Word: fate
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...Cavalli's Giasone, written in 1649, was sort of a blockbuster back in the Italian seventeenth-centry. The libretto is the usual pastiche of bickering deities and hobnobbing heroes, loosely based on the story of Jason and the golden fleece. Cupid and Fate are having a quarrel about which one most controls mens' lives, and they cause amorous chaos among the mortals. Giasone, Aegeus, Medea, Hypsipyle and their servants mill about in confusion and slapstick till at last, all sung out and snugly paired off they come to a happy closing...
...cares about the story? What matters is the pure pageantry of it all--the piled wigs and gilded breeches; the lovestruck and the lunatic both mingling with gods. Fate is lowered from a trap door to walk with hunchbacks and adulterers. The fornicators wear brocaded robes and the chaste are no less adorned. What matters is the glittering recitative--the strange power of the counter-tenor and his haunting arias. The characters and their conflicts are secondary amusements; harmless distractions as each singer is guided or goaded into glory by the basso continuo. What matters is the music...
...Edward Jones, the conductor, seems a little nervous. There's so much to be perfected before the opening this weekend. Armored Hercules is still wearing sneakers. The columns must be covered. The scene changes aren't quite together yet, and tonight a hasty Fate dangled down from the heavens in the middle of the sinfonia. It'll all be ready tomorrow, he assures me, but he's wrong entirely. Giasone is ready now, and it's beautiful...
...Devil the first and final words. Although Marlowe probably intended to have the conclusion--Faustus heading for a fiery death--to be quite clear, the resulting ambiguity, partly based on a lack of respect for the somewhat comical Lucifer, gives the audience some condolence as to Faustus's final fate...
...ruby red... So I guess if I spill wine on my shirt I shouldn't clean it... And another cycle... what she meant was another semester. Yes! In February, I'll be getting a whole new cycle of students for the new semester!" And finally, contemplating his numerological fate, Kirshner laughs and says, "Well, there's only 10 numbers... Probably 1,8,2 and 5 WILL crop...