(no subject)
Since early paranoia seems to be not entirely warranted, loosening up here on the FO posts. I'll be gradually going back and unlocking some of the stuff that we ran jbackup on and mowed down.
Day three in San Diego, strangely enough. Very early flight on Friday resulted in a strange sense of the passage of time the last few days. On Friday I was up for about twenty one hours straight (4am for the early flight until 1am the following morning), something I haven't done in awhile. The ability to do things like that does recharge, but it's still just not a good idea.
Last night we saw The Magic Flute, performed with the San Diego Symphony. Although I've heard (and performed) much of the music before, this was the first time I'd ever seen it all the way through. Landed there mostly by chance -- I was looking for a performance of the symphony for us to go to, and this was the only close thing available during our time out here. Fortituous in that I've been curious about it since Vasya sings part of the "Aria from the Queen of the Night" (and Smeagol's been singing it now, lately), though the jury is still out for me and opera in general. Certain things about it are beautiful; certain things make no freaking sense.
The Magic Flute I think was also unusually tolerable to me because it is full of Mozart's beautiful, mathematical style. However, the show is a symbolic mishmash as far as I can tell; I've done a bit of searching around and reading about it, and the only reasonable context I can agree with is that it was largely historical commentary. I think a lot of the Masonic ideas can only properly be understood in the context of their history (perhaps like most things), but there was some fundamentally interesting -- and screwed up -- psychology going on with this opera.
The plot I will not synopsize; Wikipedia has already done it. I mainly post this to get some semblance of organization enforced on my thoughts coming out of the show, and also on the off chance that one of you has studied this in more detail and can perhaps provide some insight -- I'd greatly appreciate it, because I think in its way this is very interesting. In other ways it is annoying, but if I am needlessly annoyed, that would be nice to know, too.
So, we have Masonic symbols. Lots of them. We have heavy-handed German rhetoric about peace and love and friendship and truth. We have some pretty misogynistic elements, including the vilification of the strongest female character, and also the more insidious undermining of the Queen of the Night's strength from the very beginning -- apparently her handmaids can kill huge dragons but cannot manage to get into Sorastro's castle and bring back Pamina, nor could they abduct Pamina in the first place. Sorastro, for his part, apparently knows better than everyone else and has abducted Pamina against her will and the will of her mother, "for her own good", though in what way exactly is never explained. From purely a story point of view, we have to take it as written that Sorastro is in fact the good guy and the Queen is evil, even though we never see examples of her being purely evil in a context separable from her understandable anger that Sorastro has taken her daughter and the hero she sent to save her has turned against his initial vow.
Symbolically, aside of simply being an instrument of the gods (or of a previous order of some sort that is unexplained -- Wikipedia makes reference to the magic flute itself having been created by Pamina's father, who is dead), I am unclear on what the magic flute and silver bells represent. When played they subdue aggression, and particular dialogue is devoted to saying that if this flute could be played everywhere, there would be no enemies, and no war. It hypnotizes both humans and forest creatures. In being an instrument of peace it seems to embody Masonic ideals, yet a) how is hypnotism (effectively mindlessness) in synch with enlightenment, and b) wasn't the flute given by the Queen of the Night, and therefore an instrument of what must be overcome? It seems that these should be important as the entire work actually takes its name from the flute, and yet it seems to play a bit part, unless they're referring to the entire work AS "the flute" that could create the peace that the Masons historically desired when facing ostrasization from society as they were during the time of the opera's creation. Even still, it seems that they should have desired to "convert" their opposition through rationality, not through hypnosis.
So the Queen is evil and must be overcome, so sayeth the Masons; a woman's 'wiles' must be resisted. Yet not only is the Queen denied a chance to present her side of the story (whereas Sorastro has tons of screen-time), but the most passionate and most well-known piece from the entire opera is given to her. Her role is the most coveted in the show, as the soprano diva; when she descended from the top of the stage on a radiant crescent moon, with curtains of night falling dramatically behind her, the audience applauded just to see her. Her "rage aria" is one of the most technically challenging pieces of vocal music I have ever heard. So on one hand Mozart-the-Mason is saying that the feminine must be resisted and is by virtue of itself ignoble, yet Mozart-the-Artist is saying with his music that there is a divine mystery to the feminine, a power not so easily dismissed as the narrative would like. There is also a simple logical problem with the end "resolution" of the opera, with "day triumphing over night" -- if day triumphs over night by morning, just as surely night will triumph over day in the evening. There is no conflict, no battle -- merely a cycle. The entire concept of a 'cycle' is missing from the opera and, it would seem, missing from Masonic philosophy -- they see only resistance and strife, black and white, good and evil, night and day. Passion and mind, as if the two can never meet.
