the world of Celtic myth in Welsh legendary tales of The Mabinogion. Sir Thomas Malory continued the rich tradition in English literature with his tales of King Arthur’s Round Table. On the European continent the grail legend had a life of its own. An unfinished 12th-century poem by the French poet Chrétien de Troyes, describes the discovery of the grail by Parsifal. Wagner’s interpretation of the Grail motif comes from an epic by the 13th century German poet Wolfram von Eschenbach. In Spain Cervantes began writing a parody of chivalric ideals in Don Quixote only to find himself captivated by chivalry in the end.

So, in the first utterances of his song, Elsa’s defender and the acclaimed guardian of Brabant identifies his nobility as transcendent in origin. He is a knight of the Holy Grail. His strength comes from participation in a divine order that shares the mystery of the blood of Christ in the castle Monsalvat. “A gleaming temple therein is hidden, so rich as nothing on earth could frame/ Therein a cup most holy powers possessing/ Is guarded as a gift of heaven’s love/ To be to sinless men a boon and blessing/ It was brought to us by angels from above/ And every year a dove descends from Heaven/ The mystic might within it to resolve/ It’s called the Grail/ And purest faith it lendeth to all the knights who in its service strive/ He whom the Grail to be its servant chooses/ It arms with holy supernatural might/ Opposed to him deceit its magic loses/ The powers of darkness he can put to flight/ Though in distant lands the Grail may send him, the cause of injured virtue to defend/ Holy might will attend him, while unknown to all he can remain/ The art that in the Grail is hidden/ Its light no mortal eye can gaze upon/ From every doubt its knight must be protected/ If recognized, he must at once be gone/ Thus compelled, now I reveal my sacred story/ The Grail’s servant to you I hither came/ My father Parsifal reigns in his glory/ His knight I am/ And Lohengrin my name.” The crescendo in the brass and trumpet flourish that attends this revelation leaves no doubt of Wagner’s intent. He understood this story very well and the effect it would have on his audience. King Heinrich sheds a tear, and Elsa laments paradise lost. Aware that his hope of love in this world is also lost, Lohengrin grieves with Elsa that her sincere remorse is vain. The people of Brabant are bereft of their guardian. Against King Heinrich’s entreaty Lohengrin explains that should he, in disobedience, seek to remain, his power would be gone and his cause would fail. He reassures Heinrich with a premonition: the Eastern horde will not prevail against German lands.

To everyone’s dismay, the swan returns on the River Scheldt. In Lohengrin’s greeting another mystery begins to unravel. If Lohnegrin had been able to remain one year in Brabant, Elsa’s brother Gottfried would have been released from the servitude to which he is bound by Ortrud’s magic. Lohengrin gives Elsa his sword and horn and a ring, which, should Gottfried ever return, will give him strength in battle, succor in danger, and remind him of the one who took up their cause. With this, it is time to say, “Lebwohl”. In the tradition of Knights errant, and rangers in American Westerns, Lohengrin must depart to find service elsewhere and to others. As he heads up the riverbank to the boat, Ortrud explicates the mystery of Gottfried’s fate. She verifies, by the gold chain around the swan’s throat, observable to all, that this swan is Gottfried transformed. The true heir to the throne of Brabant is now engaged hence. This, she says, is vengeance from the gods of the Norse pantheon on apostasy by the Christian dynasty of Brabant. But the Grail has one final consolation. Lohengrin kneels in silent prayer, and the white dove of Monsalvat hovers over the boat. Lohengrin perceives it with gratitude and springs up to unfasten the chain from the swan’s throat. The swan sinks into the water, and Lohengrin lifts to the bank a youth in gleaming silver garments. Ortrud collapses with a shriek, and Lohengrin steps onto the boat. The dove seizes the gold chain and draws it off Gottfried’s neck while Elsa gazes on him with rapture. He makes obeisance to King Heinrich. The men of the community kneel in homage to Gottfried. He hastens to Elsa’s arms, and she, in joy, turns hastily toward the shore, but Lohengrin is gone.

