Free Art

 

This is not a new question. However tedious it may be, it's once again time to point out the value of free speech. "Free speech" includes artistic expression.

Many of the composers of Mozart's time were just musical Courtiers. Mozart wasn't, although Beethoven thought he was too close to the Viennese Court. In many of his works, Mozart exposed the cruelty, arrogance, injustice and plain immorality of the Aristocracy. Perhaps that was just a reaction to his father's exploitation of Mozart's talents from his earliest childhood. But, given the depth and breadth of Mozart's genius, and living, as he did, in the midst of the European Enlightenment, it seems to me unlikely he did not have a solid grasp of where matters stood, socially, politically and otherwise. But, Mozart was a critic, not a rebel or a revolutionary.

In attending the San Francisco Opera's production of  Marriage of Figaro earlier this year, I was regaled by Mozart's plots and counter-plots. A lesser person would have stumbled through this story, making it seem contrived, but not Mozart. However improbable, eventually Figaro is married to Suzanna, after avoiding the unwanted attentions of the sexual predator, Count Almaviva. Some 200 years later, we are invited to ask, what is Mozart's version of the story about? The answer is a nearly forgotten practice: droit seigneur. Aristocrats once had the privilege of raping any young lady in their purview when they felt so inclined. The penalty for striking an aristocrat, for whatever reason, was death. In Marriage of Figaro, Count Almaviva has unilaterally given up droit seigneur, but now regrets it in view of luscious Suzanna, his wife's personal servant. Figaro, the typical male defending his female conquest, is beset with a terrible problem, for he must somehow prevent the Count from taking back droit seigneur and Suzaana, all the while not touching the Count. Thus, the Opera is a battle of wits.

While this seems incredibly far-fetched and comic to us and thousands of audiences since Mozart's time, it wasn't comic at the time. Many of the Austro-Hungarian Aristocracy were outraged by Mozart's obvious attack on droit seigneur: that is what the opera is about. Mozart was almost beyond the reach of the Imperial government because of his genius, but he got into hot water on account of this opera and other works. Mozart caused scandals. He pushed as far as he could. Lesser men ended up in Imperial prisons, tortured until they recanted. So, though a Courtly hanger-on, Mozart wasn't just a boot licker and ass kisser.

Idomeneo is another of Mozart's operas critical of the status quo. Please remember that in Mozart's time the Church was officially ensconced in government throughout Europe. The separation of Church and State was then a new, radical idea. So in raising even the simplest questions about religion, Mozart risked a fierce response. Mozart's courage is particularly noteworthy now, in our time of the Religious Right, Bandit government and Holy Wars. We should be asking a lot questions about religion in the United States, Europe and the Middle East, as well as other places. Idomeneo is particularly fitting for our times.

If we cancel Mozart, who else is being trundled to the Guillotine? This is not a matter of some minor artist's shitting on Christ. What we have here is a strike at the core of Western culture. Adolph Hitler banned "Jewish Science," the fundamentals of Twentieth Century physics. Were it not for the Jewish scientists' foresight in escaping Nazi Germany, the Allies might not have defeated the Axis. But even in such large, internationally important matters of life and death, it was a close call. The United States notoriously sent back to Europe boatloads of Jewish refugees seeking asylum from Nazi persecution. Very few of those returned survived Hitler's Final Solution. And, it wasn't just the Jews who died. It was Gypsies, Communists, Homosexuals, Slavs and all manner of other artists, intellectuals, non-conformists and protestors as well. How many Einsteins, Mozarts, Beethovens and Goethes disappeared in the gas chambers?

I don't approve of Bandit government. More than that, I oppose it. I oppose invading foreign countries because of some people's crazy ideas and ambitions. But while I detest and oppose the Conquest of Iraq, I will not knuckle under to Islamic terrorists, or any other kind of terrorists. What is our freedom worth, if we surrender it so easily? The point of policy in our times should be to overcome backwardness, ignorance and violence. What we want is a humane world.

I think we need to protest this opera's closing, especially for the reasons given. I will send a copy of this article to the Deutsche Oper. As a San Francisco Opera subscriber, I will remind them, too.

I ask you to consider these matters carefully, and stand up for freedom where it really counts.