Word: greed
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Until now, Frank Norris' 1899 novel was best known as the inspiration for Erich von Stroheim's 1924 silent epic Greed. Bolcom has given the material a brash, distinctive voice. His score evokes turn-of-the-century America in a slick, seamless potpourri of retro modernism, long, loose-limbed melodies and irresistible rhythmic invention...
...contrast to the cinematically luxurious Greed, the libretto of McTeague -- by Bolcom's longtime collaborator Arnold Weinstein and director Robert Altman -- relates the action in spare, simple prose. McTeague (tenor Ben Heppner), a powerful brute who has set up shop as an unlicensed dentist in San Francisco, falls in love with his best friend Marcus Schouler's girl, Trina (soprano Catherine Malfitano, in a marvelously sensual performance). After Trina wins $5,000 in a lottery -- and McTeague's practice is ruined when the jealous Marcus (baritone Timothy Nolen) reports him to the authorities -- the relationship sinks slowly into a morass...
...should make greed the sin of all sins, so that greedy people all over the planet are shunned. It is greed that leads to thievery, lying, cheating and stealing, which leads to wars, which leads to murders, which leads to all sorts of other things. Unless we succeed, I don't know that we are going to see a 22nd century...
...need to realize that all things that are making our lives hell now -- alcoholism or drug addiction, rape or murder, hatred or greed, power or war -- have all been caused by child abuse, which has been caused by the desire for material success. The child is traumatized, though he can't remember what happened to him. Evil is the root of child abuse and, if we stamp out child abuse, we'll be bringing God back, and that will cure everything...
...triumph of the West was in many ways a bloody shame -- a story of atrocity and rapine, of arrogance, greed and ecological despoliation, of hubristic contempt for other cultures and intolerance of non-Christian faiths. Nonetheless, as Hugh Thomas argues in A History of the World, "it is obvious that it is Western Europe ((and)) North America which, since the 15th century at least, for good or evil, ((have)) provided the world's dynamism...