Opera for Beginners (Part 3 of 3)
Aug. 6th, 2019 09:31 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cahnI talked about Opera for Beginners for my family reunion talk and used much of the advice I was given here, thank you! :)
-I brought speakers, because there isn't much use in giving an opera talk if you can't hear the music! The hilarious thing was that I was not the only one who had audio/audiovisual components to my presentation, but I was the only one who had brought speakers. I had been a little bitter about lugging them all around Montana, but less so when they turned out to be broadly useful :) What was more irritating was that after they worked fine when I tried them out in my office, they didn't work at all for a while when I was trying to give the talk. Finally my cousin's teenager, who was acting as unofficial tech support, suggested rebooting as a last resort, and of course that worked. Sigh.
-A couple of people mentioned talking about where one might go looking for opera. My biggest recommendations to a newbie are the following:
1.The Chandos Opera in English CDs, without which I would still hate opera today. I highly highly recommend all the Mozart ones, particularly the da Ponte operas (Marriage of Figaro, Don Giovanni, Cosi fan tutte), and the bel canto comedies (e.g., Barber of Seville, The Elixir of Love), and dis-recommend their Verdi except Don Carlos (for some reason Verdi tends to come out a bit muddled). Their French opera also seems to be very good, and I absolutely adore their Eugene Onegin (which stars Thomas Hampson and Kiri te Kanawa).
2. Met On Demand, which comes with a free 7-day trial. People who know a lot about opera rag on the Met for not being adventurous in its staging and concept, which, fair, but for a beginner, in my opinion, that's exactly what you want, and you can't do better than the Met for gorgeous staging and costumes, great singers, and great videography, which I didn't even know would affect me until I started watching a bunch of these... and... it does actually make a huge difference when watching video. (Watching live is, of course, different.)
-I showed several clips, one of which was a 3-minute clip of Kaufmann/Hampson/Salminen in the auto-da-fe scene from Don Carlo. (Alagna/Keenlyside/Furlanetto is still the whole version of Don Carlo I would recommend, but for auto-da-fe out of context I thought the former was better, not least because it didn't have a giant weeping Jesus in the background.) I explained beforehand the background about how Posa is Prince Carlo's best friend but also has the relationship where he has sworn fealty to King Philip. (I have uploaded the clip here (google drive video clip, ~3 minutes) --mildredofmidgard, I know music/opera is Not Your Thing but this is the moment in Don Carlo I was talking about, check it out) and my big triumph, as far as I am concerned, is that when the clip ended my cousin cried out, "Oh, that's so sad!" MY WORK HERE IS DONE.
-My other great triumph was that E was curious about what I said about Don Giovanni. Being her, she could not care less about Don G himself -- she was perfectly content with a limited understanding that he was the Bad Guy -- but she was particularly interested in what I said about Don G coming to a sticky end, and asked about it the next day. Once I further explained that there was a singing statue and that in many productions Don G disappeared into flames with the statue at the end, both she and A really wanted to watch it, so that afternoon we all snuggled up on the couch and watched "Don Giovanni, a cenar teco" (this one with Rodney Gilfrey) and they still ask for "the statue opera" on occasion. (That's the only part they have watched or are interested in watching, or that I am interested in playing for them, until they're a lot older. Well, okay, "O statua gentilissima," but that's along the same lines.)
-Since you guys said it was fun for people to recognize music in opera, another short clip I showed was from Thais, because, well, I don't know if it's all Koreans or just my particular family, but all our extended relatives LOOOOOVE Meditation from Thais and all of us cousins who play violin (or piano, if that cousin happened to be near one of the cousins who played violin) have had to play that song approximately six million times, every time a third cousin twice removed came to visit. There was much groaning when the melody was revealed :)
-It turns out my aunt (uncle's wife) really likes opera!!!! We are already making plans to go to Salzburg or Italy sometime and watch opera :D (well, pipe dreams right now... I certainly wouldn't go until my kids are older)
(Part 1 was where I asked for help; Part 2 was an outtake of this post about emoting in opera)
-I brought speakers, because there isn't much use in giving an opera talk if you can't hear the music! The hilarious thing was that I was not the only one who had audio/audiovisual components to my presentation, but I was the only one who had brought speakers. I had been a little bitter about lugging them all around Montana, but less so when they turned out to be broadly useful :) What was more irritating was that after they worked fine when I tried them out in my office, they didn't work at all for a while when I was trying to give the talk. Finally my cousin's teenager, who was acting as unofficial tech support, suggested rebooting as a last resort, and of course that worked. Sigh.
