| Friday,
April 23, 2010 We went to the LA Opera last night. Franz
Schreker's Die Gezeichneten (The Stigmatized), written in 1910 and opening
in 1918. According to the program notes, this opera "established [Schreker]
as the preeminent opera composer of his generation, whose works would
dominate the stages of central Europe in the years after the First World
War."
Couldn't prove it by me. I had never heard of him, which is probably my
failing, but this 2010 production of The Stigmatized was the first
production of any Schrecker opera in the United States, and it was produced
here as part of the "Recovered Voices" program that sought to bring out of
hiding the works condemned by National Socialism as "Degenerate Art" and
suppressed. Schrecker was turned out of his post at the major Berlin
conservatory in 1933, and his works were certainly suppressed after that.
Perhaps, had he like Brecht and Schoenberg and Korngold come to the
United States -- to Hollywood -- he might have had his premier
earlier. Schoenberg and Schrecker were turned out at about the same time,
but Schrecker died of a stroke not long afterwards.
I would not have thought that Schrecker was the preeminent opera composer
of his generation, but I am no expert. In any event, I didn't much care for
this one. That may be my failing, but I note that the LA audience, which
gives everything a standing ovation, didn't stand until the popular
conductor Condon was brought on stage, and even then many kept their seats.
Also, about a third of the patrons were gone when Act III opened. My own
dislike is generic: I don't much like operas in which there are no arias and
duets, and what you hear is sung dialogue with music background -- like
watching a movie with great background music, but the actors sing their
lines to no particular tune or melody. This reminded me of Thea Musgrave's
Voice of Ariadne, which I didn't like much either, for the same reason. I
understand that it's old fashioned curmudgeonry to want at least one tune or
theme to remember, but there it is.
In any event, if the music of the lines isn't memorable, then the lines
and story have to carry the event, and Schrecker was a thorough Freudian.
Real Freudians don't believe that anything people do makes sense, and that
was certainly the case here. There wasn't a rational act in the entire
performance. People did just what they pleased, and what they pleased
changed by the quarter hour. Useless nobles kidnapped and raped at whim, but
one shouldn't judge them for that. The daughter of the condotierri captain
is in danger of being kidnapped but the Podesta isn't concerned. All kinds
of crazy things happen. The girl seduces the hunchback, but then spurns him
for a ne'er do well who condescends to be in love (at first sight) with a
mere bourgeois girl even if she is the daughter of the commanding officer of
the city's entire military force in war time. The hunchback (born noble)
realizes that his noble friends are rapists and pederasts, but one shouldn't
judge, one shouldn't judge. He won't take part in their festivities, but he
won't blow the whistle on them either. The townspeople will just have to get
used to losing a girl or two a week.
And yet. I'm not sorry to have seen it. My hearing isn't what it should
be and is getting a lot worse, so I have no right to opinions about anything
at all subtle. The theme notes from Forza del Destino (which Schrecker at
one point pays an homage to) are about as subtle as I'm likely to appreciate
now. People with much better hearing than me tell me there are some glorious
passages in Schrecker's background music. Alas, while I understand a bit of
German, I had to keep looking up at the translations, so I missed much of
the interplay between the poetry and the acting. The acting was done well,
and the staging was interesting given that Director Ian Judge was stuck with
the huge highly raked rotating stage in dead center (it's needed for
Wagner's Ring and it costs too much to strike and reassemble).
The singers were great, given that mostly they didn't have any great
music to sing. They were good actors, and they looked the part (mostly: with
equal opportunity at work, we get Koreans as nobles in Medieval Genoa, so
one does have to suspend disbelief a bit). All told it was an interesting
experience and I don't regret it.
But I sure don't remember any melodies.
================
Obama seems to be saying that the new regulations will stick
it to the man and put Main Street in charge of Wall Street. Given that the
principal architects of the plan, and the principal lobbyists for it, are
all part of Wall Street, and the thrust of the proposed laws is to restrict
entry into Wall Street to those already there, this is pretty clearly not
true. This is one more instance of capitalists using government to restrict
competition, and make permanent oligopolies by making it impossible for
anyone new to become competitive. So it goes.
