Opera: the First Taste

I have been dazzled by Opera. The dress rehearsal of “The Barber of Seville” at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre was mesmerizing. The setting, the characters and the sound and those epic moments within it, how I was enthralled by it! The setting was delightful- It strongly reminded me of early 19^th century movie sets and it proved to be versatile enough to accommodate virtually all the scenes demands. A feature I especially liked was Rosina’s room, which could be spun around to provide a double-function. It was ingenious. At once it gave an atmosphere of private moments, as well as providing for balcony scenes.

I couldn’t really choose which characters I adore the most in this production; but I thoroughly enjoyed any moment that Figaro, Count Almaviva, or Doctor Bartolo were present. I like funny guys and these guys were hilarious. I loved how Figaro was portrayed, especially in those random moments where he did that weird tiptoe walk or his pride over his barber talent and other skills, his confidence and wackiness. His songs were also amazing with that baritone voice, his voice contained the comedy of the character and it was beautiful, his characters songs are some of my favourites. Likewise too I adored Doc’s mature baritone voice- the power and grandness of it, which went beautifully with him being such a grumpy old guy. He gave me the impression of being a smart old fox, and the continuous slapping away of his roaming hands by Rosina, which he snickered away when caught at it, was quite charming. Now Count Almaviva could be my most favourite of them all, only for the simple fact that his love songs were breathtaking- the tenderness and sincerity in them was stunningly beautiful with his voice (I think he’s a tenor though his artist bio said he’s a baritone, as it sounded very different from the other baritones). The count was also a very smart cookie, and devious too with his manipulations of events that were simply brilliant. My favourite moment in the whole Opera was when he was in disguise as a substitute music teacher and was exasperating the Doc with his…. His repetition of “oy-vey, oy-vey, oy-vey, something-vey” line, a blessing I think, which was so endearingly cheeky as I could see the total joy he was having in irritating the Doc with it. He was such a cheeky devil. The cheekiness and the gorgeous crooning truly do a number on the heart’s pitter-patters. However I think my other favourite moments in the opera were actually where when the extra characters were involved. The group opera singing was really, really pleasing to the ear. Generally these big group scenes had great comedic effect- who couldn’t snicker at the flood of underwear-only attired men? Or that mad scramble for their payment to their jubilant singing? I really thoroughly enjoyed the Opera, it was a wonderful experience and one I definitely want to repeat again and again.

Changing Critical Perspective over the Generations

Time changes everything, including how works of art are perceived by critical audiences. For example when comparing two reviews of Tom Stoppard’s play “The Real Inspector Hound”, one published in 1968, when the play was first produced, the other from the more recent year of 2011, there was a staggering difference in the impressions the reviewers had of the play, the length of the reviews, and even the very language used within the critical analysis.

This last point is quite interesting to look so we will explore it further. When looking at the 1968 review’s language its most striking feature was its apparent lack of industry-specific language. In fact the most I saw to this effect were as follows: “baronial décor”, “fruity Edwardian phrases”, and “grisly parody”. Other than these small crumbs the overall language of the review is kept informal. Perhaps this was done with intent: the review may have been looking to reach a wider audience which would require simpler diction or perhaps the critique’s profession had not yet developed into the more formalized and scholarly image that we have of it now. In contrast the 2011 review oozes with industry-specific language: “farcical trappings”, “Marquee”, “play’s ingénue”, “whodunit”, “journalistic impartiality”, “lampoons the conventions of murder mysteries”, “hackneyed dialogue” and “sense of absurdity” are a small sum of examples seen within the review. It has appeared that the vocabulary of the critique’s world has developed by leaps and bounds over the successive generations. As such we are given the impression that there are two possible reasons for this change of language, a. that the target audience of these reviews have shifted away from the average play-goer to that of a critique’s peers, or b. that the profession of criticism has formally defined itself within the scholarly world, thus adopting its language.