-A couple of people mentioned talking about where one might go looking for opera. My biggest recommendations to a newbie are the following:
1.The Chandos Opera in English CDs, without which I would still hate opera today. I highly highly recommend all the Mozart ones, particularly the da Ponte operas (Marriage of Figaro, Don Giovanni, Cosi fan tutte), and the bel canto comedies (e.g., Barber of Seville, The Elixir of Love), and dis-recommend their Verdi except Don Carlos (for some reason Verdi tends to come out a bit muddled). Their French opera also seems to be very good, and I absolutely adore their Eugene Onegin (which stars Thomas Hampson and Kiri te Kanawa).
2. Met On Demand, which comes with a free 7-day trial. People who know a lot about opera rag on the Met for not being adventurous in its staging and concept, which, fair, but for a beginner, in my opinion, that's exactly what you want, and you can't do better than the Met for gorgeous staging and costumes, great singers, and great videography, which I didn't even know would affect me until I started watching a bunch of these... and... it does actually make a huge difference when watching video. (Watching live is, of course, different.)
-I showed several clips, one of which was a 3-minute clip of Kaufmann/Hampson/Salminen in the auto-da-fe scene from Don Carlo. (Alagna/Keenlyside/Furlanetto is still the whole version of Don Carlo I would recommend, but for auto-da-fe out of context I thought the former was better, not least because it didn't have a giant weeping Jesus in the background.) I explained beforehand the background about how Posa is Prince Carlo's best friend but also has the relationship where he has sworn fealty to King Philip. (I have uploaded the clip here (google drive video clip, ~3 minutes) --
mildredofmidgard, I know music/opera is Not Your Thing but this is the moment in Don Carlo I was talking about, check it out) and my big triumph, as far as I am concerned, is that when the clip ended my cousin cried out, "Oh, that's so sad!" MY WORK HERE IS DONE.-My other great triumph was that E was curious about what I said about Don Giovanni. Being her, she could not care less about Don G himself -- she was perfectly content with a limited understanding that he was the Bad Guy -- but she was particularly interested in what I said about Don G coming to a sticky end, and asked about it the next day. Once I further explained that there was a singing statue and that in many productions Don G disappeared into flames with the statue at the end, both she and A really wanted to watch it, so that afternoon we all snuggled up on the couch and watched "Don Giovanni, a cenar teco" (this one with Rodney Gilfrey) and they still ask for "the statue opera" on occasion. (That's the only part they have watched or are interested in watching, or that I am interested in playing for them, until they're a lot older. Well, okay, "O statua gentilissima," but that's along the same lines.)
-Since you guys said it was fun for people to recognize music in opera, another short clip I showed was from Thais, because, well, I don't know if it's all Koreans or just my particular family, but all our extended relatives LOOOOOVE Meditation from Thais and all of us cousins who play violin (or piano, if that cousin happened to be near one of the cousins who played violin) have had to play that song approximately six million times, every time a third cousin twice removed came to visit. There was much groaning when the melody was revealed :)
-It turns out my aunt (uncle's wife) really likes opera!!!! We are already making plans to go to Salzburg or Italy sometime and watch opera :D (well, pipe dreams right now... I certainly wouldn't go until my kids are older)
(Part 1 was where I asked for help; Part 2 was an outtake of this post about emoting in opera)
Re: Fredersdorf
Date: 2019-09-09 07:51 pm (UTC)In 1729/1730, Fritz didn't *know* he and Katte were going to be reprising tragedies from antiquity. So while he might have chosen a nickname for Katte signaling "bestest and most loyal friend ever," he might also have chosen any number of other nicknames. And if I, as author, choose one that foreshadows Katte's death and Fritz's reaction to it so blatantly, that's just a little heavy-handed, and I would raise an eyebrow if another fanfic author did it.
Now, granted, this sort of thing happened in real life, just because Achilles and Patroclus were so popular as role models: see also, Alexander and Hephaestion. (And yes, Fritz also used Hephaestion as a nickname.)
But, as they say, the difference between fiction and real life is that real life doesn't have to be plausible. And I would like my fiction to be a little more subtle than "over-the-top foreshadowing."
Now, if the nickname is first applied *after* 1730, then, sure, Fritz would have gone for the most obvious possible candidate, and there are several, including my list of P---'s. But I was thinking, and you couldn't know this, of my one canon-compliant fic, where I want some foreshadowing but not too much.