True love makes several appearances throughout the show, and much devotion is shown to it, yet Tamino falls in love with Pamina just from seeing her portrait, and what it is she sees in him is quite unclear. But they are Destined and that's fine. However, Tamino's Trial of Silence under the MasonsPriests of Wisdom apparently requires him to ignore her to the point where she concludes his silence is rejection and decides to kill herself. What destructive foolishness is this? How can any silence be that critical? The Masons are trying to say that the secrecy of their order is of paramount importance and that adherence to it with the resistance of the "sins of the flesh" is noble, but they're stomping on their own feet by showing the potentially catastrophic consequences of silence, imposed for no apparent reason other than to gain membership to their little club. The very arguments against secrecy are present right in the narrative, and one's sympathy throughout that Trial is entirely with Pamina. Resolution of the crisis relies entirely on a deus ex machina (of which there are many in the story) in the intervention of the three Spirits to prevent her suicide.
The Egyptian primary trinity also makes understated and overstated appearances in the opera. The Master MasonPriest of Wisdom makes frequent reference to Isis and Osiris as the gods from which they beseech guidance. It is interesting that Horus's name never appears. The omission got me thinking about the traditional trinity -- the Masons thought of the trinity as being Egyptian in origin, the Isis-Osiris-Horus -- but it was much older, of course, being Mother-Father-Child. And the gender of that child seemed thrown into sharp relief in this opera in particular (at least in my rambling train of thought) since they make such a big deal out of the separation of genders. The Egyptians were obviously patriarchal, Cleopatra aside, what with the Pharoahness and all. Their trinity is masculine-heavy; the Child is male. I was trying to think if there have been any post-Egyptian mythologies where the trinity has included a female child. Our western society has been patriarchal for so long that the natural assumption is that it must be Mother-Father-Son because the son is needed to carry on the family line, bogus as that notion is on a fundamental level (they wouldn't get very far without the mother). This ostracizes the female on a basic level; where does the mother come from? And her role, assumedly, is solely as a conduit for the creation of the son? What's interesting is that if this obsession with gender is withdrawn, the child can be seen simply as a Child; a young person below puberty is basically neuter, shaped into a gender role, I would say, purely by societal standards and not by their natural inclinations.
So those were some of my random thoughts coming out of the show. It's interesting to note that Italo Calvino referred to works like this as "open". I think his work is more "open" than this, and more tightly constructed at the same time. While The Magic Flute can certainly be interpreted several different ways, it feels mentally incomplete, as if thoughts were unfinished or not fully understood; when interpreted from a different angle it only serves to become an equally foggy lens turned in a slightly different direction, rather than something that becomes more clear.
Day three in San Diego, strangely enough. Very early flight on Friday resulted in a strange sense of the passage of time the last few days. On Friday I was up for about twenty one hours straight (4am for the early flight until 1am the following morning), something I haven't done in awhile. The ability to do things like that does recharge, but it's still just not a good idea.
Last night we saw The Magic Flute, performed with the San Diego Symphony. Although I've heard (and performed) much of the music before, this was the first time I'd ever seen it all the way through. Landed there mostly by chance -- I was looking for a performance of the symphony for us to go to, and this was the only close thing available during our time out here. Fortituous in that I've been curious about it since Vasya sings part of the "Aria from the Queen of the Night" (and Smeagol's been singing it now, lately), though the jury is still out for me and opera in general. Certain things about it are beautiful; certain things make no freaking sense.
The Magic Flute I think was also unusually tolerable to me because it is full of Mozart's beautiful, mathematical style. However, the show is a symbolic mishmash as far as I can tell; I've done a bit of searching around and reading about it, and the only reasonable context I can agree with is that it was largely historical commentary. I think a lot of the Masonic ideas can only properly be understood in the context of their history (perhaps like most things), but there was some fundamentally interesting -- and screwed up -- psychology going on with this opera.
The plot I will not synopsize; Wikipedia has already done it. I mainly post this to get some semblance of organization enforced on my thoughts coming out of the show, and also on the off chance that one of you has studied this in more detail and can perhaps provide some insight -- I'd greatly appreciate it, because I think in its way this is very interesting. In other ways it is annoying, but if I am needlessly annoyed, that would be nice to know, too.
So, we have Masonic symbols. Lots of them. We have heavy-handed German rhetoric about peace and love and friendship and truth. We have some pretty misogynistic elements, including the vilification of the strongest female character, and also the more insidious undermining of the Queen of the Night's strength from the very beginning -- apparently her handmaids can kill huge dragons but cannot manage to get into Sorastro's castle and bring back Pamina, nor could they abduct Pamina in the first place. Sorastro, for his part, apparently knows better than everyone else and has abducted Pamina against her will and the will of her mother, "for her own good", though in what way exactly is never explained. From purely a story point of view, we have to take it as written that Sorastro is in fact the good guy and the Queen is evil, even though we never see examples of her being purely evil in a context separable from her understandable anger that Sorastro has taken her daughter and the hero she sent to save her has turned against his initial vow.
