Musings on "important"

Talya at a refugee camp

...from Berkeley

Today I've been pondering the word "important" and what it means, especially for projects, initiatives actions, and the arts.  To ground my musings, I started out with the OED (Online Etymology Dictionary, whose acronym apes another, more august tome, and which does, indeed, list its word-ly cousin among its sources.).  I'll call the online etymology version OED2.

At  OED2, I read that the modern English word "important" comes via Middle French (15th century) from Medieval Latin, importans, importantem and ultimately derives from the verb importare, "to bring in, convey or bring in from abroad." It was first used to mean "be important" in English around 1580.

How does that definition apply to artwork, projects, or even governments.  It doesn't even seem relevant--until we realize that important initiatives bring us understanding and perhaps bring help to those in need. (There's that word from the definition, bring.)

If a project is a major one, that can mean many positive things, such as pathbreaking, innovative,, or just plain excellent. But when it's an important one, that usually means it deals with hard topics, ones we know we need to look at but shy away from as joyless and non-celebratory, problematic issue-laden subjects that the world needs to address.

At a refugee camp

So, for example, when my wonderful niece, Talya (shown above and left, too), worked with Syrian refugees in Lesbos and Idomeni through IsraAID, it was important work (and courageous for a young woman). My friend, Paula, too, for that matter.

An important project probably deals with the four horsemen of the apocalypse--traditionally war, famine, pestilence/conquest or death--in one way or another, or at least mini-me versions of them. (Pestilence vs. conquest has to do with translation differences and dissemination through popular culture, both  topics for other days.) See below right for Albrecht Durer's woodcut depiction.

Albrecht Durer (woodcut, 1498)

An important project makes us look at things most of us want to sweep under the rug, or at least to say, "Yes, yes, we know and agree. It's awful. Glad you're dealing with it.  Sigh. Too much to bear thinking about it. Don't know what to do about it. Now go away and let the rest of us relax." And I should know, as that is a slightly over-the-top caricature of my own sometimes past-attitude, despite my having somehow found myself doing an "important" project over the last 6+ years, the JMPP (some of which were recorded on our brand new CD, Surviving:Women's Words).

An important project often has to work extra hard to draw an audience, as who enjoys emotional flagellation? Catharsis is one thing, but to deliberately go to an event that focuses on bad things happening to good people? (Actually, that's a partial definition of what happens in many an opera or tale, so maybe that's not such a bad plot device...) Or on revisiting unhappy history, so that we aren't condemned to repeat it? (Ditto.)

MOR's Jake Heggie

As another example, in yesterday's mail, I received a postcard for Seattle-based Music of Remembrance's Out of Darkness: an Opera of Survival, the new chamber opera by Jake Heggie about the Holocaust that will be produced on May 25-26 at the SF Conservatory of Music.  MOR is an important project and MOR's mission is much in alignment with that of the JMPP; I like both Jake Heggie and his music. So although I fear that it may be an emotionally wrenching evening, I will try to go, and on today, the eve of U.S. Holocaust Remembrance Day, I encourage those of you reading this who are in the SF Bay Area to go, too.

To answer the question I started with, what does the word important really mean, at least in this context?  In other words, what does a project, action, or initiative that's labeled important really deal with?

Tragedy. Misery. Suffering.

What I'm reading: More Inspector Gamache mysteries by Louise Penny. (Now about midway through the series)

What I'm listening to: Mozart, Shostakovich, Prince.

What I'm working on: works by Martha Stoddard, Judith Shatin, Hans Winterberg, and Frederic Sharaf, for May and June concerts--plus Mozart for my son's wedding :).

Tosca: betrayal, murder and ...mattresses?

Examine this picture carefully to guess where in San Diego this photo was taken*! 

...from San Diego

This coming weekend is the start of San Diego Opera's 2016 mainstage season, which I would have loved to see, both to see what they are doing and also to support the company.  After the brouhaha of 2014, all in the operatic community want very much to see the company succeed.

Alas, the calendar didn't work for me.  But for those in San Diego or Southern California and able to attend (Feb. 13, 16, 19, 21), SDO will perform Puccini's Tosca--a verismo opera par excellence that Joseph Kerman with great although unjust rhetorical flourish once dismissed as a "shabby little shocker."*  (A shocker, yes, but shabby?  One could certainly debate that point.)

San Diego Opera presents Tosca in Feb. 2016

Shabby or not, it's a cinematic opera in the best melodrama tradition, with betrayal, murder, torture, intrigue, and more, as well as a good many mishaps. Some may be apocryphal; others undoubtedly are real.  For example, did one unlucky Tosca really jump off a stage parapet onto the protective mattress (normally placed backstage below said parapet), only to bounce back into view of the audience again and again, geboing geboing geboing? One writer says not, but relates other mishaps, including misplaced mattresses and guns that fired more than blanks.  Read about other, mostly less dangerous mishaps here.

SDO moves on to another Puccini favorite--an opera about a different kind of betrayal--with Madama Butterfly in April (13, 16, 21, 24), followed by the West Coast premiere of Great Scott (May 7,10, 13, 15) by California's own Jake Heggie, with beloved mezzo-soprano Frederica Von Stade.

Fingers crossed for a mishap-free Tosca run and the best of luck to SDO for their February Tosca and a successful 2016 spring season! (And the perpetually delayed blog about the story of La Traviata?  Not forgotten, but still delayed.)

What I'm reading: More Deborah Crombie, Megan Chance's The Veil (finale of 3)
What I'm listening to: La Boheme, Carmen and Handel
What I'm working on: Handel, Caldara, and Winterberg for April-May concerts

*Comment or email me if you have a guess as to where in the San Diego area this picture was taken! **from Kerman's Opera as Drama.