Yesterday we saw the opera "Electra", by Richard Strauss, and it was a bloody opus to the Greek myth world of unbridled passions and unchecked impulses and the craving for revenge. It seems melodramatic, until you see that our human species has not come so very far since. Myranmar, Isis, teen terrorists, men with guns gunning down their families: is it outlandish or a mirror held up to us? The music was gorgeous and the three female singers divine, and even the set lovely to look at. This meshing of the beautiful and the violent is so very prevalent in our own culture that the opera couldn't be more timely. Are we noticing? How violence and our attraction to it are the center of our lives? We wonder how someone can join Isis, yet, in a way, we have all joined the cult of destruction, including many of our politicians. Tear it down! I'm angry, and my life is not going the way I expected, so destroy. I'm afraid of those people, so destroy them.
I hope humankind evolves from this free for all, and the calmer and saner of us prevail, but we won't if we can't look in the mirror.
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