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Showing posts from January, 2023

Opera and the Rhythms of Nature

You feel us when the sun is hidden in the daytime by the rain falling in drenching sheets. We are in the rocks that tower above your tiny winding road, in the convulsions of the deep earth that raze your cities, in the winds that howl around a lonely coast. I, the Earth provide the fuel that lights your Fire, yet poisons the Air. The Water in the seas is rising with the melting ice. All that we know is slowly disappearing, together with the giant bears that still haunt the ice under the lonely northern skies. A great storm is coming. And yet…. Ours are the rhythms that end all things, only to begin once more. You are with us when you meet with the Oneness. We are the five ‘elements’ conceived in ancient Hindu thought – Earth, Water, Fire, Air and Sky. Ours are the rhythms that brought life into being. Ours are the rhythms that pulse through opera, from Julie Taymor’s airy ‘Magic Flute’ to Rusalka’s watery home, to her eyes raised to the sky, singing to a radiant moon. To the fiery r