ISSUE#2

C.O.B.A.C. E V E R L A S T I N G M O U N T H LY

M A G A Z I N E -

F E B R U A RY

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Edani Cosar:

Whatis a hero? Are we not?

Picasso Discussion

by Giovani Tagliavini

All's well that Ends well by william shakespeare

Erich Wolf Segal June 16, 1937 – January 17, 2010 author, screenwriter and educator

Are we having fun yet? Remamber children of Haiti

Editorial Art history History of classical music traditions Biography of Herbrt Von Krajan Mohammad Reza Mortazavai Berlin State Opera Architecture Picasso Discussion( by Giovani) All's well that ends well( william shakespeare) History of film Play theater History of theater Interview with Edani cosar

Special thanks to: omid saadat- mahdi derafshi- babak ghanaatEDANI COSAR- giovani tagliavini- mohammad mostafa- mohammad reza mortazavi- pejman tadayon

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M A G A Z I N E -

What is a hero? Are we not?

F E B R U A RY

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c.o.b.a.c. international art magazine by ali saadat FEBRUARY 2010 cobac.a.c@gmail.com cobacac.blogspot.com

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5 6 8 10 17 18 20 23 34 44 47 48 60

Best wishes Ali Saadat cobac.a.c@gmail.com

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Just in the moments I was enjoying the 1st issue of magazine I faced some doubt. That forced me to have a one month delay to publish the second one. Of course my decision is this sentence: “reaching to each grade of quality is frequentlyâ€?. You can not present something best or worse suddenly. Always there is a time to recover. Before starting the work I had been struggle with me that how could introduce the theme. How could be in high level one. But I said before, It should spend time and advancing step by step. I guess my friends all around the world help me to have a united art society I can advantage C.O.B.A.C. name to the international grade expected. Finally I thank my friends Giovanni tagliavini, Edani cosar, Mohammad mostafa, Nicole knezevic, and ‌

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Editorial

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Art history Part II

Vasari and artists’ biographies

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W

hile personal reminiscences of art and artists have long been written and read, it was Giorgio Vasari, the Tuscan painter, sculptor and author of the Lives of the Painters, who wrote the first true history of art. He emphasized art’s progression and development, which was a milestone in this field. His was a personal and a historical account, featuring biographies of individual Italian artists, many of whom were his contemporaries and personal acquaintances. The most renowned of these was Michelangelo, and Vasari’s account is enlightening, though biased in places. Vasari’s ideas about art held sway until the 18th century, when criticism was leveled at his biographical account of history.

Winckelmann and art criticism

Scholars such as Johann Joachim Winckelmann, criticized Va-

Wölfflin analysis

and

stylistic

Heinrich Wölfflin, who studied under Burckhardt in Basel, is the “father” of modern art history. Wölfflin taught at the universities of Berlin, Basel, Munich, and Zurich. A number of students went on to distinguished careers in art history, including Jakob Rosenberg and Frida Schottmuller. He introduced a scientific approach to the history of art, focusing on three concepts. Firstly, he attempted to study art using psychology, particularly by applying the work of Wilhelm Wundt.

a result, the Second Vienna School gained a reputation for unrestrained and irresponsible formalism, and was furthermore colored by Sedlmayr’s overt racism and membership in the Nazi party. This latter tendency was, however, by no means shared by all members of the school; Pächt, for example, was himself Jewish, and was forced to leave Vienna in the 1930s.

Panofsky and iconography

Today’s understanding of the symbolic content of art comes from a group of scholars who gathered in Hamburg in the 1920s. The most prominent among them were Erwin Panofsky, Aby Warburg, and Fritz Saxl. Together they developed much of the vocabulary that continues to be used in the 21st century by art historians. “Iconography”--with roots meaning “symbols from writing” refers to subject matter n art derived from written sources especially scripture and mythology. “Iconology” is a broader term that referred to all symbolism, whether derived from a specific text or not. Today art historians sometimes use these terms interchangeably. Panofsky, in his early work, also developed the theories of Riegl, but became eventually more preoccupied with iconography, and in particular with the transmission of themes related to classical antiquity in the Middle Ages and Renaissance. In this respect his interests coincided with those of Warburg, the son of a wealthy family who had assembled an impressive library in Hamburg devoted to the study of the classical tradition in later art and culture. Under Saxl’s auspices, this library was developed into a research institute, affiliated with the University of Hamburg, where Panofsky taught. Warburg died in 1929, and in the 7 1930s Saxl and Panofsky, both Jewish, were forced to leave Hamburg. Saxl settled in London, bringing Warburg’s library with him and establishing the Warburg Institute. Panofsky settled in Princeton at the Institute for Advanced Study. In this respect they were part of an extraordinary influx of German art historians into the English-speaking academy in the 1930s. These scholars were largely responsible for establishing art history as a legitimate field of study in the Englishspeaking world, and the influence of Panofsky’s methodology, in particular, determined the course of American art history for a generation.

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He argued, among other things, that art and architecture are good if they resemble the human body. For example, houses were good if their façades looked like faces. Secondly, he introduced the idea of studying art through comparison. By comparing individual paintings to each other, he was able to make distinctions of style. His book Renaissance and Baroque developed this idea, and was the first to show how these stylistic periods differed from one another. In contrast to Giorgio Vasari, Wölfflin was uninterested in the biographies of artists. In fact he proposed the creation of an “art history without names.” Finally, he studied art based on ideas of nationhood. He was particularly interested in whether there was an inherently “Italian” and an inherently “German” style. This last interest was most fully articulated in his monograph on the German artist Albrecht Dürer. Contemporaneous with Wölfflin’s career, a major school of art-historical thought developed at the University of Vienna. The first generation of the Vienna School was dominated by Alois Riegl and Franz Wickhoff, both students of Moritz Thausing, and was characterized by a tendency to reassess neglected or disparaged periods in the history of art. Riegl and Wickhoff both wrote extensively on the art of late antiquity, which before them had been considered as a period of decline from the classical ideal. Riegl also contributed to the revaluation of the Baroque. The next generation of professors at Vienna included Max Dvořák, Julius von Schlosser, Hans Tietze, Karl Maria Swoboda, and Josef Strzygowski. A number of the most important twentieth-century art historians, including Ernst Gombrich, received their degrees at Vienna at this time. The term “Second Vienna School” usually refers to the following generation of Viennese scholars, including Hans Sedlmayr, Otto Pächt, and Guido Kaschnitz von Weinberg. These scholars began in the 1930s to return to the work of the first generation, particularly to Riegl and his concept of Kunstwollen, and attempted to develop it into a full-blown art-historical methodology. Sedlmayr, in particular, rejected the minute study of iconography, patronage, and other approaches grounded in historical context, preferring instead to concentrate on the aesthetic qualities of a work of art. As

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sari’s “cult” of artistic personality, and they argued that the real emphasis in the study of art should be the views of the learned beholder and not the unique viewpoint of the charismatic artist. Winckelmann’s writings thus were the beginnings of art criticism. Winckelmann critiqued the artistic excesses of Baroque and Rococo forms, and was instrumental in reforming taste in favor of the more sober Neoclassicism. Jacob Burckhardt, one of the founders of art history, noted that Winckelmann was ‘the first to distinguish between the periods of ancient art and to link the history of style with world history’. From Winckelmann until the mid-20th century, the field of art history was dominated by Germanspeaking academics. Winckelmann’s work thus marked the entry of art history into the high-philosophical discourse of German culture. Winckelmann was read avidly by Johann Wolfgang Goethe and Friedrich Schiller, both of whom began to write on the history of art, and his account of the Laocoon occasioned a response by Lessing. The emergence of art as a major subject of philosophical speculation was solidified by the appearance of Immanuel Kant’s Critique of Judgment in 1790, and was furthered by Hegel’s Lectures on Aesthetics. Hegel’s philosophy served as the direct inspiration for Karl Schnaase’s work. Schnaase’s Niederländische Briefe established the theoretical foundations for art history as an autonomous discipline, and his Geschichte der bildenden Künste, one of the first historical surveys of the history of art from antiquity to the Renaissance, facilitated the teaching of art history in German-speaking universities. Schnaase’s survey was published contemporaneously with a similar work by Franz Theodor Kugler.

History of classical music trad

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Ancient music

The prehistoric era is considered to have ended with the development of writing, and with it, by definition, prehistoric music. “Ancient music” is the name given to the music that followed. The “oldest known song” was written in cuneiform, dating to 4,000 years ago from Ur. It was deciphered by Prof. Anne Draffkorn Kilmer (University of Calif. at Berkeley), and was demonstrated to be composed in harmonies of thirds, like ancient gymel, and also was written using a Pythagorean tuning of the diatonic scale. Double pipes, such as those used by the ancient Greeks, and ancient bagpipes, as well as a review of ancient drawings on vases and walls, etc., and ancient writings which described musical techniques of the time, indicate polyphony. One pipe in the aulos pairs (double flutes) likely served as a drone or “keynote,” while the other played melodic passages. Instruments, such as the seven holed flute and various types of stringed instruments have been recovered from the Indus valley civilization archaeological sites. Indian classical music (marga) can be found from the scriptures of the Hindu tradition, the Vedas. Samaveda, one of the four vedas, describes music at length. The history of musical development in Iran (Persian music) dates back to the prehistoric era. The great legendary king, Jamshid, is credited with the invention of music. Music in Iran can be traced back to the days of the Elamite Empire (2,500-644 B.C). Fragmentary documents from various periods of the country’s history establish that the ancient Persians possessed an elaborate musical culture. The Sassanid period (A.D. 226-651), in particular, has left us ample evidence pointing to the existence of a lively musical life in Persia. The names of some important musicians such as Barbod, Nakissa and Ramtin, and titles of some of their works have survived. The term Early music era may also refer to contemporary but traditional or folk music, including Asian music, Persian music, music9 of India, Jewish music, Greek music, Roman music, the music of Mesopotamia, the music of Egypt, and Muslim music.

Early music

Early music is a general term used to describe music in the European classical tradition from after the fall of the Roman Empire, in 476 CE, until the end of the Baroque era in the middle of the 18th century. Music within this enormous span of time was extremely diverse, encompassing multiple cultural traditions within a wide geographic area; many of the cultural groups out of which medieval Europe developed already had musical traditions, about which little is known. What unified these cultures in the Middle Ages was the Roman Catholic Church, and its music served as the focal point for musical development for the first thousand years of this period. Very little non-Christian music from this period survived, due to its suppression by the Church and the absence of music notation; however, folk music of modern Europe probably has roots at least as far back as the Middle Ages.

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ditions

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Part II

While Genesis 4.21 identifies Jubal as the “father of all such as handle the harp and pipe,” the Pentateuch is nearly silent about the practice and instruction of music in the early life of Israel. Then, in I Samuel 10 and the texts which follow, a curious thing happens. “One finds in the biblical text,” writes Alfred Sendrey, “a sudden and unexplained upsurge of large choirs and orchestras, consisting of thoroughly organized and trained musical groups, which would be virtually inconceivable without lengthy, methodical preparation.” This has led some scholars to believe that the prophet Samuel was the patriarch of a school which taught not only prophets and holy men, but also sacred-rite musicians. This public music school, perhaps the earliest in recorded history, was not restricted to a priestly class which is how the shepherd boy David appears on the scene as a minstrel to King Saul.”

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H

erbert von Karajan (5 April 1908 – 16 July 1989) was an Austrian orchestra and opera conductor and one of the most renowned conductors in music history. His obituary in The New York Times described him as “probably the world’s best-known conductor and one of the most powerful figures in classical music.” Karajan conducted the Berlin Philharmonic for thirty-five years. He is the top-selling classical music recording artist of all time, with record sales estimated at 200 million.

Genealogy

Herbert von Karajan was the son

Herbert von Karajan of an upper-bourgeois Salzburg family. The Karajan family is said to have originally been Armenian or Greek, from the region of Macedonia. His great-great-grandfather, Geòrgios Johannes Karajànnis, was born in Kozani, a town in the Ottoman province of Rumelia, leaving for Vienna in 1767, and eventually Chemnitz, Saxony. He and his brother participated in the establishment of Saxony’s cloth industry, and both were ennobled for their services by Frederick Augustus III on 1 June 1792, thus the prefix “von” to the family name. The surname Karajànnis became Karajan. Herbert’s family from the maternal side, through his grandfather who was born in the

village of Mojstrana, Duchy of Carniola, had Slovene origins according to a modern genealogical research, thus contrasting with the traditional view which expressed a Serbian or simply a Slavic origin of his mother.

