A Night at the Opera

 “I don’t know how you can go to an opera,” my grown-up nephew said. “A play, OK; a movie, fine. But opera?”

“It’s a show. It’s fun,” I replied. “There’s music, movement, action, drama, costumes. It’s like a kids’ show for grown-ups.”

But after spending a night with Richard Strauss’s ‘Salome’ at the Tel-Aviv Opera I’m beginning to see my nephew’s point. There were costumes, yes. We had lust, sex and violence, which are all well and good in their place. But music? I’m not too sure about that.

I’m familiar with some of Strauss’s orchestral music (Til Eulenspiegel, Don Quixote, Thus Spake Zarathustra), and even with his very beautiful ‘Last Songs.’ But apart from the ‘Dance of the Seven Veils’ near the end of the opera, there was very little in it that could be defined as tuneful. Sure, the orchestral parts were pleasant, and well played by the Rishon Letzion orchestra, but the vocal parts were very difficult to enjoy if not downright painful to the ear.

The story of Salome asking King Herod for the head of John the Baptist on a silver salver as her reward for dancing for him was taken from the Apocrypha and turned into a play by Oscar Wilde. He wrote the original text in French, but Strauss took the German translation as the basis for his opera. According to the story, Salome’s mother, Herodias, was married to Herod, who in turn lusted after Salome, who herself lusted after John the Baptist, and thus all kinds of dark currents swirl around on the stage and in the music.

The orchestration is rich and emotive, as is customary with Strauss, but the solo parts tend to devolve into mutual haranguing and screeching, whether between Salome and her mother, or both of them and Herod, with nothing in the way of harmony or beauty to be found in any of the characters or the music Strauss has written for them. As for Salome’s famous Dance of the Seven Veils, which is supposed to be a kind of erotic display, possibly ending with full frontal nudity (I had been looking forward to that) turned out to consist of some very tame gyrations, performed mainly by several apparently a-sexual or bi-sexual attendants of Salome assuming animalistic postures. At this point the music was the best part of the show.

The opera ends with Salome kissing the Baptist’s severed head, something which is obviously intended to arouse disgust, and in this the production succeeded. An additional final flourish consisted of having Salome’s white robe stained with the blood that had dripped from the decapitated body. At least that added a splash of colour to an otherwise drab stage.

The production we saw, directed by prominent Israeli actor Itai Tiran, was imaginative and somber, as befits the subject-matter, but who wants to spend an evening being depressed, demoralized and tortured? Not me, for sure.

At least the next opera in our subscription series is Verdi’s ‘A Masked Ball.’ I know that the story also has its melodramatic side, but at least one can expect the music to be more melodic, and the staging to contain something more colourful than various shades of black and grey.

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‘The Story of a New Name. Book 2: Youth’ by Elena Ferrante

 

 

The second book in the series known as The Neapolitan Novels, takes Elena, the narrator and chief protagonist, and her friend Lila, through their turbulent teenage years. The scene at the conclusion of the previous novel, Lila’s wedding to a local businessman, already contains a hint that the marriage will not be a harmonious union, and this does indeed turn out to be the case.

The tempestuous wedding night and subsequent ‘honeymoon,’ the physical violence inflicted by the frustrated bridegroom on his young wife, and the verbal violence with which she retaliates, all add up to convey a sense of unhappiness and mutual dissatisfaction. The young woman’s failure to become pregnant is another source of disappointment for the bridegroom and his family, and in order to overcome this obstacle it is suggested that she should go on holiday to the nearby island of Ischia, in the company of her mother, sister-in-law, and the narrator herself.

The seaside vacation only leads to further complications, when Nino, the fellow-student with whom Elena is in love, turns up, accompanied by a friend, and he and Lila find themselves attracted to one another, eventually embarking on a torrid affair. Elena feels obliged to conceal her own emotional involvement and despair, and even to help her friend hide her actions from her husband, who comes to stay with them at the weekends. What could have been considered the normal teenage emotional turmoil of the two young women in other circumstances turns into a potentially disastrous and destructive dicing with danger in the emotional and physical rough and tumble of Neapolitan life.

The situation is further complicated by Elena’s sense of disgust at the attentions of an older man, the father of the student she is in love with, but allows him to deflower her one night on the beach. Nonetheless, she is able to concentrate on her studies at school, completes her education successfully and is granted a scholarship to attend university in Pisa. There she meets young people her own age who come from cultured backgrounds very unlike her own, and she learns to behave and talk in a manner that befits her new surroundings.

At university she devotes herself to her studies and returns to Naples only rarely, feeling ever more alienated from her roots in the neighbourhood and her family. She learns from time to time of the vicissitudes of Lila’s life, the child she bears claiming that it is her lover’s and not her husband’s, the break-up of her marriage, her short-lived attempt to move in together with her lover, and eventual desertion of her husband, accomplished with the aid of a childhood friend, Enzo, who loves her but does not impose himself on her.

At the book’s conclusion we find that Elena is engaged to the son of a professor, has gained her degree but still feels unsure of herself. She has written a novel that has just been published, and is giving a talk about it. Among the audience she recognizes Nino, the student she once loved. She has also managed to track down Lila, her old friend, who now works in a sausage factory, is struggling to earn a living but is happy with Enzo. Together Lila and Enzo study computer programming at night.

Everything (and Everyone) is Connected

 

When we were about to spend a week in Paris recently in order to visit several art exhibitions that were about to close, I was afraid that the demonstrations of the gilets jaunes (Yellow Vest protestors) would disturb our visit, but there was no sight or sound of them, except on the TV. The receptionist in the hotel assured us that they confined their disruptive activities to the areas on the other side of the Seine, and that they did not venture to the area of the Left Bank (Saint Germain des Pres), where we were staying.

