What To Do on a 94th Birthday?

On Oct 19th I finally hit the 94th. Somehow, no not somehow but through my father who loved to quote Johann Goethe I knew what we needed to do. In my childhood there was a sampler that hung on our kitchen wall. My papa would often suggest to my older sisters that it is a saying they should live by. I found it mysterious and finally got papa to translate. (With the Nazis conquest of Germany papa stopped speaking German.) Here’s what the sampler said.

“EVERY DAY ONE SHOULD AT LEAST LISTEN TO A LITTLE SONG, READ A GOOD POEM, LOOK AT A FINE PAINTING AND IF POSSIBLE SAY A FEW REASONABLE WORDS.” Goethe That saying some how fit my birthday at the Metropolitan Opera listening to Anna Netrebko sing Anna Bolena. Okay it wasn’t just a “little song.” It made up for all the days I missed any song.

The music, the singing, the acting, the 3000 people in the audience all deeply involved with the singers in this musical walk through 1536. Yes, we despise Henry the VIII but we loved Ildar Abrazakov who sang the role with brilliant artistry as did the soprano Ekterina Gubanovaas as Jane Seymour. What is about this experience that I find so invigorating, uplifting, life changing or all of the above. To hear Netrebko sing to the farthest corner of this great hall with an ability to color her voice from the saddest to the most defying note goes right to the center of my spine or where the soul resides.

As she sings you can feel a growing tension in the audience. As the music grows so does our connection. She is telling us of her foreboding. She knows what Henry has in mind for her. She also knows there is no escape. Yet she sings with a defense of her true love, Percy that the evil Henry no matter what he does cannot destroy. As she sings to, her crescendo the audience entrapped with her situation bursts into a spontaneous eruption of brava brava and hand clapping. It is a tumultuous thanks that promises never to be forgotten. For me that is what great opera or theater is about. And yet there is much more.

I leave that theatre as I have so many times in my long life with a renewed hope for humanity. “Look” I say to Kate what wonders human can produce. I find this as an essential antidote to the the ongoing cacophony of the haters, killers, rapists, spin miesters, and yes even the growing collapse of planet earth. Does it sound like a religion? Maybe? On my 10th birthday as I walk with my papa through the Metropolitan Museum of art he is helping me to see the greatness in Gothe’s “fine paintings” The Goethe poetry is in the theater or a reading of Edna Saint Vincent Millay or Walt Whitman.

Finally I would hope that these blogs fall under Goethe’s definition of, “saying a few reasonable words”. That has been my birthday menu for as long as I can remember. To celebrate all those wonders that Goethe wants us to be part of. In this world of despair it is the works of art that save me for yet another year of living that sampler on my childhood kitchen wall. Thanks for the good wishes that many of you have sent. Now its on to the 95th. Kate says that will be a big one. What will we do for that? We’ll see after I check out how the Wall Street fighters are doing. There is also some nifty new lumber sitting in the shop. It is calling me to turn it into a piece of beautiful furniture. I will certainly continue to try.