Greetings Gentle Readers!!
No time, no blogs.....but I have been inspired tonight to write because I spend a lot of money on a not very good opera, "The Gospel of Mary Magdalene" and wanted explain why it annoyed me....If of all the music was bad enough that 2 of my friends left the opera at intermission, the first time they have EVER done so because they disliked the music.....my gripe was less about the music than the plot.
When seeing a film, opera, play, etc., the spectator is supposed to have "suspended disbelief" which means that although you know that Superman doesn't exist and if so, couldn't fly, you turn off that part of your brain that tells you and enter the fantasy world where he exists and does fly. Or when watching a play, you turn off that part of your brain that says, this isn't real, it is on a stage.....I am not good at that and am always trying to figure out how the fake leaves are coming out of the fake trees....or looking for the wires that let people fly on stage....or wondering about plot inconsistencies and what happened to grandpa who now is appearing on stage as someone else.....to get me into a state of suspended disbelief, you have to do a very good job of....everything.
Which brings me back to the opera, "Mary Magdalene"......In the very beginning Jesus is married to Tamar (some slut with lots of exes, both husbands and boyfriends)...Tamar gets upset when Jesus gets up close and too personal with Mary and wants to have them both stoned....they weren't. Tamar, JC's wife exits the stage never to be seen again....and then JC falls in love with Mary, they consummate their relationship and eventually married and the disciples are horrified that she would commit a sin of the flesh, conveniently forgetting about Tamar, but they marry anyway....Mary is a super big factor in his life, consuls him, is one of his main advisors, etc....when JC decides to go to Jerusalem where he will die, Mary throws a hissy fit but JC goes anyway.
This story lines makes no sense to me from what I have read from the Bible and even more so, from what I have read about the role of women in ancient times. The idea that a woman would have such an important role in what was a Jewish movement at the time (JC was a Jew and was trying to convert Jews and Christianity only became a big movement when Paul went around converting Gentiles...) but this goes beyond my "suspended disbelief." What goes further is that this opera portrays JC as a loving husband, a good guy, a nice guy, who was being badgered by Peter....think about this Gentle Readers....normal, nice kind married folk don't go around wrecking temples, preaching to elders, etc...it takes a fanatic to do this and most fanatics are not nice, kind, well adjusted people....the JC I picture lived a relatively calm life until he went on his ministry and raised hell for a couple of years until the Romans, after having been prodded by the Jew aristocracy, killed him.
The Gnostic gospels don't think JC was half Devine, and I'm ok with this, more than ok with this!! But Joe the carpenter, the guy next door, no.
The playbill said that drama is supposed to stimulate thought and not necessarily be accurate....this opera stimulated MY thoughts but mostly as to why the composer was a moron with no concept of history.
Comments always welcomed.
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