Yesterday, the radio opera was “Capriccio” by Richard Strauss. It addresses the age-old questin of whether the music or the words are more important in an opera. It does this theough the mechanism of featuring a poet and a composer both in love with the same woman expecting her to choose between them, In the end, she can’t. Some people think that Strauss hid the answer in the scoring of the final scene. But those people don’t always agree in which choice they think she made. So I don’t believe that. Operas have succeeded with strong music and weak libretti, and also the other way around. And some have failed in both of those categories. But a strong libretto with strong music is also no guarantee of success – and a weak libretto with weak music may be a hit for a while (though it’s unlikely to be remembered long. But good ones can be forgotten also.\u00a0 Welp, I’m off to see Virgil. I will check in in a comment when I get home.<\/p>\n
This is late for Thanksgiving, I grant. But Andy Borowitz<\/a>‘s tips may give you a SUnday smile or at least a Sunday snicker. nd Christmas is coming. And there’s always next year. And, speaking of Andy, there’s a video here<\/a> – it’s about 15 minutes and is very funny, though just at the very end you may want a tissue.<\/p>\n This also appears to be good news, although Republicans seem always to find ways to take the joy out of everything. The F* News<\/a> is snarky, of course. But it appears to be baseline true.<\/p>\n