About a year ago some opera purists found no words to express outrage before what they could not but consider a scandalous and outrageous affront. The sign came to announce that the end of an era was played endlessly throughout the city of Milan at an alarming rate. Dynamic and alarming, as not only the walls and bus stops in the city but also the trams and buses were showing the ad, more proper of a gore horror movie shed than the talent of Wagner, in which a distorted face and covered in blood from a woman was shown (mezzo-soprano Waltraud Meier German to be exact) that seemed to tear a scream of excruciating pain while behind it, some figures were given to a dance of death.

That such an image, which in an appropriate crimson red, the claim had “two fell in love, the others massacre each other” overlaid, served to announce Tristan and Isolde, a synonym for many of the sublime and perhaps one of the major peaks of the history of music, seemed to those purists the most intolerable of insults.

The truth, however, is that it seemed a desperate measure to attract new audiences to the opera, especially the young one, motivated both by the sharp drop in ticket sales as the drastic cut in subsidies to the world of culture and the arts made by the Berlusconi government in recent years. While adopting this type of business tactics of shock, simply trying to ensure the survival of the Opera following an interesting trend begun in Florence for the Maggio Musicale Florentino Theatre, the fact that the Teatro alla Scala in Milan resorted to similar stratagem led to heated debate.

It is virtually impossible to think of Milan as well as to think of the Opera without also thinking of the legendary Teatro alla Scala, a witness of Stendhal’s love and heartache, of the failure of Rossini with Norma, Verdi’s popular triumph, the apotheosis of Callas…

La Scala theatre, which also houses a must for all fans of the genre, is not only one of the great cathedrals of music but one of the temples of European culture. From January 16 to February 5, 2011, under the baton of Daniel Harding and stage director Mario Martone, opens a new production of the opera that happens to be the highest personification of the verism style, Cavalleria Rusticana.

For more details on the opera:

La Scala, Via Filodrammatici 2
http://www.teatroallascala.org

Paul Oilzum

If you rent apartments in Milan perhaps you want to listen to it. But, attention, you’d better not say out loud that you know the music for The Godfather III. Purists might be close.

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Translated by: salome antigone
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Wabi Sabi is more than just  a way of looking at beauty. The first thing we learn is that the word Wabi refers to a spiritual lifestyle connected with the private, internal realm, and subjectivity.  Sabi relates to the external realm, to aesthetic ideals and objectives, which while posited as goals are, like all things that make up the universe, always imperfect.

Thus, from a metaphysical point of view, Wabi Sabi suggests that art, as life, exists is in constant movement to and from its own potential and coming into being. While this would be “nothing” for the West, in Japanese culture this “nothing” is power, and the generating point of all things, as all states and stages of life are beautiful and are part of nature.

Here we encounter another principle of Wabi Sabi: “the truth lies in the observation of nature,” is, in all those things that keep their original state. Just think of how solid things like rocks or metals change over time, or similarly, the more marked dynamism of plants and animals. The idea of “permanent youth and beauty,” is the polar opposite of this wide conception of beauty, wherein beauty may be found even in old age and death. Wabi Sabi upholds the temporary, ephemeral, intuitive, and especially the rituals which make us more aware, like taking tea or caring for a garden.

Other basic tenants of a Wabi Sabi lifestyle include a constant mental exercise is: Accept the inevitable (death for example), look for harmony, get rid of all unnecessary distractions and ignore the material hierarchy.

If you are interested in this lifestyle, there are several authors who are dedicated to adapting these principles to various social fields, such as art, philosophy or who specialize in the daily practice of exercises related to the observation and meditation, one of the authors is Leonard Koren.

Learn to live your life with more freedom and simplicity as you delve into the unique tradition of Wabi Sabi.

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Luz Obscura

Begin to enjoy the simple things in life when you rent apartments in Milan You will surely find understated elegance, history and imperfection.  Go beyond the trends and find beauty.

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Translated by: salome antigone
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Wabi Sabi is often summed up as being an aesthetic which reaffirms the beauty of the natural world and the perfection of the imperfect. This Japanese ideal is more than just an aesthetic and is best described as a philosophical approach to aesthetics which has a profound influence over how beauty is conceived of and expressed in Japan. Today, the concept has won many admirers and practitioners in the Western world, perhaps because it seems a fitting rebuttal of rigid western standards of beauty, which are generally based on models and stereotypes rather than real emotion and the simple observation of things.

In traditional Japanese culture, Wabi Sabi is the aesthetic principle of understanding the world and beauty as a simple phenomenon which arises out of nature and observation, and working with forms as they manifest without idealizing or building archetypes.  That is to say, a tea bowl, made of natural earthenware, should not aspire to look like a flower or a golden chalice, rather, it should look like a tea bowl, lovingly wrought by hand and borne of nature.  Its imperfections and connections with the natural world are part of what makes it beautiful. Thus Japanese wisdom teaches us a way out of the archetypal and stereotypical constructions of beauty and reconnects us with more authentic sensations.

To discuss the principle of a little background is in order. The first is that the Wabi Sabi is so broad that it can be from a way of life to a simple kind of beauty, I say simple, because if there is any artistic characteristic associated with it would be “rustic,” but obviously the underlying philosophy is food for thought. The first people who expounded upon the concept of Wabi Sabi were tea masters, priests and monks who practiced Zen. From this rather esoteric beginning the concept has branched out and become a part of the culture at large.  That is why it is very hard to ask a Japanese person for a simple explanation of a concept that has been transmitted, above all, in practice and via speech, and come to form part of a larger cultural zeitgeist.

Luz Obscura

Visit an elegant Italian city where you will see beauty coexist with natural decay. Rent apartments in Milan to celebrate beauty.

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Translated by: salome antigone
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Led by the very attractive Neil Hannon, The Divine Comedy was born in 1989 in Enniskillen, a small, picturesque village in Ireland. The suggestive name of the band is due to chance, or perhaps serendipity, as he found a work of Dante on his parent’s bookshelf and named the band in its honor.

A year after getting together the band signed its first contract with the label Setanta Records, and debuted with a very short but emphatic album titled Fanfare for the Comic Muse. However, Hannon considered the first real album of the group’s 1993 album Liberation, and now, more than 20 years later they just released Bang Goes the Knighthood.

The Divine Comedy style is eclectic and melancholy, and obviously inspired by classic rock bands like the Kinks and Beatles. However, what stands out most is Hannon´s personality his ability to write the most poetic, beautiful lyrics and melodies. In his songs he gives life to the curious and sad characters inspired by literary stories or poetry, which Hannon loves to read.

Perhaps this intellectual quality is what characterizes this group, which has never attracted media attention for excesses with drugs, sex or alcohol. By contrast, Neil Hannon wants communicate through your music and share, to create a separate world where we can take refuge when we feel lonely or happy, depressed or frantic.

Heloise Battista

On December 6th The Divine Comedy will be in Milan at La Casa 139, to present the latest expressions of their exquisite sound. Rent apartments in Milan and let yourself be enveloped by the sweet and incredibly poetic melodies of Neil Hannon. 

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Translated by: salome antigone
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