As a Mozart lover I found this very entertaining. However, it fails to acknowledge the fact that Trump promised to at least attempt to end the forever wars, secure the borders and bring some jobs back. I know the Democrats will never understand the appeal of those objectives but they make a lot of sense to a lot of people.
David Bell
3 years ago
I stopped reading this after the second paragraph. It’s just a woke cry that Trump isn’t woke! One thing it misses, Trump voters aren’t woke and those who support Biden in the key swing states aren’t that woke either.
Basil Chamberlain
3 years ago
Enormously entertaining article – nice to see Mozart re-interpreted so cleverly for the present. Maybe when our opera houses re-open they can theme a production around this Konzept!
One error, though – Mr Pomerantsev writes that the opera ends with the Commentadore and the Don being pulled together into hell. Not so. The Commentadore, whom Don Giovanni murdered at the beginning of the opera, returns as a heavenly avenger – this is made quite clear when he turns down the Don’s offer of food: “Non si pasce di cibo mortale chi si pasce di cibo celeste!” (“He who dines on Heavenly food has no need for the food of mortals!”). After the Don refuses to repent, the Commentadore declares “Ah! tempo più non v’è!” (“Your time is up!”) and vanishes. It’s then left to a crowd of demons to come and carry the Don off to hell.
When the opera was first staged, there was actually a clear practical reason to get the Commentadore offstage early. The same bass who sang the role also sang Masetto, who appears in the epilogue, so the singer had quickly to change his costume while the Don met his doom!
Thank you for that erudite explanation of the practical mechanics of this work, as originally staged. It now makes perfect sense. This subject is obviously your forte.
And thanks for the compliment. Yes, as far as I’m concerned the three Mozart / Da Ponte operas are pretty much the supreme aesthetic achievements of Western civilisation!
In Opera, certainly. Even the word sublime, fails do them justice.
Aaron Lubell
3 years ago
The response to DJT is both visceral and complex. Whether one supports him or not, he must never be underestimated or counted out. He loves nothing more than a good fight and, in that sense, he is the quintessential American politician.
Dougie Undersub
3 years ago
An entertaining read Peter but I’m sorry to disappoint you, Trump is going to win. Why? The clue is here: “Amid their chaos we see inspiring moments where the divides between police and protesters are broken”. Unfortunately, those amongst the protestors who will keep this going during the weeks to come don’t want to reach across the divide. They seek to encourage and entrench division in order to achieve a radical remaking of US politics. This will frighten off wavering Trump supporters and show up Biden as having no answers and being weak on public safety. The worst riots are in cities and states that have been governed by the Democrats for decades. Their long-term indifference to police bias against blacks will come back to haunt them.
T Arn
3 years ago
“For someone who doesn’t make sense he has so far been effective at generating meaning.” Great quotation. The documentary ‘Hypernormalization’ discusses this feature of the media creating a simplified narrative of the world which has opened the door to populists.
risk
3 years ago
“mille et tre”. Not sure even Trump bonked that many Spaniards. Not sure I buy the argument. The core to Giovanni is that he absolutely does not care about anyone else. He is also, unlike Trump, single. At the end Giovanni is staring down to hell and refuses to repent. “Repentite”, “Non”. Two fingers up to religion even as he is drawn to hell. More guts to willingly face what is due than any politician has shown to the woke media madness of recent events.
David Simpson
3 years ago
Brilliant! But I still hope you’re wrong, or that he at least goes down fighting, and that he’s not just the narcissistic sociopath the opposition is so keen to label him as.
Stephen Follows
3 years ago
It’s the Commendatore, not the Commandatore. Next time you stoop to watching opera, please at least get your facts right.
clemencederoch
3 years ago
Excellent piece! I think you will find however that Mozart first wrote Don Giovanni without the moralising ending for the 1787 Prague premiere: it ended very logically with the flames of hell.
In Vienna, the censors, shocked by the the libretto (as well as by the use of D Minor, used usually for religious music ” Mozart’s 1791 Requiem is scored in it) requested the moralising ending, which Mozart duly wrote as the last scene octet. The Romantics rejected it as mere hackery; we of course include it because it still is Mozart.
Steve Gwynne
3 years ago
Perhaps an apt way of reframing the ambiguity of an exclusive populism (whether left or right) that pits an exclusive section of society (Commandatore whether left or right) against an exclusive section of the State (Don whether left or right) is Inclusive Populism.
