Archive for September, 2008

Now We Are One.

Today we mark the first anniversary of The Berkshire Review for the Arts. Our group of writers and critics has grown considerably since then, and so has our traffic. While we were fortunate to attract a sizable group of readers from the beginning, it has grown over the course of 2008 to an average of [...]

Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny by Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht by the TMC Fellows

The mood of the audience during intermission was particularly subdued. As I wandered in the dark among Tanglewood’s enormous pines, I overheard the same conversation at least three times:

“What did you think of it?”

(Pause) “It’s okay…”

It is possible to be more specific than that. The Tanglewood audience on the whole isn’t young. Most of these mostly affluent people are old enough to have some acquaintance with the politics of the left, but the annual TMC opera is hardly workers’ theater. As audiences crowd into the wonderful, atmospheric Tanglewood Theater to enjoy it, they are there in the spirit of what Brecht called “gourmet’s opera” (kulinarische Oper) in his essay about Mahagonny, in which he admitted that he and composer Kurt Weill had not totally eliminated this traditional element from their opera in their attempt to create a democratic epic opera. In the TMC production these operatic gourmet elements faired better than its Brechtian aspects, partly through the flaws of the dramaturgy itself, and partly through Doug Fitch’s slapdash staging and his and Yoshiaki Takao’s hideous design.

Reflections on the Elgin Marbles, by Huntley Dent

Rescue or looting? It’s disturbing to visit the Elgin Marbles at the British Museum, I find, because the eye notices their wreckage and beauty at the same time. One empire, the Ottoman, ignored the Parthenon as art, affixing a minaret to it and using it as a mosque. This neglect was probably better than the [...]

The Elgin Marbles: Another View, by Michael Miller

Every stay in London should begin and end with a visit to the Parthenon Sculptures, or Elgin Marbles, if you like. Years ago my father and I cherished this ritual[1] on our annual visits. Last fall, my son and I unconsciously fell into the same pattern. After my father’s death, I spent periods in London [...]