Wagner didn’t invent this story, but it is his rendition that endures in the modern world. The opera is one of the standards of companies with the resources to mount a production. Singers still aspire to the vocal challenges it presents. The familiar motifs of an inspired quest in defense of the powerless continue in modified form in cinematic drama, and, of course, every film score uses techniques Wagner invented or adapted for his purposes. In the productions of Lohengrin being mounted, however, many directors try to mute the clear demarcation between good and evil evident in the work. In an unsigned essay in a subscribers booklet circulated prior to Seattle Opera’s 2004 production, the author calls Ortrud a “rationalist”. Ortrud is clearly the force for evil in the drama, yet this writer asks, under the heading Wagner’s Moral Complexities, “How do we know Ortrud is so wicked? Her questions about Lohengrin are perfectly sensible. And if her tactics seem ruthless, remember that Ortrud truly believes that the throne is rightfully hers, that it was usurped from her family by Elsa’s. And why do we believe Lohengrin is so wonderful? The trial-by-combat scene in which he defeats Telramund, although sanctioned by King Henry’s medieval government, was as barbaric and foreign to Wagner’s audience as Ortrud’s black magic. By putting this scene onstage, Wagner was asking: Does might make right?”

This analysis is missing a salient theme in medieval literature. At the heart of the Grail legend and the chivalric code is the idea of might for right. If Ortrud is fighting for what she thinks is rightfully hers, she has no moral compunction about destroying the innocent in her ambition. In this vein one might also say of Lady Macbeth that she is fighting for what she thinks is rightfully hers. The opera Lohengrin is not morally complex. Though the composer certainly was morally compromised, he found truths in his art that were probably beyond him. The essayist, still anonymous, unlike Lohengrin, says “Wagner’s Lohengrin uses this popular pattern, and this old story, to talk about a central issue of the day: the crisis of faith in nineteenth-century Europe. During Wagner’s lifetime, the rise of science, technology, and industry were shaking to its foundations people’s faith in the church, long the mainstay of European society. Wagner shows us how Elsa’s pure faith in Lohengrin’s virtue evaporates when she listens seriously to the intelligent questions of Ortrud, who is competing with Lohengrin for power over the community. Ever the rationalist, Ortrud demands proof, and Lohengrin’s powerful mystique, penetrated by her piercing light of logical inquiry, turns out to be airy nothing.” Ortrud the rationalist! This is akin to calling her invocations of the Norse deities Logical Positivism—absurd. Elsa’s fragile faith is an important element of the story, but in this drama, at least, the church isn’t in crisis. The crisis is, indeed, correctly identified as within the human soul. It is a crisis of finding the spiritual resources to continue living in an unjust world, not a crisis of the church. In the world of this opera injustice is perpetrated by Ortrud and Telramund as he becomes complicit in Ortrud’s lies. You couldn’t find a less ambiguous case of false witness in the book of Leviticus.

Nietzsche admired Wagner, and for a while they were fellow travelers, but analysis of this medieval plot will be better served by leaving the Nietzschean will to power and its moral ambiguity aside. The profound and truly human question is why the innocent suffer while God remains inaccessible? The answer, in a bald-faced abstraction of the sort that is not consoling in absence of myth like that of Lohengrin, is that supernatural assistance, transparent and clearly evident to all observers, would irrevocably compromise human freedom. Despite the weight of postmodern ideology and the theory of evolution, there are moral truths, and there is some help to be found in transcendental categories. Suffering, when it has meaning, ceases to be unbearable suffering. This is a reasonable literary explanation for Lohengrin’s extraction of the promise that Elsa never ask his name or lineage. If he were to remain in Brabant after everybody knows that his strength is divinely ordained, his authority would be unquestionable, and human actions could never, for long, diverge from virtue as established by the community. The Christian Dynasty of Brabant would be eschatological. In this sense the story says the same thing as the Genesis account of the fall, and Elsa’s part resembles that of Eve under the influence of the serpent. A clearer case for archetypes in the collective unconscious could scarcely be found. Thankfully, Wagner is better dramatist than Carl Jung. Whether Wagner accepted the tale, as truth, is certainly questionable; the substance of the issue involved isn’t. Listen to the music with suspension of judgment, and draw your own conclusions. In contemporary productions, you might have to close your eyes to what they put on the stage.