In the other aspects mentioned at the beginning of this blog there were also points of difference in length and the critic’s opinion on the play. The 1968 Review was extremely short, only equaling one page and most likely didn’t have more than 500 words to its name. All the same it managed to express its dislike of the play to a great degree: “the pretext for getting them onto the stage…is feeble” in the end the critic dismisses the play’s critics as being “creatures of fantasy as the inmates of Lady Muldrom’s dining room”. Ouch, this review is quite to the point and focused. The 2011 review was much longer, and detailed. The review positively looked into analyzing the play beyond its structure and organization, in regards to characters and other analytical elements. This review ended with the positive “you could never call Hound purebred Stoppard, but it is one of his mongrel bits of fun”. As a whole reviews have gotten wordier, longer and take more into consideration when reviewing a work.

 Works Cited:

Blanchard, Jayne. “The Real Inspector Hound” Rev. of The Real Inspector Hound by Tom Stoppard. DC Theatre Scene. 27 April 2011. Web. 20 Mar. 2012.

"New Light Comedy by Tom Stoppard Playing in London." New York Times (1923-Current file): 38. ProQuest Historical Newspapers: The New York Times (1851-2008). Jun 19 1968. Web. 20 Mar. 2012 .

Meta-Aware Journalism: Like a ninja, if it is there then I cannot see it.

Media is not aware of itself as a media. It does not reflect a self-critical or self-aware role in either its constitution, composition or as part of an overarching genre. Take for example this news report from the CBC: http://www.cbc.ca/news/arts/story/2012/03/13/doobie-brothers.html. Is it self-aware of its role as a work of journalism? Does it refer to itself? Address its reader directly? No, nadda and nope.  This article is an example of an average news article, that you could pull up anywhere at any time from any source. We do not see it acting as if it was self-aware. On a whole media, such as the news, is not self-aware.

So, why not? Why is it not aware?

Meta-awareness is disturbing. It is jarring. It is confusing. For most readers of the news this is off-putting. “What the?! Why are you?...Just give me the facts!”. I do not want my media to jump out at me, play with my mind as I confusedly try to comprehend exactly what it is trying to tell me. I do not want to deal with an article that is exploring how it is an article. I do not want to read an article that is critically self-reflecting on itself as a piece of news. If I wanted that I would read Calvino’s book. I want facts. I want the details. I want them now. That’s why I read these articles: for facts, for information. Specifically on events/things that have occurred or are upcoming and I want to know more about.

Media is aware of this fact and thus tries to dish out the facts in a way that promotes easy consumption: the simpler the format the better. Meta-awareness is not a simple format. It promotes thinking about our role as reader/viewer/listener by its self-awareness. This is the focus of meta-awareness. This is not the best way to convey the news to an audience that just wants the facts of an event. Thus we generally see short, clipped, to the point writing in media. They do this because we just want an objective telling of an event (though media is not always objective), we just want factual content (though it is not always so) when looking reading our news articles. We just want info.

For what purpose does media, in journalism that would be the news, have for being self-aware? In general, being meta-aware would actual impede the information machine. Therefore, we do not see meta-awareness in media, usually. This makes perfect sense when we consider that our role as the readers/viewers/and listeners is to consume these facts, take them into consideration, and form opinions about them to then gossip about the next day with the people around us. The role of the journalist or media source in general is to provide us with these tidbits of information to take home, tear-down, build-up, explore, connect with or ignore as we see fit. It is just giving us information to keep us informed on what is going on, what is changed and what is changing in the world around us.

The Radical Change of Information Accessibility via Printing technology

            It is hard to believe but once upon a time there were no such things as Wikipedia, blogger.com, or even computers. How then did ideas and information get past on, exchanged and improved upon? The answer of course is books (which do still exist in modern times despite e-readers attempts). But not just books: printing technology in general provided, and still provides, the pre-computer equivalent of information sharing technology that is basic for the life we know today. But printing technology did not start with the technologies we see today, it has radically changed and developed over the centuries, in turn changing and shaping how information has been accessed (for this blog I will be focussing on the development of European printing which was the direct ancestor of the modern printing).

