Beethoven in Buenos Aires

It was the audience that made this performance remarkable.

I attended a performance of Beethoven’s 9th symphony this evening, presented by the Symphonic Orchestra of Buenos Aires and the National Polyphonic Chorale, at the Facultad de Derecho (University of Rights) in central Buenos Aires.  I learned of the performance from a 1-inch ad in today’s La Nacion.  The admission was free. (I was unable to pick up a program at the end of the concert and so cannot list the name of the conductor or soloists.)

I arrived at the Facultad de Derecho by cab at 7:40 for the 8:00 performance. The cab dropped me off at the side door to the University building and I entered a maze of hallways covered with huge, handwritten signs: “Crisis in the Proletariat”, “Down with All Laws” and filled with students milling about. I walked upstairs and found myself in a polished lobby featuring over-sized Greek statuary and two concentric circles of about 400 people, double file, waiting to enter the auditorium. I joined the queue, suddenly concerned that I might not make it into the auditorium. The line moved quickly, though, and within ten minutes I was within sight of the one door opening into the performance space. There were another 400 people still behind me in line.

As I approached the door the ushers opened all of the entrances into the auditorium at once and the 400 people behind me pushed laterally into the concert hall. It was chaotic, as all of the seats in the auditorium were already filled and I sought to assess the situation and make a quick decision as to where to go. The front aisle was closed since the stage abutted up against the front seats. The back aisle was clogged with people sitting on the floor. I crawled across people’s feet and winter coats in an effort to reach the side of the auditorium. All three empty seats I had seen and sought out turned out to be “reserved” for family members. I pushed out again into the hallway and ran up the stairs to the balcony only to find all of the seats and aisles there filled as well. I managed to push into the auditorium, however, and stood, facing in the direction of the stage.

As people “settled in” I gradually was able to find a 10-inch space at the bannister overlooking the stage where I could stand sideways and look over my right shoulder at the orchestra. I considered how long the concert would seem to my feet since I’d already spent 5 hours before the concert walking the streets of Buenos Aires as a tourist. I decided to stay, however, thinking that, as might happen in the United States, after about 20 minutes of the concert, some of the audience might leave and there would be room to sit. (It turned out I was mistaken).

Eventually I had enough room at the bannister to hop up and sit down. It was a precarious perch, as the crowd in front of me moved in to take over the floor space I had vacated. Should I lose my balance backwards, it was a 5 1/2 foot drop to people sitting on the stairs below. Fifteen minutes into the first movement my left leg fell asleep. I considered the wisdom of sitting for an hour and a half with a leg asleep and decided that the concert might end with my having a blood clot. I bumped 5 people as I stepped down again off of the bannister.

The orchestra gave what was, in many ways, an unremarkable performance.

But it was the audience that made this performance remarkable.

Midway through the first movement, I turned my head away from the stage to rest my shoulders and neck. I looked straight ahead of me out into the stairwell. People were standing as far as I could see into the blackness of the wings, facing a stage they could not see, some of them with their eyes closed, listening attentively and with intention, rapt in the music. I turned back toward the rest of the balcony. 50% of the audience was between the ages of 15 and 30. 9- and 10-year olds (and 70- and 80-year olds alike) stood at the bannisters overlooking the orchestra.

No one was “dressed for the occasion.” All were dressed in everyday clothes, women in velveteen pant suits, men in sports coats with no ties, teenagers in jeans and sweatshirts, many in work clothes. They stood, holding their winter coats and scarves or sat in the aisles and on the stairs, jackets in their arms — a 5-year old, dressed in a blue nylon jacket and white tennis shoes was perched, stage right, on a covered 9-foot piano pushed to the side of the stage, her back (and pigtails) to the audience. (Only in the fourth movement, when she became restless, did her grandfather stand her on the stage. She faced the audience and, silently, danced to “Freude, Freude”.)

The orchestra played as a good, regional professional orchestra in the United States would. Their conductor, in his 70’s, guided, rather than commanded, them (although he conducted the work, accurately, from memory.) The tempi were unremarkable, the interpretive decisions “middle-of-the-road”. (There were even a couple of distressing moments in the scherzo when the ensemble was doubtful.) The slow movement was straightforward and direct, not artful or even overly expressive. Even the last movement seemed craftsmanlike and sincere, not enthusiastic or driven. (The Chorale was very fine indeed — 70 voices — strong, disciplined and comfortable with the score.)

But it was the audience that made this performance remarkable.

This was a knowledgeable working class audience. This was the audience Beethoven would have intended the symphony for. Crowded in a university lecture hall (probably 1100 people in a space which would legally seat 750), heavy with old drapes, wooden seats with old upholstery, over-varnished bannisters and floors — a fire trap with two small exits on stage. A multi-generational audience of common people, drawn to the common experience of a live performance, come straight from work on a Friday evening — quiet, disciplined, intent.

