The Voice of Treason

A new feature on The V.O.T.: HWPOMTW

Writing by treason on Wednesday, 27 of September , 2006 at 4:33 pm

“I sat in the company of the most normal people I had met in the Labour Party. They taught me that most of politics isn’t about politics, in the sense of meetings, resolutions, speeches or even Parties. It starts with people.

It’s about friendship, art, culture, sport. It’s about being a fully paid up member of the human race before being a fully paid up member of the Labour Party…”

– Tony Blair at the Annual Labour Party Conference, September 26, 2006

“…Vesti la giubba
E la faccia infarina.
La gente paga
E rider vuole qua…
Tramuta in lazzi lo spasmo
Ed il pianto…
Ridi, Pagliacco…
Ridi del duol
Che t’avvelena il cor!”

– Ruggiero Leoncavallo

“…Baby, there’s an enormous crowd of people
And they’re all after my blood
I wish maybe they’d tear down the walls of this theater
And let me out…let me out…
But I must let the show go on…”

– Leo Sayer

I was getting all worked up over that story about the parent in Texas who complained to the school board after her kid’s art teacher took the class to a museum and exposed them to - gasp! - a nude sculpture. Then there was Bill Maher complaining about CBS’ censorship of his religious views — yet he disagrees with Rosie O’Donnell’s recent comments comparing radical Christianity and radical Islam. And then there was Tony Blair’s speech yesterday.

With so much to get riled up about, I chose…to listen to opera. I remember my mother always saying how her father, when he was young and poor, would go without food just so he could go to the opera in Rome. By bus, by train, by goat - it didn’t matter. He would save every cent for the music, the spectacle, the joy of opera. My mother was in the car one day, so I thought I’d play a little Cecilia Bartoli for her.

“Bitch sounds like she’s in pain. Turn that crap off.”

I guess opera appreciation must skip a generation. Don’t misunderstand - I’m no expert when it comes to opera. In fact, I envy people who really know it. Someone who worked at the non-profit with me really knew it. Loved it. Ate it, breathed it. He performed, he directed, he could recognize the most obscure aria. I tell you, I was sick with jealousy.

My taste in food is complex, refined; but my taste in opera is probably more like a little kid’s. When it comes to opera, I like Spaghetti-O’s. Maybe it’s because of that old TV commercial, but to this day I have a soft spot for Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci.

“No more Rice Krispies!
We’re all out of Rice Krispies!
My tears will not stop,
’til I hear snap, crackle, pop…”

When I was younger I listened to Wagner, and in college I was part of the stage crew for Mozart’s The Magic Flute. My job was to sit under the stage, in the dungeon, during every performance and “drop” a portion of the stage into the dungeon, making the singers magically “disappear.” I sat down there night after night, listening to Papageno and Papagena. It’s no wonder that today my tastes lean towards Puccini.

Remember the scene in Philadelphia when Andrew Beckett (Tom Hanks) exposes Joe Miller (Denzel Washington) to his favorite aria, La Mamma Morta?

Picture Maria Callas as Maddalena, maybe at the Teatro Alla Scala:

“They killed my mother
Close by the doorway leading to
my chamber.
In dying,she saved my life…
My home, my well-loved home,
Was burnt to ashes.
I was alone.
I had no shelter.
Hungry and needy, danger
haunted my footsteps…”

That particular aria doesn’t produce the same reaction in me that it did in Beckett, but there are several that do. There are pieces that can just about lift a person off the ground. (I still get all goosebumpy when I hear Pavarotti sing Nessun Dorma.) But think of all the students agonizing through the series of required “appreciation” courses in art and music, and - to some degree - literature and history.

What is learned here is valuable: like Tony Blair says, “It’s about being a fully paid up member of the human race.” It’s that element that makes you sick to your stomach when you see the two thousand year-old Bamiyan Buddhas blown to bits by the Taliban.

“All we are breaking are stones.”

That’s a Taliban education for you.

And now Mozart’s Idomeneo has been yanked in Berlin. In it, King Idomeneo displays the severed heads of Poseidon, Muhammad, Jesus, and Buddha. No word from Ancient Greeks on this, and Catholics and Buddhists seem unfazed. However…

Kirsten Harms, director of Berlin’s Deutsche Opera, decided to cancel the production after “weighing artistic freedom and freedom of a theater … against the question of security for people’s lives.”

Would Muslims really take issue with this opera? No one wants to tempt fate. No one wants to provoke the nutcases.

Tony Blair is correct. Art is a human thing. And part of being human is having a sense of humor. Blair hasn’t lost his and it’s probably the thing that keeps him going. Music may soothe the savage breast, but humor plays a role, too. It can keep a person reasonable.

“Our ideas about openness, tolerance and freedom must be lived on the offensive. Voluntary self-limitation gives those who fight against our values a confirmation in advance that we will not stand behind them.”

– Mayor Klaus Wowereit

“Problems cannot be solved by keeping silent. When the concern over possible protests leads to self-censorship, then the democratic culture of free speech becomes endangered.”

– Bernd Neumann, Germany’s top cultural official

So what is this new feature? HWPOMTW means How We Pissed Off Muslims This Week. This week we wanted to stage an opera. But we didn’t. We canceled it.

Maybe art’s a problem for these people because it’s so human. Today I started by posting a piece from Blair’s speech, a portion of an opera, and an old song from the seventies.

How do these relate? Blair explains that it’s not just a matter of politics. It’s important to remember the human element. Art…sports…whatever brings you joy and makes you a fuller, more rounded human being. Then Canio, in Pagliacci, sings:

“Put on your costume
And powder your face.
The audience pays
And wants to laugh…
Turn into jest
Your anguish and your sorrow…
Laugh, clown,
Laugh at the pain
Which poisons your heart!”

Leo Sayer borrowed from Pagliacci when he used to perform “The Show Must Go On” in clown make-up. Reminiscent of Godspell, that clown make-up.

Cole Porter’s advice: Act the fool, play the calf, and you’ll always have the last laugh. Be a clown.

One wonders what Muslims are allowed to find amusing. What’s funny? Brigitte Gabriel (Because They Hate) describes what radicals did to families: they’d take an infant’s legs - tie one to its father, one to its mother, then pull the parents in opposite directions until the infant was ripped apart.

Perhaps this is funny if you’re a radical Muslim. Obviously this is not offensive to them, yet the depiction of the severed head of Muhammed is. So we cave. We cancel an opera.

Frankly, I’m with Angela Merkel, Leo Sayer, and scores of actors on this one. The show must go on.

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