Early years

Karajan was born in Salzburg, Austria as Herbert Ritter von Karajan. He was a child prodigy at the piano. From 1916 to 1926, he studied at the Mozarteum in Salzburg, where he was encouraged to study conducting by his teacher, who noticed his amazing talent and ability. In 1929 he conducted Salome at the Festspielhaus in Salzburg and from 1929 to 1934 Karajan served as

Postwar years

In 1946, Karajan gave his first post-war concert in Vienna with the Vienna Philharmonic but he was banned from further conducting activities by the Soviet occupation authorities because of his Nazi party membership. That summer he participated anonymously in the Salzburg Festival. The following year he was allowed to resume conducting. In 1949, Karajan became artistic director of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde, Vienna. He also conducted at La Scala in Milan. His most prominent activity at this time was recording with the newly-formed Philharmonia Orchestra in London, helping to build them into one of the world’s finest. Starting from this year, Karajan began lifetime long attendance of the Lucerne Festival. In 1951 and 1952 he conducted at the Bayreuth Festspielhaus. In 1955 he was appointed music director for life of the Berlin Philharmonic as successor to Wilhelm Furtwängler. From 1957 to 1964 he was artistic director of the Vienna State Opera. Karajan was closely involved with the Vienna Philharmonic and the Salzburg Festival, where he initiated the Easter Festival, which would remain tied to the Berlin Philharmonic’s Music Director after his tenure. On 22 October 1958 he married his third wife, model Eliette Mouret; they became parents of two daughters, Isabel and Arabel. He continued to perform, conduct and record prolifically until his death in Anif in 1989, mainly with the Berlin Philharmonic and the Vienna Philharmonic.

Karajan and the compact disc

Karajan played an important role in the development of the original compact disc digital audio format. He championed this new consumer playback technology, lent his prestige to it and appeared at the first press conference announcing the format. The maximum playing time of CD prototypes was sixty minutes but the final specification enlarged the disc size and extended the capacity to seventyfour minutes. There are various stories regarding this, one of which is that this was due to Karajan’s insistence that the format have sufficient capacity to

contain Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony on a single disc. Kees Schouhamer Immink, a Philips research engineer and fellow of the Audio Engineering Society, denies the Beethoven connection. In 1980 von Karajan conducted the first recording ever to be commercially released on CD: Richard Strauss’s Eine Alpensinfonie (1915), produced by Deutsche Grammophon. The recording is often acclaimed as greatest of this work. Through the 1980s von Karajan re-recorded many works such as Beethoven’s Nine Symphonies with Deutsche Grammophon’s CD booklet introduction saying that he wanted to preserve his legacy digitally. He also pioneered the Digital Compact Cassette though that format was not particularly successful.

Nazi membership

Karajan joined the Nazi Party in Salzburg on 8 April 1933; his membership number was 1,607,525. In June the Nazi Party was outlawed by the Austrian government. However, Karajan’s membership was valid until 1939. In this year the former Austrian members were verified by the general office of the Nazi Party. Karajan’s membership was declared invalid but his accession to the party was retroactively determined to have been on 1 May 1933 in Ulm, with membership number 3,430,914. Karajan’s membership of the Nazi Party and increasingly prominent career in Germany from 1933 to 1945 cast him in an uncomplimentary light after the war. While Karajan’s defenders have argued that he joined the Nazis only to advance his own career, critics such as Jim Svejda have pointed out that other prominent 11 conductors, such as Otto Klemperer, Bruno Walter, Erich Kleiber and Arturo Toscanini, fled from fascist Europe at the time. However, British music critic Richard Osborne argues that among the many well-known conductors who worked in Germany throughout the war years a list that includes Wilhelm Furtwängler, Ernest Ansermet, Carl Schuricht, Karl Böhm, Hans Knappertsbusch, Clemens Krauss and Karl Elmendorff Karajan was in fact one of the youngest and least advanced in his career.

Musicianship

Widespread agreement is that Herbert von Karajan had a special gift

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sumed his conducting career shortly thereafter.

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first Kapellmeister at the Stadttheater in Ulm. In 1933 Karajan made his conducting debut at the Salzburg Festival with the Walpurgisnacht Scene in Max Reinhardt’s production of Faust. It was also in 1933 that von Karajan became a member of the Nazi party, a fact for which he would later be criticised. In 1934 and again in Salzburg, Karajan led the Vienna Philharmonic for the first time, and from 1934 to 1941, Karajan conducted opera and symphony concerts at the Aachen opera house. In 1935, Karajan’s career was given a significant boost when he was appointed Germany’s youngest Generalmusikdirektor and was a guest conductor in Bucharest, Brussels, Stockholm, Amsterdam and Paris. In 1937 Karajan made his debut with the Berlin Philharmonic and the Berlin State Opera with Fidelio. He enjoyed a major success in the State Opera with Tristan und Isolde and in 1938 his performance of the opera was hailed by a Berlin critic as Das Wunder Karajan (The Karajan miracle), claiming that his “success with Wagner’s demanding work Tristan und Isolde sets himself alongside Furtwängler and de Sabata, the greatest opera conductors in Germany at the present time”. Receiving a contract with Deutsche Grammophon that same year, Karajan made the first of numerous recordings by conducting the Staatskapelle Berlin in the overture to Die Zauberflöte. On July 26, 1938, he married his first wife, operetta singer Elmy Holgerloef. They would divorce in 1942. On 22 October 1942, at the height of the war, Karajan married his second wife, Anna Maria “Anita” Sauest, born Gütermann, the daughter of a well-known manufacturer of yarn for sewing machines and who, having a Jewish grandfather, was considered Vierteljüdin (one-quarter Jewish). By 1944, Karajan was, by his own account, losing favor with the Nazi leaders but he still conducted concerts in wartime Berlin on 18 February 1945 and fled Germany with Anita for Milan a short time later. Karajan and Anita divorced in 1958. In the closing stages of the war, Karajan relocated his family to Italy with the assistance of Victor de Sabata. Karajan was discharged by the Austrian denazification examining board on 18 March 1946, and re-

for extracting beautiful sounds from an orchestra. Opinion varies concerning the greater aesthetic ends to which The Karajan Sound was applied. The American critic Harvey Sachs criticized the Karajan approach as follows: Karajan seemed to have opted instead for an all-purpose, highly refined, lacquered, calculatedly voluptuous sound that could be applied, with the stylistic modifications he deemed appropriate, to Bach and Puccini, Mozart and Mahler, Beethoven and Wagner, Schumann and Stravinsky... many of his performances had a prefabricated, artificial quality that those of Toscanini, Furtwängler, and others never had... most of Karajan’s records are exaggeratedly polished, a sort of sonic counterpart to the films and photographs of Leni Riefenstahl. However, it has been argued by commentator Jim Svejda and others that Karajan’s pre-1970 manner did not sound polished as it is later alleged to have become.

Awards and Honours

Karajan was the recipient of innu-

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merous honours and awards. On 21 June 1978 he received the Honorary Degree of Doctor of Music from Oxford University. He was honored by the “Médaille de Vermeil” in Paris, the Gold Medal of the Royal Philharmonic Society in London, the Olympia Award of the Onassis Foundation in Athens and the UNESCO International Music Prize. He received two Gramophone Awards for recordings of Mahler’s Ninth Symphony and the complete Parsifal recordings in 1981. In 2002, the Herbert von Karajan Music Prize was founded in his honour; in 2003 Anne-Sophie Mutter who had made her debut with Karajan in 1977, became the first recipient of this award.

Books

• Osborne, Richard (1998). Herbert von Karajan. London: Chatto & Windus. • Osborne, Richard (2000). Herbert von Karajan: A Life in Music. Boston: Northeastern University Press. • Lebrecht, Norman (2001). The Maestro Myth: Great Conductors

in Pursuit of Power. New York: Citadel Press. • Lebrecht, Norman (2007). The Life and Death of Classical Music. New York: Anchor Books,. • Layton, Robert; Greenfield, Edward; March, Ivan (1996). Penguin Guide to Compact Discs. London; New York: Penguin Books. • Monsaingeon, Bruno (2001). Sviatoslav Richter: Notebooks and Conversations. Princeton University Press. • Raymond, Holden (2005). The Virtuoso Conductors. New Haven, Connecticut; London: Yale University Press. • Zignani, Alessandro (2008). Herbert von Karajan. Il Musico perpetuo. Varese: Zecchini Editore,. • Kleinert, Annemarie (2009). Music at its Best: The Berlin Philharmonic. From Karajan to Rattle. Norderstedt: BoD.

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Pejman Tadayon October 1, 1977 musician

Karita Mattila (right) performs the title role of Tosca, while George Gagnidze the part of Baron Scarpia. (AP)

Portrait of Mehran Lotfi by: Iman Maleki March 1975

G R E E N HANDS HANDS HANDS HANDS

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G

REEN HANDS presents the new compositions of Mohammad Reza Mortazavi and gives the listener an insight into the artistic work of this very special musician. By playing the Tombak or the Daf, both traditional Iranian drums made for the hands, Mortazavi creates a sound which makes you believe, that you are listening to a whole orchestra. His technique exceeds the limits of traditional music. The Daf, generally played by Sufis, is a drum with a frame, which is often used for ceremonies. There are metal rings inside of the frame, which bring forth the typical sound of this instrument. The Tombak, having the form of a pear, has a unique and melodic tone. Obsessed by these two instruments, Mortazavi started very early to create new techniques and effects for the fingers and the beats. This was a revolution in the play of the drums. Since then he has found about 30 new techniques by which he is able to play a great variety of melodies. GREEN HANDS is also an approach to the recent political happenings in Iran which started in June 2009. Mortazavi dedicates his „Green Hands“ to the „Green Period“ in his home country. The colour green symbolizes nature, growth and a new beginning. Mortazavi was born in 1979, the year when the Iranian Revolution started, and it seems, that this revolutionary spirit can also be found in his work. This musician is looking for his very own way of expressing music. For him his work is a never ending process, surpassing any kind of conventions. Mortazavi’s technical perfection goes along with his desire to play these two drums without ever losing his curiosity and sincerity. GREEN HANDS is an attempt to be released from personal and musical dictates.

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Stat Berlin S

taatsoper Unter den Linden (Berlin State Opera) is a prominent German opera company. Its permanent home is the Opera House on the Unter den Linden boulevard in Berlin.

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History Early years

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Frederick II commissioned the original building on the site and construction work began in July 1741 with what was designed to be the first part of a “Forum Fredericianum”. Although not entirely completed, the Court Opera (Hofoper) was inaugurated with a performance of Carl Heinrich Graun’s Cleopatra e Cesare on December 7, 1742. This event marked the beginning of the successful, 250 year old cooperation between the Staatsoper and the Staatskapelle Berlin, the state orchestra, whose roots trace back to the 16th century. In 1842, Gottfried Wilhelm Taubert instituted the tradition of regular symphonic concerts. In the same year, Giacomo Meyerbeer succeeded Gaspare Spontini as General Music Director. Felix Mendelssohn also conducted symphonic concerts for a year. On August 18, 1843 the Linden Opera was destroyed by fire. A new

building designed by architect Carl Ferdinand Langhans, known as the Königliches Opernhaus (Royal Opera House), was inaugurated the following fall by a performance of Meyerbeer’s Ein Feldlager in Schlesien. In 1821, the Berlin Opera gave the premiere of Weber’s Der Freischütz. In 1849, it premiered Otto Nicolai’s Die lustigen Weiber von Windsor, conducted by the composer himself.

