"Homeland" starts a third series on September 29th. Ever late to the party, I've just caught up with Season 2 and watched the finale last night. I wept during the immensely moving final moments, as Brody walked off into the dark woods alone. Then, I got to thinking how closely some scenes in this 21st century tv drama resemble Wagnerian opera.
Towards the begining of this last episode, "Homeland" took our fated lovers, Brody, the prisoner of war who was 'turned' by his Al Qaeda captors, and Carrie, the CIA agent who routed him, back to the cabin in the woods where they first consummated their decidedly twisted and complex love. Carrie is bi-polar, functioning on meds but prone to wild flights of intuition and impulse, that have helped bring her and her blighted lover through torture, terrorist plots and betrayal to this moment of stillness and serenity in the cabin on the golden, autumnal lake.
I loved those scenes in the cabin where they dare to hope for some sort
of peaceful, 'ordinary' future for their love. As in so many great love stories since the beginning of time, these lovers have no logical chance of a happy outcome. Brody is a damaged, marked man - both the CIA and Al Qaeda will want him dead when he has served their purpose. And yet, they, and we persist in hoping against hope for a happy future. Like the doomed twins Siegmund and Sieglinde in Wagner's sublime "Walküre", Brody and Carrie snatch a moment of joy before the real world intervenes.
I was reminded again of Die Walküre as they made their escape towards the dark woods between the US and Canada. In Wagner's
opera, Siegmund, a very Brody-esque character who has suffered and
suffered and is a lone, sometimes violent man as a result, finds love
with Sieglinde. (She is, in fact, his long-lost twin sister but that is a whole other story.) Her husband and his men have vowed to kill him and
in the throes of immense, overwhelming passion, the two lovers escape
into the forest. Ah, the forest! What a leitmotif it has been in this
series - just as it always was for Wagner and in so many great myths.
I read recently that "Homeland" show-runner,
Alex Gansa, believes that the love story is the heart of "Homeland" so he
confirms what I feel and what has touched me so deeply in this show. As the story has developed from a straightforward "is he/isn't he?" to the much more complex and human questions of love, trust, betrayal, Carrie and Brody have come to reside in the same place as another pair of legendary Wagnerian lovers, "Tristan and Isolde".
In the original vinyl box-set of the 1966 Karl Böhm recording of Tristan, there
were some extraordinary sleeve notes that expressed in words what
Wagner's opera was trying to do in words and music. It talked of how the
lovers longed for night, oblivion, the eternal because their impossible
desire could not exist in the light of day and reality and the real world's practical concerns. So much of the Carrie/Brody love story has taken place in dark places, in a dark, dark world of prison cells, interrogation rooms, bars. Their brief respite in the sunlit cabin can only foreshadow more darkness. Or perhaps not?
Hollywood "Story" guru Robert McKee's describes the basis of story as being drawn from the
eternal conflict in human beings, of the fight between "being" and
"becoming". As McKee explains, we all exist on at least two
planes. Philosophers sometimes divide them into 'being' and 'becoming'.
"Being"
translates into private experience where time doesn't exist, where true
feelings lie. Being is heart, mind, love, soul, taste, desire...Being
is all we'd like to keep stable in a constantly changing world. Being is
our ability to love absolutely in spite of distance and the passing of
time. Being is what makes us what we are.
"Becoming" is the
public realm. The necessary structures, rules, limits imposed on us in
order for society to function. Institutions must change to adapt. Time
hurtles along. Nothing is constant. So the human dilemma is: "How do you
keep what you value permanently in your heart while you are constantly
being forced to change and adapt?" This is the dilemma that faces Carrie as she leaves Brody to make his way alone through the dark woods. Will she be able to keep Brody in
her heart when everything in her life, her ambition, her dearest
friend, her love for her country, her moral compass and the separation of time and distance
all militate against him?
I also believed in and was moved by Peter, the CIA hitman's refusal to kill Brody - at the
time. Afterwards, I asked myself questions and I may well be proved wrong. As I watched, however, I was reminded of another great scene in "Die Walküre" where Brunnhilde, the warrior goddess, comes to offer Siegmund a
home in Valhalla with other fallen warriors provided he renounces
love. But Siegmund refuses because his love for Sieglinde transcends
everything else. Brunnhilde is dismayed but forced to examine
everything she believes and values. By the end of the opera she
renounces her warrior status for the chance of love. When Peter told
Estes that Brody's death would kill Carrie, I thought of that. Oh and isn't the superb Claire Danes as Carrie, the personification of what Wagner really intended his Valkyries to be - not fat, foghorns in horned helmets but brave, beautiful, driven warrior women.
