This month in Rob’s Ramblings, Artistic & General Director Rob Ainsley fills us in on his fall travels and muses about art, theater, and the upcoming election. And, of course, there is a healthy dose of great music for your enjoyment. Click here to listen to his November playlist and scroll down to read the full blog.

November 5 is upon us, and the election is at hand! While I could publish a blog entry without referring to it, it has become so all-consuming that I fear I would be ignoring the elephant in the room. And so, mention it I shall, for it is our most solemn and pressing duty as citizens to cast our vote tomorrow and decide the direction of this great country (and indeed the world) for the next four years. Whoever you are and whichever way your politics lean, please VOTE!

Connecting through art

My recent travels have taken me to Ann Arbor, Pittsburgh, NYC, and DC, giving masterclasses, hearing singers, attending performances, and meeting with colleagues. Everywhere I went, I was struck by how powerfully the art I connected with caused me to reflect on the issues we face as a society today, and how immediately they helped me feel and understand the plight of others. I know this to be always true of art, of course, but as this great country stands in the balance between two very different futures, it struck me with renewed exigency.

With enormous thanks to the University of Michigan for their collaboration, I flew out to Ann Arbor to hear the orchestral workshop of our important world premiere this season, The House on Mango Street.

Our Project Pipeline initiative has been largely focused on this project for the last year, happily coinciding with the 40th anniversary of Sandra Cisneros’s beloved novel, which Everyman Library is celebrating with a new edition that you can purchase here.

I was deeply moved, not only by the talent of Michigan’s students in the masterclass I gave before the workshop, but by the total commitment shown by the huge group of performers they had assembled to read the full score for the first time.

Though this heartfelt, beautifully crafted coming-of-age story first appeared 40 years ago, so much it touches on has never been more urgent and relevant to today’s political discourse and rhetoric. Immigration, racism, social class, feminism, a woman’s right to bodily autonomy, domestic violence, identity, sexuality — all these and more appear in our new opera as simple facts of life, presented without judgment or opinion. They are shown to be issues that affect us all to differing degrees and which it is our daily responsibility to confront as a society. Derek’s vibrant score, itself an American mosaic of styles and influences from around the globe, takes a similar stance: rather than preach to us, it shows us through its stunning melodies and ravishing orchestrations how these external factors can play on the emotions of a young girl on the journey to womanhood.

I moved on to hear some excellent singers in the annual Mildred Miller Competition in Pittsburgh, where I served on the adjudication panel.

The level was incredibly high, and all the singers involved in the competition represented the incredible potential and future we can look forward to in this country – as long as we continue to support the arts, our theaters, our education system, and our children’s dreams.

Wagner, Beethoven, and america today

I next traveled to my old haunt, the Kennedy Center and Washington National Opera, for their opening weekend. Here, right in the nation’s political center, it was impossible to deny the connection between what I was watching on stage and what is playing out right now in our country. First up was a glorious concert of Wagner, starring one of Glimmerglass’s most prestigious and renowned alumni, soprano Christine Goerke, as well as featuring the phenomenal bass Soloman Howard, also a Festival favorite. The singing and playing were glorious throughout. Soloman was a revelation, performing an aria I was not familiar with (a rather rare occurrence these days): Wagner wrote “Norma il predisse, O Druidi” to be interpolated into one his own personal favorite operas, Bellini’s Norma.

Wagner tubas on loan from the New York Philharmonic added resplendent grandeur to the orchestral sound, and the finale to the Ring Cycle, led by Christine’s voluminous soprano, brought the concert to an epic close.

And yet, it was impossible to shake the uncomfortable feeling that Wagner’s music always takes on around large political occasions — although he cannot be entirely blamed for the way the Nazi party coopted his music as their rallying cry, we must be aware of Wagner’s own antisemitism and dangerous tendencies towards Aryan supremacy even as we revel in the intoxicating glory of his music.

The following day, I attended the matinee of Beethoven’s only opera, Fidelio. I had prepared en route by listening to one of my favorite recordings of the piece on the drive down, a thrilling live recording from the Met featuring Birgit Nilsson and Jon Vickers in the leading roles, with the great German maestro Karl Böhm at the podium.

Fidelio is a challenging opera to produce, dramaturgically awkward and torn between its humble form as a “Singspiel” (musical numbers interspersed with dialogue, like The Magic Flute) and its incredibly lofty aspirations as a hymn to the greatest human ideals. But like most Beethoven, its music transcends all, and it takes us on a journey beginning with charming domesticity; traveling through the darkest depths of oppression, persecution, tyranny, and the autocratic abuse of power; ultimately leading us through to ecstatic heights of freedom, brotherhood, devotion, and love. At its heart is the fearless, courageous Leonore, who sacrifices her very identity to save her husband and restore order to the kingdom. One of its most memorable moments occurs when a gang of prisoners are given the chance to walk outside and breathe fresh air for the first time in many months; against a worrisome backdrop of obsessive incarceration as a catch-all solution for too many of America’s societal problems, it rings painfully true.

But despite all the Sturm und Drang along the way, we are left with the noblest ideals of the Enlightenment, and some of the most hopeful and viscerally optimistic music in all of opera. Fidelio, like its creator, celebrates everything that makes us human.

Cast Your Vote

This year, “we, the people” will cast our votes on November 5. For anyone growing up in Britain, like I did, it is difficult not to find both irony and hope in this date: Guy Fawkes Day is both a sinister remembrance of a treasonous attempt to overthrow the government and a celebration of how the infamous Gunpowder Plot was foiled. The events of January 6, 2021, still hang over the democratic ideal of a peaceful transfer of power like an uncomfortable shadow. I am under no illusion that the results of this election will be decided for some weeks or even months, and yet, let us hope that the next Inauguration Day proceeds without the violence of the previous.

Since 2010, the world has seen unprecedented “democratic backsliding.” About half the world is now under autocratic rule, encompassing nearly three-quarters of the world’s population. I do not presume to explain the benefits of a free democracy over the alternatives; nevertheless, Cleisthenes and those clever Greeks were onto something with the invention of a society where theater, culture, and democracy were inseparable. America remains the most powerful democracy in the world, and your most sacred power in this system is to cast your vote tomorrow. Beyond that, you can join your community at the theater to discuss the issues of the day and to exercise your empathy in a way that truly has the power to change you. My exhortations for you this week: cast your vote and then head to our website to buy those tickets — and why not listen to some Beethoven while you’re at it!