Opera Moment
Polovtsian Dances from Borodin’s Prince Igor:
Rare is a ballet with an operatic interlude. You may be familiar with this melody from the Broadway showtune ‘Strangers in Paradise’.
Fly away on wings of wind
To native lands, our native song,
To there, where we sang you freely,
Where we were so carefree with you.
There, under sultry skies,
With bliss the air is full,
There, to the whisper of the sea,
mountains doze in the clouds.
There, the sun shines so brightly,
Bathing native mountains in color.
In the meadows, roses bloom luxuriously,
And nightingales sing in the green forests;
And sweet grape grows.
There is more carefree for you, song
… And so fly away there!
The words, even in translation, are poignant with melancholy, and conjure the magic of Asian steppes.
The second dance (at 3.41) takes a darker turn:
Sing to the Glory of the Khan! SING!
Praise the power of the Khan! GLORY!
Glory to the Khan! Be Glorious our Khan!
His glory matches the sun! KHAN!
None match the glory of the Khan! NONE!
The woman’s choir chimes in:
The Khan’s slaves, the Khan’s slave, praise the Khan
The Khan then sings to Prince Igor:
Behold the beautiful slaves from distant coasts
See what beautiful slaves from the Caspian seas?
Say, to me, my friend, a single word
I will bestow to you the one you wish
The male choir repeats:
Sing to the Glory of the Khan! SING!
(&c)
Those of you raised on the fantasy paperbacks and planetary romances of my generation, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Leigh Brackett, Robert E Howard, and such, will recognize the oriental splendor and cruelty, but may not know all these things were once as mainstream, once as much a part of fine art, as the sorcery of Prospero, or the witches of Macbeth, the gods, nymphs and satyrs of Virgil and Homer.
If you wondered at the odd popularity of Slave Leia in cosplay, based on a single scene in STAR WARS, keep in mind how many Conan tales, pirate stories, oriental adventures, and, yes, operas like this, that scene followed. The wormlike crimelord Jabba the Hutt was not Al Capone. The Chicago gangster kept no harem of chained dancing girls. No; Jabba the Hutt was a barbaric Khan.
There was a time, before the Great War, before Darwin and Marx, when splendor and wonder were not relegated to the nursery, or published only in cheap pulp disdained as popular.
There are some in this day attempting a renaissance of the high aesthetic preserve from the ancient and medieval world by the pulps, trampled by the crass materialism of socialist and godless editors in our fathers’ day. Entertainment is weary of the Gnostic world-hatred called Woke, the bitter tales of bitter people.
About John C Wright
John C. Wright is a practicing philosopher, a retired attorney, newspaperman, and newspaper editor, and a published author of science fiction. Once a Houyhnhnm, he was expelled from the august ranks of purely rational beings when he fell in love; but retains an honorary title.