20th century

At the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, the Royal Court Opera, Berlin, attracted many illustrious conductors. including Felix von Weingartner, Karl Muck, Richard Strauss, and Leo Blech. After the collapse of the German Empire in 1918, the Opera was renamed Staatsoper unter den Linden and the Königliche Kapelle became Kapelle der Staatsoper. In the 1920s, Wilhelm Furtwängler, Erich Kleiber, Otto Klemperer, Alexander von Zemlinsky, Bruno Walter occupying the conductor’s post. In 1925, Alban Berg’s Wozzeck, was given its premiere in a production conducted by Erich Kleiber in the composer’s presence. After having undergone an extensive renovation, the Linden Opera reopened in April 1928 with a new

production of Die Zauberflöte. In the same year, the famous Russian bass Feodor Chaliapin and Serge Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes with conductor Ernest Ansermet are guest performers. In 1930 Erich Kleiber conducted premiere of Darius Milhaud’s Christoph Columbus. However, in 1934, when symphonic pieces from Alban Berg’s Lulu were performed by Kleiber, the National Socialists provoked a scandal and he was forced into exile. After Hitler’s Nazi takeover, members of Jewish origin were dismissed from the ensemble. Many German musicians associated with the opera went into exile, including the conductors Otto Klemperer and Fritz Busch. During the Third Reich, Robert Heger, Herbert von Karajan (1939-1945) and Johannes Schüler were the “Staatskapellmeister”. • 1938 Werner Egk conducted the first night of his opera Peer Gynt on November 24. Herbert von Karajan´s interpretation of Mozart´s Die Zauberflöte was performed on December 18. Karajan continued as Generalmusikdirektor, the principal musical director of the Staatsoper Unter den Linden between 1941 and 1945. • 1939 Karajan conducted a performance of Rudolf Wagner-Rég-

te Opera

Postwar years

The second rebuilding took a long time. From 1945, the opera company played in the former Admiralspalast (today’s Metropoltheater). From 1949,

website) elected Barenboim “conductor for life.” During the 2002 Festtage, he led a Wagner cycle in ten parts, a production created in collaboration with director Harry Kupfer. Leadership • 1759-1775 Johann Friedrich Agricola • 1775-1794 Johann Friedrich Reichardt (Hofkapellmeister) • 1816-1820 Bernhard Anselm Weber • 1820-1841 Gaspare Spontini • 1842-1846 Giacomo Meyerbeer • 1848-1849 Otto Nicolai • 1871-1887 Robert Radecke19 (Hofkapellmeister) • 1888-1899 Joseph Sucher • 1899-1913 Richard Strauss • 1913-1920 Leo Blech (Hofkapellmeister) • 1923-1934 Erich Kleiber • 1935-1936 Clemens Krauss • 1941-1945 Herbert von Karajan • 1948-1951 Joseph Keilberth • 1954-1955 Erich Kleiber • 1955-1962 Franz Konwitschny • 1964-1990 Otmar Suitner • 1992-present Daniel Barenboim

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the company served as state opera of the GDR. It moved back to its original home after the rebuilding in freely adapted baroque forms was finally completed in 1955. The newly rebuilt opera house was opened, again, with Wagner’s Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg. After the Berlin Wall was built in 1961, the Opera was somewhat isolated, but still maintained a comprehensive repertoire that featured the classic and romantic period together with contemporary ballet and operas. After reunification, the Linden Opera rejoined the operatic world. Important works that had already performed in the past were rediscovered and discussed anew within the framework of a “Berlin Dramaturgy”. Baroque Opera in particular was at the center of attention, with Cleopatra e Cesare, Croesus, L’Opera seria and Griselda. These works were performed by Belgian conductor René Jacobs together with the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin and the Freiburger Barockorchester on period instruments. In the 1990s, the opera was officially renamed “Staatsoper Unter den Linden”. In 1992, the Argentine-Israeli conductor Daniel Barenboim was appointed Music Director. In 2000, the orchestra (according to its official

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eny’s Die Bürger von Calais. • 1940 On October 21, Karajan conducted a symphonic concert with the Staatskapelle at the Old Philharmonic. • 1942 The Lindenoper was bombed in 1941. The House reopened on December 12 with Wilhelm Furtwängler´s interpretation of Wagner´s Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg. • 1944 When Joseph Goebbels proclaimed his “Total War“, the Staatsoper was closed. The last performance was Mozart´s Le nozze di Figaro, conducted by Johannes Schüler on August 31. The Staatskapelle continued to perform symphonic and opera concerts. On October 4 and 5, Karajan conducted Bruckner´s 8th symphony. • 1945 The Lindenoper was once again destroyed on February 3. The concerts were relocated to the Admiralspalast and the Schauspielhaus. On February 18, Herbert von Karajan conducted his last symphonic concert with the Staatskapelle in the Beethoven hall.

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Origins and the ancient world

Architecture first evolved out of the dynamics between needs (shelter, security, worship, etc.) and means (available building materials and attendant skills). As human cultures developed and knowledge began to be formalized through oral traditions and practices, architecture became a craft. Here there is a process of trial and error, and later improvisation or replication of a successful trial. What is termed Vernacular architecture continues to be produced in many parts of the world. Indeed, vernacular buildings make up most of the built world that people experience every day. Early human settlements were mostly rural. Due to a surplus in production the economy began to expand resulting in urbanization thus creating urban areas which grew and evolved very rapidly in some cases, such as that of Çatal Huyuk in Anatolia and Mohenjo Daro in Pakistan. In many ancient civilizations, like the Egyptians’ and Mesopotamians’, architecture and urbanism reflected the constant engagement with the divine and the supernatural, while in other ancient cultures such as Persia architecture and urban planning was used to exemplify the power of the state. The architecture and urbanism of the Classical civilizations such as the Greek and the Roman evolved from civic ideals rather than religious or empirical ones and new building types emerged. Architectural styles developed. Texts on architecture began to be written in the Classical period. These became canons to be followed in important works, especially religious architecture. Some examples of canons are found in the writings of Vitruvius, the Kao Gong Ji of ancient China and Vaastu Shastra of ancient India and Manjusri vasthu vidya sastra of Sri Lanka. The architecture of different parts of Asia developed along different lines to that of Europe, Buddhist, Hindu and Sikh architecture each hav21 ing different characteristics. Buddhist architecture, in particular, showed great regional diversity. In many Asian countries a pantheistic religion led to architectural forms that were designed specifically to enhance the natural landscape.

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Part II

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ture

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o restrict the meaning of (architectural) formalism to art for art’s sake is not only reactionary; it can also be a purposeless quest for perfection or originality which degrades form into a mere instrumentality”. Among the philosophies that have influenced modern architects and their approach to building design are rationalism, empiricism, structuralism, poststructuralism, and phenomenology. In the late 20th century a new concept was added to those included in the compass of both structure and function, the consideration of sustainability. To satisfy the contemporary ethos a building should be constructed in a manner which is environmentally friendly in terms of the production of its materials, its impact upon the natural and built environment of its surrounding area and the demands that it makes upon non-sustainable power sources for heating, cooling, water and waste management and lighting.

The Medieval builder

Islamic architecture began in the 7th century CE, developing from a blend of architectural forms from the ancient Middle East and from Byzantium but also developing features to suit the religious and social needs of the society. Examples can be found throughout the Middle East, North Africa and Spain, and were to become a significant stylistic influence on European architecture during the Medieval period. In Europe, in both the Classical and Medieval periods, buildings were not attributed to specific individuals and the names of the architects frequently unknown, despite the vast scale of the many religious buildings extant from this period. During the Medieval period guilds were formed by craftsmen to organise their trade and written contracts have survived, particularly in re-

lation to ecclesiastical buildings. The role of architect was usually one with that of master mason, or Magister lathomorum as they are sometimes described in contemporary documents. Over time the complexity of buildings and their types increased. General civil construction such as roads and bridges began to be built. Many new building types such as schools, hospitals, and recreational facilities emerged.

Renaissance and the architect

With the Renaissance and its emphasis on the individual and humanity rather than religion, and with all its attendant progress and achievements, a new chapter began. Buildings were ascribed to specific architectsBrunelleschi, Alberti, Michelangelo, Palladio- and the cult of the individual had begun. There was still no dividing line between artist, architect and engineer,

or any of the related vocations, and the appellation was often one of regional preference. At this stage, it was still possible for an artist to design a bridge as the level of structural calculations involved was within the scope of the generalist. Early Modern and the Industrial Age With the emerging knowledge in scientific fields and the rise of new materials and technology, architecture and engineering began to separate, and the architect began to concentrate on aesthetics and the humanist aspects, often at the expense of technical aspects of building design. There was also the rise of the “gentleman architect� who usually dealt with wealthy clients and concentrated predominantly on visual qualities derived usually from historical prototypes, typified by the many country houses of Great Britain that were created in the Neo Gothic or Scottish Baronial styles. Formal architectural training in the

19th century, for example at Ecole des Beaux Arts in France, gave much emphasis to the production of beautiful drawings and little to context and feasibility. Effective architects generally received their training in the offices of other architects, graduating to the role from draughtsmen or clerks. Meanwhile, the Industrial Revolution laid open the door for mass production and consumption. Aesthetics became a criterion for the middle class as ornamented products, once within the province of expensive craftsmanship, became cheaper under machine production. Vernacular architecture became increasingly ornamental. House builders could use current architectural design in their work by combining features found in pattern books and architectural journals.

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What did we do for sculpture Art?

A A Picaso discussion Giovanni Tagliavini

Giovanni Tagliavini published for Editor Feltrinelli, Diario della settimana,Psychologies, Gente astri, Vanity, Ventiquattro, Business 2,0, Diogene filosofare oggi, Il manifesto, Alias, Nuova Ecologia,Epoche edizioni, Carta settimanale, Argo, ItaliaLab. He cooperated with important communication and advertising agencies (campagne marchesi Frescobaldi-Vini Turà -Spraypan). He took part into numerous personal and collective shows. He has a role in the project and book (Rizzoli editor) 13 x 17 – padiglione Italia (P. Daverio-J. Blanchaert) He has pubblished pictures on revolutionart magazine from the number 15 to the last one http://www.revolutionartmagazine.com/ He has this sites with different works: www.giovannitagliavini.mediagroupdesign.com/ www.animalrawart.com/node/1344 www.theartkey.com/index .php?page=users_id&id=1670 The videos works on youtube: www.youtube.com/TAGLIAVINI1

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economically as well. Paris was a real hotbed of poets, writers, artists. A list would be useless and too long, let’s say that all the ‘best minds’ of the period did live or pass by the French capital, in those years truly a crossroads of modern thinking. There are fewer explanations andjustifications for Picasso’s presence in France during the nazi occupation, also taking into account that exihibitions of his paintings were forbidden. I would like to mention an anecdote about this: looking at Picasso’s Guernica (the most political of his works, that describes the horror of civilians’ massacre during the bombing of the Spanish city), some of the fuhrer’s soldiers asked him: ‘Did you do this horror maestro?’. ‘No, you did it!, Picasso answered.

tHE EFFECTS OF PICASSO’S CHILDHOOD aFFECT OF LOVE OR ON HIS PAINTINGS. ROMANTIC RELATIONS IN HIS WORKS

Picasso’s father was a teacher, and a painter himself: he certainly introduced his son to art, although his approach to painting was more of an academic, traditional kind. Since he was a child, Picasso proved to be a skilful drawer, but his work was mainly academic-oriented, probably to please his father. After enrolling at the Academy of Fine Arts, he left it very soon. Young Pablo was a rebel spirit, close to anarchic movements Out of a serious conflict with his father (each child must ‘kill’ his father, each man kills the things he loves!), he no longer signed his paintings with his father’s last name (Ruiz), using instead his mother’s (Picasso). And, even if afterwords different explanations have been put forward, this change does mark a breakthrough from his father’s traditionalism. Picasso said it took a life fo him to try and draw like a child. We can undoubtedly state his childhood drawings 24were not a child’s ones.

As all great artists, Pablo always played on the border between Eros and Tanatos. But as his sentimental life, among other things, demonstrated, he was a deeply egocentric, self-oriented person in allhis expressions. However, especially when painting his children orchildren in general, an enormously sweet tenderness does appear. You could not say the same of the vast majority of his female portraits: here you can feel desire for possession, an ongoing struggle overwhelming tenderness or romanticism.

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iNFLUENCE tHE MAINOF BROTHSPRING FOR ELS ON HIS PICASSO MIND AND TRAVELWORKS. LING TO FRANCE In the early years of the 20th century, Paris was literally the heart of culture and Art...The atmosphere was great, rich in change, discussions, art production. Such situations do happen in certain periods and places (let’s think about the GreenwichVillage in the early Sixies), out of peculiar, if not magic, historical circumstances. Picasso couldn’t but be but fascinated by such a fertile cultural ‘humus’, which was for him stimulating and fruitful,

I’ve partially already answered in my comments to previous question. One of his most famous paintings “Les Demoiselles d’Avignon” is certainly inspired by some “working girls”. Once more, in that painting Picasso combines, more formally than symbolically, Eros and Tanatos. He has always been obsessed with love, or better, sex... (all these bulls...not always were they a tribute to his homeland). It is said that in his last years Picasso suffered a lot from not being as ‘performing’ as he was in his youth, owing to age, and he got really mad about this.

