To
launch the Salon Thursdays series of
free lectures at the Dahesh Museum of
Art Gift Shop, curators selected one of the most learned and engaging fine
arts critics and scholars in New York today, Fred Plotkin. His
presentation, Aida: One Woman, Two
Nations, and Verdi’s Egyptomania, will take place at 6:30 PM on October 4th
at the Dahesh Gift Shop at 145 Sixth Avenue in New York. People interested in attending can call the
shop at 212.759.0606, or visit online at http://www.minimusdesign.com/dma/. If
you have an interest in Verdi, opera, or all things Egyptian, this is a
must-see event.
Plotkin
is familiar to radio listeners for his intermission features during the New York Metropolitan Opera international
radio broadcasts, where he does audio essays, intermission features and is a
popular guest on the Met's Opera Quiz. His seminars at the Metropolitan Opera Guild are always sold out and he has lectured
about opera for the Metropolitan Museum
of Art, BAM, the Smithsonian, the Morgan Library, the Los
Angeles Opera, the Wagner Society of
Southern California, the Salzburg
Festival and the Maggio Musicale
Fiorentino.
Plotkin
is also the author of the best-selling Opera
101: A Complete Guide to Learning and Loving Opera and Classical Music 101: A Complete Guide to Learning and Loving Classical
Music, which has also enjoyed a vogue in both the UK and China.
Readers
who are avid WQXR listeners can also read Plotkin’s entertaining and
informative blog, Operavore, which can
be found at: http://www.wqxr.org/#!/people/fred-plotkin/.
It is highly recommended.
Fred
Plotkin took a few moments out of his busy schedule to answer a few questions
prior to his lecture this week.
I’ve
heard you say that Giuseppe Verdi was one of the most significant figures of
the 19th Century art world in Italy.
Why is that?
I would
say that Verdi was the most
significant cultural figure in Italy in the 19th Century. His life spanned from
1813-1901 and, though he grew up in a rural setting, he immersed himself in
literature and music on his own. With his great genius, rigorous discipline and
fiery though compassionate temperament, he saw his art as a vehicle for
communicating his principles while never compromising the sheer visceral
pleasure that his operas (really, music dramas) provided at the time and still
do.
Can
you tell us a little bit about how and why Aida was commissioned?
By the
time Aïda was commissioned, he was in his mid 50s, the richest and most
successful composer in the world. He had not written an opera for several years
and could pick and choose his subjects. The commission came from the Khedive of
Egypt to coincide with the opening of the Suez Canal and the Cairo Opera House.
Ultimately, Rigoletto was the opening opera but Aïda did have its world
premiere there. I believe that Verdi viewed Aïda as an opera that was meant for
Italians to see and wrote it with them in mind. That will be part of the
subject of my talk at the Dahesh Museum.
You
have said that Aida is a profoundly political work. In what way?
Aïda is
about how private passions collide with public service. In addition, just
because one nation can dominate another militarily, it does not mean that the
occupied nation has been conquered on the deepest level. The title character in
this opera may be a slave in one country but she does not forget that she is
the princess of another. Even the conquerors (the Egyptians in this case) come
to realize that their might can only go so far.
How
has this work been interpreted – and reinterpreted – over the years?
In
countless ways! Perhaps too many. I saw a production in Europe in which the
Egyptians were Nazis and the Ethiopians were the oppressed Jews. This
completely missed the point of the opera and trivialized the horrors visited
upon Jews, gays, Gypsies and others during the Holocaust. I believe, with all
operas, that superimposing a concept on an opera only diminishes that work. It
is more important for musicians and stage directors to really apply themselves
to understanding the intentions and aesthetics of composers and librettists and
find inspiration from them.
Can
you tell us a little bit about Operavore?
How did it come about?
I was
approached by WQXR, America’s iconic classical music radio station, in the
winter of 2011 to be a writer for their new blog about opera, then known as
WQX-Aria. This was part of the station’s plan to expand its reach and
connection with listeners (who are intensely knowledgeable and loyal) and to
also create topics for discussion. In short order, the station added an
Operavore feed in which you can listen to opera all the time streamed on
www.wqxr.org. I was happy to sign on, with the proviso that I not do reviewing
because I know so many people in the opera field. Instead, my two articles a
week cover a wide range of issues that have opera as a common link. So I might
write about singing, teaching opera, production design, politics, sex, food,
wine, conducting, finances, and the five senses, all in relation to opera. I do
one article a month as part of a series I call Planet Opera, in which I write
about one city and its relationship to opera. These have included the more
predictable places (Milan, Vienna, Barcelona) but also unusual but significant
spots such as Ghent, Genoa and Dublin. Next up is Cincinnati.
Finally,
do you have any projects in the pipeline you would like to share with our
readers?
I lead a
very popular series at the Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimò of NYU (24 West 12th
Street) called “Adventures in Italian Opera” that is free and open to the
public. In it, I am joined by great practitioners of Italian opera who come and
talk--meaningfully, not superficially--about how they do what they do. This
season’s dates are Oct 24 (Remembering Richard Tucker); Nov 9 (David Alden on
directing Un Ballo in Maschera); Dec 3 (tenor Giuseppe Filianoti, star of La
Clemenza di Tito and La Rondine); Feb 26 (Celebrating Giuseppe Verdi on his
bicentennial); Mar 12 (José Cura on performing Otello); Apr 30 (Fabio Luisi,
principal conductor of The Metropolitan Opera).
Many
thanks to Fred Plotkin – we will be speaking with him again in the future!
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