Category: Uncategorized (Page 6 of 8)

I’ve been reflecting a bit on the impact of endowments and how they allowed for two performances every [interval] from 1753 to 1928, only interrupted by hyperinflation. The influence of that endowment on music over the years is truly staggering; it transformed so much and left a lasting legacy that astounded me.

On a related note, when I consider the financial aspects, I can’t help but think about the social mobility it provided to some of the boys in the choir. It opened up opportunities for them in significant ways.

In his cantata BWV12, I found it fascinating to observe where he made edits. He composed without a pencil, so it’s interesting to notice where he had ideas written down before setting them to music.

It was intriguing to see that Bach didn’t issue strict dictates; instead, he offered directives to the university students in his inner circle who were involved in poetry. He would ask them to take one specific Lutheran hymn with eight stanzas and rearrange it. They were to keep the first and last stanzas intact while reworking the others into four or five movements. I find this collaborative approach quite intriguing!

On Saturday night, a group of us went and saw Tchaikovsky’s Pique Dame (The Queen of Spades) at Oper Leipzig. The opera house itself was very grand, with four separate coat checks on the entry floor! The outside of the building was light gold or buttery yellow, and the inside was warm-feeling with various shades of beige and gold intermixed.

I’m someone who likes to go into shows somewhat blind. With opera, I tend to only read the synopsis and maybe listen to a few of the main songs before seeing the work because usually a bit more context is necessary for foreign-language pieces (especially since this was my first Russian opera). Funnily enough, because of having read the Met’s synopsis, I almost felt more confused during the opera since the director made so many choices that differed from the original version. The Queen of Spades is based on a story by Alexander Pushkin, which follows a man named Hermann (an engineer in the Imperial Russian army) who watches the other officers gamble every night but never gambles himself. When Count Tomsky relays a story of his grandmother, the Countess, Hermann learns of her gambling success and how she used the secret of the three winning cards. He becomes obsessed with learning her secret. This comes into conflict with his love for Lisa, a woman he initially does not know the name of but whom he has fallen in love with, since she is the Countess’ granddaughter and engaged to Prince Yeletsky. The opera ends in tragedy as Hermann’s dual obsessions with his love for Lisa and the secret of the cards result in the death of the Countess, a broken engagement between Lisa and Prince Yeletsky, Lisa’s death by drowning, and eventually his own. Having been tricked by the ghost of the countess, who tells him his three lucky cards are the 3, 7, and ace, he bets ridiculous sums of money on them only to find that the final card is not the ace at all, but the queen of spades. Having lost everything in pursuit of this fortune, he shoots himself, believing that the queen of spades is an amalgamation of the Countess herself, taking her revenge.

Throughout Oper Leipzig’s production, there were several notable variations that threw me off, given my preexisting knowledge of the plot. Some changes I liked or was at least intrigued by, while others contrasted too sharply with the libretto. Other directorial choices I felt were over the top, simply done for shock value. I have many thoughts about this production, and now I will pretend to be a weathered opera critic, unabashedly sure of her opinions. 

Beginning with the set, I enjoyed most of the set design and usage of space. The curtain rose to reveal a rocky, graveyard-esque terrain that I heard several others describe as appearing like the surface of the moon. For a darker opera, it set the tone well, and throughout the show was well-utilized to portray all types of spaces (different bedrooms, a gambling house, the streets of St. Petersburg, etc.) 30 or so minutes into the opera, it was revealed that the stage could rise, revealing a fully-furnished room underneath the ground. I did not like how the set was used in Act II – frankly, I really didn’t like much about Act II in general. It began with a scrim (a gauzy fabric draped over the main area of the stage) where an image of the underground set was projected. Partway into the Act, during one of the arias, the stage rose again and the room underneath was shown. Now, projected onto the scrim were the actions of Hermann sneaking into the Countess’ room. This effect was cool at first, but it went on for almost the entire act and the illusion was shattered as the physical actors weren’t in time with their holographs. It also wasn’t clear what purpose this doubling of the scene served at all. My favorite use of the set was in Act III, where the aboveground layer was converted into a gambling house and a square rim of lights was set above the scene. I felt like Act III was the strongest act in terms of set usage – there just wasn’t as much going on which was a relief since many choices were so left field, they became distracting and took away from the music.

