I agree. The spirit of art communicates across cultural divides and across time. As someone who isn't religious, I can be moved by the art of the St. Mathew Passion without having to be a practising Christian. It's the same with, for instance, the AGO's European gallery of 17th century religious paintings. Most people don't have the cultural conditioning to unlock the meaning of the bible stories depicted by Tournier's The Judgement of Solomon, Preti's St. Paul The Hermit, or Giordano's The Toilet of Bathsheba ... but I don't think it matters that they don't hold the key because aesthetics carry the paintings.
On Friday, my pal Libby took me to hear Tafelmusik at Trinity St. Paul's. Sometimes, when her husband's away on business, I'm her faux hubby for such outings. Mostly, it's good to hear old pieces done in new ways, but occasionally it's good to hear old pieces done exactly as you've heard them done before. This was one of those evenings, and that's what we got with Eine kleine Nachtmusik and the Concerto no. 20 for fortepiano in D Minor ... and Haydn's Symphony no. 97 in C Major. Mind you, the average audience member was about 300 years old, so many of them may have thought they were hearing these pieces for the first time. The famous Steve Munro, young and lovely as ever, sat in the second row.
Saturday, to Carmen. The vile, belchy, snuffly creature was there again, but this time his wife/parole officer/ keeper sat between us. Still, I could hear his constant wheezing throughout the first act, and this time he was pawing this unfortunate woman's knees and scratching himself ... so I moved at intermission to the row behind. Having ascertained from her that this oddball duo are seeing the rest of the season, I'm asking the COC next week for a different seat for the final three operas.
The new Carmen was very good, though I can't compare her with the first one. Best of all, I thought, was Bryan Hymel as Don Jose - his transition from wussy mommie's boy to obsessive stalker made perfect sense. Jessica Muirhead handled her big aria beautifully. Paul Gay as Escamillio was a real letdown - I thought he was out of his depth. The acoustics of that place are unforgiving and demand better singing than that. The staging - ugh! The sets were exactly the same as the last time they presented it, I think.
Today, with three friends to the Art Gallery of Hamilton to see the photographic exhibition Posing Beauty in African American Culture, on it's only Canadian stop. Also, in an adjacent gallery, a little gem of a photographic show called End of the American Road - images of small town America by Terence Byrnes. Some very cool black dudes in natty street attire in the first show, and some extraordinary poor and mostly white people in Springfield Ohio in the second.