That said, there are also multiple independent AUs in progress, so if we say that Fritz hasn't nicknamed him before 1730, Pythias would work *really* well for the AU where FW chooses not to order Katte's execution. (Huh, apparently Schiller did a take on Damon & Pythias. Is there an opera? Does it have Keenlyside? :P)
In the successful escape attempt AU, well, if I were Fritz, I would wait until FW is dead of natural causes before nicknaming my friend Pylades, but then again Fritz has his reckless side, so why not. :P
Re: Fredersdorf
Date: 2019-09-10 08:40 am (UTC)It's "Die Bürgschaft", one of those long ballads you have to learn by heart. Or had to, I'm not sure it's still done in current day schools. (I'm turning 50 this month, mes amis.) I don't have a sung version from you, but I do have legendary actor Oskar Werner (known in the English speaking world probablyl mostly for his roles in "The spy who came in from the cold", "Ship of Fools" and "Fahrenheit 451") reciting it, which you should listen to, because half the appeal of Schiller (and one reason why I'm not keen on the Gutenberg translation of Don Carlos Cahn read) is the sound, as he wrote such beautiful German. "Word arias" is the term often used. And Werner was a superb "singer" of Schillerian poetry. Listen to it here.
Franz Schubert also composed an actual, musical score to this ballad, and
ETA: Keep forgetting to ask this - re: therapist for Fritz, I've seen at least two German movies where Bach gets that role. As in: he's the good dad in an era of bad dads (with FW obviously the worst), his son worked for Fritz, and they did historically meet. Said meeting is then lengthened to an impromptu therapy session after Fritz sends all the courtiers away. Now, Bach with 20-something children did have practice as a (good) father figure, but as to whether he'd been ready to deal with Fritz' issues?
Re: Fredersdorf
Date: 2019-09-10 09:40 pm (UTC)Was anyone ready to deal with Fritz' issues?? ...my very, very vague understanding of Bach was that he probably would not have been quite... ready (but would anyone??) though I guess they could well have bonded over music. Though did you see
Re: Fredersdorf
Date: 2019-09-10 10:15 pm (UTC)I'm deeply curious which movies.
as to whether he'd been ready to deal with Fritz' issues?
Oof. Well, my two cents. When you're talking someone who needs therapy, any good relationship can be *therapeutic*. In fact, quality of interpersonal relationships is a major predictive factor for who gets PTSD and who doesn't. I'm pretty sure that Fritz didn't have it *worse* because he had so many people around him validating him (including two who got their influence in before Dad took an interest around age 6). FW, despite having absolute power, was an outlier in terms of his beliefs and abusive practices.
So even though Fritz got very little effective protection, he was constantly getting validation on all sides, as well as mitigation. (The number of anecdotes that can be summarized as: "FW tells X to do this awful thing; X does the bare minimum/obeys in letter more than in spirit/at least apologizes" is astounding. Even Katte's executioner refused FW twice and then was apologetic about it to Katte when FW insisted.)
So any surrogate father figure he could get would be good for him. And we know Fritz would occasionally confide in people about his trauma, e.g. "listener" Catt's memoirs (I see no reason to doubt Catt on this point).
But as for actually engaging head-on like a therapist, a few factors would have to be present.
- Fritz has to believe that a current psychological problem exists.
- He has to believe that it can be solved or at least alleviated.
- He has to believe that someone else has answers that he doesn't, or at least that he might come up with answers by talking to the right person.
- Bach has to know what he's doing, if not to come up with the right answers, then at least to guide Fritz in the right direction.
- They're gonna need more than one session for this. Fritz has the kind of problems that frequently don't get solved over a lifetime of professional therapy.
Now, Fritz knew that his father had left marks on his psyche. Not too long after Küstrin, he wrote, "They have cut deeply into the marble, and that stays for ever." He's not wrong. What he would need would be to recognize that some change is desirable and possible. I'm not sure he ever got there. If nothing else, he was a serious pessimist (again, childhood experiences playing a major role here). But I do think he was intellectually committed enough to the idea of being rational and spent enough time thinking about the interplay of emotions and reason that he *could* get there. (Fritz had the big problem of a lot of committed-to-rationality people, namely that when he's being rational everything's hunky-dory; when he's not, you'll have a hell of a time convincing him he's not.)
Then, he'd have to be willing to at least take some advice from someone else. Hoooo boy. That's where we hit a big sticking point. In that modern AU fic where he gets therapy, 1) it takes him until he's in his 50s, 2) this is a kinder, gentler, more modern Fritz, who's so different he's even capable of walking away from absolute power. It's well written, plausible, and I love it, but it's frankly OOC for historical Fritz.
