Here's another utterly non-theological comment:
The other day I was watching a DVD of the Australian Opera's production of Puccini's Turandot. From the early 1990's, I think. The production itself is (was) splendid. The performances were very good (not quite great, but very good; I think the cast was Australian, but I didn't recognize any of them). Puccini's music, of course, is absolutely wonderful. But surely that has got to be the dumbest plot in the whole of the standard operatic repertoire. (And I'm including the cycle The Ring of the Nibelungs, which is pretty dumb. Great music, though much too long -- Wagner had no self-discipline -- but a pretty dumb plot.) The only character in Turandot who is likeable at all is the slave girl Liu, and she ends up killing herself (well, I probably would too, in the circumstances). The old king Timur is dumb as a box of rocks -- no wonder he was dethroned. Prince Calaf is even more of a jerk than B. F. Pinkerton, and that's saying a lot. Turandot herself, of course, desperately needs to get over herself, and I doubt that falling for Calaf is going to do the job.
Where was Mao Zedong when the people of Peking (Beijing) really needed him?
About Me
- WSJM
- The Rev. Canon William S. J. Moorhead ("Fr. Bill") -- About 20 years of parish ministry in Wisconsin, Kansas, Nebraska and Iowa, plus 2+ years early on as a novice in the Order of the Holy Cross (a great experience, but not my vocation), and 1+ years as interim Episcopal chaplain at the University of Iowa. Then 15 years in the Office of Student Affairs and Curriculum at the University of Iowa College of Medicine (now retired), and also serving as non-stipendiary priest associate at Trinity Episcopal Church, Iowa City, Iowa, and doing supply ministry all over eastern Iowa. In 2016 the Diocese of Iowa recognized my fifty years of ordained ministry by making me an Honorary Canon of the Cathedral Church of St. Paul.
Never Before Have So Many People with So Little to Say Said So Much to So Few.
1 comment:
Just ran across this blog by chance. My dad loves opera and boxing!!! He is now catholic but was episcopal for most of his life. He sent me to an Episcopal blog and they dumped all over me. This is the only episcopal blog I've come across that discusses anything other than sex. I'm getting married in the spring to a Unitarian girl. Just wanted to say hello. At 23, I don't know much but glad to find some Episcopal that thinks of something other than sex. I better say I favor equal rights for LG.
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