Will Self - Contain Your Self

Can a production ever rupture opera's moneyed bourgeois complacency? Will Self argues that opera cannot be as subversive in the 21st century as it once was.
This event was originally delivered as a live stream on 4 March 2015, focused around Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht's opera Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny. In it the author and Professor of Contemporary Thought at Brunel University argues that Mahagonny, as it stands, cannot hope to be as subversive now as its creators originally intended.
The lecture sees Self in full flow, challenging the very purpose of opera and the organizations that create it. The clip also features internationally acclaimed soprano Angel Blue singing works from Weill and Brecht, including Mahagonny’s now iconic ‘Alabama Song’. In Self’s own words: ‘In the past operas provoked riots - I want my lecture about an opera to provoke one.’

All this attention to the mind,divorced from the body, the mind fails. The mind talks but the body knows. The mind is in the past+present+future all at once. Yet the body has no choice but to be in the present, where change can happen. Not enough emphasis on Body movement that soothes the mind, dancing or lifting weights,body playing with gravity, movement, is better therapy than medication. My experience with Children on medication for mental illness, 2 weeks of my training,no need for medication. Self esteem, confidence, general Health, strategic thinking,all comes from Movement,training Oxygen activity;you were made to move, get moving. The mind made for discovery yet body made for repetition. KNOW THY SELF. Dance to the music remember "life without music is a mistake" ,music is life. "Sing along with me".

[@michaellavin6038]

Great comment, de Hugo. I've read your oeuvre and was mightily impressed.

[@Kobe29261]

There are few entertainments like an educated English man; it appears education sits best on the English!

[@marijnvanbeers-ev7sc]

42:08 Assasination of Gustav Stresemann???

[@Velvet0Starship2013]

"Will Self argues that opera cannot be as subversive in the 21st century as it once was." A startlingly contrarian premise, to be sure.

[@puddingleaf]

Will self might be an inspirational intellectual but he does need to learn to balance his folding glasses on his nose more symmetrically. It's driving me mental. I can't take anything seriously when vocalised by a man who cannot situate his spectacles in a way that is in keeping with his face. The center of mass is all over the place.

[@meechakman]

+Jordan Dolan Let me explain your distractible attention. You need to concentr .. oh look there's a squirrel.

[@Quackalott]

+Abe ndego.... Laughed so hard I nearly spilt my cuppa. Thanks;)

[@N0Numberz]

Shaved Cat, that would create quite a... scene?

[@timothyhill1149]

edgy

[@sullivansongz]

Self looks a bit like Josef Goebbels. Just saying.

[@marijnvanbeers-ev7sc]

Get yourself new glasses!!!😉