Thursday, December 30, 2010

A clue from Puccini

In studying Puccini, I'm struck by how often the lyrics are banal: "The bill - already?"; "I bought this house for ninety nine years, but with the option, at ev'ry month, to cancel the contract!..."  and yet without the subtitles I hadn't noticed the banality.
"There is so much that shouldn't be sung," is a criticism I've heard made about contemporary opera. Yet, Puccini didn't seem to care. If he felt like writing a melody he wrote it. Banal text or not; the melody supersedes everything. Above all there is a melodic structure.
And yet the drama is no less important. I wonder if the problem lies nowadays in composers trying to underline the words - a lesson misunderstood from Wagner? People speak of Wagner's trying to marry the words to the music as one of his innovations, and tend to say, also, that when he resiled from this his 'experiment' failed. But what he realised is that the true level of marriage is music and action. And action is what Puccini keeps up, at the level of melody.

Tuesday, December 14, 2010

Walking with Americans

I think I will call my blog, "Walking with Americans", a title suggested by our friend, Anne Clarke. I've been walking with an American, my wife Kate, for many years of course. But come February, I'll be walking around - IN America.
Now that we're close to leaving Sydney, I'm noticing 'things Australian' all the more keenly. I must have walked past Forest Lodge Primary School several thousand times over the years, but it's only this spring that I notice, for example, the creamy scent of the big Acacia (parramattensis or mearnsii) flowering up on the school's sandstone embankment.
What will America be like? I've studied it from a distance for years, but I'm looking forward to living in the landscape and discovering the opportunities it may bring.
I also approach with some trepidation. Earlier this year when Americans were wringing their hands over the healthcare bill, I wondered why anyone would want to remain enslaved to the fear of ruin that uninsured ill-health means in America. When I realised it came down to a fear of government domination, I twigged to something else I may miss in America. Australians don't think of government as tyrrany; the politicians are our employees, and should do what the 'bloody taxpayer' wants. That's the subtext of many a call to talk-back radio. Those carping whinges have often given me the irrits over the years I must admit, but will I look back upon them with nostalgia in the year to come?