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Picasso has never been an ‘abstract’ painter. Figure and form, even in his most entangled works are always on top of his mind. For sure, as he used to say: - I do not paint what I see, but rather what I think. His thoughts, though, were born out of observation of reality, that is to say from form.

tHE INFLUENCE OF HIS STYLE IN THE NEXT GENERATION?

Picasso has always had lots of imitators or ‘epigons’. Here in Italy, Renato Guttuso, just to mention a painter who often drew inspiration from him. Without Picasso, the generation of graffiti artists would not have existed. No Haring, nor Basquiat. It was with him and after him that art was first ‘serialized’, bringing out T-shirts, gadgets, cups, mugs, dishes and all kind of reproduction. He became the very image of the successful artist, the icon, the prototype. And even today, no matter how many different ways art has taken, a neo-conceptual artist like Maurizio Cattelan has been inspired by Picasso’s face for one of his works. When asked about my ‘maestri’, I start mentioning German expressionists among others and end up joking: - I’m the son of ‘ Les Demoiselles d’Avignon -implicitly saying ‘I’m a son of a bitch’.

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wHY DID HE DO THE ABSTRACT PAINTINGS WHEREAS EVERYONE KNOWS HE WAS A DOMINANT PAINTER?

hE OFTEN USED WHICH ELEMENTS?( LOVE, FATE, HATE, LUST, …)

Let’s put it like this: he just painted life. So in his endless production all elements are included.

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hE WANTED TO REACH THE HIGHEST LEVEL OF HIS INVENTED STYLE,

WAS HE SUCCEED IN THAT WAY? I go back to one of my previous answers: as an artist, Picasso was also able to ‘sell’ himself, as probably all artists should be able to do, if they want to survive in this society... I leave aside the controversial issue on who has been the first ‘cubist’. But looking at Picasso’s and Braque’s paintings (the two were friends, by the way), you can see lots of common elements - the bottle, the glass, the newspaper, etc... No doubt Pablo was winking more to the observer. As a matter of fact, ‘mediocres imitate, geniuses copy’, to mention his own words. And Pablo really was a genius to this extent, always putting forward something of his own, i.e always re-creating something original even when copying or reproducing himself.

tHIS CENTURY PICASSO IN YOUR JUDGMENT

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1900 was the century of great utopias and dreams of big changes. Picasso has always been a member of the Communist Party but hs did live with nazis during the occupation. He painted Guernica and, though he said he was against Franco, he did not move a hand for his country in the midst of the Civil War. Yes, we can perhaps say his works have 28been his gun. But, how many upper-class ladies did he deform, thus making them immortal and filling up his wallet? Just few days ago a fat woman stumbled and damaged one of his paintings...we are left with the insurance money. Picasso and his century leave us with dreams, utopias, fantasmagoric colours, hallmarks of magic brushstrokes and contradictions. We are left with a peace dove, that even brought him an award. But this dove, if we just take a look around, still has to make many wingstrokes.

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All’s Well That Ends Well

William Shakespeare

fierce curiosity about Shakespeare’s life; but the paucity of surviving biographical information has left many details of Shakespeare’s personal history shrouded in mystery. Some people have concluded from this fact that Shakespeare’s plays in reality were written by someone else Francis Bacon and the Earl of Oxford are the two most popular candidates but the evidence for this claim is overwhelmingly circumstantial, and the theory is not taken seriously by many scholars. In the absence of definitive proof to the contrary, Shakespeare must be viewed as the author of the 37 plays and 154 sonnets that bear his name. The legacy of this body of work is immense. A number of Shakespeare’s plays seem to have transcended even the category of brilliance, becoming so influential as to affect profoundly the course of Western literature and culture ever after. The date of composition for All’s Well That Ends Well is uncertain. Our earliest copy of the play appears in the Folio of 1623, seven years after Shakespeare’s death, so other clues must be sought in order to date the work. The most common dating places it between 1601 and 1606, grouping it with Troilus and Cressida and Measure for Measure in what are typically referred to as Shakespeare’s problem comedies. All three share a dark, bitter wit and an unpleasant view of human relation s that contrasts sharply with earlier, sunnier comedies like Twelfth Night and As You like It. The darker sensibility is embodied, this theory argues, in the coarse pragma-

tism surrounding sexual intercourse in All’s Well and the obvious difficulties of rejoicing about a “happy ending” that unites such an ill-suited couple as Helena and Bertram. An alternative dating, held by a minority of critics, places the play’s writing in 1598 or earlier, and associates it with a “lost play” called Love’s Labor Won, which is listed in a 1598 catalogue of Shakespeare’s plays but has never been seen or mentioned elsewhere. All’s well, it is argued, matches the title of this work admirably Helena “labors” to gain her love, and wins. Supporters of this dating claim that All’s Well is likely an edited or reworked version that Shakespeare published at a later date. In either case, the source for the story is more obvious it is derived, more or less directly, from the ninth story of the third day of Boccaccio’s Decameron, a classic of early Renaissance literature written between 134835 and 1358. The works, and the story in question, were translated into English in the mid-16th century by William Painter as The Palace of Pleasure, and it was this version that Shakespeare probably drew upon. Typically, Shakespeare altered and reshaped the original text to create a richer story, adding characters like Lafew, the Countess, and Parolles while keeping essential elements like the bed-trick and the war in Florence in place. The critical reception of All’s Well has always been mixed, with both critics and audiences often sharing the displeasure with Helena’s choice of Bertram. Its reputation has revived

E V E R L A S T I N G

Likely the most influential writer in all of English literature and certainly the most important playwright of the English Renaissance, William Shakespeare was born in 1564 in the town of Stratford-upon-Avon in Warwickshire, England. The son of a successful middle-class glove-maker, Shakespeare attended grammar school, but his formal education proceeded no further. In 1582, he married an older woman, Anne Hathaway, and had three children with her. Around 1590 he left his family behind and traveled to London to work as an actor and playwright. Public and critical success quickly followed, and Shakespeare eventually became the most popular playwright in England and part owner of the Globe Theater. His career bridged the reigns of Elizabeth I (ruled 1558-1603) and James I (ruled 1603-1625); he was a favorite of both monarchs. Indeed, James granted Shakespeare’s company the greatest possible compliment by endowing them with the status of king’s players. Wealthy and renowned, Shakespeare retired to Stratford, and died in 1616 at the age of fifty-two. At the time of Shakespeare’s death, such luminaries as Ben Jonson hailed him as the apogee of Renaissance theatre. Shakespeare’s works were collected and printed in various editions in the century following his death, and by the early eighteenth century his reputation as the greatest poet ever to write in English was well established. The unprecedented admiration garnered by his works led to a

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Context

significantly in recent years, but it remains an unpopular and little-performed play.

Summary

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Helena, the orphan daughter of a famous physician, is the ward of the Countess of Rousillon, and hopelessly in love with her son, Count Bertram, who has been sent to the court of the King of France. Despite her beauty and worth, Helena has no hope of attracting Bertram, since she is of low birth and he is a nobleman. However, when word comes that the King is ill, she goes to Paris and, using her father’s arts, cures the illness. In return, she is given the hand of any man in the realm; she chooses Bertram. Her new husband is appalled at the match, however, and shortly after their marriage flees France, accompanied only by a scoundrel named Parolles, to fight in the army of the Duke of Florence. Helena is sent home to the Countess, and receives a letter from Bertram informing her that he will never be her true spouse unless she can get his family ring from his finger, and become pregnant with his child neither of which, he declares, will ever come to pass. The Countess, who loves Helena and approves of the match, tries to comfort her, but the distraught young woman departs Rousillon, planning to make a religious pilgrimage. Meanwhile, in Florence, Bertram has become a general in the Duke’s 36army. Helena comes to the city, and discovers that her husband is trying to seduce the virginal daughter of a kindly Widow. With the connivance of the daughter, named Diana, she contrives to trick Bertram: he gives Diana his ring as a token of his love, and when he comes to her room at night, Helena is in the bed, and they make love without him realizing that it is her. At the same time, two lords in the army expose Parolles as a coward and a villain, and he falls out of Bertram’s favor. Meanwhile, false messengers have come to the camp bearing word that Helena is dead, and with the war drawing to a close, Bertram decides to return to France. Unknown to him, Helena follows, accompanied by Diana and the Widow. In Rousillon, everyone is mourning Helena as dead. The King is visiting, and consents to Bertram marrying the daughter of an old, faithful lord, named Lafew. However, he notices a

ring on Bertram’s finger that formerly belonged to Helena it was a gift from the King after she saved his life. (Helena gave the ring to Diana in Florence, and she in turn gave it to her would-be lover.) Bertram is at a loss to explain where it came from, but just then Diana and her mother appear to explain matters followed by Helena, who informs her husband that both his conditions have been fulfilled. Chastened, Bertram consents to be a good husband to her, and there is general rejoicing.

Characters

Helena- The play’s heroine. The orphan daughter of a great doctor, she is the ward of the Countess of Rousillon, and hopelessly in love with the Countess’ son, Bertram. Her good qualities are attested to by nearly every character in the play, and events prove her a resourceful and determined woman, who is not easily discouraged by setbacks. Bertram- The Count of Rousillon since the death of his father, and the Countess’ only son. A handsome, well-liked young man, he proves to be an excellent soldier, but a cad in his relationship with Helena, who he unwillingly marries and quickly abandons. Countess- The mother of Bertram, the mistress of Rousillon, and Helena’s guardian, she is a wise, discerning old woman who perceives Helena’s worth and rejoices when she marries Bertram. When Bertram treats Helena badly, the Countess is quick to condemn his behavior. King of France- Bertram’s liege lord. He is deathly ill when the play begins, and is miraculously cured by Helena, who uses one of her father’s medicines. Like the Countess, he loves Helena, and is appalled by Bertram’s behavior. Lafew- An old French nobleman, who offers advice to the King and is friendly with the Countess. He is wise and discerning, perceiving both Helena’s worth and Parolles’ worthlessness. Parolles- A companion of Bertram, he is a coward, a liar and a braggart, who pretends to be a great soldier when he is nothing of the sort. He is eventually exposed and disgraced. First Lord- A genial French nobleman named Dumaine, he serves in the Florentine army and becomes

friends with Bertram. Aware of Parolles’ character, he and his brother, the Second Lord plot to expose him for what he is. Second Lord- The First Lord Dumaine’s brother, similar in character and also a friend to Bertram. Diana- A young virgin in Florence, who Bertram attempts to seduce. She assists Helena in tricking him into sleeping with his lawful wife. Widow- Diana’s mother. Mariana- A woman of Florence. Duke of Florence- The ruler of Florence, many French lords (including Bertram, Parolles, and Dumaine) volunteer to fight for him. Clown- An old servant of the Countess, who serves as a messenger and enjoys coarse, sexual humor. Steward- Another servant of the Countess.