Symbolically, aside of simply being an instrument of the gods (or of a previous order of some sort that is unexplained -- Wikipedia makes reference to the magic flute itself having been created by Pamina's father, who is dead), I am unclear on what the magic flute and silver bells represent. When played they subdue aggression, and particular dialogue is devoted to saying that if this flute could be played everywhere, there would be no enemies, and no war. It hypnotizes both humans and forest creatures. In being an instrument of peace it seems to embody Masonic ideals, yet a) how is hypnotism (effectively mindlessness) in synch with enlightenment, and b) wasn't the flute given by the Queen of the Night, and therefore an instrument of what must be overcome? It seems that these should be important as the entire work actually takes its name from the flute, and yet it seems to play a bit part, unless they're referring to the entire work AS "the flute" that could create the peace that the Masons historically desired when facing ostrasization from society as they were during the time of the opera's creation. Even still, it seems that they should have desired to "convert" their opposition through rationality, not through hypnosis.
So the Queen is evil and must be overcome, so sayeth the Masons; a woman's 'wiles' must be resisted. Yet not only is the Queen denied a chance to present her side of the story (whereas Sorastro has tons of screen-time), but the most passionate and most well-known piece from the entire opera is given to her. Her role is the most coveted in the show, as the soprano diva; when she descended from the top of the stage on a radiant crescent moon, with curtains of night falling dramatically behind her, the audience applauded just to see her. Her "rage aria" is one of the most technically challenging pieces of vocal music I have ever heard. So on one hand Mozart-the-Mason is saying that the feminine must be resisted and is by virtue of itself ignoble, yet Mozart-the-Artist is saying with his music that there is a divine mystery to the feminine, a power not so easily dismissed as the narrative would like. There is also a simple logical problem with the end "resolution" of the opera, with "day triumphing over night" -- if day triumphs over night by morning, just as surely night will triumph over day in the evening. There is no conflict, no battle -- merely a cycle. The entire concept of a 'cycle' is missing from the opera and, it would seem, missing from Masonic philosophy -- they see only resistance and strife, black and white, good and evil, night and day. Passion and mind, as if the two can never meet.
True love makes several appearances throughout the show, and much devotion is shown to it, yet Tamino falls in love with Pamina just from seeing her portrait, and what it is she sees in him is quite unclear. But they are Destined and that's fine. However, Tamino's Trial of Silence under the MasonsPriests of Wisdom apparently requires him to ignore her to the point where she concludes his silence is rejection and decides to kill herself. What destructive foolishness is this? How can any silence be that critical? The Masons are trying to say that the secrecy of their order is of paramount importance and that adherence to it with the resistance of the "sins of the flesh" is noble, but they're stomping on their own feet by showing the potentially catastrophic consequences of silence, imposed for no apparent reason other than to gain membership to their little club. The very arguments against secrecy are present right in the narrative, and one's sympathy throughout that Trial is entirely with Pamina. Resolution of the crisis relies entirely on a deus ex machina (of which there are many in the story) in the intervention of the three Spirits to prevent her suicide.
The Egyptian primary trinity also makes understated and overstated appearances in the opera. The Master MasonPriest of Wisdom makes frequent reference to Isis and Osiris as the gods from which they beseech guidance. It is interesting that Horus's name never appears. The omission got me thinking about the traditional trinity -- the Masons thought of the trinity as being Egyptian in origin, the Isis-Osiris-Horus -- but it was much older, of course, being Mother-Father-Child. And the gender of that child seemed thrown into sharp relief in this opera in particular (at least in my rambling train of thought) since they make such a big deal out of the separation of genders. The Egyptians were obviously patriarchal, Cleopatra aside, what with the Pharoahness and all. Their trinity is masculine-heavy; the Child is male. I was trying to think if there have been any post-Egyptian mythologies where the trinity has included a female child. Our western society has been patriarchal for so long that the natural assumption is that it must be Mother-Father-Son because the son is needed to carry on the family line, bogus as that notion is on a fundamental level (they wouldn't get very far without the mother). This ostracizes the female on a basic level; where does the mother come from? And her role, assumedly, is solely as a conduit for the creation of the son? What's interesting is that if this obsession with gender is withdrawn, the child can be seen simply as a Child; a young person below puberty is basically neuter, shaped into a gender role, I would say, purely by societal standards and not by their natural inclinations.
So those were some of my random thoughts coming out of the show. It's interesting to note that Italo Calvino referred to works like this as "open". I think his work is more "open" than this, and more tightly constructed at the same time. While The Magic Flute can certainly be interpreted several different ways, it feels mentally incomplete, as if thoughts were unfinished or not fully understood; when interpreted from a different angle it only serves to become an equally foggy lens turned in a slightly different direction, rather than something that becomes more clear.