Yesterday, President Biden sent his budget to Congress – a trifling $7.3 trillion. I wouldn’t count on Congres, particularly the House, to act constructively. Also, I learned VP Harris will visit Colorado today. No, I won’t be there, but I expect to get a report from CPR today or tomorrow. And I found a link to the one-woman show about Ann Coulter. It was made in 2020, and will be available through 2026. It runs abou an hour and 53 minutes. If you have never seen it, you may want to – and if you have seen it, you may want to see it again.
Off topic, but, if you havent, please check out the open thread for March 9 – there’s news about Carrie (not, sadly good).
I don’t doubt this would make a lot of people angry – if they would see it – which they probably won’t. “Le secret des grandes fortunes sans cause apparente est un crime oublié, parce qu’il a été proprement fait” – Balzac – usually quoted in English as “Behind every great fortune lies a great crime.”
If you ever read “The 19th Magazine”, or if you saw this article in their newsletter, you instantly knew I would use it. Women’s History, Black History, even music history, all in one piece – of course I would.
Yesterday, the radio opera was Verdi’s “La Forza del Destino.” If you ever hear someone claim that opera has far-fetched, hard to believe, plots, this may be the one they are thinking of. It starts with the heroine planning to elope, since her father disapproves of her suitor. The suitor is a bit late, and, unfortunately, the father bursts into her room before they have left. He threatens the suitor, who responds by attempting to prove he is not an enemy by disarming. But the gun goes off (in the script he drops or throws it to the floor, which sets it off; this production is less clear about what happens.) And the unintended bullet kills her father, who, as he dies, curses his daughter. I used to say “And from there it just gets more unlikely.” Today I wouldn’t claim it gets less likely – however, it certainly doesn’t get any more likely either. The opera is not performed all that often, not because it isn’t popular (it is), but because the soprano part is at least as difficult as anything in opera, even Wagner’s operas, and Leontyne Prices just don’t turn up every day. There are excerpts from it which are frequently recorded separately – arias for the soprano and the tenor, a male chorus with soprano obligato, a duet with the tenor and the baritone – all of which are in different ways heartbreakingly beautiful.
Just a little exercise in “compare and conatrast” here:
“Not since President Lincoln and the Civil War have freedom and democracy been under assault at home as they are today…. History is watching. If the United States walks away, it will put Ukraine at risk. Europe is at risk. The free world will be at risk, emboldening others to what they wish to do us harm.” [President Joseph Biden, State of the Union Address, March 7, 2024]
“Fellow citizens, we cannot escape history. We of this congress and this administration will be remembered in spite of ourselves. No personal significance or insignificance can spare one or another of us. The fiery trial through which we pass will light us down in honor or dishonor to the latest generation We, even we here, hold the power and bear the responsibility.” [president Abraham Lincoln – Annual Message to Congress, December 1, 1862]
I did not watch or listen to the Republican response (can you blame me?), and, although some of this article has been “translated,” shall we say, it’s probably all we need to know about it.
Well, this is bad news for anyone with allergies who has ambitions of traveling into space! But I’m sure glad they found it out this way and not in use.
So sorry I’m late. I had it ready bot forgot to post. Yesterday, the radio opera was Verdi’s “Ernani,” an early work, in a historic broadcast from 1962. For at least the last three years, the Met has been setting aside one broadcast for a historic performance, and they ask listeners to vote for whhich of ten or a dozen they would like to hear. I didn’t vote for “Ernani,” but I’m not surprised it won, because Leontyne Price. And the three male stars are equally prestigious to anyone who was listening to opera in the sixties. However, I voted for “Der Freischutz,” simply because one never hears it these days. But “Ernani” is almost as rare, and probably more interesting. One of the roles, the baritone, represents someone who actually lived and made history, though whether he was ever in love with Wlvira, or even whether she existed is doubtful. But Charles, Holo Roman Emperor, the fifth of that name, did exist, and was elected to that post by an “Electoral College” – a standing one, comprising princes (heads of state) of the countries within the empire. Charles, and Ernani (the tenor, an outlaw, as much due to politics as to poverty), and da Silva (the bass, a Spanish nobleman, and Elvira’s guardian) are all three in love with Elvira, who loves only Ernani. The character who strikes me as different from other characters in this opera, and indeed from most characters in opera is da Silva, who seems to think he’s Rodney Dangerfield, but unlike Dangerfield he means it seriously. I see no signs of him actually being persecuted – he just doesn’t always get his way (and who does?) But that victim mentality – almost a complex – may at least partially explain why he is so malicious. A play by Victor Hugo was the inspiraton for the opera.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince-elector
Phillis Wheatley was America’s first black woman poet. This article picks her up at the auction at which she was sold upon arrival – which was pretty consequential – and goes from there, as does the book, with vatious little-known information. IMO she deserves to better known, and not just her name.
