As I settle further into this current phase of semi-settled liminality, my reading has picked up a bit.
October saw a few more books pass through my hands. The two non-fiction books, Momofuko Milk Bar and Devil in the Milk have prompted some changes in my way of thinking (yes, even a cookbook can do that) but those thoughts have not yet settled. They may well surface at some future date.
Otherwise, not surprisingly, I read fiction. Phil Rickman's Merrily Watkins mysteries bookended the month. The first of the two, A Crown of Lights, was not my favorite and I struggled, impatient with Merrily and the story. But perhaps also I was mentally contrasting it with Anna Burns' Milkman, which I had already started. There was no comparison in terms of prose and the contrast may have simply unsettled me. I was hoping light diversion from the Burn's intense meanderings, and Rickman fell flat. You can read my review of Milkman here, and my thoughts on Donal Ryan's beautiful From a Low and Quiet Sea, another Booker-nominated novel, here.
By the end of the month I was ready to return to Rickman and I read The Cure of Souls, which I thoroughly enjoyed. Perhaps I had simply distanced myself enough from poetically lyrical prose that I was ready to settle into the story, perhaps I also found story itself more appealing. There continue to be times when I find the jumping around choppy, and Merrily continues to be someone about whom I simultaneously feel becomes more familiar while also being completely unknowable and unrevealed. But I think that may be the point, and part of her strength, even though she does at times try my patience. Anyway I will continue with this series, and there are moments when Rickman so perfectly taps into something about the faith experience, about the mixing of the psychic and the holy, the muddling of human ego and odd moments of clarity, of good an evil and what we perceive and more likely(and often) misperceive, that continue to draw me in.
With the advent of transitional and autumnal weather I also made my first foray into double-denim, layering a chambray tunic over dark-wash jeans, although probably too late to be on trend. Well, I've rarely been on trend with anything. Obviously, it quickly became triple denim when I added my purse, which, now that I think of it means I've probably been doubling up on denim without even thinking about it. When I bought the denim bag I wondered if I would wear it -- now it seems to go everywhere except the dressiest of occasions.
The denim bag even accompanied me to the opera last night, not that it was a particularly dressy opera. I did wear my new velvet jeans, although, seeing as it was a rainy night and I feared I might traipse through mud, I wore them with my trusty blunnies. Apparently I fit right in with the crowd.
I was stunned by the performance, but I don't know how to write about an emotional opera about a self-indulgent madman, Nero, without descending into a self-indulgent morass.I will quote the brief description on the program:
"Nero Monologues" is a one-woman pastiche opera. The show journeys the inner workings of he notorious Roman emperor during his final hours. The resulting work explores themes of abandonment, abuse, passion, sexual identity, love and power and comes together to paint a portrait of a damaged man; equal parts crazed artist and idealistic ruler.
What immediately struck me was Sarah Toth's incredible emotional resonance. Her diction was not always clear, but her ability to portray emotional content, even conflicting emotions through her voice and her movements wrapped this listener up in the experience. The interlayering of the music with alternating sung and spoken parts was evocative and very well done. The program notes had compared the Peter Learn's technique of layering music to Samuel Barber, and I could see that comparison. The music, beautifully filled the role of inner voice, heard but not seen, as the musicians were in another room. The composition itself was fascinating, at times very much touching on jazz and more contemporary atonal and minimalist forms and yet seamlessly mixing in passages by Handel and Monteverdi in order to build a complex emotionally-rich portrait.. For a moment even I was certain I heard a bit of Kurtág. The relationship of Toth's performance to the musicians and the music seemed to embody an ongoing battle between emotion and reason, between madness and power, sanity and insanity.
One moment that stands out for me in this immensely powerful performance occurred when Toth was singing Nero's lines from Monteverdi's Pur ti Miro. This duet, to my mind is one most beautiful love songs in the operatic repertoire, becomes perverted, a song about one-sided obsession and fractured lust. To me it spoke of the descent into insanity but also of the difference between relationship and obsession, and how what we might think of as simple, unrequited affection, can become warped in the mind, can lead into a dangerous path that is something else entirely. The power of this piece is in its emotional content, the way it brings humanity to its subject, while at the same time bringing the receptive listener right up to that line that separates and protects us from our darker inner impulses. A lot of questions are opened here, about art, idealism, power, fear. We don't necessarily need to see the answers, just trying to understand the questions may be a good start. I am happy I went.
Nero Monologue photo of Sarah Toth, from Marble City Opera, here. There is also further information about the piece and a link to the poetry of Geoffrey Lehmann, a selection of which is used in the performance.
