http://arts.guardian.co.uk/reviews/observer/story/0,,1868812,00.html
A review of a quasi-operatic piece about Libya's Col. Gadaffi, done by the English National Opera and the Asian Dub Foundation. How's this paragraph strike you:
"Accentuate that word 'attempt', for the piece signally fails to answer the questions it raises. The many conflicting sides to the intriguing figure of Gaddafi are serially presented, uniform by uniform - liberator, ideologue, religious zealot, mass murderer, whacko - but the end-product fails to take a position. The first half is an inert Wikipedia guide to the Libyan leader, a dictator painted by numbers, and the more animated second a confused morass of suggestive set-pieces, sending us back into the night to sort it out over dinner."
I'm struck that en:wp apparently has enough of a perceptible style that it can serve as a reference point for dullness in an opera review. The pain of neutrality!
- d.
On 9/10/06, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
"Accentuate that word 'attempt', for the piece signally fails toanswer the questions it raises. The many conflicting sides to the intriguing figure of Gaddafi are serially presented, uniform by uniform - liberator, ideologue, religious zealot, mass murderer, whacko - but the end-product fails to take a position. The first half is an inert Wikipedia guide to the Libyan leader, a dictator painted by numbers, and the more animated second a confused morass of suggestive set-pieces, sending us back into the night to sort it out over dinner."
I'm struck that en:wp apparently has enough of a perceptible style that it can serve as a reference point for dullness in an opera review. The pain of neutrality!
I disagree that that's how it reads. It sounds to me like they're saying "laying out the facts without any enterpretation" which is, of course, a good thing, and I don't think it's used pejoritively there except in that operas shouldn't be so tame!
On 9/10/06, Sam Korn smoddy@gmail.com wrote:
On 9/10/06, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
"Accentuate that word 'attempt', for the piece signally fails toanswer the questions it raises. The many conflicting sides to the intriguing figure of Gaddafi are serially presented, uniform by uniform - liberator, ideologue, religious zealot, mass murderer, whacko - but the end-product fails to take a position. The first half is an inert Wikipedia guide to the Libyan leader, a dictator painted by numbers, and the more animated second a confused morass of suggestive set-pieces, sending us back into the night to sort it out over dinner."
I'm struck that en:wp apparently has enough of a perceptible style that it can serve as a reference point for dullness in an opera review. The pain of neutrality!
I disagree that that's how it reads. It sounds to me like they're saying "laying out the facts without any enterpretation" which is, of course, a good thing, and I don't think it's used pejoritively there except in that operas shouldn't be so tame!
-- Sam
Sounds like its a two act opera. Maybe they are reading the wikipedia article on Gaddafi verbatim on stage?
The use of the word guide is interesting. http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/article , http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/guide . Do we have articles or guides? If they are articles, the perception is a stricter factual view. For guides, the rules loosen a bit.
-jtp Electrawn