This is a segment from The Young Turks featuring a doctor discussing Trump**’s inability to produce the correct word for the context. No, it won’t convince any of his cultists. But what interested me was his use of the term “brain damage.” Virgil has brain damage with far less symptoms than Trump**) and he and I both know how he got it – he got it from a traumatic brain injury (TBI). TBIs are often closed head injuries, as Virgil’s was but not always, but in any case it’s unlikely that one would experience one and have no idea that something had happened. How else could one damage one’s brain? Drugs would be one. Some condition which involved anoxia could. Could some or all of these symptoms go back to his bout of CoViD-19, for which he was hospitalized? I’m no doctor, but I would say absolutely. There is increasing evidence that even mild CoViD-19 can cause damage to the brain.
I learned that another state – Illinois – is now onn the bandwagon of keeping Trump off the ballot. Good luck to all of us.
Heather Cox Richardson is reminded in our time of the times of the “Know Nothing” Party in the 1850s. And with good reason. The actual party name was “the Native American Party,” and later just “the American Party.” Just as misidentified as today’s “Patriots.”
(I have multiple sources for all of this – Wikipedia is the main one but Performance Today deserves mention.) Today being the second day of Women’s History month, and on the heels of Black History month, it seems to me a good day to bring up Florence Beatrice Price, an American woman of color who was a composer in the 20th Century. She was told many times she was “not a good fit” by publishers – but the Chicago Symphony played her works and they were met with appreciation. Wanamaker’s there (the first retail department store in the U.S.) would hold annual composition contests for local composers, and she was a consistent winner, in one year winning first, second, and third place. But all her manuscripts were kept in the home she used as a summer residence, and when she died, it was abandoned. It was not until 2009 that someone interested in purchasing the home discovered them, and fortunately, was musical enough to know what they had. The works included four symphonies, two violin concertos, a piano concerto, other orchestral works, songs, choral works, chamber music, arangements of spirituals, and probably more piano solos than anything else. According to Performance Today, she is not the most performed female composer in America. And that happened in the 15 years between 2009 and now. I am so glad that I have lived to hear at least some of it. I am listening to one on the radio as I type – her Symphony #3. And it is beautiful.
Yesterday,as I said on Fridaay, the radio opera wasn’t an opera – it was a Requiem Mass and a movement from a symphony. But the orchestra was the Met Orchestra, and the Chorus was the Met Chorus, and the soloists – four for each pieces wereall Met Opera stars, and the conductor was the Met Opera Music Director. And, as I listened to the Mozart Requiem, and Beethoven’s Ode to Joy from the Metropolitan opera, I realized it was the second anniversary of the (insert adjective here) Russian war on Ukraine. (At least for now, my adjective is “despicable.”)- Well, the General Manager of the Opera is married to a Ukrainian-American, so it should surprise noone that the Metroplitan Opera does not forget Ukraine.
This has been on my mind. What is so different about it is that the murderers were children – not only the victim..
We already know – those of us who are alert to real news and intelligent enough to think about it – that the two partiea are not the same. So it’s no surprise that these contrasting arguments do not have the same legitimacy.