The comparisons could go on: Saul as the bass-baritone (even though he's a tenor in real life) - the father figure - sometimes Wotan, the
Walküre's troubled god watching his turbulent Valkyrie/Carrie take action where he cannot. Sometimes Tristan's King Marke, stepping into the lovers' night world to remind them of the real world and their duties in it.
Yes, "Homeland" has a few audacious plotlines that many of us don't buy but anyone who has ever set foot in an opera house is used to that. And yes, some fans are crying foul and don't want a love story in the midst of all the intrigue and deception. I am the first to be annoyed when love stories are tacked on to movies just to thicken the plot but I think the clever writers here have moved Carrie and Brody beyond avatars in a video game to a superior status as mythic lovers. And why shouldn't our
contemporary culture produce its own figures of myth? Why do they always
have to come from the past? I think these lovers are the quintessential
expression of a mythical love in the early 21st century - in a world riven by terrorism, fanaticism and violence a love between flawed, broken people that
transcends betrayal, fear, separation. My but it would make a great
opera.
Showing posts with label Tristan und Isolde. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tristan und Isolde. Show all posts
Tuesday, 17 September 2013
Monday, 24 March 2008
Absolute Happiness – Ben Heppner and Wagner at the Salle Pleyel
Absolute Happiness – Ben Heppner and Wagner at the Salle Pleyel
Ben Heppner missed the live Met broadcast of Tristan und Isolde on Saturday. Robert Dean Smith, his replacement did a fine job. But I felt a little nostalgic for big Ben from BC – especially given a stunning concert performance of his that I attended in Paris just over a year ago. Heppner gave two Wagner concerts in Paris last year – within 2 weeks of each other and at two different venues. The first at the Theatre des Champs Elysees featured Siegmund’s glorious music from Die Walkure.
I had arrived in Paris a couple of days earlier and had noted the dates. But, in an extraordinary moment of stupidity, managed to miss this first concert. I knew where it was, I’d noted when it was. Then I went off for tea and very delicate little French pastries at La Duree on the Left Bank and somehow, I got addled. When Ben Heppner was greeting spring over on the Right Bank, I was standing in the frozen pizza section of the Montparnasse Monoprix wondering whether to go for a good solid Margarita or throw in a bit of pepperoni for good measure. Next morning when I wandered to the theatre to try for a ticket and found that all that glorious sound had gone off into the ether the previous night, well, had there been a nearby bench, I would have sat down and wept.
All was not lost. Heppner was coming back to the Salle Pleyel and this time he was bringing Tristan with him. I got there on the right day and got a good seat. But I wasn’t that excited. I prefer the joy of a young Siegmund greeting spring and love to the mournful, drawn out delirium and death of Tristan. I knew that Heppner had had a few health problems. And I had no expectations from a dramatic point of view. This was a concert performance. The man would have to stand there in a tux, alone, in front of an orchestra and make us believe that he is raging, brooding, wounded Tristan - yearning unto death.
I was sitting next to a small bird-like French woman in her mid-eighties. We had a minor skirmish when I complained about my uncomfortable seat and she accused me of being a typical Parisian whiner (?!). Then the Orchestre National de Paris played the Parsifal prelude. My neighbour turned to me with tears in her eyes and said “Cette musique, c’est le bonheur absolu.” Absolute happiness. “On a de la chance de le savoir.” Yes, she was right. We are both lucky to know how much this music can add to a life. Then Ben came and Ben sang. But he didn’t just sing. He stood there in that stiff dinner jacket and white tie and turned into the dying Tristan before our eyes. The big old boy from British Columbia morphed into this wild, tormented, tragic hero.
The audience in the Salle Pleyel leapt to its feet. And the French aren’t generous with their standing ovations. Another French friend of mine, a gifted concert pianist has described his experience of discovering Wagner as comparable to the initial stages of falling in love. I’ll save that for another entry. In the meantime, I wish Ben Heppner a speedy recovery. With less than a handful of Tristans on the planet, we need them all – particularly one who can do what he did on that December night of ‘bonheur absolu’ in the Salle Pleyel.
Ben Heppner missed the live Met broadcast of Tristan und Isolde on Saturday. Robert Dean Smith, his replacement did a fine job. But I felt a little nostalgic for big Ben from BC – especially given a stunning concert performance of his that I attended in Paris just over a year ago. Heppner gave two Wagner concerts in Paris last year – within 2 weeks of each other and at two different venues. The first at the Theatre des Champs Elysees featured Siegmund’s glorious music from Die Walkure.