In terms of costuming, I didn’t love how either Hermann or Lisa was portrayed. Hermann often looked ragged with a stained shirt and wild hair, and his unappealing portrayal through the show made me very unsure of how to consider the love story between him and Lisa – despite being the main tenor role his character was very unsympathetic. I understand that Hermann is considered half-hero and half-antihero, and I would have understood a production fully leaning into the antihero angle, but an antihero is still not a villain, and I felt like it wasn’t made clear enough how we as the audience were supposed to feel about Hermann who was almost fully portrayed as a villainous character throughout. Especially in contrast to Prince Yeletsky who sings of his love of Lisa and his hope to be more than just a husband to her, Hermann seemed especially revolting as he repeatedly ignores Lisa’s please to leave her room, threatening to kill himself. Lisa herself was very nicely clothed in a fur robe when she’s first introduced but then for the entire rest of the show is in this strange jeans and gauze slip combination that looked neither elegant nor practical. Funnily enough, the only time Hermann is dressed nicely is in Act III when he enters the casino wearing a tuxedo with his hair slicked back. Yet, this image is immediately juxtaposed by the libretto where the other men sing of how ill and ragged Hermann looks. It could have been an interesting decision to make the only time Hermann looks put together as what is supposed to be his most repulsive moment and have the audience wonder what else it was about his demeanor that looked so sick (perhaps he looks sick with obsession – a fair assumption to make since it is written into the score that the men are supposedly frightened of his mad, confident demeanor while he gambles), BUT given the sheer number of directorial choices that felt half-baked, I didn’t feel like this was done with well thought out intentions. 

I realize I have written so much and still have a lot to say, so maybe I will add a part 2 later!

Immer eine Kritikerin,

Gabrielle

The tram system is impressive. It’s efficient and clean, smoothly operating alongside buses, trucks, and cars on the roads. I initially wondered why a city would invest in both buses and trams, considering they often run on the same streets. However, I realized that each mode of transport likely serves different purposes and meets unique needs that the government intends to address.

Experiencing this level of Mini Metro in real life has been nothing short of amazing. I appreciate how the digital boards at the stations and inside the trams are precise—something many other countries could learn from. It has been so straightforward to navigate that I didn’t need my phone until yesterday to determine which station I should get off at.

Additionally, the feature that allows tram doors to open at specific stations with a button click shows how considerate the system is of people’s time.

Overall, I love how easy it is to get around the city. I’m pleasantly surprised by how quickly I’ve become familiar with the tram routes. In less than a week, I’ve learned to navigate from Brittestraße, past the Hauptbahnhof, Nordplatz (where we learn), and Reudnitz (where I stay).

Over the weekend, I was able to see not one but two different operas, Handel’s Agrippina and Tchaikovsky’s Pique Dame. As someone who had never seen an opera before, it was a very interesting and fun experience! One thing that I was especially surprised and intrigued by was how much freedom directors seem to have when choosing the staging and setting of their production. In both productions, many of the decisions made for the staging were beyond what the original writers could ever have imagined, including using props or ideas which did not even exist when they were alive.

I want to now focus on one of the operas, Agrippina, and how I felt the staging worked well in conveying the setting and atmosphere of the different scenes. Agrippina follows the ancient Roman story of Agrippina’s schemes to install her son, Nero, as the emperor. This production, however, was set in a Las Vegas casino called Caesar’s Palace. Something that jumped out to me immediately was the fact that the set did not change throughout the opera, nothing about the scene was added or removed, and the only motion of the stage itself was its ability to rotate. However, the setting did not feel too static because the set had several different areas which were connected, but could be made to feel separate when necessary. These were a main lobby area with a long couch, a gambling/bar area with several tables, and an upstairs section with a large staircase leading up to it. These separate areas, I felt, were used quite effectively to convey the moods of the different scenes. The upstairs area, for example, was at times used as an overlook for large and busy scenes where a character needed to address a crowd of people below in the main area. However, by turning the set, the wide stairs blocked the audience’s view of other areas and allowed the stairs and upstairs area to be used as a more intimate setting for Agrippina’s secret dealings. A similar effect could be achieved with the other areas as the set was wide but not long, so rotating it could make certain areas feel smaller or larger depending on what was necessary for a certain scene. This was also combined with good use of lighting, such as changing the color of the large billboard sign to make the main area feel darker or otherwise different for scenes with a more isolated mood which made use of the couch. Overall I felt this was quite an interesting introduction to the world of opera, and it definitely opened my eyes to how much freedom and creativity is possible now, even through such an old art form.

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Some images of the Handel Festival in Halle: notably, a statue of Handel as the figurehead on a children’s pirate ship and the child who unintentionally happened to be in the same pose.

The particular location of Halle as the site for this Handel Festival prompted me to think about why or how it comes to be that we attribute certain places to composers. Many large music festivals, such as the Bachfest Leipzig, Beethovenfest Bonn, and the Salzburg Festival, which emphasizes the work of Mozart, are held in cities where these composers spent a significant portion of their lives. In contrast, the Handelfest being in Halle seems out of place. Handel merely spent his adolescence here compared to the more formative years of his life spent in Italy and Hamburg, and the vast majority of his life spent in London, the site of another Handel Festival. Being the birthplace of Handel, I find that Halle does hold some significance regarding the composer, but it’s more of a postmortem significance implemented by historians and fans.

