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20-Mar / Eternal Dilemma-Historical Acting-NERD ALERT! / 13 COMMENTS
Photo by Renskaphotography
In the past weeks me and some of my colleagues have been busy reading and collecting material that we hope to use for an upcoming programme. Focusing ourselves on the relationship between the Jewish community in central Europe and a few active courts in the middle of the 17th century, we bumped into, let’s call it, an unsavory piece that made the hair on the back of our necks stand up. Ok why not, let’s just call it what it is- it’s anti-Semitic. Not in the Johannes Passion anti- Semitic way, that most of us are ok with singing once, or if we’re lucky, thirty five times a year, but in the crazy blood libel anti- Semitic way, which turns my stomach upside down.
My first instinct was to chuck this piece. Clearly there’s no need to give it time and space to still exist in our minds and ears, and perpetuate this line of thinking. End of story, right? Wrong- the night after we talked about the piece I couldn’t sleep. I kept thinking about it. Here’s a piece of history I wish never happened, and yet it is a part of the Jewish community history, part of the narrative for many minorities, really. We wanted our programme to show case pieces that we would love to hear ourselves, pieces that we can stand behind, but by shedding light only on “the good bits” of the relationship of this community and its surroundings, are we telling the whole story? Are we even giving the achievements gained by this group of people the right context? So should we include this piece, play it, even though some of us wish it was never written? While these questions were playing in my mind in the darkness, a few more issues popped up. Probably the night time is not the best moment to have these conversations with oneself. I sing and declaim mostly 17th and 18th century pieces. These pieces, more often than not, revolve around topics that I would like to think the society close to me has moved away from. Stuff like- women that get punished (usually by dying) for having a strong character and defying their circumstances, or rape being ok because it’s a god that did the raping (and she probably liked it, because it was a god). We have less of a problem, if any, playing and singing these pieces. Maybe that is the case because we treat these pieces as an audio genre, that doesn’t really have to communicate much to an audience, or make them feel anything specific.
Which brings me back to the creepy anti-Semitic piece: if I sing/play it well, I might do a good service to an idea that I very much disagree with; if I sing/play it badly, maybe no one in the audience will understand what it is about, or even care. By doing that, am I as a performer to blame for helping the audience glide casually over a horrible thing I just put in front of them? What if I do good by the piece and the audience is mad at me for choosing it, or for portraying it as a positive thing? It seems like there is no clear cut answer here, but maybe I should include it in our programme, just because it forces us to think and struggle with the choices we make?
As creepy as it may be, you could include it in the programme as this piece shows the dark side of history and, together with the “good bits”, gives a good impression of the whole story.
I think this is a very good suggestion. Thank you for this.
Hello Michal,
I saw your post in Historical Performance Research on FB. This is such an interesting and important subject. I just came up against a similar, related circumstance. In my case I withdrew. I would like to follow this thread, I hope I catch your posts. Especially, I am curious if you perform the piece, what it will feel like to do so, and if there were reactions.
Not sure this is a post-able comment, but I want to write a note.
I have not heard this topic, or the related topics of virulently racist performers, addressed so clearly. This is a core interest of mine.
A different topic, I am a little known composer, mostly sitar teacher, in the United States. I listened to some of your videos, you sing beautifully and with much feeling! Might you have an interest in new music which is written on old models, in the antique style?
But back to topic A – Again, thank you for posting about this, and best wishes,
David
Minnesota, USA
Thank you David Whestone for writing. I apologize for a really late reply. Unfortunately due to international struggle with the Corona pandemic, the ensemble had to put a lid on developing this programme. I hope we can go back to this piece in the future, and maybe find a way to portrey it in some context that will make its performance meaningful.
According to the description you give on Facebook (why not here?) I would say it is no anti-semitic piece. Would it be anti-christian if the protagonist had this religion? It is just a story about a moral dilemma. But even if it were anti-semitic: It is art, and it is part of the history. Political correctness nowadays is driven so far that a lot of beautiful vocal music would have to be silenced, and a lot of visual art would have to be banned from the view. It would be censorship post mortem. This is nothing that should be part of a free society.
Thank you for your comment Dr. Miehling. I apologize for the extremely late reply. The piece, after shedding a light on a moral dilemma, does end with an antisemitic comment about the expectations one can have from a person of such people. I tried to highlight an important struggle of choosing a piece like this in a programme. Many questions come up when there are words put to music as to how to portray them faithfully, yet faithfully can be tricky without context.
Michal, anything you sing or play is of outstanding quality.
Be true to yourself, follow your gut feelings.
If you want to use it it will force people to think!
They either love or hate it, but that’s with everything ……
I’m sure you’ll make it meaningful like only you can do.
Shalom.
Thank you so much Carina!
You seem to feel that identifying this piece, would have possible bad effects. (Perhaps someone else deciding to perform it?) I do admit to curiosity as to what it is.
You might also be interested in this related piece from MY blog:
https://lessthanamegabyte.wordpress.com/2018/09/06/how-to-ruin-a-pretty-good-piece-of-music/
Thank you Tom F for the link. My apologies for the extremely late reply.
There is little doubt in my mind that this piece should be played/sung if it is of good quality, but maybe not by you. That choice must be yours.
Would it be possible to ask the audience if they would like to hear it and if it’s a ‘yes’ then you can give of your best. A ‘no’ response from the audience could lead to a wider debate!
I am very sorry for the extremely late reply. As the debate on FB progressed I found it a bit hard to go back to this particular blog. I think that asking giving the audience the choice between pieces, and giving them a part in telling a story, is quite an interesting idea. In the case of this piece it can also start a conversation that could be had after a concert.