I had arrived in Paris a couple of days earlier and had noted the dates. But, in an extraordinary moment of stupidity, managed to miss this first concert. I knew where it was, I’d noted when it was. Then I went off for tea and very delicate little French pastries at La Duree on the Left Bank and somehow, I got addled. When Ben Heppner was greeting spring over on the Right Bank, I was standing in the frozen pizza section of the Montparnasse Monoprix wondering whether to go for a good solid Margarita or throw in a bit of pepperoni for good measure. Next morning when I wandered to the theatre to try for a ticket and found that all that glorious sound had gone off into the ether the previous night, well, had there been a nearby bench, I would have sat down and wept.
All was not lost. Heppner was coming back to the Salle Pleyel and this time he was bringing Tristan with him. I got there on the right day and got a good seat. But I wasn’t that excited. I prefer the joy of a young Siegmund greeting spring and love to the mournful, drawn out delirium and death of Tristan. I knew that Heppner had had a few health problems. And I had no expectations from a dramatic point of view. This was a concert performance. The man would have to stand there in a tux, alone, in front of an orchestra and make us believe that he is raging, brooding, wounded Tristan - yearning unto death.
I was sitting next to a small bird-like French woman in her mid-eighties. We had a minor skirmish when I complained about my uncomfortable seat and she accused me of being a typical Parisian whiner (?!). Then the Orchestre National de Paris played the Parsifal prelude. My neighbour turned to me with tears in her eyes and said “Cette musique, c’est le bonheur absolu.” Absolute happiness. “On a de la chance de le savoir.” Yes, she was right. We are both lucky to know how much this music can add to a life. Then Ben came and Ben sang. But he didn’t just sing. He stood there in that stiff dinner jacket and white tie and turned into the dying Tristan before our eyes. The big old boy from British Columbia morphed into this wild, tormented, tragic hero.
The audience in the Salle Pleyel leapt to its feet. And the French aren’t generous with their standing ovations. Another French friend of mine, a gifted concert pianist has described his experience of discovering Wagner as comparable to the initial stages of falling in love. I’ll save that for another entry. In the meantime, I wish Ben Heppner a speedy recovery. With less than a handful of Tristans on the planet, we need them all – particularly one who can do what he did on that December night of ‘bonheur absolu’ in the Salle Pleyel.
Saturday, 22 March 2008
Tristan und Isolde live from the Met - but please DON'T pass the popcorn
On this freezing March Easter weekend, my Saturday looked to be perfect – a dress rehearsal of Carmen at the Royal Opera House in the morning and, if the tube is behaving, a quick lunch and onto the Metropolitan Opera’s live transmission of Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde at the Gate Cinema in Notting Hill.
I discovered these broadcasts last year in Vancouver. On Canada’s West Coast, the time difference has us up early – 10.30 for a normal opera, 930 for a Wagner. This has one huge advantage in our downtown cineplex. The popcorn concession for regular cinema has not yet opened. Muffins are available and coffee – both measuring very low on the Richter scale of noise made while being consumed. Then, during Puccini’s Manon Lescaut, one lone man wandered downstairs during the second intermission and found the fatal popcorn. Surely the noisiest foodstuff known to man –a Richter eight or nine – so why do we sell it during a cinematic performance that demands that we hear?
Daniel Barenboim discussed the current disdain for hearing and listening in last year’s Reith lectures and, perhaps, when Jack Black is crashing through his latest dysfunctional screen-life, none of us need to hear the details. But when that man made his way up the aisle in the Vancouver cinema last year, clutching his bottomless (they are always bottomless) bag of popcorn, I knew that Puccini was going to come out the worse for the encounter. Manon Lescaut, alone in that notorious ‘desert outside New Orleans’, started to sing “Solo, (crunch) perduta (crackle) abandonnata (rustle – sound of hand rummaging deep in bag for the buttery bits at the bottom.) And unlike the sweet wrapper that takes a mere whole aria to unwrap, popcorn never ends. Popcorn in cinemas has to be the closest mankind will come to a brush with eternity.
But I kept faith in the culture of Old Europe. Corn, as any geographer will tell you, is an American crop so, even if we have succumbed to this very American snack while we watch a Hollywood film, surely the Gate in Notting Hill, must know that you cannot eat popcorn during Wagner? Oscar Wilde was right about many, many things but very wrong about Wagner’s music. It isn’t so loud that you can talk through it (I paraphrase). Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde with its endless yearning, its great ocean of desire, (and not for more butter and plenty of salt) is full of silences, pauses, great orchestral drawings in of breath before we are carried ever upward to Wagner’s unique form of ecstasy.