Act I, Scenes i-iii

Summary Helena, the daughter of a famous doctor, has been the ward of the Countess of Rousillon, a wise and kindly old noblewoman, since her father’s death. The Countess’ husband has also recently died, and her son Count Bertram, a brave, handsome, but callow young man, is sent to serve the King of France, his liege lord. (The King, we learn, is dying). Helena is in love with Bertram, but hopelessly, since he is a nobleman and she a commoner. As he departs for the King’s Court, she banters with Parolles, an unsavory character who has managed to gain Bertram’s ear despite being a liar and a coward. They discuss chastity in coarse terms, with Parolles recommending that she find a husband and lose her virginity quickly. As they speak Helena conceives a plan that she hopes will gain her the hand of Bertram. Bertram arrives at the King’s court, where the cautious monarch has recently decided to stay out of a war involving Austria and the Duke of Florence with the caveat that any French noblemen who wish to involve themselves in the conflict are free to go. Greeting Bertram, the King laments the loss of the young man’s father, and then remarks that he wishes Helena’s father were still living, because only such a great doctor could now save his life. Meanwhile, in Rousillon, the Countess walks about and chats with the coarse, bawdy Clown who once served her husband. Her

Steward joins them and informs the Countess that he overheard Helena declaring her love for Bertram; the noblewoman sends for her ward immediately. After much dissembling, Helena admits to loving the Countess’ son, and then immediately declares her plan to go to the King’s palace and offer her services as a doctor, using the medical knowledge that her father taught her. The Countess, while expressing her doubts that the King and the royal doctors will accept the help of a young woman, gives her blessing, and sends Helena on her way.

possesses most of the appropriate attributes everyone admits that he is handsome, dashing, and brave, and certainly, Helena speaks highly of him, describing his “bright radiance

common burden for Shakespeare’s heroines, who either end up wearing men’s clothes, like Viola in Twelfth Night, or doing men’s work, like the lawyerly Portia in The Merchant of

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The play opens on a dark, somber note: as Bertram departs, his mother recalls her husband’s passing, and Bertram comments that “I in going, madam, weep o’er my father’s death anew.” (I.i.3-4) Lafew, the wise old nobleman, makes an attempt at comforting them by saying that the King will act as a husband and father to the family, but this only leads into a discussion of the King’s illness, and how he has abandoned all hope of a cure which, in turn, leads them to speak of the recent death of Helena’s father. This conversation is useful to the audience, since it fills in the background details before the action of the play begins, but its heavy emphasis on illness and death casts a pall over the scene. Indeed, the entire older generation in All’s Well That Ends Well is nearing death the King, the Countess, and Lafew are all figures of wisdom, offering sage advice to the headstrong young, but they are also figures of decay and decrepitude. The Countess and Lafew speak repeatedly of their own feebleness and impending deaths; the King’s life will be saved by Helena, but it is clearly only a reprieve, and he seems to lack energy, especially in his refusal to take part in the war that so many of his young nobles flock to join. In sum, the play presents a “generation gap” a stark contrast between the weakness of the older generation and the vitality of the younger characters (Helena, Bertram, Diana, etc.). The shadow that mortality casts on the action is one reason why this play has often been termed a “problem comedy,” or “dark comedy.” Another reason is the nature of the younger generation, who are poised to inherit from their wiser, aging elders. Bertram, the supposed romantic hero,

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Commentary

37

and collateral light / . . . His arched brows, his hawking eye, his curls” (I.i.94- 100) in the glowing terms of a would-be lover. But, significantly, she only mentions, and we only observe, the superficial qualities of the man. When he shows his true colors later, his image will be tarnished significantly. Helena, meanwhile, is more appealing her worth is evident despite her low birth and already her resourcefulness is on display as she assumes the male role of physician (a

Venice) and plans a journey to Paris. But her fixation on Bertram, while determined, will come to seem almost monomaniacal it is her defining character trait, in the end. Her love, she admits, is a kind of “idolatrous fancy,” (I.i.103) but she will not release her hold on it. There is a bitter edge to her humor, too, a coarseness that other Shakespearean heroines lack; her conversation with Parolles, filled with sexual innuendo, displays a cynicism about relations between the sexes that is seems jarring coming from a

romantic heroine. The cynicism is appropriate to Parolles, of course, who seems cast as the villain in the early going. Eventually, his essential harmlessness will be revealed he is a minor rogue, whose boasts and lies are dangerous, but not deadly.

Act II, Scenes i-iii

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Summary In Paris, the King of France bids farewell to a party of lords bound for the war in Florence, declaring that he may well be dead by the time they return. Two brothers, the First Lord and Second Lord Dumaine, urge Bertram to come with them to the war, but he says regretfully that the King has commanded him to remain at court. Parolles, boasting of his own prowess in battle, suggests that Bertram sneak away, and then wishes the two Lords good luck and the blessings of Mars, the god of war. The King, meanwhile, is in conversation with Lafew, an old lord who was recently visiting Rousillon, and who tells his sovereign that a female doctor (Helena, of course) has recently arrived promising a cure for his ailment. Helena is ushered in, and tells the King that on his deathbed her father gave her a powerful medicine, ordering her to keep it safe and that she has brought the medicine to save the royal life. The King thanks her for her offer, but says that there is no point in trying, since his doctors insist that the 38disease is incurable. Helena responds that there is no harm in making an attempt, and then boldly promises that the medicine will restore his health within just two days. She goes further, saying that if the cure fails, her life should be forfeit. If it succeeds, however, she asks permission to choose whomever she desires as a husband. The King agrees to the bargain, and promises to try the medicine immediately. The Countess, after letting her Clown jest with her for a time, sends him to court with a message for Helena. In Paris, meanwhile, Parolles and Lafew remark on the amazing success of Helena’s cure, which has restored the King to good health. True to his word, the King assembles five stalwart young noblemen as potential mates, but Helena passes over them all and selects Bertram. The young Count is taken aback, and declares that she is too far beneath him for the

marriage to work. The King rebukes him, saying that inner worth is more important that noble birth, and promises to raise Helena to a higher rank; when Bertram still refuses to agree to the match, his monarch threatens to throw him out of royal favor. Faced with that threat, Bertram unhappily agrees, and the couple is immediately led to the altar. Left behind, Lafew and Parolles argue over the relative worth of the new husband and wife, with Lafew criticizing Bertram’s conduct, and Parolles taking offense and trying to pick a fight only to back away, saying that Lafew is too old for a duel. The old lord sees through the other man’s bluster, and calls Parolles a coward. Meanwhile, Bertram returns, newly married, and tells Parolles that he will never consummate the wedding: he plans to send Helena home to his mother, and then run away to war. Commentary The central problem of All’s Well That Ends Well is illustrated by Bertram’s behavior in these scenes. Given that he acts like a cad, treats her terribly, and essentially humiliates her, why does Helena continue to love him and pursue him? Why is she so smitten with a man who is obviously unworthy of her? In a way, one can almost pity Bertram, who finds himself forced to marry against his will by what is, essentially, a fairy-tale sequence of events a fair maid saves a dying King and receives her true love’s hand as a reward. (The cure affects a change in the King’s character, too, as he moves from a resigned passivity to fierce anger when Bertram attempts to refuse Helena’s hand.) But the young Count quickly forfeits our pity when he whines “but follows it, my lord, to bring me down / must answer for your raising? I know her well; / She had her breeding at my father’s charge: / A poor physician’s daughter my wife!” (II.iii.113-16). The arranged marriage which a nobleman of the era would have been brought up to expect bothers him less than the fact that Helena is not of noble birth, but only “a poor physician’s daughter.” In short, he is a snob, and a foolish one at that, since he cannot perceive what all the wiser characters know at once, namely, that Helena is a better woman than he deserves. The King’s words put it aptly: “If she is / All that is virtuous, save what thou dislike’s / A poor physician’s daughter thou

dislike’s / of virtue for the name” (II. iii.122-25). But a noble name, more than virtue, is what matters to the callow Bertram. Indeed, we should not be surprised that he fails to recognize Helena’s worth, given his ridiculously high estimation of Parolles’s character. His boastful companion is not a master of deceit, like the great Shakespearean villains (Iago in “Othello,” Edmund in “King Lear”); rather, Parolles is easily seen through, and every wise character in the play does so, beginning with Helena in the first act, and continuing here with the able Lafew. Some critics have argued that Parolles leads Bertram astray, but this is putting the cart before the horse the fact that Bertram is taken in by Parolles is indicative of the weakness and folly that exists, independent of any outside influence, at the heart of his character. And Bertram’s foolishness, too, is hardly a secret: just as all the wise characters see through Parolles, so do all of them, beginning with Lafew, perceive that Bertram is committing a great wrong in his treatment of Helena. Shakespeare is not interested in shades of gray here Bertram is condemned and Helena favored by everyone.

Act II, Scenes iv-v; Act III, Scenes i-iv

Summary Helena receives the Countess’s greetings from the Clown, and inquires after her new stepmother’s health. Parolles joins them and informs Helena that pressing business calls Bertram away, so their marriage must remain unconsummated for the present. Her husband, Parolles reports, wants her to make ready to return home, and then come say goodbye to him. Meanwhile, Lafew warns Bertram that Parolles is not a great soldier, as he claims to be, but Bertram pays no attention to him. Helena comes to her husband, who apologizes for his hasty departure; she begs a kiss from him before he goes, but Bertram refuses, and rides off, accompanied only by Parolles. The First Lord and Second Lord are in Florence, where the Duke of Florence expresses his regret that the King of France has refused to assist him in battle. The two noblemen share his unhappiness, but remind him that many young French nobles will come to fight for Florence independent of

Act III, Scenes v-vii

Summary Meanwhile, Helena has gone to Florence, where she overhears a conversation between an old Widow, her daughter Diana, and their neighbor, Mariana. It seems that Bertram, who rides by with the Duke of Florence’s army as they talk, has been making overtures to Diana, hoping to get her in his bed. Helena joins the discussion, in which the older woman advises Diana to maintain her chastity. The three Florentine women have heard that Bertram has a wife he detests, but are unaware that Helen is the woman. After the conversation, Helena is invited to stay with the Widow. In the Duke’s camp, the First Lord and Second Lord Dumaine advise Bertram not to put his faith in Parolles, because the man is a boastful coward with no military experience and no loyalty. To expose Parolles, they devise a plan: they will goad him into attempting to retrieve his regiment’s drum, which was lost on the field of

battle (a military disgrace); then, disguised as enemy soldiers, they will “capture” him, blindfold him, and interrogate him, thus demonstrating to Bertram how quickly his loyal friend will turn traitor if his life is threatened. Encountering Parolles, they suggest that the loss of the drum was unimportant, and that he should forget it. Being cocky and boastful, Bertram’s companion immediately swears that he will recapture it, or at least make a valiant effort. When he is gone, the two lords laugh, and tell Bertram that Parolles will do no such thing, being a coward. Bertram is skeptical, but invites the Second Lord to accompany him and meet Diana, whom he still plans to bed. Meanwhile, Helena has revealed her identity to the Widow, and uses a purse of gold to buy her help in a scheme that, Helena hopes, will fulfill her husband’s conditions for their marriage. Diana will obtain the ring that Helena needs from Bertram, as a token of his love; then, she will invite him to her bedchamber. In the darkness, Helena and Diana will switch places, and the oblivious Bertram will have sex with his true wife rather than the virgin. The Widow agrees, and tells Helena to go and secure Diana’s cooperation in the plot. Commentary Diana’s virginity, which she jealously protects, returns us to the earlier bantering discussion Helena and Parolles shared on the subject. In that conversation, Parolles had argued that a woman ought to lose her maidenhead as soon as possible now, appropriately enough, he is assisting Bertram in convincing a chaste young woman to give it up without benefit of wedlock. As for Bertram himself, our estimation of him sinks still lower, al-39 though given how he has behaved so far, this seems almost a small offense. For the Count, it is clear, war comes first, and women are an unimportant matter; they are there to dally and fornicate with, but not to marry. The fact that seducing Diana is hardly worse than his abandonment of Helena does not in any way excuse Bertram’s behavior; in fact, his behavior is bad enough to make the “bed-trick” seem perfectly justified. (This switch, in which a wife substitutes herself for a lover in order to trick an adulterous husband, is common in folklore, and Shakespeare uses a similar device with Mariana, Isabella,

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Does Bertram have any redeeming qualities? In the entire play, the only arena where the unpleasant Count distinguishes himself is warfare he is, in spite of his other flaws, both a great leader and a good companion to his fellow soldiers. If Shakespeare wishes us to believe that there is hope for Bertram, that he will grow up eventually, then that hope lies in the regard that other soldiers hold for him. The Duke of Florence is sufficiently impressed to make him a general, and the brothers Dumaine indistinguishable from one another, but nevertheless good-hearted men are willing to be his friends, despite their disapproval of his conduct. Meanwhile, Helena’s departure from Rousillon raises the question of her intentions. She leaves word that she plans to go to St. Jaques monastery, and her closing speech in III, iii gives no hint that she plans to follow her husband. Is her later appearance in Florence (where she appears dressed as a pilgrim) a coincidence? This is possible, but given that St. Jaques’ shrine was in Spain, which is west of Rousillon and France, and Florence is to the east of France, it seems more likely that even in her “selfless” departure from Bertram’s family home, the redoubtable Helena is already plotting to regain her lost husband.