I say this because the very basis of an exclusive populism is the contested field of projections between the Liberal Left and the Conservative Right whereby exclusivity is pitted against exclusivity with both the Left Liberal Establishment and the Right Conservative Establishment redefining the Wholeness of Society as a dichotomy between the people and the state much like two halves of a circle.
In this respect, exclusive populism is predicated on the mental construction of a bipolar view of Society which essentially deconstructs Society into a ying yang with the demagogue/hero and elite/hero roles being the eyes in each half.
Inclusive Populism on the other hand (in my opinion) is mentally constructed as The Whole Society i. E society should be conceived as the full circle with state functions being a functioning body of elected and appointed members of Society forming a governing body that is located within the larger body of what is Our Society.
On this basis we should be talking /protesting /rebelling /raving about how we manage Our Society rather than talking about the people and the state which perhaps needs to include how Our Society manages its relationship with the governing functions of the state.
In terms of Our Society and how we should all behave towards one another, no matter our role in Society, could be conceived with the underlying values of
with the state positioned either in the centre or not depending on the (democratic) wishes of Society.
Current both the Liberal Establishment and the Conservative Establishment define Society as The People and The State with both trying to co-opt The People as the means to control The State.
This dichotomy serves the exclusive interests of the middle class (managerial/technical class) or the upper class (capital owning class) whilst denying the working class (construction/producer class) a distinct political identity except through the co-opted and self-serving functions of the trade unions.
Thus exclusive populism is a meta rhetorical construct which is actively deployed by the middle or upper classes to suffocate the wisdom of the working class which inevitably leads to the equalisation of value, worth, dignity and respect between the diverse ecological inhabitants of any defined piece of Land.
Our lived experience I think is based on Ecological Functionalism and I think the lived experience of the producer class and the ethics of the producer class that comes from that lived experience of day to day survival is also based on ecological functionalism.
At the end of the day, supporters of inclusive populism, in which we see each other as a whole society rather than a bipolar society between the people and the state probably wouldn’t include Donald but then neither does it includeBiden. So maybe the Society of America and to some extent Our Society in Britain is currently reflecting that there needs to be a third political party that represents Inclusive Populism and so a much wider spectrum of people’s concerns.
As a Mozart lover I found this very entertaining. However, it fails to acknowledge the fact that Trump promised to at least attempt to end the forever wars, secure the borders and bring some jobs back. I know the Democrats will never understand the appeal of those objectives but they make a lot of sense to a lot of people.
I stopped reading this after the second paragraph. It’s just a woke cry that Trump isn’t woke! One thing it misses, Trump voters aren’t woke and those who support Biden in the key swing states aren’t that woke either.
Enormously entertaining article – nice to see Mozart re-interpreted so cleverly for the present. Maybe when our opera houses re-open they can theme a production around this Konzept!
One error, though – Mr Pomerantsev writes that the opera ends with the Commentadore and the Don being pulled together into hell. Not so. The Commentadore, whom Don Giovanni murdered at the beginning of the opera, returns as a heavenly avenger – this is made quite clear when he turns down the Don’s offer of food: “Non si pasce di cibo mortale chi si pasce di cibo celeste!” (“He who dines on Heavenly food has no need for the food of mortals!”). After the Don refuses to repent, the Commentadore declares “Ah! tempo più non v’è!” (“Your time is up!”) and vanishes. It’s then left to a crowd of demons to come and carry the Don off to hell.
When the opera was first staged, there was actually a clear practical reason to get the Commentadore offstage early. The same bass who sang the role also sang Masetto, who appears in the epilogue, so the singer had quickly to change his costume while the Don met his doom!
Thank you for that erudite explanation
of the practical mechanics of this work, as originally staged. It now makes perfect sense. This subject is obviously your forte.
And thanks for the compliment. Yes, as far as I’m concerned the three Mozart / Da Ponte operas are pretty much the supreme aesthetic achievements of Western civilisation!
In Opera, certainly. Even the
word sublime, fails do them justice.
The response to DJT is both visceral and complex. Whether one supports him or not, he must never be underestimated or counted out. He loves nothing more than a good fight and, in that sense, he is the quintessential American politician.
An entertaining read Peter but I’m sorry to disappoint you, Trump is going to win.