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Beethoven in Buenos Aires

It was the audience that made this performance remarkable.

I attended a performance of Beethoven’s 9th symphony this evening, presented by the Symphonic Orchestra of Buenos Aires and the National Polyphonic Chorale, at the Facultad de Derecho (University of Rights) in central Buenos Aires. I learned of the performance from a 1-inch ad in today’s La Nacion. The admission was free. (I was unable to pick up a program at the end of the concert and so cannot list the name of the conductor or soloists.)

I arrived at the Facultad de Derecho by cab at 7:40 for the 8:00 performance. The cab dropped me off at the side door to the University building and I entered a maze of hallways covered with huge, handwritten signs: “Crisis in the Proletariat”, “Down with All Laws” and filled with students milling about. I walked upstairs and found myself in a polished lobby featuring over-sized Greek statuary and two concentric circles of about 400 people, double file, waiting to enter the auditorium. I joined the queue, suddenly concerned that I might not make it into the auditorium. The line moved quickly, though, and within ten minutes I was within sight of the one door opening into the performance space. There were another 400 people still behind me in line.

As I approached the door the ushers opened all of the entrances into the auditorium at once and the 400 people behind me pushed laterally into the concert hall. It was chaotic, as all of the seats in the auditorium were already filled and I sought to assess the situation and make a quick decision as to where to go. The front aisle was closed since the stage abutted up against the front seats. The back aisle was clogged with people sitting on the floor. I crawled across people’s feet and winter coats in an effort to reach the side of the auditorium. All three empty seats I had seen and sought out turned out to be “reserved” for family members. I pushed out again into the hallway and ran up the stairs to the balcony only to find all of the seats and aisles there filled as well. I managed to push into the auditorium, however, and stood, facing in the direction of the stage.

As people “settled in” I gradually was able to find a 10-inch space at the bannister overlooking the stage where I could stand sideways and look over my right shoulder at the orchestra. I considered how long the concert would seem to my feet since I’d already spent 5 hours before the concert walking the streets of Buenos Aires as a tourist. I decided to stay, however, thinking that, as might happen in the United States, after about 20 minutes of the concert, some of the audience might leave and there would be room to sit. (It turned out I was mistaken).

Eventually I had enough room at the bannister to hop up and sit down. It was a precarious perch, as the crowd in front of me moved in to take over the floor space I had vacated. Should I lose my balance backwards, it was a 5 1/2 foot drop to people sitting on the stairs below. Fifteen minutes into the first movement my left leg fell asleep. I considered the wisdom of sitting for an hour and a half with a leg asleep and decided that the concert might end with my having a blood clot. I bumped 5 people as I stepped down again off of the bannister.

The orchestra gave what was, in many ways, an unremarkable performance.

But it was the audience that made this performance remarkable.

Midway through the first movement, I turned my head away from the stage to rest my shoulders and neck. I looked straight ahead of me out into the stairwell. People were standing as far as I could see into the blackness of the wings, facing a stage they could not see, some of them with their eyes closed, listening attentively and with intention, rapt in the music. I turned back toward the rest of the balcony. 50% of the audience was between the ages of 15 and 30. 9- and 10-year olds (and 70- and 80-year olds alike) stood at the bannisters overlooking the orchestra.

No one was “dressed for the occasion.” All were dressed in everyday clothes, women in velveteen pant suits, men in sports coats with no ties, teenagers in jeans and sweatshirts, many in work clothes. They stood, holding their winter coats and scarves or sat in the aisles and on the stairs, jackets in their arms — a 5-year old, dressed in a blue nylon jacket and white tennis shoes was perched, stage right, on a covered 9-foot piano pushed to the side of the stage, her back (and pigtails) to the audience. (Only in the fourth movement, when she became restless, did her grandfather stand her on the stage. She faced the audience and, silently, danced to “Freude, Freude”.)