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their King. Meanwhile, Helena has returned to Rousillon, where the Countess reads a letter from her son that declares his intention to remain in foreign lands rather than endure his marriage. Helena has also been given a letter, which declares that when she wears his ring (which he never takes off) and bears his child (impossible, since he has not slept with her), he will live as her husband in other words, he will never be a spouse to her. Brokenhearted, she resolves to leave Rousillon, since her presence is keeping Bertram from his home, and seek refuge elsewhere. In Florence, the Duke makes Bertram a general of his horse. In Rousillon, the Countess discovers a letter from Helena, declaring her intention to make a pilgrimage to a monastery. The old woman curses her son’s folly, and orders letters sent immediately to Bertram, in the hopes that he will hurry home. She hopes also that Helena will eventually return as well, and that reconciliation can be effected. Commentary Bertram’s distasteful behavior only grows worse in these scenes. His parting from his new wife is a painful thing to watch, since Helena’s devotion is so naked she raises no objections to his hasty departure, and plaintively asks only for a kiss goodbye and the contempt he offers is so obvious and brutal. “What would you have?” he asks curtly, and she replies uncertainly “something and scarce so much: nothing, indeed. / I would not tell you what I would, my lord. / Faith, yes strangers and foes do sunder and not kiss.” Bertram, taking his cue, treats her like a stranger or a foe, refusing the kiss and urging her to “stay not, but in haste to horse”(II.v.84-88). Even at that she raises no objection, and willingly returns home to Rousillon, where his contemptible letter, with its impossible conditions, waits for her. (Again, as with the curing of the King, the quest to meet impossible conditions has a fairy-tale quality to it.) Indeed, Bertram’s conduct is so despicable that even the Countess declares that “There’s nothing here that is too good for him / But only she, and she deserves a lord / that twenty such rude boys might tend upon / and call her, hourly, mistress” (III.ii.82-85). His own mother, who in the first scene held high hopes for her son, recognizes here that Helena is worth twenty Bertrams.

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and Angelo in “Measure for Measure.”) There are dubious elements involved here, of course, including the bribery of the Widow and the lies that Diana is forced to tell. But, ultimately, as Helena points out, the trick brings about the sexual union of man and wife a good and moral end; for all that her husband believes that he is committing adultery. The audience cannot help being impressed with Helena’s resourcefulness (and her certainty that she will get pregnant after just one sexual encounter!), and glad to see the odious Bertram fooled. Still, the episode leaves a bad taste in the mouth, and contributes to the view of All’s Well as a “dark” play. In other plays, lovers consummate their union joyfully; here, it is done by treachery, with the implication that all men (or at least Bertram) are such lustful creatures that they cannot tell one woman from another. The view of human nature offered here is, to say the least, unpleasant. Meanwhile, even as Bertram takes part in what he believes to be an adulterous affair, Shakespeare begins his (half-hearted) rehabilitation of the “hero.” In a sense, since Bertram must be united with Helen at the play’s end, a scapegoat is needed for his crimes and Parolles, who is certainly a sufficiently unpleasant character, becomes the scapegoat. His exposure as a traitorous coward by the First and Second Lords is a case of Bertram’s good friends triumphing over his bad and hopefully, a step on 40companion the road to making Bertram a better person.

Act IV, scene i-iii

Summary Outside the army’s camp, the First Lord and Second Lord Dumaine wait with a party of their men to capture the unfortunate Parolles. They decide to disguise their voices by speaking nonsense, and pick a soldier whose voice is unfamiliar to their victim to act as “interpreter.” Parolles comes along soon enough, debating with himself how to make it look like he attempted the recovery of the drum without exposing himself to any danger. He considers giving himself a flesh wound, or ripping his clothes, and then wishes aloud that he had one of the enemy’s drums, so he could pretend to have taken it. Then, screaming nonsense words, the group of soldiers falls upon him, binds him and blindfolds him.

The ruse works he believes himself to be captured by the enemy. In the Widow’s house, Bertram pleads with Diana to agree to sleep with him, professing his love for her. After much prodding, she agrees to allow him to come to her bedroom late that night, but she demands the ring of his finger as a token of his love. He reluctantly gives it, telling her that the ring is the emblem of his family; in return, she makes him wear a ring of hers. In fact, the ring Diana gives him comes from Helena it was a gift given to her by the King of France after his recovery. Bertram departs, convinced that he has won a pleasure-filled evening for himself. Back at the camp, the two Lords Dumaine discuss Bertram’s conduct. His mother’s letter, condemning his behavior, has arrived, and so has the false news that Helena has died in a monastery a rumor spread, no doubt, by Helena herself. When Bertram returns from visiting Diana’s bedroom, where he has been successfully duped into sleeping with Helena, the Lords take him to the location where Parolles lies pinioned, and tell him to watch. Then the soldier picked as “interpreter” threatens Parolles with torture unless he tells all the secrets of his army. Parolles, terrified, complies, and then goes on to give extremely unflattering descriptions of Bertram and both of the Lords Dumaine. His bags are searched, and a letter is found addressed to Diana, urging her to sleep with Bertram in return for payment. Finally, they declare that they will kill him anyway, and Parolles, completely undone, weeps and begs for his life. Amid much laughter, the blindfold is removed, and Parolles is left a ruined, friendless man. Nevertheless, he is not entirely discouraged he has lost his position at Bertram’s side, but he accepts the reversal and decides to get on with his life. Commentary The action is these scenes is taken up with unfolding the plots devised earlier the Dumaines’ exposure of Parolles, and Helena’s entrapment of her husband. The latter would seem to offer the greatest opportunity for laughs, but Elizabethan decorum requires that the sex take place off-stage: we must infer the success of Helena’s ruse, since when Bertram returns to camp, he behaves as though his seduction of Diana was a triumph. What we see, in scene ii, is Diana seducing Ber-

tram, as her honeyed words convince him to give up his ring. Her success proves her to be every bit as able a manipulator as Helena, and reconfirms the impression of Bertram as a fool everywhere but on the battlefield. The unmasking of Parolles, meanwhile, is played for deliberate comic

effect, especially in the ludicrous nonsense language that his captors speak ostensibly in order to disguise their voices, but mainly, one imagines, because Shakespeare took pleasure in having his characters speak lines like “Throca movousus, cargo, cargo, cargo. Cargo, cargo, cargo, villianda

Act IV, scene iv-v; Act V, scene i-iii

falls over himself to denounce his former friends to the “enemy” is so baldly self-serving that the audience may agree with the First Lord’s comment, made while Parolles is describing him as dishonest and corrupt “I begin to love him for this”(IV.iii.286). Parolles may be a rogue, but after enduring

Summary The bed-switch has succeeded Helena has taken Diana’s place in Bertram’s arms without him being aware of the deception. Meanwhile, a truce has ended the war, and Bertram, believing his wife to be dead, plans to return to France. Helena thanks the Widow and her daughter profusely for their assistance, and then invites them to accompany her to Marseilles, where the King of France’s court is now located, and where she plans to find her husband and reveal how she has fulfilled his conditions. Meanwhile, in Rousillon, the Countess laments her daughter-in-law’s death to Lafew, who proposes that Bertram be betrothed to his daughter. The Countess assents and the Clown come in to announce that Bertram has returned home. In Marseilles, Helena finds that the King has removed his court to Rousillon, and hurries after him, accompanied by the Widow and Diana. Pa-

rolles has also come to the Countess’ home, as a beggar, and Lafew takes pity on him and gives him a meal. Meanwhile, the King is preparing to announce Bertram’s new engagement to Lafew’s daughter, when he notices a ring on the young Count’s finger that belonged to Helena. Bertram is at a loss to explain how he came by it (not wanting to tell the story of his dalliance with Diana), and falls back on a weak story of having it thrown to him while he was in Florence. No one believes him, and since he gave the ring to Helena himself, the King is furious- -he believes that Bertram stole it from her, and threatens to throw him in prison. Just then, however, Diana is ushered in, and with her mother beside her, tells the story of how Bertram seduced her. Parolles, called as a witness, confirms it. Diana declares that she gave the ring to Bertram, and refuses to say how she came to have it. The King’s anger is now turned on her, but only briefly, since the Widow goes out and returns with Helena, who explains the entire deception, and tells her husband that the conditions have been met she has his ring, and is pregnant with his child. Bertram, repentant, agrees to be a good husband and love Helena. The King promises Diana her choice of husband. Lafew weeps, everyone rejoices, and all ends happily. Commentary Like the bedchamber switch with Diana, Helena’s decision to fake her own death is eminently practical and necessary only with her out of the way will Bertram return to France. But like her exploitation of male lust in Florence, the falsified reports of her demise leave an unpleasant taste in the audience’s collective mouth: her willingness to plunge the people who41 love her the most (the Countess, the King) into deep mourning makes her seem almost ruthless, willing to hurt anyone and do anything in order to gain her prized, unwilling Bertram. Still, she does get the job done, and the characters all converge, somewhat fortuitously, on Rousillon for the happy ending. Or is it a happy ending? Many critics remain unable to reconcile themselves to a finale that asks us to rejoice at a marriage between the worthy Helena and the unpleasant, mediocre Bertram. Certainly, many Shakespearean heroines (choose men who are unworthy of them, but

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four acts of the supposedly “noble” Bertram, a little roguery can be appealing. Indeed, Bertram’s priggish disillusionment with his former friend hardly excites the audience’s sympathies, since Bertram has no one but himself to blame. Everyone else saw through Parolles from the beginning. A true villain, once revealed, must repent or die. But Parolles is strictly a minor rogue, able to easily roll with life’s punches. “If my heart were great,” he remarks at the end, alone and friendless, “’Would burst at this” (IV.iii.345). If his heart was great but it isn’t, he is no tragic hero or impassioned villain, but only a harmless fraud. “Captain I’ll be no more,” Parolles says with a little wistfulness, “But I will eat and drink and sleep as soft / As captain shall . . . There’s place and means for every man alive. / I’ll after them” (IV.iii.346-55). In a sense, his pragmatism makes him Helena’s spiritual brother, at least in ruthless practicality. Neither of them waste time on the inner turmoil characteristic of other Shakespearean characters: Helena loses her love and sets about getting him back me the most pragmatic means available; Parolles loses everything, but instead of bemoaning his fate, he shrugs and moves on, looking for greener pastures.

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par corbo, cargo.” Surrounded by voices intoning these ridiculous syllables, Parolles’ fear is so strong that he almost becomes likable he has no illusions about himself, certainly, and willingly abandons any pretense to honor when his life is threatened. The very eagerness with which Parolles

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no husband) seems as perfectly unsuitable as Bertram. The audience may share the sentiments of Samuel Johnson, who wrote in the 18th century that “I cannot reconcile my heart to Bertram, a man noble without generosity, and young without truth, who marries Helena as a coward and leaves her as a profligate; when she is dead by his unkindness, sneaks home to a second marriage, is accused by a woman he has wronged, defends himself by falsehood, and is dismissed to happiness.” There is an attempt by the play to rehabilitate Bertram, beginning with the work of the two lords Dumaine, who separate him from Parolles, and continuing with Bertram’s professions of contrition to the King and Countess. He claims to remember Helena “admiringly,” and calls her “she whom all men praised and whom myself / since I have lost, have loved”(V.iii.53-54), which seems to suggest a growing maturity and a realization of Helena’s worth. It may be, as some critics have argued, that Bertram has “grown up,” and will make a decent husband. Still, his expressions of regret come when he is convinced that Helena is dead, and it does not take an overly skeptical reader to doubt his sincerity a little, and to interpret his words as attempts to curry favor with the King and make up for his previous bad behavior. Certainly, the argument that he is “growing up” is undermined by his dissembling and denials when the ring and episode with Diana is revealed he 42the remains the selfish, scrambling young lord of the early part of the play. And his reconciliation with Helena is hardly the most loving moment she comments snidely that “when I was like this maid (when she was pretending to be Diana, that is, and making love to him), I found you wondrous kind” (V.iii.309-310), and he seems more flabbergasted than glad to see her. He does promise to “love her dearly, ever, ever, dearly”(V.iii.316), but as Harold Bloom dryly notes, this is one “ever” too many for sincerity. The play ends hastily after Hel-

ena’s appearance, and the last lines are revealing: “All yet seems well,” the King declares, “and if it end so meet, / the bitter past, more welcome is the sweet”(V.iii.333-34). “All yet seems well, and if it end so meet” these are not confident words, and it seems that the King shares the audience’s reservations. Helena holds our sympathy to the end, but her ruthlessness has diminished her appeal, and she shares her happiness with the distasteful Bertram. The most appealing characters remain the King, the Countess, and Lafew, and they are all nearing death: if this is a dark play, then it is dark because it promises a future belonging to manipulative women and mediocre men.