That was very reassuring, and indeed we did not catch sight of a single yellow vest. However, it was while we were in Paris that it finally dawned on me that what is happening in Paris (and elsewhere in France) is connected with events in other countries, and that it all comes down to the clash between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have-nots.’ The gilets jaunes have made it very clear that their grievances are about economic inequality and the burden of taxation that was about to become heavier until Macron reversed his policies, or at least put them on hold.

From my (admittedly limited) experience of France I find it strange that people there are complaining about the standard of living. Supermarket shelves are stocked with all kinds of delicacies, and the restaurants and cafes seem to be thriving. Although productivity in France is one of the highest in the OECD, French working hours are relatively short and the retirement age quite low (55). That, by the way, is one of the bones of contention, as M. Macron has expressed his intention of increasing it, bringing it into line with the retirement age in other OECD countries.

Be that as it may, the thought that came into my mind upon hearing the grievances of the French protestors was that they are being echoed around the world. What, after all, is behind Brexit if not the resentment of the ‘have-nots’ in the poorer regions of the UK against those they perceive as the ‘fat cats’ in London and other large cities, who are all in favour of remaining in the EU? Theresa May admitted as much in her speech to parliament in which she claimed that there are large segments of the British public which feel under-represented and neglected. Naturally, there’s nothing easier than to direct that enmity towards the newcomers, the upstarts, the immigrants, as was done by the Leave campaigners.

And where are the voters who supported Donald Trump for president of the USA? Mainly in the Midwest and the towns and states where unemployment and poverty is more widespread than along the east and west coasts of the USA. Several European countries have also voted right-wing candidates into office, as has happened in Hungary, Poland, Italy and elsewhere, probably for similar reasons.

It has been claimed that the internet has enabled diverse groups to become connected with one another, to share experiences and complaints, and then to take action in order to bring about the changes they want, or at least to express their sentiments and objections.

And therein lies the danger. Karl Marx’s clarion call, ‘Workers of the world unite, you have nothing to lose but your chains,’ is reaching an ever-widening audience that is ready and willing to act upon that message. It is no coincidence that this happens to coincide with a rise in expressions of anti-Semitism and actions against Jews and Jewish communities. Today it is easier than ever to rally support for theories of conspiracy and hatred against whoever is the subject of opprobrium de jour, and there is no group easier to pinpoint as having prospered, as ‘not belonging,’ as ‘not one of us’ than Jews.

The Moslem religion, whether benign or radical, also has a role to play in generating anti-Semitism, and the growing proportion of Moslems in Western Europe cannot be ignored. There is anti-Semitism on both the European far right and far left, and it is further promoted by propaganda intended to arouse sympathy for Palestinians and opprobrium towards the State of Israel. The sad fact, which is generally ignored, is that because Israel was attacked by several Arab countries in 1967 it now controls areas of land inhabited by Palestinians. Politicians on both sides seem unable or unwilling to find a resolution to the current impasse.

The only solution to all the resentment and hatred generated by inequality and poverty throughout the world would be the large-scale redistribution of wealth, as advocated by Marx. But that doesn’t seem likely to happen any time soon.

‘My Brilliant Friend’ by Elena Ferrante

 

This novel, the first of a quartet, has become an international bestseller and has been widely praised in literary circles. So I was overjoyed when I was able to pick up a copy someone had discarded at one of the airports I visited recently. I found it a wee bit difficult to get into at first, but once I had overcome that initial barrier I found myself entranced by the account of the friendship between two girls, Elena (Lenu) and Lila, in one of the poorer neighbourhoods of post-war Naples. The book starts with their childhood, when they both still played with dolls, continues with their teenage years and adolescent agonies, and ends with the wedding of one of them, though still a teenager.

The author manages to describe the feelings and experiences of those childhood years, with the close but fluctuating relationship between the two girls, as well as between them and the people around them, in a vivid and engaging way. The writing style does not always read smoothly, and at times there are too many jerky stops and starts in the narrative flow for my taste, but the intensity of the emotions and events described help the reader to overcome any reluctance he or she might have to continue reading.

The first few pages of the book provide an index of the various families who comprise the main characters of the neighbourhood and the book, and I found this very helpful, as the Italian names and surnames are sometimes difficult to differentiate and thus to imagine the characters. After all, when half the boys are called Gino, Nino, and Rino, that does not help the reader to distinguish between them.

As I read I found myself torn between identification with the two girls, whose friendship reminded me of my own childhood friend and neighbour, on the one hand, and revulsion from the violence endemic in the society in which Lenu and Lila grew up, on the other. This violence was both physical and verbal, whether between husband and wife, parents and children, neighbours—both men and women—and above all between the boys in the neighbourhood. This may be something that is more characteristic of the mediterranean temperament than of the British society in which I grew up (though I know that even English boys fight), but Elena Ferrante’s protagonists accept it as an inevitable part of life.

All in all, I enjoyed reading this book and am happy to recommend it to others for the insights it gives into the way of life and mental processes of children and adolescents everywhere, as well as in the specific society it describes. In a way, it is an insider’s anthropological study of a society that seems almost exotic to the contemporary Western observer and somewhat removed from everyday life as we know it. I’m looking forward to reading the other volumes in the series.

The book has now been made into a TV series, which I have managed to watch. For artistic reasons, although the producers are American, the dialogue is all in Italian, making it necessary for non-Italian viewers to read the subtitles. As someone who likes to watch TV in bed this makes life rather difficult for me, but it’s worth the effort to see the characters being brought to life in a sensitive and convincing way.