Enlightenment To Romanticism

[poliphilo]

Ailz's new Open University course is titled Enlightenment to Romanticism, 1780-1830. Once again, as her carer, I'm sitting in on tutorials.

Cool stuff- The Encyclopaedia, the French Revolution, The Napoleonic wars, the campaign to end the slave trade. Cool people- Mozart, Rousseau, de Sade, Goethe, Byron, Turner, Goya, Bonaparte, Delacroix. Are these the fifty coolest years in western cultural history? Could be.

Our first "text" is Don Giovanni. I like Mozart- he's my favourite classical composer- but it's the instumental music I've always gone for, and while I've seen productions of The Marriage of Figaro and Don Giovanni I can't say I've ever "got" them. But then I've never really "got" opera, full stop. Hmm, maybe now's my chance.

Comments

[jenny_evergreen]

My sixth grade teacher showed us Carmen, and helped us through it, and I actually liked opera. Unfortunately, it never got further than that. (Not least because I don't have time to watch opera anyway! :P)

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I have a number of problems with opera.

A big one is that I don't like the artificiality of the operatic singing voice.

I like my singing "rough"- as in folk music....

[mazzie.livejournal.com]

mozart's requiem might be a nice bridge between his instrumental and operatic works.
it's quite a thrill ride, imho.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Yes. I like the Requiem. I may even have a recording of it lying about somewhere.

[tx-cronopio.livejournal.com]

When I was in high school, oh, about a hundred years ago, there were a couple of enlightened teachers who took us out to cool cultural things. Yep, those exist in Texas, believe it or not. One of the things they took us to was a Mozart opera, it changed my life. It was so cool.

Do I attend opera regularly now? Nope. But if I needed to get into it, I could.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

So there's hope for me.

We're going to watch the Joseph Losey film of Don Giovanni sometime. We've got the tape. I'm even quite looking forward to it....

[ibid.livejournal.com]

That sounds so interesting! Keep us posted.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I certainly will.....