So, while not knowing enough about Bach's personality to know how much he's qualified to deal with (being a good dad and surrogate dad is a wildly different skill set from being a good therapist)...here's what I think.
Fritz talking about his traumas, sure. Fritz getting validated by Bach, sure. Bach saying helpful things, sure, especially if they agree with what Fritz is already thinking. Bach getting across useful new insights...very, very dicey prospect.
If I had to take a stab at it, I feel like the way to deal with Fritz's issues would be 1) don't argue with him, 2) give him more than 74 years, 3) give him modern psychological literature to read and let him come to his own conclusions. Most of the really good work on the long-lasting effects of child trauma has been done in the last 30 years, and a lot of it has been rooted in evolutionary biology*. Mind you, we're still in the infancy of understanding how to *fix* any of it. But Fritz's mental health, intellect, and determination were robust enough that if he decided something needed to be done, he might be able to figure out a way. The point at which he decided what needed to be done would be the point at which other people could get usefully involved in the process.
* Which also leads me to wonder, is Bach going to be able to have this conversation without references to religion that are going to turn Fritz off? Because, again in our infancy of psychology, a good *rapport* between practitioner and client is a better predictor of success than most things (and if you ask me, that's because most psychotherapy taught and practiced is bunk, and even within the decent schools of thought, which are a minority, most practitioners demonstrably don't know what they're doing).
TL;DR: How many psychologists does it take to change a light bulb? Only one, but the light bulb has to want to change.
Re: Fredersdorf
Date: 2019-09-11 07:07 am (UTC)Re: historical likelihood of therapy, I agree with you, and given the importance his faith had for Bach, he probably would have said something, which, disaster ensues, etc.
Re: Fredersdorf
Date: 2019-09-11 04:06 pm (UTC)Haha, I managed to completely forget you said this after reading and replying to a bunch of comments, then found it myself anyway and was about to link
Cahn, per my usual MO of only being able to consume audiovisual media at a rate of 5 minutes every few days, I'm only a few minutes in, BUT, so far I love that we've only seen Fritz say a few sentences, and he's already managed to be dictatorial, parsimonious, and misogynistic*. Best part, the acting in this scene is coming across to me as "This is Fritz in a *good* mood!"
Fun times. :D
(I'm also finding the actor rather more physically attractive than I imagine Fritz in my head, but not so much that I have any complaints. :P In fact, I can feel my mental picture shifting, because this is too good to pass up. And yes, I have complained, vociferously, about attractiveness upgrades in other films/shows.)
* He also, accurately, doesn't respect doctors, but, like, it's the 18th century and they're cupping him, and I'm with him on that.
Mein Name ist Bach
Date: 2019-09-12 07:35 am (UTC)Now I hadn't watched Mein Name ist Bach since the original release, so I rewatched it last night to refresh my memory, and was amused how heavily it leans into the jerkass woobie interpretation of Fritz, including him making his servant roleplay himself and Katte in the middle of the night which the servant knows is a terrible idea that won't help Fritz and will only make him more upset, as per usual, but does anyway. (Otoh, the jerkass side also gets ample display, starting with his introduction. It's definitely played as "abusive survivor of abuse", though.)
Re: Mein Name ist Bach
Date: 2019-09-12 12:27 pm (UTC)For this reason, today you can go view a statue of Crown Prince Friedrich in front of the palace, because he described it as the happiest period of his life, and a few minutes' walk away, also the giant FUCK YOU obelisk from Heinrich, because compulsory roleplay. (Heinrich's also buried here.)
Otoh, the jerkass side also gets ample display, starting with his introduction.
Yeah, even the first few minutes made it clear to me this movie was not going to glamorize away the jerkass parts.
Re: Mein Name ist Bach
Date: 2019-09-13 08:05 pm (UTC)I would call that less "roleplaying" than "heh heh now I get to be the complete jerk who gives abusive orders around here!!"
Re: Mein Name ist Bach
Date: 2019-09-13 09:11 pm (UTC)Re: Mein Name ist Bach
Date: 2019-09-16 04:08 am (UTC)Re: Mein Name ist Bach
Date: 2019-09-12 12:50 pm (UTC)* And by "could imagine" I mean "have imagined, in one of my many modern AUs where he gets professional help." *cough*
I'm much more sympathetic to the fictional servant compulsory roleplay, though--it's a bad idea in an uncontrolled environment, but I can understand the urge, and in the life of someone who wasn't Fritz, or even Fritz-without-absolute-power, might actually have helped.
Re: Fredersdorf
Date: 2019-09-13 08:04 pm (UTC)