The orchestra played as a good, regional professional orchestra in the United States would. Their conductor, in his 70’s, guided, rather than commanded, them (although he conducted the work, accurately, from memory.) The tempi were unremarkable, the interpretive decisions “middle-of-the-road”. (There were even a couple of distressing moments in the scherzo when the ensemble was doubtful.) The slow movement was straightforward and direct, not artful or even overly expressive. Even the last movement seemed craftsmanlike and sincere, not enthusiastic or driven. (The Chorale was very fine indeed — 70 voices — strong, disciplined and comfortable with the score.)

But it was the audience that made this performance remarkable.

This was a knowledgeable working class audience. This was the audience Beethoven would have intended the symphony for. Crowded in a university lecture hall (probably 1100 people in a space which would legally seat 750), heavy with old drapes, wooden seats with old upholstery, over-varnished bannisters and floors — a fire trap with two small exits on stage. A multi-generational audience of common people, drawn to the common experience of a live performance, come straight from work on a Friday evening — quiet, disciplined, intent.

As the performance ended I was caught off guard by the emotion — a roar of humanity, shouting bravo and applauding for a 4-minute ovation. I was surprised to find tears in my eyes and on my face. This was not the slightly patronizing ovation of a “family” audience applauding their well-meaning neighbors — this was the ovation of an audience moved by the straightforward, workmanly performance of a masterpiece — and audience that shared the emotions of the masterpiece and valued its art form. This was an audience that was, unintentionally, passing its appreciation on to the next generation — an audience where class was not the distinguishing factor and where there was no artificiality. It was the audience that made this performance remarkable.

Beethoven spoke directly to their hearts.

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Beethoven on Justice, Human and Divine

This post was written by Michael Dodaro, and posted on June 22, 2008 | Filed Under culture, religion, music and religion, music | Double-click any word for more info | View other posts by Michael Dodaro | Leave a Comment | For info on this author, visit http://operaciv.blogspot.com/

In the year of the premier of Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro Beethoven was sixteen years old. The innovator who took classic musical forms into new territory only wrote one opera, and it has been eclipsed by the brilliance of his nine symphonies. In contemporary productions the opera is known as Fidelio, after the pseudonym of the courageous wife of Florestan, who is a political prisoner under a corrupt administration. It can be seen as visionary art on Schiller’s model wherein art leads in the creation of a civic religion undergirding human rights and freedom. Leonora finds a way to subvert Governor Pizarro’s intent to murder her husband, whom Pizarro has unjustly imprisoned. Like Mozart, Beethoven lived during the birth of the modern era. Beethoven’s Third Symphony, Eroica, was originally dedicated to Napoleon before the general, on the success of his wars of liberation, became a tyrant himself. Beethoven then withdrew the original dedication of his music.

The subject of Beethoven’s opera was derived from a play by Bouilly called Leonore, or, Conjugal Love. The opera was first performed in Vienna on November 20, 1805. The vocal parts are so difficult that the first cast complained they were impossible to sing. The city of Vienna was in disarray because the French had occupied it several days before the premier, and most of the city’s music patrons had fled. The plot of the opera turns on the rectification of injustice by a noble woman who disguises herself as a boy called Fidelio. She gains employment in the prison where her husband Florestan is incarcerated and held in solitary confinement. Under threat of the impending visit of a prison inspector who might discover Pizarro’s plot, Pizarro tries to persuade the warden Rocco to murder Florestan. Rocco refuses but agrees to dig his grave if Pizarro will commit the crime.

Leonora overhears the rudiments of the plot and suspects that her husband is the intended victim. Her plight is made clear in the aria she sings after Pizarro and Rocco exit. Pizzaro’s fury is incomprehensible to her, but she clings to transcendent hope beyond the darkening clouds.

Come to me, hope, let not the last star
That guides the weary fade from sight
Be it ever so far, light my goal,
Sweet love, that I may reach it

I follow my inner desire
I waver not
I am strengthened by the duty
Of true married love

To make sure married love is understood for the courage and vigor it inspires in Leonora, Beethoven repeats and extends the phrase and the word Gattenliebe through the final thirty two bars of the aria.

