So, I realized that when I posted about Nitrate Hymnal yesterday, I never really talked much about the music. Kind of a dumb thing to overlook for a supposed music chronicle. Granted, along with all the stuff you get in addition to music at an opera, like a narrative, a set, blocking, and acting, in this case there was film too.

With what little, esoteric information I know about opera, I thought Hymnal's score did function remarkably well. There seemed to be themes for each character. Once of the most interesting things I eventually noticed was that when the action returned to the nursing home there was instrumentation like the pinging of heart monitors and a hissing of assisted breathing.

I was struck how much this was like the Czech composer Janacek's obsession with simulating the songs and calls of birds and other animals at least one his operas, The Cunning Little Vixen. Hymnal's overall composition was complex enough that I would want to hear it again by itself and emotional enough that at the narrative point at the end where my eyes flooded with tears, I am sure it was as much the music as the libretto that knocked me emotions off kilter.

But again, I am tempted to talk about the overwhelming reaction from people who called this production amazing. It was a classic opera in many ways; and it's many other derivations were also worn on it's sleeve. After some more thought, I still think Hymnal's most truly amazing quality was in it's libretto and narrative of self discovery. I am going to go out on a limb and commit to this statement. I think very unconsciously, Nitrate Hymnal is the a modern equivalent of the Mozart's Magic Flute. Like Flute was born of late Enlightenment Masonic values and rituals, Hymnal is produced by the local pantheon of old school Punk musicians. But Hymnal doesn't talk make it's point by simply explaining the rituals of Punk. Flute obscures the Masons, without obscuring their goals for society by making the characters be animals and the setting be the forests and so called 'magic' being the motivator. Hymnal likewise makes the setting the modern equivalent of a scary forest, the hospital/nursing home and motivates the action of the narrative by invoking the 'magician' of this century, film. Hymnal's film student narrator who is so sure he has the answers already at the start, learns otherwise by the end is is able to truly start on path of self-discovery.

Whoa, did I just say that the Punk goal for society is pretty much like the Masons? Well, take it or leave it.