{"id":16152,"date":"2015-10-30T11:00:53","date_gmt":"2015-10-30T15:00:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.michiganquarterlyreview.com\/?p=16152"},"modified":"2015-10-30T11:00:53","modified_gmt":"2015-10-30T15:00:53","slug":"enchanted-by-opera-win-two-tickets-to-see-jamie-barton","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.lsa.umich.edu\/mqr\/2015\/10\/enchanted-by-opera-win-two-tickets-to-see-jamie-barton\/","title":{"rendered":"Enchanted by Opera: Win Two Tickets to See Jamie Barton"},"content":{"rendered":"

Please note: This post is a part of series.<\/span><\/i><\/a><\/p>\n

Gertrude Stein\u2019s <\/span>Tender Buttons<\/span><\/i> is sometimes described as a work of \u201c<\/span>verbal cubism<\/span><\/a>.\u201d Wrote Marcel Proust <\/span>in a letter<\/span><\/a>: \u201cFor several years, Beethoven\u2019s late quartets and Franck\u2019s music have been my primary spiritual nourishment.\u201d You probably know that Karl Ove Knausg\u00e5rd<\/span> wrote a music column<\/span><\/a> when he was sixteen (covered: Simple Minds, Talking Heads, David Bowie, and Eric Clapton). And you?<\/span><\/p>\n

At <\/span>UMS<\/span><\/a> we were inspired by the impact of performance on other kinds of creative work, so we started an <\/span>Artists in Residence program<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Here at <\/span>MQR<\/span><\/i>, I hope to offer \u201csmall bites\u201d of this experience. You\u2019ll see a series of posts focusing on cross-pollination and inspiration in the arts. Alongside each post, UMS will offer up a pair of tickets to an Ann Arbor-area reader of the <\/span>MQR Blog<\/span><\/i> (it could be you!), and then we\u2019ll follow up with our reader after his or her performance experience as part of the next post in the series.<\/span><\/p>\n

Enchanted by Opera<\/b><\/p>\n

What can opera do for you? I recently came across the <\/span>Metropolitan Opera\u2019s blog \u201cLast Night at the Met,\u201d<\/span><\/a> which features prominently the stylish accoutrements of opera. When I went to see a rehearsal of the <\/span>Queen of Spades<\/span><\/i> there, I certainly didn\u2019t understand the details of how the music and staging worked, but to be submerged in the subculture was thrilling. (<\/span>So much so that I wrote about it.<\/span><\/a>)<\/span><\/p>\n

I present to you a list of <\/span>fiction inspired by opera<\/span><\/a>. There are people you\u2019d expect, like E.M. Forster, for example. Forster is said to <\/span>have had a passion for music that helped him write<\/span><\/a>:<\/span><\/p>\n

One feels the charge and the echo of many great composers in his novels (he also wrote the libretto for Benjamin Britten\u2019s <\/span>Billy Budd<\/span><\/i>) and for him it was not just a shadow art form but an ideal to strive for. Music was Forster\u2019s portal into the sublime. \u201cThe kingdom of music is not the kingdom of this world,\u201d he wrote in <\/span>A Room With a View <\/span><\/i>(1908). \u201cIt will accept those whom breeding and intellect and culture have alike rejected. The commonplace person begins to play, and shoots into the empyrean without effort, whilst we look up, marveling how he has escaped us, and thinking how we could worship him and love him, would he but translate his visions into human words.<\/span><\/p>\n

There are other writers who are drawn to the libretto as a form. In 1995, anyway, <\/span>it seemed that everyone wanted to write an opera<\/span><\/a>, including Joyce Carol Oates and Ishmael Reed. \u201cLiterary figures who might once have scorned libretto writing as a secondary art are being drawn once again to the form that captured Dryden, Maeterlinck, von Hoffmansthal and Auden,\u201d the New York Times<\/em> noted in its trend piece. Dare I mention <\/span>Nosferatu<\/span><\/i><\/a>? Dare I mention<\/span> Decreation<\/span><\/i>?<\/span><\/p>\n