Yesterday, the radio opera was Verdi’s “Un Ballo in Maschera.” It’s loosely based on an actual assassination which happened in Sweden in 1792. As with “Rigoletto,” an opera about the assassination of a monarch put Verdi at odds with the censors. So early performances of it were set in America (Boston IIRC), prior to the Revolution, which is not as far fetched as I used to think – Sweden (under Gustav III) was the first country not directly involved in the fighting to diplomatically recognize the US. But I digress. The assassination really happened, but I will not vouch for all the hoo-hah surrounding it in the opera – the fortuneteller predicting that the first man who shakes the king’s hand will kill him, the king being in love with his prime minister’s (who is also his best friend) wife, she silently returning his love but wanting nothing more than to be freed of her obsession, the meeting in the graveyard at midnight, The Prime Minister showing up not knowing that the woman with the king is his own wife, the king’s orders to escort her without learning her name, the couple stopped by the potential assassins, the wife revealing her identity only so they won’t kill her husband, the husband refusing to believe she is faithful and switching sides to help the assassins – all that is just too fortuitous. And that’s not even mentioning the page boy (a “trouser role”) who would be adorable if the plot as a whole was not so weighed down with inevitability – and the final irony of the king’s last act being to write out orders of transfer for the Prime Minister so that the king and the wife will be at least physically removed from temptation.
Nameless, was it you who commented on a Biden ad about NATO that they should have included Reagan? Whether or not, I’m happy to report that VoteVets took care of that.
This from Talking Points Memo is a deep dive into Chesebro and his involvement. If it bores you, I’m sorry – it can be helpful sometimes to get details – easier to speculate how the jury (or the judge in a bench trial) will decide.
Yesterday, I didn’t have to read up on the opera – in fact I may sleep theough it – because it’s not a full opera but a selection of love duets for Valentine’s Day. I am so much intp opera as a vehicle for storytelling and plot that I can’t get excited about selections. But if anyone is interested in a sampler, it bradcasts at 1:00 pm EST, 12 noon CST, 11:00 am Mountain, and 10:am Pacific. All of those are the same time. KCME.org will broadcast, as aell as WFMT.com in Chicago, WQXR.org in New York. I wasn’t able to confirm KUSC.org in Los Angeles (though as active as LA OPera is I’d be surprised if it doesn’t), but if you are listening on the internet, the sound isn’t any better from somewhere close than is is from the other side of the country.
I expect everyone’s heard of Trump**’s plan to alter the hiring criteria for Federal civil service so that he can fire anyone he doesn’t think is “loyal” enough and replace them with someone he thinks is. The Project on Government Oversight (POGO) takes a hard look at the implications of this here.
I know crap when I see it, and I presume y’all do also. But, sadly, Steve is still right.
Yesterday was another quiet day, which is fine with me.
Harry T. Burleigh, born in 1866, was a black man with a desire to become a classical composer. With the encouragement and assistance from Frances McDowell, the mother of Edward McDowell (“To a Wild Rose” and much more), he was admitted to the New York Conservatory of Musicon work study as a janitor. While he swept the halls, he would sing Spirituals, and was heard by Antonín Dvořák (New World Symphony), who was enchanted, and requested Burleigh to sing for him as much as possible. (Contrary to myth, Dvořák did not use any actual spirituals in The New World Symphony, though he was good enough at working in the style to make people think he did, and a later Black American wrote words to the most recognizable theme therein and called it “Going Home.”) Burleigh graduated and had a career as a composer, writing both instrumental and vocal music. In particular he composed songs to poems by “Laurence Hope” (a pseudonym for a woman, – and not only was it next to impossible for a woman to get published then in her own right, but a lot of those poems were pretty hot stuff for the day) including a set called “5 Songs of Laurence Hope.” Jim Ginsburg, the son of Marty and Ruth (Bader) Ginsburg, and the founder of Cedille Records, is featuring a record of music by Black composers, called “Dreams of a New Day,” sung by Will Liverman (the baritone protagonist of choice of today’s Black opera composers) which includes Burleigh’s “5 Songs of Laurence Hope,” and the first of them is available on Spotify at this link. Call me a name-dropper, but I think those are some names worth dropping even when it’s not Black History Month.
This column is a rant, and an exceedingly righteous one at that, IMO. I could wish I’d said it first … but it’s better this way, since he has the larger following. Basically, he compares and contrasts encouraging news with the discouraging words in which the media presents it. Certainly we should never take winning for granted. But the media seems to want us to take losing for granted, and that is a bridge too far for us to be going over. I did get some encouragement myself from Hubbell’s counterarguments, and hope you also will.