Before mass printing of books, newspapers, and the like, information was hard to come by. Think about it. Before paper became widely available and used for printing purposes ‘books’, more formally known as manuscripts, were hand printed on vellum, calf skin, and was thus pricey (Wikipedia). Not many people could afford them, and even if they could buy manuscripts not many people could actually read them. Generally only a small portion of the population were educated and thus literate (this small portion being the nobility and the clergy), and thus it was not the common form of passing on information. Information at this time was mainly passed by word of mouth. This is probably where we get terms like “local knowledge” and such things as “family secret recipes” as information was limited and passed down directly through the generations. At this time bards and troubadours were the populace’s equivalent to books and newspapers as storytellers and living storehouses of information.

Of course this is not to say that books did not exist at all. As mentioned above, the nobility and the clergy were literate and had the means to access and produce manuscripts. In fact the Church was the largest producers of manuscripts as they had the scribes who copied, by hand, written works over the centuries (Wikipedia). The nobility could also produce works by hiring scribes to copy what they wanted copied. However the access of the information was restricted, mostly if not entirely, to these two classes. The intended audiences of these books were others in the same class. In these days the quote “Knowledge is power” is aptly put, as these classes had the monopoly on information and thus had power over those that didn’t (Wikipedia). It was quite the reality in that an educated man was a powerful man.

However this all changed, quite radically. The first of the revolutionary printing technology was block printing. It was first used for printing on cloth for religious purposes in the 1300s, but was quickly adapted to paper c.1400 (Wikipedia).  Block printing provided a cheaper alternative to the vellum manuscripts, producing short and heavily illustrated works, becoming largely popular and more accessible to the masses. It was still a limited deal though, while the works were more affordable they were still not entirely affordable to the larger population. Production of these works still took time and effort, and still produced a limited number of items. Then in came Gutenberg. Around the year 1436 Johannes Gutenberg would introduce the printing press to the world and forever change the way we access information (Wikipedia). The printing press made printing such things as books, and eventually newspapers, a very cheap means of spreading information. It mechanized book production, producing high quality works at a fraction of the former cost. This printing technology blazed across Europe, and with it took off the printing industry.

This printing revolution drastically altered how we access information. Common people could now afford to buy books; it was affordable for people outside of the nobility and clergy to produce books.  The printing industry exploded to meet the demand, by the 1500s the printing presses were found universally across Europe (Wikipedia). The first mass produced books were religious texts, the Gutenberg Bible achieving incredible popularity, but quickly people took advantage of the fact that they now had an affordable means to spread ideas, and used printing technology to tell the world their ideas (Wikipedia). Take for example Martin Luther and his Ninety-Five Theses, the reason why this piece of work became so widely and quickly known to the world was because within weeks of it being posted the text was being mass produced via the printing press, and people could afford to buy it (Wikipedia).  People used printing as a way to voice and spread their ideas, and these ideas were then able to be picked up by the masses, analyzed and discussed, and added to.  Printing opened a wide door for self-expression, as essentially, people could now print whatever they wanted to print, whether it is a book of poetry or a scientific paper. They also were able to express themselves beyond print text. Artists after the 1800s were able to use intaglio engraving to reprint their works of art in books, and later William Blake would develop a method of relief etching to capture the accompaniment pictures to his works of poetry (Wikipedia). People now had access to a large, immortal, expressive body of information at their fingertips.

Of course one can go on and on about radicalism in printing, it is such a vast topic. However on the point of how it shaped our access to information, it essentially made all and any ideas immortal and accessible to every man. A person could have a thought, write it down, and have it published soon afterward and have people reading it across the world (an oversimplification of the process to be sure). People could also buy the same version of a text and have access to the exact same information read by other people. People could also get a hold of these books where ever they went. Information essentially became cheap, universal, and open to all the possible topics a person could think of. A rather radical change from when the upper classes held a monopoly on knowledge accessibility.

Works Cited:

“Printing” Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. 2012. Wikipedia.org. Web. 5 Feb. 2012.

“Printing Revolution” Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. 2012. Wikipedia.org. Web. 5 Feb. 2012.

“The Ninety-Five Theses” Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. 2012. Wikipedia.org. Web.  5 Feb. 2012.

“William Blake” Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. 2012. Wikipedia.org. Web. 5 Feb. 2012.