Liszt’s famous summary of Beethoven’s career – “L’adolescent, l’homme, le dieu” – accords well with what we perhaps feel ought to describe the career of any great artist: for surely, the more an artist experiences of life, the more profound and wise their vision of it must be; and the closer they are to death [...]
Posts Tagged ‘Verdi’
21 Feb
Mighty opposites
Dickensians amongst us have been celebrating the bicentenary. Some Dickens-sceptics have tried from time to time to be party-poopers, but they have been politely told to piss off. And quite right too. Personally, I rather like these anniversaries. Why pass over an excuse to celebrate the works of a writer I love? But while I [...]
20 Feb
Opera as drama
- You like opera? It’s almost as if I’d been discovered to be an aficionado of hardcore pornography. - Well, yes… I mutter apologetically. - Really? Opera? Isn’t it a bit … er … a bit… well, you know … Yes, I know. Indeed, it’s a bit. I try to explain myself. A bit. One [...]
15 Aug
Comedy is no laughing matter
Definitions are tricky things. There is so much that is more easily recognised than defined. For instance, we all know that a “tragedy” is a play (or a film or a novel or an opera or whatever) where everyone – or, at least, the main character – dies at the end; but even so, we [...]
16 May
Othello and Otello
For some, Verdi’s opera is an even greater work of art than Shakespeare’s play. I certainly wouldn’t go so far, if only because Shakespeare’s Othello seems, to me, an unsurpassable masterpiece; but it may be maintained, I think, that Verdi’s Otello (or, rather, the Otello of Verdi and Boito, since the librettist in this instance [...]