Oddly enough, the young woman at the concession stand at the Gate understood this. She was obviously not an opera goer but she had realized that ‘popcorn and opera don’t go together.’ Alas, her manager apparently does not agree. And so I walked away crestfallen from the Gate. At 30 pounds a seat, I wasn’t going to risk it. So here I sit back at the house listening to Radio 3, very sorry that I missed Deborah Voigt and the Met debut of Robert Dean Smith. For cinema managers who need guidance on this matter here is a quick list of acceptable opera foods if we really must, and it would seem that we really must, be stuffing something into our mouths at every waking moment of our day.
FOOD THAT YOU CAN EAT AT A MET BROADCAST IF YOU SIMPLY MUST:
Soup (no crusty baguettes to go with it mind!) , pureed vegetables, lightly scrambled egg but no bacon, fruit compote, yogurt (but not with bits of fruit in it – particularly not pineapple or any kind of apple) chocolate mousse – milk, dark or white – is always acceptable but no slurping your spoon.
DON'T EVEN THINK ABOUT EATING:
Popcorn, crisps, bagels, kit-kats, crunchie bars, snickers, raw carrots, courgettes or peppers, battered fish, fried chicken, steak and kidney pie.
Cinema personnel requiring further information should feel free to contact me at :thesinginghouse@gmail.com
I discovered these broadcasts last year in Vancouver. On Canada’s West Coast, the time difference has us up early – 10.30 for a normal opera, 930 for a Wagner. This has one huge advantage in our downtown cineplex. The popcorn concession for regular cinema has not yet opened. Muffins are available and coffee – both measuring very low on the Richter scale of noise made while being consumed. Then, during Puccini’s Manon Lescaut, one lone man wandered downstairs during the second intermission and found the fatal popcorn. Surely the noisiest foodstuff known to man –a Richter eight or nine – so why do we sell it during a cinematic performance that demands that we hear?
Daniel Barenboim discussed the current disdain for hearing and listening in last year’s Reith lectures and, perhaps, when Jack Black is crashing through his latest dysfunctional screen-life, none of us need to hear the details. But when that man made his way up the aisle in the Vancouver cinema last year, clutching his bottomless (they are always bottomless) bag of popcorn, I knew that Puccini was going to come out the worse for the encounter. Manon Lescaut, alone in that notorious ‘desert outside New Orleans’, started to sing “Solo, (crunch) perduta (crackle) abandonnata (rustle – sound of hand rummaging deep in bag for the buttery bits at the bottom.) And unlike the sweet wrapper that takes a mere whole aria to unwrap, popcorn never ends. Popcorn in cinemas has to be the closest mankind will come to a brush with eternity.
But I kept faith in the culture of Old Europe. Corn, as any geographer will tell you, is an American crop so, even if we have succumbed to this very American snack while we watch a Hollywood film, surely the Gate in Notting Hill, must know that you cannot eat popcorn during Wagner? Oscar Wilde was right about many, many things but very wrong about Wagner’s music. It isn’t so loud that you can talk through it (I paraphrase). Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde with its endless yearning, its great ocean of desire, (and not for more butter and plenty of salt) is full of silences, pauses, great orchestral drawings in of breath before we are carried ever upward to Wagner’s unique form of ecstasy.
Oddly enough, the young woman at the concession stand at the Gate understood this. She was obviously not an opera goer but she had realized that ‘popcorn and opera don’t go together.’ Alas, her manager apparently does not agree. And so I walked away crestfallen from the Gate. At 30 pounds a seat, I wasn’t going to risk it. So here I sit back at the house listening to Radio 3, very sorry that I missed Deborah Voigt and the Met debut of Robert Dean Smith. For cinema managers who need guidance on this matter here is a quick list of acceptable opera foods if we really must, and it would seem that we really must, be stuffing something into our mouths at every waking moment of our day.
FOOD THAT YOU CAN EAT AT A MET BROADCAST IF YOU SIMPLY MUST:
Soup (no crusty baguettes to go with it mind!) , pureed vegetables, lightly scrambled egg but no bacon, fruit compote, yogurt (but not with bits of fruit in it – particularly not pineapple or any kind of apple) chocolate mousse – milk, dark or white – is always acceptable but no slurping your spoon.
DON'T EVEN THINK ABOUT EATING:
Popcorn, crisps, bagels, kit-kats, crunchie bars, snickers, raw carrots, courgettes or peppers, battered fish, fried chicken, steak and kidney pie.
Cinema personnel requiring further information should feel free to contact me at :thesinginghouse@gmail.com
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)