Word: bacchuses
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...Faust checks his props, takes his seat by the fireplace, opens a book on his lap. Backstage voices are hushed. In the darkness behind the study, the set for Scene 2 is all ready to be pulled into place: three sideshow stalls, a circular bandstand, the entrance to the Bacchus Inn. The chorus files in and Chorus Master Walter Taussig mounts a stepladder that is steadied by a stagehand. When he reaches eye level with a small hole in the canvas sidewall of Faust's study-through which he will be able to watch the conductor-Taussig opens...
...bonorum praesidium, nunc vividum alacris motus gymnasium! Cavete igitur vos decani decanulique--"non intret Cato theatrum meum"--nec non vos, o septum novi homines qui ad spinosam Lapparum tutelam elevati estis. Quae enim saga Radcliffiensis, quis magus Harvardianus pollenti pectore nunc praesentire potest quam mira et magna Plautus et Bacchus et fervidus ille puer et solutis Gratiae zonis in campo et area nostria iamiam effecturi sint? Nam hac in fabula Plautina est quidam filius qui scortillum venustum perdite amat; est fili pater, decrepitus senex, qui una cum filio non modo potat sed etiam amicam ductat atque clam uxorem suo animo...
...capture all this. The melodic declamation must match the mood of the narrator (and in these odes the poet always speaks in the first person). The piano writing must reflect the external scene--now the roaring sea, now the realm of abstract speculation, now the very power of Bacchus. In all these shifting moods the composer's emotional intensity must be just a degree less than the poet's; the musical setting must heighten, not dwarf the spirit of the poetry. Finally, there is the language--the cool, stark quality of Latin in this case--to render beautiful, Mr. Bonvalot...
...means of a drowsy Harvard-type matematician who reluctantly succumbs to her mating-call. Enter two Satyrs on the make. Unable to find suitable females (the chorus is full of "dried up wretches") they sublimate with a bottle of wine, after invoking the services of a good-natured Bacchus. The Soprano decides that the conquest of a god would give immortal proof of her powers. The Satyrs push the unwilling Bacchus into her arms, but he soon grows sated with her singing. "The only cure for excessive vocal production is immediate seduction," he says in an aside, and proceeds...
Even if one knows no elderly yak-herders, the mythological reference to the word "spring" is nevertheless clear. Although man has learned to exercise restraint in his manifestations of spring fever, as opposed to the good old days of Bacchus and the Maypole, some manifestations are still in order...