Rebecca Nemser

Mozart’s ear­ly opera, ABDUCTION FROM THE SERAGLIO starts out light and com­ic, grad­u­al­ly grows deep­er, more melod­ic, and more pro­found, and ends in per­fect har­mo­ny. He wrote in 1781, at the age of 25, bring­ing togeth­er ele­ments of high art and melo­dra­ma into a new form that tran­scends them both. “It was a break­though for Mozart,” says Mar­tin Pearl­man, con­duc­tor and direc­tor of the Boston Baroque. 

CHRISTOPHER HOGWOOD has stopped con­duct­ing in the tra­di­tion­al “stuffed shirt” tails and white tie; he now wears a black silk shirt. It gives him the air of an artist — or a monk. The Mae­stro’s new clothes are a metaphor for his approach to music: not a dusty, life­less tra­di­tion, but some­thing authen­tic, full of mean­ing, and alive. 

When I was young, ARETHA FRANKLIN and DIANA ROSS rep­re­sent­ed the two poles of women’s expe­ri­ence. Diana’s sweet, lyri­cal voice cel­e­brat­ed a woman’s capac­i­ty to aban­don her­self com­plete­ly to love. Aretha’s “Respect” was the ulti­mate expres­sion of a woman’s right­eous anger and self-respect. Now I see them both as present-day embod­i­ments of ancient God­dess­es, pro­ject­ing daz­zling images of beau­ty, pow­er, glam­our, self-pos­ses­sion, and grace. 

The beau­ti­ful, beloved voice of LORRAINE HUNT began to rise and spread out through the room, in sweet, sad lay­ers of sound, accom­pa­nied by a visu­al cho­rus of flash­ing col­ored lights, mag­i­cal­ly trans­form­ing the emp­ty, mechan­i­cal space into a few moments of unearth­ly beauty.

Dancer Beth Soll and Com­pos­er Richard Cor­nell are work­ing togeth­er on a dance inspired by a book by West African poet Amadou Ham­pate Ba. “It’s a long tale, an ini­tia­to­ry alle­go­ry, a tri­umph of knowl­edge over for­tune and pow­er,” says Cor­nell. “A quest for God and wis­dom,” says Soll. 

“It begins with a fune­re­al cho­rus in the antique style, with cor­net­to and trom­bones. And then Orpheus comes in, lament­ing his lost love, and sings one sin­gle word. Eury­dice. He sings it three times. He does­n’t say much, but he says every­thing he needs to say, and the third time he sings it, it sends chills up your spine.””

“Sound art is more open and much clos­er to life than music. Music is a fil­tered expe­ri­ence. I’m not a com­pos­er. I don’t want the emo­tion­al view bound or direct­ed in any one direc­tion. I want to keep it open. I’m always try­ing things out. I hear some­thing and I can pick it up and react in min­utes. I’m inter­est­ed in every­thing that makes a noise.”

Madame de Pom­padour always man­aged to look grace­ful, even in the most con­strict­ing clothes — corsets, bus­tles, and stays. Like Madon­na, she cre­at­ed a Look that was supreme­ly arti­fi­cial — the pow­dered hair, the heav­i­ly applied make-up, the elab­o­rate gowns. Like Madon­na in her John-Paul Gaulti­er bustiers, La Pom­padour in her negligée proud­ly dis­played her sex­u­al­i­ty as the source of her power.