nemoW elttiL

We are substantially oversold:  on both sides of the theatre, so many people are camped on the aisles that our stage manager has to alert them not to block the actors’ exits, which use a bit of the house.  And the show is beautiful, passionately acted and ardently sung: we are stunned by the rhythmic clapping which prompts us to eight calls.

from the supertitles, Act One, Scene One.

At the half, though, I am moved, as ever, by those listeners who preface their comments with “I ordinarily resist new music, but” or-and this can move me to tears-the gratitude with which people have said to me, almost with wonder, “I understood it: I understood what you were going for.”  I remain convinced that striving towards intelligibility is, for an artist, a moral good, and when one reads-to go back in time, though God knows there are numerous more contemporary examples-a statement like Schönberg’s “Either what we (the Austro-Germans) do is music, or what the French do is music, but both cannot be music-” one is struck above all by how ungenerous that statement is, how narrow and defensive and dismissive of its audience. After a master-class I was once asked, with some exasperation, “Surely you don’t want to hold your audience’s hand, do you?”-to which I said, more or less, That’s exactly what I wish to do. I want to lead them some place they may not have been before-which might be unnerving, or confusing, or might make them question things they thought were certain-and I want them to feel that, whatever twists the journey takes, their guide is somehow with them.  An audience, in that dark, is giving you a childlike vulnerability: the increasingly rare and precious gift of their undivided attention.   That isn’t deserving of the artist’s embrace?  If not, what is?

In any event, the performance was lovely and expressive, and toasts and photos clinked and clicked till three.  Tomorrow, Jerusalem.