Why? The clue is here: “Amid their chaos we see inspiring moments where the divides between police and protesters are broken”. Unfortunately, those amongst the protestors who will keep this going during the weeks to come don’t want to reach across the divide. They seek to encourage and entrench division in order to achieve a radical remaking of US politics.
This will frighten off wavering Trump supporters and show up Biden as having no answers and being weak on public safety. The worst riots are in cities and states that have been governed by the Democrats for decades. Their long-term indifference to police bias against blacks will come back to haunt them.
“For someone who doesn’t make sense he has so far been effective at generating meaning.” Great quotation. The documentary ‘Hypernormalization’ discusses this feature of the media creating a simplified narrative of the world which has opened the door to populists.
“mille et tre”. Not sure even Trump bonked that many Spaniards. Not sure I buy the argument. The core to Giovanni is that he absolutely does not care about anyone else. He is also, unlike Trump, single. At the end Giovanni is staring down to hell and refuses to repent. “Repentite”, “Non”. Two fingers up to religion even as he is drawn to hell. More guts to willingly face what is due than any politician has shown to the woke media madness of recent events.
Brilliant! But I still hope you’re wrong, or that he at least goes down fighting, and that he’s not just the narcissistic sociopath the opposition is so keen to label him as.
It’s the Commendatore, not the Commandatore. Next time you stoop to watching opera, please at least get your facts right.
Excellent piece! I think you will find however that Mozart first wrote Don Giovanni without the moralising ending for the 1787 Prague premiere: it ended very logically with the flames of hell.
In Vienna, the censors, shocked by the the libretto (as well as by the use of D Minor, used usually for religious music ” Mozart’s 1791 Requiem is scored in it) requested the moralising ending, which Mozart duly wrote as the last scene octet. The Romantics rejected it as mere hackery; we of course include it because it still is Mozart.
Perhaps an apt way of reframing the ambiguity of an exclusive populism (whether left or right) that pits an exclusive section of society (Commandatore whether left or right) against an exclusive section of the State (Don whether left or right) is Inclusive Populism.
I say this because the very basis of an exclusive populism is the contested field of projections between the Liberal Left and the Conservative Right whereby exclusivity is pitted against exclusivity with both the Left Liberal Establishment and the Right Conservative Establishment redefining the Wholeness of Society as a dichotomy between the people and the state much like two halves of a circle.
In this respect, exclusive populism is predicated on the mental construction of a bipolar view of Society which essentially deconstructs Society into a ying yang with the demagogue/hero and elite/hero roles being the eyes in each half.
Inclusive Populism on the other hand (in my opinion) is mentally constructed as The Whole Society i. E society should be conceived as the full circle with state functions being a functioning body of elected and appointed members of Society forming a governing body that is located within the larger body of what is Our Society.
On this basis we should be talking /protesting /rebelling /raving about how we manage Our Society rather than talking about the people and the state which perhaps needs to include how Our Society manages its relationship with the governing functions of the state.
In terms of Our Society and how we should all behave towards one another, no matter our role in Society, could be conceived with the underlying values of
Equalised (intrinsic) Value
Equalised (intrinsic) Worth
Equalised (intrinsic) Dignity
Equalised (intrinsic) Respect
with the state positioned either in the centre or not depending on the (democratic) wishes of Society.
Current both the Liberal Establishment and the Conservative Establishment define Society as The People and The State with both trying to co-opt The People as the means to control The State.
This dichotomy serves the exclusive interests of the middle class (managerial/technical class) or the upper class (capital owning class) whilst denying the working class (construction/producer class) a distinct political identity except through the co-opted and self-serving functions of the trade unions.
Thus exclusive populism is a meta rhetorical construct which is actively deployed by the middle or upper classes to suffocate the wisdom of the working class which inevitably leads to the equalisation of value, worth, dignity and respect between the diverse ecological inhabitants of any defined piece of Land.
Our lived experience I think is based on Ecological Functionalism and I think the lived experience of the producer class and the ethics of the producer class that comes from that lived experience of day to day survival is also based on ecological functionalism.
At the end of the day, supporters of inclusive populism, in which we see each other as a whole society rather than a bipolar society between the people and the state probably wouldn’t include Donald but then neither does it includeBiden. So maybe the Society of America and to some extent Our Society in Britain is currently reflecting that there needs to be a third political party that represents Inclusive Populism and so a much wider spectrum of people’s concerns.