Summary
Well, yes, it's a stretch to drag Heraclitus into a commentary on Mozartean opera, but here goes. When that philosopher famously remarked that you can't step into the same river twice, he was thinking macrocosmic. But his comment works for just about any great creative achievement of the human imagination as well. Every time you peer at, say, Velasquez' "Las Meninas," or hear, for instance, Schubert's "Dichterliebe," you see or hear something new. And there's an insightful change, minor or profound, in it and in you.
Call it some kind of iridescence if you like, the odd phenomenon that Gerard Manley Hopkins called a "shining from shook foil." Mozart's greatest operas have it in spades. You'll never hear or see Le Nozze di Figaro twice. Not even Mozart did, in a literal, workmanlike sense of the word. After its premiere in 1786, the opera received a Viennese revival three years later with a new soprano, Adriana del Bene, singing Susanna. Not content with two arias composed for the original Susanna, del Bene requested replacements. The composer obliged, although singers and conductors have largely judged them inferior and they're rarely performed these days.If you do (tickets are getting scarce), expect your visions of Nozze to be slightly changed, especially your notion of the Count. Don't be too surprised if his previously vented anger and vengefulness don't nearly usurp in your mind the Countess's climactic, pardoning gesture-the most sublime moment in Mozart's operas. It's just not that easy, frankly, to accept forgiveness.See the full content of this document
Extract
Fantastic Figaro
FANTASTIC FIGARO
The opera different comes to the City Different.Well, yes, it's a stretch to drag Heraclitus into a commentary on Mozartean opera, but here goes. When that philosopher famously remarked that you can't step into the same river twice, he was thin...See the full content of this document
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