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.
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.
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.
Dr. White explores the theme of leadership and crisis of authority in this lecture on Shakespeare’s “dark comedy.” He uses the example of a recent scandal at the Naval Academy where he taught to show the consequences of the failure of authority, and ties this into the irresponsibility of the authority figures in Measure for Measure. Dr. White then discusses Shakespeare’s evident Catholicism, how it influenced his work and life, and how it made his plays relevant and popular for all time, despite the protestations of modern critics, who twist his words, and modern schools, who take his works off their students’ reading lists. From there, Dr. White gives examples of how the playwright worked around a ban against mentioning God in the theatre. Finally, he discusses the pattern of the play’s settings and their significance, as well as the main conflict of the piece.
Dr. White uses Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s book The Gulag Archipelago to illustrate his points on King Lear, particularly in Lear’s speech calling to “allow not nature more than nature needs,” where he discusses how very little one technically needs in order to survive. The whole celebrated sequence where Lear is out in the storm is carefully examined. Lear’s fast-changing moods are noted as he goes from towering rage and futile commands to the sky to self-pity to cries for patience to bear his sufferings. Dr. White then speaks of the significance of Edgar’s progression of disguises, Edmund’s piteous desire for love, and finally, how Lear and the other sufferers in the play were actually blessed by their suffering.
Dr. White explains the connection between language and personality, and shows Shakespeare’s mastery of this in the realness of his characters. He examines the significance of Shakespeare’s position between the medieval and modern worlds, and the dislike of his largely medieval worldview by modernists, who try to undermine his work by removing it from classrooms and ruining the language by translations. Edmund’s soliloquy in Act I is analyzed, showing his practically modernistic point of view in his twisting of the truth, lack of logic, and appallingly egocentric viewpoint. Next, Dr. White examines the characters’ various uses of the word “nature,” which is constantly redefined throughout the play. He looks at Edmund’s lack of personality and traces it to his bland, over-comfortable
