Handel the Merciful: His Last Oratorio, "Jephtha"

Despite the fact he never married, or perhaps because of it, no one to my knowledge has ever accused the baroque composer George Frideric Handel of being a misogynist. Quite the contrary, he frequently re-wrote parts of The Messiah so that sopranos in particular and other soloists could appear at their best.

Handel was definitely a "singer's composer."

Idomeneo: The Story of Abraham With a Twist?

Attending Mozart's "Idomeneo" at the Met the other night got me thinking -- and I'm certainly not the first to have made this connection -- of the Biblical story of Abraham.

In both cases, a god requires a mortal to kill his first-born or at least most important son. That's perhaps the most difficult order a father could receive, in a patriarchal society at any rate.

The Met: Elza van den Heever's Mad Scene Steals the Show

When one thinks of operatic mad scenes, Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor almost inevitably comes to mind first and foremost and not without reason. That, of course, is in the opera of the same name.

But last night at the Metropolitan Opera, South African-born soprano Elza van den Heever stole the show in Mozart's Idomeneo with a riveting performance of Elettra's meltdown when her long-shot hopes of marrying Prince Idamante are finally dashed by Neptune, god of the sea.

Van den Heever's performance was not only vocally splendid, her acting was captivating.

All You Need is Love, or How to Tanscend a Happy Marriage

In 1967, the Beatles released what was arguably their sappiest song: "All You Need Is Love." It became an anthem of the hippie era -- encapsulating the sentiment of the San Francisco Summer of Love -- much the way "We Shall Overcome" became an anthem of the slightly earlier civil rights movement.

The notion that love can conquer all is back, in the form of a play by Sarah Rhul called "How to transcend a happy marriage" that is currently playing in New York at Lincoln Center.

Identity Defined by Sexual Practices

In an earlier post, I talked about how Maggie Nelson, a current darling of intellectual feminism, defines herself by the nature of her sexual practices.

Today I saw "How to transcend a happy marriage" at Lincoln Center in Manhattan, a play by Sarah Ruhl where, among other things, the same theme arises.

A Mother's Judgement

When it comes to assessing success or failure in life, it's interesting how often individuals measure themselves against what their mothers believe -- even while often rebelling against them.

This is probably particularly true in cultures that are very family-focused, such that of the Chinese.

An example can be seen in a poem written by Chinese-American poet Chen Chen who is gay while his brothers apparently are not.

"I am a gay sipper [a cautious person], & my mother has placed what's left of her hopes on my brothers," says one line of Chen's poem "Self-Portrait as So Much Potential."

"Beautiful sons," the poem ends, referring to all but the poet himself.

By clicking on the name of the poem above, you can read the entire short piece as printed in a recent edition of the New York Times Sunday magazine.

I recommend it.

Lincoln in the Bardo: An American Chorale

In a previous post, I referred to George Sanders' first novel, "Lincoln in the Bardo" as the current "book of the moment."

What sort of a book is it?  Well, among many other things, it has been described as a cacophony of voices.

That may be most evident in the audio version for which Saunders rounded up 166 different people, one for each voice in the book.

"I love the way that the variety of contemporary voices mimics and underscores the feeling I tried to evoke in the book: a sort of American chorale," Saunders told Time Magazine.