This point addresses the idea of wanting ownership, mentioned in class and the Agrippina preview session. We, in the present, look at people from the past and choose where we identify them. It becomes a question of who gets to hold the responsibility of having built the figure rather than where the figure identifies themself. For Handel, it is a debate concerning nationalistic pride regarding the composer as a champion from Germany or as the world-renowned British Subject that he was.

This idea of postmortem identity building then brings us back to Bach, particularly the location of Leipzig for the Bachfest. Bach spent a significant portion of his career in Leipzig, but it is also important to note what the composer actually thought about the city. It’s difficult to know definitively what Bach felt about Leipzig with so little writing. However, I found his relationship with the city to be somewhat questionable, given his failed attempt at applying for the Kapellmeister position in Dresden and his general attitude towards his role in Leipzig, discussed during our visit to the Bach Archiv. Overall, I find it valuable to distinguish the conceptions of historians from the contemporary sentiments of those being studied. We can so easily get caught up in popular opinion that we fail to notice the more nuanced relationships historical figures have with the places we associate them with.

One particular notion that has stuck with me since the visit to the Bach Archive was learning about the opportunities afforded to the choristers who sang in the Thomanerchor.

I was particularly surprised that the choristers in the first choir received sizable compensation for their work, because the attitudes surrounding paying musicians what they are worth in the modern era is highly contentious. This is to say that musicians are often paid in ‘exposure’ or are paid disproportionately to the time and dedication it takes to master their instrument or voice craft. Further, this point was particularly salient to me as I grew up singing in children’s choirs where my parents paid for me to be in the choir and receive musical instruction and training. As such, the fact that the choristers were paid handsomely enough to be able to afford university tuition upon completion of high school was incredibly surprising as it indeed serves as a means for upward social mobility through music. And whilst this does exist to some extent in the 21st century where becoming a successful musician may indeed enable upward social mobility, the age at which this happens is not usually under 18 and would not fund further education. Further, the process by which this monetary musical success is ascertained is certainly not institutionalized as it was in Bach’s day.

I also think that whilst monetary compensation was only offered to those in the first choir, the other boys were receiving free musical training, which was evidently quite comprehensive if it was training the choristers to be able to sing complex pieces composed by Bach with a rather short turnaround of a single day of rehearsals/practices. I also have personal opinions about the value of being able to sing and understand music and how it just generally enriches your life and I can imagine this must be true if you are living in a society in which art and music is incredibly important.

However, I think that the larger and more salient takeaway that I garnered from learning about this was the importance that music held in Leipzig and broader German society at the time. Indeed music is still important in Germany given the long term monetary grants avaliable to support conservation of the arts and of the strong German tradition in the arts.

Beautiful organ! And panoramic view of the city!

As a newly declared structural engineering major, I promised myself that I would truly explore German architecture and infrastructure in Leipzig. It doesn’t take an engineering student to see the incredible efficiency of the tram system. I was blown away by the fact that the tram tracks are above ground, and on the same streets that cars traverse. This might just be the inefficiency of Atlanta public transit, but I was absolutely amazed. The frequency and cleanliness of the tram system is something I will definitely be sad to leave.

More on German architecture: Upon first arriving in Leipzig, one of the first activities we did was a tour. The “English-Speaking” (A1) group got to go inside of both Nikolai and Thomas Kirches. While inside Thomaskirche, Tendekai and I shared our thoughts. We exchanged a moment where both of us started spewing knowledge about either German architecture (in my case), or visually interpreting the organ pipe sizes (I was quite amazed about how much he knew on the subject entirely). The contrast in both of our thoughts was hilarious, but also showed how many differing parts and perspectives can come from one work. This past semester I had the opportunity to take a Civil Engineering class called “Bridges”, but we also studied tons of European vaults, buildings, domes, etc. One lecture from that class that I thought of immediately was Lecture 12: “The Gothic Cathedral and the Skyscraper”. The Goth festival (amazing to see while exploring this weekend) being this weekend aside, the insights from that lecture allowed me to see some architecture inside of Thomaskirche in a new light.

To me, the ceiling of Thomaskirche was enthralling. To make it brief, it featured numerous pointed arches(very visible in the stained glass picture), flying buttresses(those white pillars you can see in the picture), and a ribbed-vault ceiling that features diagonal braces for a more stylistic approach. Long story short: if you ever see me looking up at the ceiling randomly, these terms are bouncing around in my head. I find it so fun to discover more about German architecture while exploring the city, and I can’t wait to explore more musically and historically important buildings while also keeping my eyes peeled for architectural insights!

P.S. Am I saying there are undiscovered links between Gothfest and Bachfest in Leipzig….? That will remain to be seen….