Maria Ewing meets West Ham United

Post Thirteen

Not names one naturally associates with a James Joyce Ulysses blog but bear with me.

I was very sad to hear the news on Tuesday morning that Maria Ewing the opera soprano had died aged only 71. I have not followed her career intently and really only know her for her 1986 performance of Salome in the opera of the same name. The Richard Strauss opera is a highly charged one act piece of devastating power; dealing with incest, cruelty, rape, murder, necrophilia antisemitism and blasphemy to name several aspects and may possibly be my favourite opera. The libretto by Oscar Wilde naturally helps.

It pivots on the dance of the seven veils which Salome performs for her step-father King Herod. It’s obviously allegorical for incestual sex and pretty close to non-consensual. I have three versions of the opera and each in its own way exceptional. In two of them (and in all other versions so far as I know) the soprano’s blushes are spared notwithstanding the removal of the veils. Not so for Maria Ewing, she goes full frontal nudity whilst dancing and having dominated every scene thus far with her wonderful singing and acting. Because for her, the part and so the Art demanded it. A cynic might say it was a gimmick to which others did not need to resort or that it was the Director and she simply did what she was told. I don’t buy that though I will say that the other versions I have are just as wonderful despite an undergarment beneath the last veil. But Maria went for it. She strove!

Just as did Icarus. He felt the need to fly higher than his father and too close to the sun. We don’t know why but like Maria and other great artists he felt compelled to put himself out there. To go further. To strive. Here I link Stephen Dedalus. By making him the son of a Dedalus he becomes Icarus and he sets out in A Portrait his strict conditions for good art. But in Ulysses he like Icarus, gets his wings clipped and is told at the end of Scylla to cease to strive. He need not soar so high to achieve greatness; Lapwings are also entitled to a life. Bloom will guide.

We need both Lapwings and Eagles. Artists like Maria who were willing to push the boundaries not for a gimmick but simply to see where that took them.

My football team West Ham United are brilliant and wonderful. Not because they tend to win, though bizarrely at present we are flying high whereas for most of my life my team has been a source of almost constant disappointment. But there it is, we supporters stick by the team through thick and thin. ‘Tis our lot. West Ham’s song sings of bubbles that fly so high, they nearly reach the sky but like our dreams, they fade and die. Yet we still forever blow bubbles. Ultimately Bloom guides us that we need to be practical because life is real and carries real responsibility. But there is a place for Art. Dirty, disrespectful dangerous Art. Where the likes of Icarus, Maria and a braver version of Stephen Dedalus would go that extra mile without caring if they fall off of the edge or who might get a peep of a bit of skin.

Thanks Maria. I am sad but proud to mark your passing and if you see Bobby Moore, give him my best.

For more Ulysses idle thinking: www.russellraphael.com

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