It’s all patterns. People behavior: you and me. Animal behavior: dogs and cats. Tornadoes: first them, then us, then them again.
And since the arts are inseparable from everything – you know, ’cause it’s everything – there are an awful lot of patterns in there, too. Part of it is just baked into the cake, I suppose. But a larger part is because we intentionally use creativity to reflect what’s going on around us. To pass a feeling forwards to someone else.
John Lennon had a feeling about his Mother and wrote it into a song. Forty years later, I still “get” it, don’t you? Most of us have had these conflicting feelings. Goodbye, goodbye: Mama don’t go, Daddy come home. Roger Waters had some thoughts about his Mother. Even Glenn Danzig and Carrie Underwood. If it’s good, it’ll seek out the same part of you that it touched in them.
So there’s really no good reason to think that we’re more modern or much different than long-dead guys like Gaetano Donizetti, Salvadore Cammarano, or Sir Walter Scott – the guys responsible for the opera, Lucia di Lammermoor. Our own Opera Birmingham recently did a version and it was thoroughly terrific. The story is like Romeo and Juliet: forbidden love between two families in opposition. Lucia is the fragile sister, tragically caught in the middle. Bad things happen. Like other narratives, the lesson is to be careful with your heart. Still good advice, almost two centuries later.
“The unhappy girl has lost her reason.”
I like thinking that I have a lot in common with those dead guys. And I like believing we may still have a lot in common with the people who’ll be around in 2186. Who knows, maybe they’ll like my poems?
We’ve had even more in common. Writers seem to have a soft spot for the opera. In particular, writers may be prone to crushes on actresses and singers. Charles Foster Kane had his fondness for Susan Alexander and I’m probably not the only one with a crush on Susanna Phillips. I’m not embarrassed to admit it. If you’re a professional artist or entertainer who doesn’t cause some degree of swooning and attraction, you’re probably not doing it right.
“Whoever is not deeply moved by her has no heart.”
It’s a natural fantasy, really. Writers need long blocks of completely focused and uninterrupted time. That’s good, because singers are almost always on the go. Being a traveller, a singer needs a companion who’s got a way with words. That’s most of what you get – emails and telephone – and doncha know that love letters are a writer’s best trick? Writers appreciate expressiveness, but especially in a different medium, because it doesn’t compete with or jostle an ego that’s unbuoyed by applause or direct adoration. Actresses can’t help but have a natural appreciation for composition. There’s already a bond, because everything she’s sung, acted, or appreciated was probably written by some solitary guy banging away on a keyboard. God frequently works through pale, homely men. Writers can appreciate someone who is looked at or listened to in a way that he isn’t. Finally, both the singer and the writer need someone with a deep understanding of artifice (AKA bullshit). An acute awareness of the gauzy line between earnestness and performance. A knowledge of that self-defining space between the parts of yourself devoured by an audience and who you actually are. When to tell the truth and when to lie.
“If she is overcome by sadness, do not be surprised.”
[Enter Lucia: bloody] Susanna Phillips is always the best part of the opera. There’s no need to find a variety of frilly ways to say it. She sings beautifully. She acts – and interacts – beautifully. Her characters are passionate and sexy. She’s beautiful on and off stage. She’s responsible for the two most spontaneous, lengthy, and heartfelt ovations I’ve ever been a part of. What else is there to say?
One thing I’ve noticed in covering the arts is that space is a tricky thing. It’s true in writing and the visual arts, but it’s emphasized in music or theatre. The issue is, when things hesitate, will your audience stay with it? What if I start to color outside the lines – will you stick around? Let’s say I’m up on stage and acting my heart out. If there’s a tiny pause, you’ll probably wonder if I’ve messed up. It can feel like a million awkward years. Am I faltering? Your mind may wander. Or think about some guitar solos, where the musician gets way off track. But great artists will hold you. That might be the best test of how good they are. She could stop in the middle and you’d be right there with her. She’s one of those.
From The Shawshank Redemption: “I have no idea to this day what those two Italian ladies were singing about. Truth is, I don’t wanna know. Some things are better left unsaid. I’d like to think they were singing about something so beautiful it can’t be expressed in words, and it makes your heart ache because of it. I tell you those voices soared, higher and farther than anybody in a grey place dares to dream. It was like some beautiful bird flapped into our drab little cage and made these walls dissolve away, and for the briefest of moments, every last man in Shawshank felt free.”
From all of us at Shawshank, thank you to John D. Jones and everyone associated with Opera Birmingham.
And now a piece by guest writer Erin Bishop about the current 
Much to my surprise, Darkroom is a mind-blowing assortment of art that shook me to my core. As an overview, the Darkroom exhibit is a depiction of life in South Africa during 
I loved the vintage photographs. The people and places jumped off the pages and every piece told its own story. For instance, there was an amazing photograph of an Indian family of four, apparently living in an apartment they weren’t supposed to have. With their newborn by the bed, two parents and their young little boy all lay in bed together with newspapers in their hands. The vividness of the people, the colors, and the subject matter was simply incredible.
Usually, I come up with an overall theme for a piece and weave anything I have to say around that idea. For the 
THREE – Susan Cook’s performance as Livinia got better from the moment she was no longer able to talk. This isn’t an insult. Actors must recognize that tiny vocalizations like squeaks or breaths or whimpers, obviously not in the script, can be like emotional bowling balls. Shakespeare provided the foundation, but these tiny moments of frustration and anguish were as genuinely moving as anything else I’ve seen on stage. I felt robbed, though, that Livinia’s Daddy didn’t throw his arms around her when they reunited after her ordeal. I wanted the image of her blood all over him.