Analysis

All’s Well That Ends Well is often described as a “dark” or “problem” play, distinguished from the earlier, more cheerful comedies by unpleasant characters and a sophisticated bitterness toward human relations, all capped off with a “happy ending” that is nothing of the sort. In part, these criticisms are unfair. The characters in general are a pleasant group, distinguished either by the wisdom of experience (the King of France, Lafew, and the Countess) or by basic decency and good intentions (Diana, the First Lord and Second Lord Dumaine). The only truly unsympathetic figure in the supporting cast is Parolles, who is less a villain than a comically valuefree rogue. The ending, while unsatisfactory to our sensibilities, seems to please the characters, and the play is far from being a tragedy. There are unpleasant themes percolating amid the comedy, however. Specifically, the gloom of decay and old age hangs heavily over the older characters, none of whom seem to have long to live. At the same time, for a play ostensibly concerned with romance, All’s Well takes a harshly cynical view of sexual love. We expect coarse humor from characters like the Clown, who exist to provide smutty comic relief, and cynics like

Parolles, but even the romantic heroine, Helena, indulges in sexual banter, and has a low opinion of male sexual behavior in general. This view is justified, the play suggests, since the successful central deception, the bedroom switch that enables Helena to become pregnant by her husband, Bertram, and thus force him to stay by her side, hinges on the fact that in the dark, all women are alike to men. Just as significant in analyzing the unpleasant effect of the play on the reader/audience are the facts of the central “romance,” if we can call it that. Shakespearean audiences have to accept great women picking men who are unworthy of them (Portia and the fortune-hunter Bassanio in The Merchant of Venice; Hero and the feckless Claudio in Much Ado About Nothing, and many others), but it is extremely difficult to reconcile oneself to a romantic lead as odious as Bertram, who abandons Helena, tries to seduce an innocent woman, and only turns repentant in the play’s final scene. We may be meant to perceive him as salvageable in some way, and to expect that he will mature in marriage, but the play gives us only a few hints of this, preferring to focus on his obvious flaws. The resourceful Helena, meanwhile, loved by everyone (save for Bertram), cuts a far more appealing figure. However, her relentless pursuit of a man who is obviously unworthy of her has the unfortunate effect of diminishing her appeal as the play goes on. Nothing stands in Helena’s way as she determinedly pursues the man she loves, and while we may admire her, by the time she appears to triumphantly show Bertram how he has been tricked, we no longer like her as much as we did and our opinion of her good taste, after so long watching her chase a cad, is all but gone. The final scene demands that we celebrate the triumph of love but it seems less a fairy-tale ending than a cynically contrived close to a cynical comedy, in which true love takes a back seat to manipulation.

Bernard-Marie Koltès 1948–1989 playwright and director

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History

of

film

Film history from 1895 to 1 Part II

m 1906

The first commercial exhibition of film took place on April 14, 1894 at the first Kinetoscope parlor ever built. However, it was clear that Edison originally intended to create a sound film system, which would not gain worldwide recognition until the release of The Jazz Singer in 1927. In 1896 it became clear that more money was to be made by showing motion picture films with a projector to a large audience than exhibiting them in Edison’s Kinetoscope peepshow machines. The Edison Company took up a projector developed by Armat and Jenkins, the “Phantoscope”, which was renamed the Vitascope, and it joined various projecting machines made by other people to show the 480 mm. width films being made by the Edison Company and others in France and England. However, the most successful motion picture company in the United States, with the largest production until 1900, was the American Mutoscope company. This was initially set up to exploit peep-show type movies using designs made by W.K.L. Dickson after he left the Edison Company in 1895. His equipment used 70 mm. wide films, and each frame was printed separately onto paper sheets for insertion into their viewing machine, called the Mutoscope. The image sheets stood out from the periphery of a rotating drum, and flipped into view in succession. Besides the Mutoscope, they

Film exhibition

Initially films were mostly shown as a novelty in special

venues, but the main methods of exhibition quickly became either as an item on the programs of variety theatres, or by travelling showman in tent theatres, which they took around the fairs in country towns. It became the practice for the producing companies to sell prints outright to the exhibitors, at so much per foot, regardless of the subject. Typical prices initially were 15 cents a foot in the United States, and one shilling a foot in Britain. Hand-coloured films, which were being produced of the most popular subjects before 1900, cost 2 to 3 times as much per foot. There were a few producers, such as the American Mutoscope and Biographer Company, which did not sell their films, but exploited them solely with their own exhibition units. The first successful permanent theatre showing nothing but films was “The Nickelodeon”, which was opened in Pittsburgh in 1905. By this date there were finally enough films several minutes long available to fill a program running for at least half an hour, and which could be changed weekly when the local audience became bored with it. Other exhibitors in the United States quickly followed suit, and within a couple of years there were thousands of these nickelodeons in operation. The American situation led to a worldwide boom in the production and exhibition of films from 1906 onwards.

Film technique

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Film business up to 1906

also made a projector called the Biograph, which could project a continuous positive film print made from the same negatives. There were numerous other smaller producers in the United States, and some of them established a long-term presence in the new century. American Vitagraph, one of these minor producers, built studios in Brooklyn, and expanded its operations in 1905. From 1896 there was continuous litigation in the United States over the patents covering the basic mechanisms that made motion pictures possible. In France, the Lumière Company sent cameramen all round the world from 1896 onwards to shoot films, which were exhibited locally by the cameramen, and then sent back to the company factory in Lyon to make prints for sale to whoever wanted them. There were nearly a thousand of these films made up to 1901, nearly all of them actualities. By 1898 Georges Méliès was the largest producer of fiction films in France, and from this point onwards his output was almost entirely films featuring trick effects, which were very successful in all markets. The special popularity of his longer films, which were several minutes long from 1899 onwards (while most other films were still only a minute long), led other makers to start producing longer films. From 1900 Charles Pathé began film production under the Pathé-Frères brand, with Ferdinand Zecca hired to actually make the films. By 1905, Pathé was the largest film company in the world, a position it retained until World War I. Léon Gaumont began film production in 1896, with his production supervised by Alice Guy. In England, Robert W. Paul, James Williamson and G.A. Smith and the other lesser producers were joined by Cecil Hepworth in 1899, and in a few years he was turning out 100 films a year, with his company becoming the largest on the British scene.

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T

he first eleven years of motion pictures show the cinema moving from a novelty to an established large-scale entertainment industry. The films themselves represent a movement from films consisting of one shot, completely made by one person with a few assistants, towards films several minutes long consisting of several shots, which were made by large companies in something like industrial conditions.

The first movie cameras were 45 fastened directly to the head of their tripod or other support, with only the crudest kind of leveling devices provided, in the manner of the still-camera tripod heads of the period. The earliest movie cameras were thus effectively fixed during the course of the shot, and hence the first camera movements were the result of mounting a camera on a moving vehicle. The first known of these was a film shot by a Lumière cameraman from the back platform of a train leaving Jerusalem in 1896, and by 1898 there were a number of films shot from moving trains. Although listed under

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the general heading of “panoramas” in the sales catalogues of the time, those films shot straight forward from in front of a railway engine were usually specifically referred to as “phantom rides”. In 1897, Robert W. Paul had the first real rotating camera head made to put on a tripod, so that he could follow the passing processions of Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee in one uninterrupted shot. This device had the camera mounted on a vertical axis that could be rotated by a worm gear driven by turning a crank handle, and Paul put it on general sale the next year. Shots taken using such a “panning” head were also referred to as ‘panoramas’ in the film catalogues of the first decade of the cinema. The standard pattern for early film studios was provided by the studio which Georges Méliès had built in May 1891. This had a glass roof and three glass walls constructed after the model of large studios for still photography, and it was fitted with thin cotton cloths that could be stretched below the roof to diffuse the direct rays of the sun on sunny days. The soft overall light without real shadows that this arrangement produced, and which also exists naturally on lightly overcast days, was to become the basis for film lighting in film studios for the next decade.

a

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ple. Tragedy These plays often involve death and are designed to cause the reader or viewer to feel sadness. Tragic plays convey all emotions, and have extremely dramatic conflicts. Tragedy was one of the two original play types of Ancient Greece. Historical These plays focus on actual historical events. They can be tragedies or comedies, but are often neither of these. History as a separate genre was popularized by William Shakespeare. Terminology The term “play” can be either a general term, or more specifically refer to a non-musical play. Some47 times the term “straight play” is used in contrast to “musical”, which refers to a play based on music, dance, and songs sung by the play’s characters. For a short play, the term “playlet” is sometimes used.

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atre is traced back to 1000 BC with the Sanskrit drama of ancient Indian theatre. The earliest plays in Chinese theatre also date back to around the same time. Japanese forms of Kabuki, Noh, and Kyogen date back to the 17th century. Other Eastern forms were developed throughout China, Korea, and Southeast Asia. The most popular plays in the medieval Islamic world were passion plays known as ta’ziya, where actors re-enact episodes from Muslim history. In particular, Shia Islamic plays revolved around the shaheed (martyrdom) of Ali’s sons Hasan ibn Ali and Husayn ibn Ali. Live secular plays were known as akhraja, recorded in medieval adab literature, though they were less common than ta’ziya plays. Genres Comedy Comedies are plays which are designed to be humorous. Comedies are often filled with witty remarks, unusual characters, and strange circumstances. Certain comedies are geared toward different age groups. Comedies were one of the two original play types of Ancient Greece, along with tragedies. Farce Generally nonsensical genres of play, farces are often overacted and often involve slapstick humor. Satirical A satire is a play that tends to poke fun at current events or famous peo-

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play is a form of literature written by a playwright, usually consisting of scripted dialogue between characters, intended for theatrical performance rather than reading. There are rare dramatists, notably George Bernard Shaw, who have had little preference whether their plays were performed or read. The term “play” can refer to both the written works of playwrights and to their complete theatrical performance. History The earliest recorded theatrical event dates back to 2000 BC with the passion plays of Ancient Egypt. This story of the god Osiris was performed annually at festivals throughout the civilization, marking the known beginning of a long relationship between theatre and religion. In Western culture, the play originated in Ancient Greece and was popular through Roman times. They began to fade from popularity until the late 16th century, when Shakespeare popularized theatres and plays. His influence on this literary form, and the English language, is still apparent today. Shakespeare may, in fact, have helped introduce the play to England, as before the late 1500s there were no set plays in England, just wandering minstrels performing scenes on request. The history of plays in Eastern the-

History Middle-Eastern theatre

T

Ancient Egyptian theatre

he earliest recorded theatrical event dates back to 2000 BC with the passion plays of Ancient Egypt. This story of the god Osiris was performed annually at festivals throughout the civilization, marking the known beginning of a long relationship between theatre and religion.

Medieval Islamic theatre

The most popular forms of theater in the medieval Islamic world were puppet theatre (which included hand puppets, shadow plays and marionette productions) and live passion plays known as ta’ziya, where actors re-enact episodes from Muslim history. In particular, Shia Islamic plays revolved around the shaheed (martyrdom) of Ali’s sons Hasan ibn Ali and Husayn ibn Ali. Live secular plays were known as akhraja, recorded in medieval adab literature, though they were less common than puppetry and Ta’ziya Theater.

