Dr. Samuel Johnson said that opera is the most irrational of all the arts. The human voice is forced to do things it is not designed to do. It is odd. At the same time, using song to make dramatic statements is powerful. Nothing like it. No other art form can do this: the human voice in song is joined with musical instruments to make an emotional point. Aside from the given difference between the theatrical stage and the operatic stage, the key difference in Shakespeare’s Othello and Verdi’s Otello is the belief in Original Sin. Shakespeare’s characters are complex because it tells of eternal truths. Othello is a courageous man who falls from grace; Desdemona is a virtuous woman who makes errors of judgment, yet remains virtuous. Iago is a likeable fellow who has pure evil in his heart. All these characters have the capacity for good and evil. They have a choice, a free will. Otello on the other hand reflects nineteenth century romanticism. It is emotional, sentimental. The contrasts are bigger. Good is white, evil is black. Nature itself is corrupt, thus we are corrupt. A post-Darwinist view of man and the world.
This is a question and answer session. Opera is an acquired taste, it takes time and effort to learn and appreciate. It helps to see live productions to appreciate opera. Opera enjoyed it highest popularity in the nineteenth century because of its ability to appeal to emotion. But after World War I, opera began to fall in popularity due in part to the advent of cinema, but also, after the horrors of the war, open direct emotion was just not possible. The senses of the world were overwhelmed and there was no room for opera. Cinema became the new art form. Similar to a theater but without live actors, this curious entertainment captured audiences. Cinema at best is a second rate art. It is wholly dependent on technology. It is also the sole realm of the director who manipulates the scenes to show us exactly what he wants. Television is also manipulative. It is difficult to manipulate a book or a play. A book requires the active participation of the imagination to flesh out the words. A live stage production is direct interaction with the actors and the audience. The best art is active art, where we engage with the art.
How should a Catholic relate to art? The Church has always had an uneasy relationship with the arts. She recognizes the capacity of the arts to teach the Faithful. Christ, for example, taught principally through parables. However, Christ is the perfect teacher; fallen man is not. The influence of the Church in Western art is prominent including theater, which traces its origin to the Mass. Modern music began with Church music. The greatest art is connected to worship. Thus the Church seeks a sensible balance between the good that come from art and its risks. Art must do two things: educate the faithful and entertain. Art is also an act of creation, one of the characteristics of our Creator. The risk in art is that it can loose its focus to elevate. For example, when the Church approved or disapproved of movies through the Index, Hollywood paid close attention. The movie industry was compelled to produce excellent (and moral) productions to gain Church approval and financial success. Once the Church abandoned its proper role of judging movies, the quality of movies fell. The finest art is always Catholic in its ideology, even if it is not produced by a Catholic.
For many, Shakespeare’s faith is inconsequential: for Catholics it is important. His lineage proves his Catholicism. His paternal grandfather, Richard, worked on the estate of a prominent and devout Catholic family. His father, John, married a daughter from this family, Mary. Despite the difference in their class, the unifying trait is their Faith. John became a prominent member of the community. His fortunes began to fall circa 1577 or 1578 due to the persecution of Catholics. Young William at 11 years old witnessed the great medieval Mystery Plays depicting the Catholic Faith, thus exposing him to theater as Catholic education. Later as a young playwright in London, William knew a number of prominent Catholics. When he retired, he purchased a property in London that was later learned to be a Mass center, where priests could come and secretly say Mass. Why is Shakespeare so important? T.S. Eliot said that Dante and Shakespeare share the world between them. Dante is a spiritual writer, Shakespeare is secular; he has one foot in the medieval world and the other in the modern world. He is a divided man and uses drama to battle out the differences. He is one of the greatest storytellers of all time.
William Shakespeare was not a courageous man, and subject to human frailty. When he married Anne Hathaway, she was already pregnant. She was eight years his senior, and stayed behind in Stratford with the children while he lived and worked in London, suggesting a strained marriage. He learned of different types of love, and was inspired to write beautiful sonnets. He also had an adulterous affair, which tore him apart emotionally and spiritually, and wrote of this too. This understanding of love helped in writing Romeo and Juliet. The play is about authority not exercising its proper role. There is fighting in Verona between the prominent Capulet and Montague families because the Prince is weak. The parents are weak. The young adults have the leisure of wealth, and thus fall in and out of love on a whim. The Friar, while a good and holy man, is also weak and makes poor decisions. The result: Romeo and Juliet do fall in chaste love, marry in secret, and commit suicide. The horror of their self-inflicted murders shocked Elizabethan Catholics who understood this not as a sentimental act, but sin. Order is restored at the end of the play after these unnecessary deaths.
Conversion is a two-step process: restore the humanity in the person to help them reconnect to the world, then connect them to God. Restore man to man, then man to God. The reason for this is because humanism excluded man from God, and the modern world removed man from nature. Man has to be restored to his nature for him to understand the nature of God. The study of the plays of Shakespeare is an excellent means to accomplish this. Have students memorize large sections of his work. They will carry this for their entire life. Hi characters are fully human, full of vice and virtue. They struggle with this and teach us to see our own struggles. His plays follow the mysteries of the Rosary. His comedies are the Joyful Mysteries (Comedy of Errors, Midsummer Night’s Dream) and are full of joy and wonder. He tragedies are the Sorrowful Mysteries (Hamlet, Othello, Macbeth) and track his dark days and struggles of doubt and even despair. His last plays reflect the Glorious Mysteries (Winter’s Tale, The Tempest) and show resolution in his life; they come at the very end of his career, and include visions of heaven and eternity.
