Lost in a world…
Monday November 26 2007
I’ve spent the past 5 days reading up on Da Ponte and his memoirs, the life and times of Beaumarchais, and Michael Kelly’s Reminiscences and it has all come to a point: a 5 page paper of the relevancy of these three men and Mozart’s Operas. And I only had 3 resources available×about 80 pages total of excerpts from three books.
Of course this didn’t stop me from reading further. I enjoyed going back and reading some of Da Ponte’s memoirs not included in my packet of reading (I found it amusing my professor left out the romantic novel-trashy parts and cut right to the chase) and Beaumarchais’ life during and after the Figaro comedies. But after spending so much time reading each detail carefully, I have all of the information floating around in my head (kind of like when you drop a teaspoon of flaky fishfood in the fish bowl), and it’s not settling down to the bottom.
But there are some amazing conclusions that I can deduce:
- The world was a very small place×It is amazing how all of the important artisans of the time (painters, composers, poets, etc) were centrally located, or floated between just a few locations. Reading about Vienna just brings to mind America’s closest parallel: New York City.
- Personal connections and reputation was far more important than any resume×Coming from Korea where the Confucist mindset particularly values one’s own relationship with those around him/her, I can understand this. Usually jobs in Korea are found through a friend of a friend, or by reputation. Da Ponte was fortunate to have the right friend write him a letter of introduction to Salieri, who introduced him to the Emperor, who took favor on him and basically gave him a prosperous career. I think this kind of hiring is a byproduct of a smaller-populated community. (Korea only has 52 million people total, with Seoul being 13 million. The L.A. metropolitan area is close to that size, but the degree of blood relation is much closer in Korea.)
- One must live life like every day was the last×It’s amazing to hear how pissing of the wrong person could end in professional doom. One single person could destroy your reputation, or spread slander of your name and literally blackball you from an entire city or country. You never knew what one day would bring!
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