Re: Kol Isha/Miriam's Song/Wagner

[Marvin Margoshes <physchem...>]

----- Original Message -----
From: "avi finegold" <afinegold (at) yahoo(dot)com>
To: "World music from a Jewish slant" <jewish-music (at) shamash(dot)org>
Sent: Monday, February 24, 2003 4:49 PM
Subject: Re: Kol Isha/Miriam's Song/Wagner


>
> --- Marvin Margoshes <physchem (at) cloud9(dot)net> wrote:
>
> > My most recent exposure was at a NY Philharmonic
> > concert where a fat lady
> > sang a love song about her dying hero, from a Wagner
> > opera.  The supertitles
> > only made it worse (when the gadget worked at all)
> > by showing that the
> > lyrics were as ludicrous as the singer.  (I don't
> > mean her voice.  I mean
> > her appearance as a love image.)
> >
> >
>
> hmmm.....do you mean that you cannot understand how
> such banal lyrics can capture a feeling of love? i
> think many including myself will argue with you.
> Wagners big achievement was never that he wrote
> brilliant dialogue, but that he wa able to use a
> musical palette as a means for expressing emotions
> that were overtly spoken in the libretto. i dont think
> verdi or beethoven could have made shakespeare better.
> theater is theater, opera libretti serve only to go
> hand in hand with the score.
>
> or are you implying that a fat lady cannot be a love
> image? i have a feeling that quite a few people on
> this list would have a thing or two to say to you.....
>
> :)
This singer was beyond fat.  She was obese.  Her gown was a tent.  She was a
caricature.  That kind of obesity is associated with breathing difficulties,
medically called the Pickwickian syndrome.  I wondered at her ability to
sustain a note.


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