Western theatre history Greek theatre

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The vast majority of Ancient Greek theatrical texts have not survived intact. A small number of works from four Greek playwrights writing during the fifth century B.C. remain fully intact. The above-mentioned playwrights are regarded as the most influential by critics of subsequent eras including Aristotle. The tragic and satyr plays were always performed at the festival (City Dionysia) where they were part of a series of four performances (a “tetralogy”): the first, second and third plays were a dramatic trilogy based on related or unrelated mythological events, and the culminating fourth performance was a satyr play, a play on a lighter note, with enhanced celebratory and dance elements. Performances lasted several hours and were held during daytime. The dramas rarely had more than three actors (all male), who played the different roles using masks. There was a chorus on the stage most of the time which sang songs and sometimes spoke in unison. As far as we know, most dramas were staged just a single time, at the traditional drama contest. Such contests were always held in the context of major religious festivals, most notably those in honor of the god Dionysos, and competed for an honorific prize (such as a tripod and a sum of money) awarded by a panel of judges - usually these were the sacerdotal and civil officers presiding over the particular religious festival. The prize was awarded jointly to the producer, who had financed the staging, and the poet, who was at the same time the author, composer, choreographer and director of the plays. The actors wore large masks, which were very colorful. These masks did not amplify the actor’s voice as has been previously thought. Actors also wore thick, padded clothing, and shoes with thick soles. This made them seem larger, so the audience could see them better when seated in the uppermost rows of the amphitheatre. Roman theatre The theatre of ancient Rome was heavily influenced by the Greek tradition, and as with many other literary genres Roman dramatists tended to adapt and translate from the Greek. For example, Seneca’s Phaedra was based on the Hippolytus of Euripides, and many of the comedies of Plautus and Terence, the most famous Roman comic playwrights, were direct re-elaborations of works by Menander. When comparing and contrasting ancient Roman theatre to that of Greece

of Theater

plays were designed to teach Catholic doctrine, the Protestant Reformation targeted the English Renaissance theatre, in an effort to stamp out allegiance to Rome. Whereas most churches carefully watched over the scripts of their dogmatic plays, in order to ensure that the faithful were being taught the accepted doctrine, by the end of the 1500s Queen Elizabeth I was controlling the stage just as effectively through a system of patronage, licensing, and censorship. Hamlet’s reference to a frenetic performance that “out-Herod Herod” refers to the tradition of presenting King Herod as a bombastic figure, suggesting that Shakespeare expected his audience to be familiar with this particular medieval tradition, long after the religious landscape in England had changed. Puritan opposition to the stage – informed by the arguments of the early Church Fathers who had written screeds against the decadent and violent entertainments of the Romans – argued not only that the stage in general was pagan, but that any play that represented a religious figure was inherently idolatrous. In 1642, at the outbreak of the English Civil War the Protestant authorities banned the performance of all plays within the city limits of London. A sweeping assault against the alleged immoralities of the theatre crushed whatever remained in 49 England of the dramatic tradition.

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became increasingly more agricultural. After several hundred years, towns re-emerged. The Roman Catholic church dominated religion, education and often politics. Theatre was reborn as liturgical dramas performed by priests or church members. Then came vernacular drama spoken in the vulgar tongues (i.e. the language of the people as opposed to Church Latin); this was a more elaborate series of one-act dramas enacted in town squares or other parts of the city. There were three types of vernacular dramas. Mystery or cycle plays, like the York Mystery Plays or Wakefield Cycle were series of short dramas based on the Old Testament and New Testament organized into historical cycles. Miracle plays dealt with the lives of saints. Morality plays taught a lesson through allegorical characters representing virtues or faults. Secular plays in this period existed, but medieval religious drama is most remembered today. Plays were set up in individual scenic units called mansions or in wagon stages which were platforms mounted on wheels used to move scenery. Often providing their own costumes, amateur performers in England were only men, but other countries had female performers. The platform stage allowed for abrupt changes in location which was an unidentified space and not a specific locale. Among the more notable religious plays were “The Summoning of Everyman” (an allegory designed to teach the faithful that acts of Christian charity are necessary for entry into heaven), passion plays (such as the later Oberammergau Passion Play, which is still performed every ten years), and the great cycle plays (massive, festive wagon-mounted processions involving hundreds of actors, and drawing pilgrims, tourists, and entrepreneurs) York Corpus Christi Play Simulator. The morality play and mystery play (as they are known in English) were two distinct genres. Since many of the more theatrically successful medieval religious

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it can easily be said that Roman theatre was less influenced by religion. Also, Roman theatre was more for aesthetic appeal. In Roman theatre war was a more common thing to appear on stage as opposed to the Greek theatre where wars were more commonly spoken about. This was no doubt a reflection of Roman culture and habits. The audience was often loud and rude, rarely applauding the actors, but always shouting insults and booing. Because the audience was so loud, much of the plays were mimed and repetitive. The actors developed a kind of code that would tell the audience about the characters just by looking at them. • A black wig meant the character was a young man. • A gray wig meant the character was an old man. • A red wig meant the character was a slave. • A white robe meant the character was an old man. • A purple robe meant the character was a young man. • A yellow robe meant the character was a woman. (Needed in early Roman theatre, as originally female characters were played by men, however as the Roman theatre progressed, women slaves took the roles of women in plays.) • A yellow tassel meant the character was a god. Plays lasted for two hours, and were usually comedies. Most comedies involved mistaken identity (such as gods disguised as humans). Medieval European theatre In Europe in the courts of kings and noblemen scripted re-enactments of the Arthurian legends and other romances, usually associated with jousting or tournaments, were popular the early 13th century until the middle of the 14th. By the 16th century the practice had developed into staged theatrical events. In the Middle Ages, after the fall of Roman civilization, cities were abandoned, southern and western Europe

Commedia dell’Arte

Commedia dell’Arte troupes performed lively improvisational play lets across Europe for centuries. It originated in Italy in the 1560s, and differed from conventional theatre in that it was neither professional nor open to the public. Commedia dell’Arte required only actors at its heart, no scene and very few props were considered absolutely essential. Plays did not originate from scripts but scenarios, which were loose frameworks of productions providing only the situations, complications, and outcome of the work. The actors improvised

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most dialogue and comedic interludes (called lazzi). The plays were based around a few stock characters, which could be divided into three groups: the lovers, masters, and servants. The lovers had different names and characteristics in most plays and often were the children of the master’s character. The role of master was normally based on one of three stereotypes: Pantalone, an eldery Venetian merchant who wore his pajamas most often; Dottore, Pantalone’s friend or rival, a doctor or lawyer who acted far more intelligent than he really was; and Capitano, who was once a lover’s character, but evolved into a man who bragged about his exploits in love and war, but was often terrifically unskilled in both. He normally carried a sword and wore a cape and feathered headdress. The servant character type (called zanni) had only one recurring role: Arlecchino (also called Harlequin). He was both cunning and ignorant, but an accomplished dancer. He typically carried a wooden stick with a split in the middle so it made a loud noise when striking something. This “weapon” gave us the term “slapstick.” A troupe typically consisted of 13 to 14 members. No women were allowed to act in theater at this time. So there were absolutely no female performers. Most actors were paid by taking a share of the play’s profits roughly equivalent to the size of their role was in its peak from 1575-1650, but even after that time new scenari50os were written and performed. Carlo Goldoni wrote a few scenarios starting in 1734, but since he considered the genre too vulgar, he refined the topics of his own to be more sophisticated. He also wrote several true plays starring Commedia characters. By 1775, however, the genre of Commedia dell’Arte had lost public interest and died out. Improvisation today is very close to the Commedia.

Renaissance theatre

Renaissance theatre derived from several medieval theatre traditions, such as the mystery plays that formed a part of religious festivals in England and other parts of Europe during the middle Ages. The mystery plays were complex retellings of legends based on biblical themes, originally performed in churches but later becoming more linked to the secular celebrations that grew up around religious festivals. Other sources include the

morality plays and the “University drama” that attempted to recreate Greek tragedy. The Italian tradition of Commedia dell’arte as well as the elaborate masques frequently presented at court also contributed to the shaping of public theatre. Companies of players attached to households of leading noblemen and performing seasonally in various locations existed before the reign of Elizabeth I. These became the foundation for the professional players that performed on the Elizabethan stage. The tours of these players gradually replaced the performances of the mystery and morality plays by local players, and a 1572 law eliminated the remaining companies lacking formal patronage by labeling them vagabonds. At court as well, the performance of masques by courtiers and other amateurs, apparently common in the early years of Elizabeth, was replaced by the professional companies with noble patrons, who grew in number and quality during her reign. The City of London authorities were generally hostile to public performances, but its hostility was overmatched by the Queen’s taste for plays and the Privy Council’s support. Theatres sprang up in suburbs, especially in the liberty of Southwark, accessible across the Thames to city dwellers, but beyond the authority’s control. The companies maintained the pretence that their public performances were mere rehearsals for the frequent performances before the Queen, but while the latter did grant prestige, the former were the real source of the income professional players required. Along with the economics of the profession, the character of the drama changed toward the end of the period. Under Elizabeth, the drama was a unified expression as far as social class was concerned: the Court watched the same plays the commoners saw in the public playhouses. With the development of the private theatres, drama became more oriented toward the tastes and values of an upper-class audience. By the later part of the reign of Charles I, few new plays were being written for the public theatres, which sustained themselves on the accumulated works of the previous decades.

Neoclassical theatre

Neoclassicism was the dominant

form of theatre in the eighteenth century. It demanded decorum and rigorous adherence to the classical unities. Neoclassical theatre as well as the time period is characterized by its grandiosity. The costumes and scenery were intricate and elaborate. The acting is characterized by large gestures and melodrama. Theatres of the early 18th century – sexual farces of the Restoration were superseded by politically satirical comedies, 1737 Parliament passed the Stage Licensing Act which introduced state censorship of public performances and limited the number of theatres in London to just two.

Late modern theatre

Late Modern, and especially twentieth century theatre, often continues the project of realism. However, there has also been a great deal of experimental theatre that rejects the conventions of realism and earlier forms. Examples include: Epic theatre, absurdist theatre, and postmodern theatre. Key figures of the century include: Luigi Pirandello, Bertolt Brecht, Antonin Artaud, Konstantin Stanislavski, Harold Pinter, Eugene O’Neill, Samuel Beckett, Dario Fo and Tony Kushner. A number of aesthetic movements emerged in the 20th century, including: • Naturalism • Realism • Dadaism • Expressionism • Surrealism • Absurdism • Postmodernism

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Participate Now!

Mohammed Mustafa Graphic Designer

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Ed say

Inte

What’s dream for Edani A Great Love Story!

Introduce yourself and me about your education occupation.

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Where are you from? Where do live? I am born, living and working in Napoca, Transylvania, Roma Middle-East Europe. I have a Math and Physics H School degree. After trying to what is Physics, I have studied of them at the Babes-Bolyai Un sity in Cluj, but took only for 2 y of study- from 4. I’ve took my ch es and graduate from the Visual Academy “Ioan Andreescu” in Clu Graphic - classical and digital. I work as a packaging graphic signer for a Cosmetics Prod Company for 10 and half years challenging and lives me no tim “do my art” but recently I’ve chan that! Since the summer of 2009, I am an Independent Art Adviser and c tor for a young Art Gallery which come on strong this year.

What’s your art style?

Still searching :) with true curiosit discovering myself. Always humb find expressive and unexpected w of communicating myself to the w

Who is your hero?

dani Cosar ys ... about

erview

o you

Clujania,

Highsee both niveryears hancl Arts uj - in

c-deducer :) Is me to nged

also curah will

ty for ble to ways world.

coal or some brushes and fool around just to keep my mind where my heart is :)

Color also... as a direct, instant emotion expression. Do you prefer to do your works with computer or hand? Hand. I like digital art and I can think a digital work starting with a hand drawing... but I wouldn’t mind forgetting about the “digital ability” and just draw and paint all they long like there was no invention called Computer! :))

Is happening. And I am sad to see that the level of expectations from young artists is lower year after year, judging by the projects! The clients are crucial! And there are more uneducated business people than educated pro bono organizations... I doubt that there is the need for food that push some artist to lower his/hers standards! All along the human history is about the needs that kept some artist in misery, but those whose name we know, ARE the true artists :) So there is no excuse for the society now, yesterday or tomorrow.

steals from smth we have! I find myself beginning a project at the computer, not at my classical sketchbook :( that is not a good sign, because as much as I continue doing that, pencil begins to look like a jet air plain dash board!!! I try to grab the pencils, char-

I have only one thing to say: be yourself :)

The world of art now is mixed by business, in your What’s your ability in your thought this not cause to art? Human figure. Expressive portraits go away from its high and and full human figure. master grade or place?

What do you think about computers? Are they help art and artists or cause artist got away the mind power and stability or hand abili- What do you think about young artists? Present them ties? Anything that makes our life easier something.

Thanks dear Edani for your time. Thank You Ali. My dear patient friend.

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tell n&

What is a hero? Are we not? :) Every man or woman that at one moment choose to “do things different” in “they’re own way” in this world, were and will be my hero!

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with Edani Cosar Romanian Artist

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The Unwanted Child 2009 - 70 x 70 cm, oil on canvas

The Innocent 2009 - 70 x 70 cm, oil on canvas

Never Ending Sunday Afternoon -2006 (Acrylic on canvas, 20 x 30 cm)

Confusion - 2001 (Acrylic on canvas, 50 x 70 cm)

nicola knezevic Designer & Artist

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