Posted on 06/21/2015 1:04:52 PM PDT by nwrep
Charleston.
Guns.
Racism.
Inequality.
War.
This is our time. A time of war. (Although as I desperately “fight” to remind myself – it is also a time of immense beauty. Woe are we, if we forget that.)
I felt this way after having to sing “Così fan tutte” 2 days after 9/11 happened: “WHAT IS THE POINT????”, I screamed inside my head. How can an opera over 150 years old possibly matter today?
One point might be this: The Arts are here for us to look unflinchingly, directly, deeply and penetratingly at ourselves. They are here to show us who we really are. They are here, begging us to learn from our past mistakes and shortcomings. They Arts INVITE us to be better: “Choose LOVE this time, not WAR.” The Arts INVITE us to grow and evolve. It is up to us to accept the invitation to advance.
So I ask myself, when will “we” listen? When will we have the courage to look deeply within ourselves: at our own slips into lightly veiled racism? at our own greed for “rights” that come at the cost of HUMAN BEINGS’ LIVES? at our quick judgments of other people, dismissing their heritage, and THEIR rights?
I stare at Facebook and see my friends from many different walks of life, all confused with questions of “how could this happen?” and “when will it stop?” I think, as Americans, as long as we continue to allow the INSANE proliferation of guns through our laws and via the people we elect, we have categorically lost our right to be outraged. We have lost our right to be shocked. We actually need to look directly at ourselves and admit that we are allowing this – and by default, we are implicitly accepting it.
We are culpable in Charleston.
I am doing soul searching to find ways in which I might be complicit by my own actions or inaction. There are numerous articles around helping to compassionately point out how I – born into a white middle class world, with no understanding of what an African American growing up underneath a a waving Confederate Flag might be experiencing – might be able to help affect change.
Where I have been guilty of such things, I ask for forgiveness.
I have signed petitions and have written letters to the powers-that-be to be sure that my voice is being heard clearly.
I will no longer shy away from speaking the truth when I hear someone calling this latest attack an attack on faith, or the result of a mad man. Or someone waxing on about their unalienable right to open carry a weapon that they need no permit for. I can no longer be a party to insanity.
I will petition for radical gun law changes in The United States of America.
And, even if it is the most futile of things, I dedicate my run of performances as Romeo here in Zurich to my fellow human beings who have had to suffer the continued effects of rampant racism in my Country; to the mothers who have to explain to their beautiful young sons, that because their skin is dark, they must expect to be targeted and therefore must constantly be on the defense; to the utterly misguided, ill-educated, lost and fearful people who thing eradication is a solution; to the devastated, grieving families of the 9 human beings slaughtered in their place of worship, who, within HOURS of losing their loved ones, stood in front of the world and the person who murdered their family members and taught us what love is by simply saying “We forgive you”.
Rare political statement from the world of Opera and Classical music.
Well, there goes that career.
Opera singers are amazingly ignorant of politics - their job being so very difficult and time consuming. But whenever they poke their heads up, they are overwhelmingly liberal.
I always try to get my opinions from artists. They’re always logical and correct...
Well said.
I just want to be on the record stating that I, nor the First lady (my wife) do collective guilt, or guilt by association.
I hope the progressives/democRATs/Marxists reading this understand.
Plus, as a bonus, I don't do social justice (whatever that means).
Equal justice under the law is what this country was founded on... for those of you in Rio Linda, and the NAACP.
5.56mm
Go piss up a rope Joyce.
How the f-— am I responsible for a nut hundreds of miles from me? No one can answer that. Notice the logic does not follow to any other issue among the proudly ignorant left.
Bah. The only opera I ever liked was the one about the aliens: Aria 51.
That’s funny. I thought at 21 you were considered an adult and responsible for your own decisions.
I used to teach acting to opera students. They are the nicest people in show business but their training is as hard as ballet and so they have little time to consume news. This is generally a good thing because you can have a conversation with them without throwing up. Try that with actors.
Maybe you can sing an aria for them...which I'm sure they'll appreciate. Do it now. Or wait until after midnight and walk down a ghetto street...unarmed.
Shut up and sing.
born into a white middle class world, with no understanding of what an African American growing up underneath a a waving Confederate Flag might be experiencing – might be able to help affect change.
Where I have been guilty of such things, I ask for forgiveness.
No don't feel guilt just check out these federal government statistics vis-a-vis interracial crimes, white crime, black crime . . ..
and hope you will soon be one of the white victims of black violence. The chances are pretty good --
AND we will not and do not blame all Black Americans when it happens to you. Good luck that it will happen to you soon and you will fill free!
Direct links to the federal sources are included. This is not "some writer said", "the news said", or some BS like that.
I never heard of this bi*ch, put she is an emotional, clueless leftist dumb a$$.
When I saw the headline, I thought this harpie was on the TV series “The Sopranos.”
I find it interesting that a place will most likely choose to play her type of music to get those young urbanites to stop hanging around.
I thought that too.
Edie Falco who played Tony’s wife Carmela Soprano is just as libergal as this diva is.
Sorry, I should have clarified “Opera” Soprano in the title.
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