I was most interested in Christopher Webber comments:

>I won't labour the point - but Peter, you're going to have some delightful
>surprises as you continue to explore Rameau, Handel, Purcell's work with
>Dryden ...  et.al.

I in fact couldn't agree more that they are indeed delightful.
'Delightful' being the operative word.  If you are not familiar with
this repertoire I agree you will be thrilled, and would strongly encourage
anyone to explore it.  I have never had any objection to this whatsoever.
The only point that I will refuse to concede is that the 'delightful' is
somehow a sufficient substitute for the sublime power of Music in its
purest form, where any theatrical spectacle is utterly incapable of
detracting from it as the ONE sacred principle.

Peter Goldstein wrote:

>>The fact is, the conditions under which opera was composed and produced,
>>until the 20th century, worked against intellectual depth, which is why
>>most pre-20th century operas don't have much of it.

I think I need to really restate my views on opera.  My position is
essentially a Wagnerian position.  I revere Wagner because it was him
who first achieved the total dissolution of all theatrical concerns to
one absolute principle:  that of Music.  I therefore agree with Dahlhaus
in that Wagner is truly a composer of Absolute Music.  Be though the work
may be seemingly about Love, Death or Friendship, Wagner really allows all
these to dissolved away into the music as though to reveal the Music which
is their true essence.  You see I agree with Wagner that in this he
succeeded in lifting himself above the triteness of opera as a facile petit
bourgeois entertainment.  I agree again with him that his mature works are
better called music-dramas to differentiate them from opera.  Again I feel
Berg's 'Wozzeck', and Schoenberg's 'Moses und Aaron' similarly deserve to
be called music-dramas.  They are way too serious, way too profound to be
mere operas.  'Delightful' is not the operative word here, but an insult.

Christopher Webber goes on:

>Again, if you were to speak of "complexity" rather than "depth" I could
>largely agree with you.  Alas for Satoshi Akima, the former does not
>usually imply the latter, rather the reverse.

No the complexity I demand is MUSICAL complexity for I have a belief
that in all of art music is more deeply profound than anything else.
In comparison any music which is over-reliant for it's reason d'etre
on something extra-musical (text, drama) to support it is in my view
unsatisfactory.  You may say this is true of Wagner.  I would disagree
in that he makes drama, text, action, scenery so utterly subordinate to
music that they all dissolve away in it.

>Mercifully, we are at length moving beyond the worn-out, romantic concept
>of The Spiritual in music.

So we clever moderns are to replace this with the Soulless, the Mechanical
- or worse still the superficially Delightful.

>Those German-based Rules still clearly suffice for many (including Satoshi
>Akima, and good luck to him).  But any meaningful musical spirituality can
>- and should - be a broad enough church to allow Verdi, Handel, Rameau,
>Purcell and the rest of the theatre rabble their rightful thrones in the
>Intellectual Pantheon, along with all those dear old Teutonic "B's" who
>failed to cut the operatic mustard.

Indeed I have been guilty indeed on mentioning three B's in one of my post
on this topic.  I mentioned Bach, Beethoven - and BOULEZ!  Sorry, in case
you didn't know it Boulez is a Frenchman!  Again I should say once more
that even more musically profound than these Rameau's and Purcell's are the
visionary polyphonists of the 14th and 15th century such as Isaac, Josquin,
Lassus, Gesualdo and Palestrina.  Here too a church criticism was that
there music obscured the words i.e.  dissolved them into Absolute Music.
And it was as the final and most extreme reaction to the criticism that the
allegedly monstrous contrapuntal complexities of this music corrupted the
purity of the words/text that gave birth to opera.  It is a criticism I
cannot accept.  I therefore cannot accept opera no matter how 'delighted'
I may be by it..  And indeed I am - I truly and sincerely am delighted!

I remain (?mercilessly) true to what I have said before.

Satoshi Akima
Sydney, Australia
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