From: Alex Honzen
Subject: Jerome Hines & "Modern" Music
To: vocalist-at-lists.oulu.fi
Send reply to: VOCALIST <vocalist>

Naomi Gurt Lind wrote:
< and I think it's an unfortunate mistake to lump it all
together as one sound, one artistic idea, one
aesthetic...I personally embrace the non-linearity &
think it's an apt metaphor for many aspects of our
century's history & culture.>>

I agree with this. Believe me, I love bel canto as
much as the next person - my initial post regarding
Hines' writings was more in relation to aesthetic
judgements as opposed to the physical or technical
ease of singing the music. Besides the fact that I
think he dealt with John Cage and the art student in
bad faith, I also find attitudes like Hines' troubling
in their inability to see things in terms of
non-verbal or non-narrative communication - and of
course the power of a lot of music is that it
communicates something that is not verbal nor
narrative, even if it is the music used for a Mozart
or Rossini aria. I would imagine most people
interested in opera would agree with that, and yet
some are not willing to extend that opinion to, say,
modern compositions (which they view as being
"noise"), or current productions of operas. A good
case in point is Robert Wilson's production of
Lohengrin at the Met. He was apparently booed at its
premier, and I suspect it was basically just because
of the fact that he had recontextualized a piece that
Wagnerites are used to seeing performed with a
certain, more traditional aesthetic applied to it.
The performers in Wilson's works are usually asked to
interact in a way that may have more to do with
emotional landscapes than demonstrative storytelling -
this does not, in itself, make his take on an opera
inferior to a more "conventional" reading.



_________________________________________________________
Get your free -at-yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com