As the performance ended I was caught off guard by the emotion — a roar of humanity, shouting bravo and applauding for a 4-minute ovation. I was surprised to find tears in my eyes and on my face. This was not the slightly patronizing ovation of a “family” audience applauding their well-meaning neighbors — this was the ovation of an audience moved by the straightforward, workmanly performance of a masterpiece — and audience that shared the emotions of the masterpiece and valued its art form. This was an audience that was, unintentionally, passing its appreciation on to the next generation — an audience where class was not the distinguishing factor and where there was no artificiality. It was the audience that made this performance remarkable.

Beethoven spoke directly to their hearts.

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Three Operas

In the past three months I’ve been involved in the productions of three operas, in three cities, in three states.  Sometimes it is difficult to argue the relevance of opera to our daily lives, and often more difficult to argue the relevance of particular operas to our Christian lives.  What follows, however, are reflections on three particular opera productions, in three particular settings.

Immediately upon my return from Shanghai this summer, I went to El Paso, Texas to work on El Paso Opera’s September production of Verdi’s Aida.  (Images of elephants are usually the first association we have with Aida.   Unfortunately, Kimba, the elephant which had starred in EPO’s previous production of the opera several years ago, had other bookings and was thus unavailable.  Bringing a new “star” in from Los Angeles, by train, would have cost $20,000.)  So we contented ourselves with ”noble steeds” for the Triumphal Scene.

It is difficult to escape the influence of religion on the Aida story.  So much of the conflict between Amneris and Aida is exacerbated by the high priest, Ramphis’ declarations of “death and destruction” to the infidels.  Although the drama ends, as most popular  tragedies do, with the violent death of the protagonists, in the second act clemency is offered to the war captives by the Ethiopian king. 

 From El Paso and Aida I went to Chicago and Chamber Opera Chicago’s production of “A Menotti Tribute” mounted in honor of Gian Carlo Menotti, who died earlier this year.  Menotti’s adopted son, Francis Menotti, joined us as stage director as we presented scenes from Maria Golovin, The Last Savage and Goya as well as from Menotti’s more well-known works, such as The Medium, The Consul and Amahl and the Night Visitors. 

A tribute such as this is ”all about” organizing the many performers involved in casting the various works (25 singers in this case), putting together production schedules that take into account everyone’s oprofessional obligations, developing scenery which can suggest differing settings with one or two set pieces and helping instrumentalists organize a stack of excerpts and parts.  Then it is about developing an emotional “through line” which helps the audience take an emotional journey from the comical self-absorbtion of Miss Todd and Miss Pinkerton (in The Old Maid and the Thief) through the tensions of Baba’s disintegrating personality (in The Medium)  into the visceral pain and desperation of Magda, caught in the vagaries of an immigration bureaucracy (in The Consul) to the children’s musical defense against the Martians in Help, Help, the Globolinks.  

The evening ended with the final scene from the Saint of Bleecker Street and Anina’s taking of Holy Vows immediately before her death.  Rooted as it is in the faith of the Catholic Church, the Saint of Bleecker Street is perhaps Menotti’s finest, most sincere and most powerful work. 

From Chicago, I went to Colorado State University to conduct a performance of Benjamin Britten’s Rape of Lucretia.  One cannot complain about the opportunity to be in Fort Collins, Colorado for two weeks in “peak color” season.   

The power struggle between the Etruscans and the Romans, depicted through the rape of Collatinus’ wife Lucretia is a difficult and oppressive topic.   Since the production was performed by full-time students of Colorado State, we rehearsed once a day, in the evenings.  We all needed and used the respite of the day to “walk away from” the darkness and anger and violence of the story of one man’s domination of a woman and one society’s domination of another.

Britten was criticized for framing the story of Lucretia’s rape (set many years Before Christ) in a Christian setting (provided by the “commentary” of Male and Female Chorus throughout the opera).   Some in the audience experienced this Christian frame as an irritating and irrelevant”add-on” while others experienced it as a merciful, reassuring, edifying “context” for the violence depicted in the opera.   The cast and I found, however, that we were dependent on the catharsis provided by Male Chorus’ proclamation of forgiveness and goodness and light at the close of each day’s rehearsls. 

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From Shanghai

I’m sitting in Michael’s office in one of the administrative trailers on the site of Cirque du Soleil’s production of ”Quidam” in Shanghai, China.  The heavens opened up today with a tempestuous thunderstorm and the air is hot and humid.  It is 8:15 in the evening and I can hear music coming from the production in the “Big Top” a hundred yards away.

I have been here in Shanghai (my third visit to China) for ten days.  Although my sense of culture shock has been tempered by a growing familiarity with the city, I continue to reflect on the isolation I feel, especially when I’m “out and about” on the streets alone.  I have traveled on my own in many countries often and confidently.   It is the foreignness of the language, both to my ear and to my eye, that causes me unease.

I am studying Mandarin and have tried out my newfound vocabulary on several occasions during this trip, grateful that it seems that people can understand me.  And my ear is growing accustomed to hearing patterns and occasional phrases which I can interpret. 

The music of “Quidam” is less foreign to my ears, however, than the sounds of the language . . . I wonder if my Chinese friends would agree.

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