Ich folg dem innern Triebe
Ich wanke nicht
Mich stärke die Pflicht
Der treuen Gattenliebe

Leonora persuades Rocco to allow her to accompany him to the darkest cell. Before they descend, however, the prisoners are allowed briefly into the sunlight for exercise in the prison yard. The prisoners’ chorus is another expression of spiritual perseverance against injustice. The singing as prisoners come out of the darkness of their cells into daylight is like a chorus of souls liberated from hell. A solo tenor voice accentuates the only basis for hope.

Trusting we shall ever
Count on help from God
Hope whispers softly
We shall be free
We shall find peace

Pizarro is informed by an officer that the prisoners have been granted this moment of air and sunlight, and he comes in to angrily interrogate Rocco for taking this liberty. Rocco deflects his anger, telling him it is in celebration of the King’s festival and that it will keep everyone occupied while the man still in his cell dies. Pizzaro tells Rocco to go down and dig his grave. As the act concludes, the prisoners are sent back to their cells, and Rocco and Leonora prepare for their descent.

The final act begins in the darkness of Florestan’s cell. Florestan’s aria is among the most difficult in the repertoire. For most of the dramatic tenors in the world in any generation it is impossible. Beginning on a sustained G with the words: God, what darkness here! it is the contemplation of a man who has had the courage to speak truthfully against evil and now finds himself in chains. He takes consolation in having done his duty and commits his fate into God’s hands.

Oh painful trial!
But God’s will is just
I complain not
This allotment of sorrow
Is in thy hands

A key change signals the vision of Leonora coming to console him, light in the darkness, the breath of a murmuring breeze, an angel like Leonora in rose colored mist. The new theme ascends repeatedly into the upper extremes of the tenor range. Stentorian B naturals accent the phrase. My angel Leonora, my wife, leading me to freedom in the heavenly domain.

Ich seh, wie ein Engel im rosigen Duft
Ein Engel sich tröstend zur Seite mir stellet
Ein Engel Leonora, Leonoren, der Gattin so gleich
Der, der führt mich zur Freiheit ins himmlische Reich
Der, der führt mich zur Freiheit ins himmlische Reich
Zur Freiheit ins Himmlische Reich
Zur Freiheit ins Himmlische Reich

The exultation of the vision dispels the gloom for while before the prisoner sinks back down on the floor.

During the interval Leonora and Rocco have been descending into the darkness of the prison. Florestan sees the visitors as another hopeful sign and calls to them. While Leonora tries to determine if this is her husband, he sings, You will be repaid in a better world. Heaven has sent you to me. Once inside the cell, Leonora recognizes her husband, even while helping Rocco to dig the grave being prepared for him. Rocco gives Florestan a little wine and a piece of bread.

Pizarro descends into the dungeon brandishing a knife. He tells the prisoner he will die, but first he must recognize the man whom his testimony was intended to depose. Pizarro throws off his cloak and says, “The avenger now stands before you.” He attempts to stab the prisoner, but Leonora throws herself between Pizarro and Florestan, declaring that she is the wife of the prisoner who will expose the plot. Pizarro in rage is about to kill both of them, but Leonora draws a pistol and threatens to use it. At the critical moment the inspector arrives heralded by trumpets. Pizarro runs out to meet his superior officer. Florestan and Leonora embrace.

The ensuing dialogue leaves little doubt about the outcome. Rocco recognizes his freedom no longer to serve the tyrant Pizarro and cries, God be praised! Leonora and Florestan sing, the hour of retribution has come. Unspeakable sorrows now end in overwhelming joy!

The high ranking inspector liberates the prisoners, all victims of Pizarro’s tyranny. They sing, Justice, arm in arm with mercy, appears at the door of our grave. The inspector recognizes his lost friend Florestan, now in chains. He begins to unlock the shackles, but then turns to Leonora. The woman who saved her husband’s life should be the one to set him free.

Beethoven rewrote the overture to the opera Fidelio, entitled Leonora, four times. It has such nobility in its own right that it is often played as a concert piece. Yet none of the early performances of this opera were successful. Weber tried to revive it in Prague where it was again badly received. During Beethoven’s lifetime it was never recognized as the masterpiece it is now acknowledged to be. Beethoven said God never deserted him. Apparently, in faith like that of Florestan in chains, he was able to accept God’s will.

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