=============
ICCC-4 announcement
Today we have more Arctic Ocean ice than any time on
this date for the past 9 years of Aqua satellite measurement for this
AMSRE dataset.
http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/en/home/seaice_extent.htm NASA’s
Goddard Institute for Space Studies has positive temperature anomolies in
the Arctic. I wonder why?
Joe
I am very curious: can anyone explain to me why the warmest
winter in a thousand years produced so much ice? Have I misunderstood the
connections between temperature and ice?
==========
Fred on Health Care:
(see above)
I usually read Fred’s writing for the same reason I
read your columns (and mail) – it generally makes me think. After reading
Fred’s latest post, I’m reminded that while the health care south of the
border is praiseworthy, Mr. Reed DID return to the States last year for
his eye surgery. I haven’t seen or read any explanation for this.
Nat Proctor
I asked Fred and he says the Navy paid for his operation. He
also says:
A fair number of people seem to think that I'm
claiming perfection for Mexican medicine, when actually I (pretty clearly)
offered a snapshot as we see it here. But malpractice suits mean
malpractice insurance, means much higher prices and CYA MRIs and and so on
for sinus infections. Most Mexicans can't afford it.
FWIW, perhaps because of competition from "free"
national medicine, doctors here don't seem to work on the rape-the-public
approach of the US. When Vi and I were recently in the US near Fort Meade,
she had a garden-variety ear ache. A shopping-wall walk-in weekend clinic
wanted $150 for an appointment to tell her to take over a hundred bucks of
medicines, when all she needed, from long experience, was thirty 250mg
capsules of amoxicillin, $6 generic in Mexico, prescription usually not
needed about three bucks.
When I needed Muro, opthalmic salt water for corneal
edema, the Bausch and Lomb product in DC cost $23. In Mexico, about $5.59,
the generic, under $3. Identical product, from B^L. It's a scam.
Fred
When I asked if I could publish that, since this is a
serious subject, and I am looking for a defensible position, I got
Publish away.
It is a serious subject. As for a defensible
position, I don't know what one might be. I know for a fact that a lot of
retirees here rely on IMSS; there is a table at the lake Chapala Society
that signs them up. On the site of the US Consulate in Guad there is
somewhere a long list of specialists and hospital recommended for gringos.
While the free--"free"--clinics here don't offer Mt. Sinai level care,
they come a hell of a lot closer than most Americans would believe, and on
a tiny fraction of the expense.
Fred
I also have
Fred writes a big column on how much cheaper
everything is South Of The Border. Yes, yes, very nice, what happens when
you try to sue a doctor for malpractice?
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/
articles/PMC1188117/pdf/bmj33100448.pdf
Turns out that the Mexican Government has mandated
that all malpractice complaints be reviewed by "Conamed", a
government-established arbitration board. No lawyers, no court dates, no
"expert witnesses" who aren't actually doctors (but _did_ stay at a
Holiday Inn last night.)
-- Mike T. Powers
And it is certainly the case that any health care reform must address the
antics of the tort bar. Alas in all those thousands of pages in the Act,
this isn't taken up.
=================
Volcano buffs will find this interesting. It's also terrifying
Supervolcano: How humanity survived its darkest hour
http://www.newscientist.com/
article/mg20627561.300-
supervolcano-how-humanity-
survived-its-darkest-hour.html
Impressive photo, ash and lightning above an
icelandic volcano
<http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap100419.html>
Mike Morris
And the Sun is very quiet (http://www.solarcycle24.com/).
I predict cooling this year. Particularly in the Northern hemisphere.
===============
Jonah Goldberg: "Dude, if I was a Viking living in Iceland a thousand
years ago, and I saw
some of this stuff, I would be pretty sure that Thor was angry at Loki
again, or maybe he was mad at Tanngrisnir and Tanngnjóstr. But I would be
pretty sure there was an angry god of some kind in that volcano."
http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/
2010/04/more_from_eyjafjallajokull.html
Of course that should be if I were, but they don't teach real English
now. Ah well. He's right of course. If you like open comments, there
are plenty of them after the pictures. Thanks to Joanne Dow for finding this
for us.
==============
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