No Words

I try hard to get out of the opera rut. (Here's a true confession: I am fascinated with opera, I adore the people who make it, but I often don't understand the people who love it.) Going to the opera has its rewards, but it's usually a complicated busman's holiday. So when I spend a free evening as a patron, I am particularly excited when I have an opportunity to go to the theatre, hear some chamber music or symphony, or - as was the case last night - see some fabulous dance.

It didn't hurt that a friend was up there on the stage. But it didn't stop there.

I love the marriage of music and words. Abstract (read: textless) music sometimes feels naked to me. Incomplete, perhaps. Add the fact that I am most definitely not a visually-oriented person, and you have a prescription for an ambivalent dance patron. But last night's Mozart Dances was a home run.

When I see an inspired physicalization of a musical motif, it's as if a door opens. I want to scream to all of my old piano students, "Look!! That's what it should sound like!" This ability of the kinesthetic and the visual to inform the aural is not something that should surprise me. But because it originates with my weakest sense, it is an eye-opener. (Sorry, bad pun.)

Cross-fertilization is my life. (There's probably a better, less agricultural term, but this is the description that makes the most sense.) The emotional texture and color in language marry wonderfully with the singing voice. The linear beauty and scientific clarity in math clarifies the structure of theatre and music. The patterns of history and cultures positions me to appreciate the differences in other human beings. (Can you tell that liberal arts education is a soapbox from which I have a hard time descending....?)

After the performance, words felt completely superfluous. We were too tired to stay for the Q&A afterward, but I left without regrets. Because truthfully, I didn't want to hear anyone talk about it.