“We now live in a nation where doctors destroy health, lawyers destroy justice, universities destroy knowledge, governments destroy freedom, the press destroys information, religion destroys morals and our banks destroy our economy.”
That such words could be uttered by a man of the Left — Chris Hedges — yet be eagerly taken up as a rallying cry of the Right tells us that the perils of our time transcend politics and extend deeper to the very source of our culture. A major tributary of the wellspring of the West, from which we take our sustenance, has been poisoned. The ground on which we stand has been overturned and shaken to the bedrock with corruption. The institutional framework is rotten to the core.
The question on everyone’s mind as we await the denouement of this 4th Turning: what happens next? The answer from both history and mythology is that a hero will emerge to lay bare the root causes of our dilemma and indicate a path forward. This is a task that is well suited to an artistic, dramatic format. A story that speaks to the whole of man; that captures the head and heart; the mind, soul, and spirit of the audience. The ancient Athenians discovered this back in their 5th century BC time of troubles when Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides created the tragic drama to address the problems of the polis in that epoch.
I believe a similar occurrence happened for our times in a riveting recent production of Guiseppe Verdi’s Rigoletto by the Los Angeles Opera. Many of the bedrock issues that assail us in our present anomie were explored in this powerful drama.
- To counter the prevailing phoniness and unreality of the times — the lack of gravitas and consequence in our discourse — right out of the blocks Verdi, in a mere 2 minutes and 45 seconds, delivered an overture that shook the earth with its overwhelming intensity. This was a holocaust of sonic fury that set the stage for a grand reckoning as the spotlight revealed an anguished Rigoletto clutching his slain daughter in his trembling arms. Something wicked this way comes and there will be a horrible reckoning. In all the western canon there is no more gripping example of the superhuman power of music to lift us into the realm of the transcendent and place us in the presence of the gods. This is no mere trifle that we will be witnessing, but an epic confrontation of elemental forces. There will be consequences for this murderous action. Score one for the return of reality.
Florida Grand Opera
Jesus Christ is King
