Childhood, Boyhood, Youth, by Leo Tolstoy. Translated by Judson Rosengrant. Penguin 2012 edition. The three main chapters represent the narrator's description of those early parts of his life growing up on his family's country estate, moving to Moscow, and on to his early university days.
I found myself wrapped up in this little trilogy of...what, memoirs? Autobiographical writings? Fiction in the form of memoir? I came to love the family characters and friends. Surely, it must be Tolstoy himself. He surprises me, as when he writes lovingly of his father, but then bluntly alludes to an affair his father had. It's Tolstoy. The unexpected details, ideas, perspectives. The lovingly detailed passages of happiness and sadness. Some of it gets tedious. There is lots that is unformed. But it's Tolstoy. I could happily re-read it.
Thursday, May 30, 2013
Was Mozart really a childish jerk?
We saw Amadeus, the Peter Shaffer play about Mozart and Salieri, at New Repertory Theater in Watertown, on May 26. Directed by Jim Petosa. Here is a Boston Globe review that I mostly agree with.
I vaguely remembered the movie from the 80. It was a very popular play and movie back then. If it is true, the story of the envious Salieri steadily blocking the superhumanly gifted Mozart in his career and finally poisoning his life to the point of killing him, makes for a good story. On the web, I've read that the play's story is greatly exaggerated, and there's lots of evidence that Salieri and Mozart actually liked and worked with each other. But that's probably not important to the play -- the story doesn't have to adhere to the historical truth, and the truth can be hard to figure out.
Marilyn was enthusiastic about the play, and I less so. There is lots of good ensemble work. The scenes where Mozart (played by Tim Spears) actually plays at the harpsichord and devises music are wonderful. The performances were uniformly good. McCaela Donovan, as Mozart's wife Costanza, stood out for her cool and modulated style. This woman was really out to promote Wolfgang's career and life. And Russell Garrett, as Emperor Joseph II, was very good.
My main complaint is the story itself. Mozart is represented as an cartoonish adult adolescent, and is a stereotype for the childish artist who is a "genius" at his art but a childish jerk otherwise. I just don't buy that the scheming older Salieri ground down and scared the genius Mozart to his death, even in the context of the play.
I vaguely remembered the movie from the 80. It was a very popular play and movie back then. If it is true, the story of the envious Salieri steadily blocking the superhumanly gifted Mozart in his career and finally poisoning his life to the point of killing him, makes for a good story. On the web, I've read that the play's story is greatly exaggerated, and there's lots of evidence that Salieri and Mozart actually liked and worked with each other. But that's probably not important to the play -- the story doesn't have to adhere to the historical truth, and the truth can be hard to figure out.
Marilyn was enthusiastic about the play, and I less so. There is lots of good ensemble work. The scenes where Mozart (played by Tim Spears) actually plays at the harpsichord and devises music are wonderful. The performances were uniformly good. McCaela Donovan, as Mozart's wife Costanza, stood out for her cool and modulated style. This woman was really out to promote Wolfgang's career and life. And Russell Garrett, as Emperor Joseph II, was very good.
My main complaint is the story itself. Mozart is represented as an cartoonish adult adolescent, and is a stereotype for the childish artist who is a "genius" at his art but a childish jerk otherwise. I just don't buy that the scheming older Salieri ground down and scared the genius Mozart to his death, even in the context of the play.
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