Our Culture Must Compete Poem by gershon hepner

Within a middle state that’s squishy
our culture must compete
for high-brows and for girls who're dishy,
and please both head and feet.
I join the highbrows when I clamor
for Mozart, Bach and Britten,
and when I rap I watch my grammar,
by hip-hop never bitten,
but when for legs I'm in the mood
my standards sharply alter,
and with eye-candy as my food,
I'm squished, and fast I falter.
There's no room in the middle, and
extremes draw walls of boos
from those who draw lines in the sand,
and zealously accuse.


Michael Kimmelman writes about Katherina Wagner's “Meistersinger, ” which drew a wall of boos in Bayreuth, in the NYT, August 30,2007, partly because of its portrayal of Beckmesser's song as “a subversive Dadaist assault on tradition' ('In Bayreuth, It Wouldn't Be Opera Without an Outrage”) . He describes the producion as an embrace of extremes, adding that the affectation of radicalism “is a kind of squishy middle state, which high culture mostly occupies these days”:
Every opera season demands a scene-chewing scandal to feed fans’ appetites for outsize drama, and this summer that niche has been filled in Europe by the new production here of Wagner’s “Meistersinger.” Tuesday was its final performance, and it was a mess, as advertised, but at least it was a diverting mess. Its director is the comely 29-year-old Katharina Wagner, favored youngest daughter of the 87-year-old Wolfgang Wagner (Richard’s grandson) , who for decades has been clutching the reins of power at the Bayreuth Festival like a gnomish Alberich hoarding his gold. He insists she’s the only one he will now step down for, not for either of the more experienced family members who would like to take over (a niece, Nike, and Katharina’s half sister, Eva) . But that decision may finally be made this fall by others. Meanwhile “Meistersinger” has introduced Katharina to the mob, and it hasn’t been pretty. Smiling in a slinky gown seems to be the one thing about Ms. Wagner that everybody agrees is admirable. She displayed sangfroid in the face of a sonic wall of boos on opening night some weeks back. Facing derision, and other inflamed passions, is part of life at the festival. You either give yourself over to the fanaticism of the place or miss the point, Bayreuth virtually requiring complete sensory immersion. There is the music to hear and the staging to witness, of course, and also the sublime opera house to experience, with its unearthly acoustics, not to mention the bratwurst at intermission. But then there is also the Villa Wahnfried, the Wagner museum, with piped-in snippets of historic performances swelling in the library, rows of seats laid out there like pews for rapturous supplicants.

8/30/07