Fear of Opera

David Denby, in his article in The New Yorker ("Rush", July 19 & 17, 2017), reviewing a new bio on the conducutor Arturo Toscanini, makes the argument for the need of genius to push a limit to its exhausted end.

Of Toscanini's recording of Verdi's "Othello" in 1947, called by the conductor James Levine, "an outstanding candidate for the title of The Greatest Opera Recording Ever Made, Denby writes, "the experience of listening to it, I have found, can't be repeated more than once in a decade. It's just too much." In another passage, Denby recounts the recording of the Dies Irae section of Verdi's "Requiem", with Toscanini, then an old man, screaming at his orchestra for more. "But there is no more," Denby writes. "We have reached the end of human will, human desire, and fear." Toscanini, Denby quotes from the book he's reviewing, told another conductor, "in all my artistic life, I have never had one moment of complete satisfaction."

L Wittgenstein liked to tell the story of Beethoven locked in his study for days, composing, and being interrupted by a knock on the door: a maid, bringing him food and drink. When the door opened the maid was shocked by what she saw--an unshaven, wild-haird lunatic--and Beethoven was furious. "That's the kind of man I want to be," Wittgenstein said, speaking on behalf of genius.