Categories: uncategorized
Date: 19 September 2005 01:35:05
Just popping in to regale you with the tale of the wonderful Sunday I had. I headed down to our nation's capital, Canberra (about a two-and-a-half hour drive from my home), to see Singing Semele in her role as the Soul in Hildegard von Bingen's Ordo Virtutum (The Play of the Virtues).
It was wondrous. All were wondrous. And Semele was absolutely wondrous. The words reach right into the heart of our lives: the soul being led and tempted by the devil to enjoy the world's pleasures. Then the virtues, led by the Queen (Humility), provide weapons and reasoning to help subdue the devil. The virtues triumph and the Soul is rescued, and the devil bound. I found the words speaking to me with a great deal of force: Hildegard certainly knew how to express these concepts.
Semele has a most beautiful voice. Depite suffering from a cold, she sang beautifully and helped transport us all into the midst of this battle. You really do have a wondrous voice Semele. And the virtues had the sweetest sounding voices also: one was truly transported to the heavens. The scenery, although simple, helped also. The play took place in a church, and a large number of candles were present which helped set the ambience. So did the simple white cloaks and adornments. And the simple act of each of the virtues placing a flower on the the soul's discarded white cloak, each representing the putting on a virtue, spoke volumes. As did the soul's return to the virtues, and her placing on her white cloak, adorned with the virtues, over the red velvet dress she had fled to the devil in (and Semele looked wondrous as she consorted with the devil in the red dress!)
These simple additions to the church that helped set the scene reminded me a bit of our church. We rent a hall, and as we enter to set-up it looks like a hall. But after the icons have been put up and the altar has been set up, the hall is transformed, dare I say even made holy, and it becomes a special place. I reflected on this on the way home.
Before the performance, Semele cooked up a wonderful lunch which I enjoyed with her and her boyfriend. A wondrous salad, a scrumptious moussaka, and a divine crème caramel: all made by the talented SV herself. Yum! The afternoon consisted of talking, watching the pilot episode of Six Feet Under and having a cup of wondrous peppermint tea. It was then to dinner at a very nice Vietnamese restaurant with Semele and another friend of hers, and then off to the play.
Thank you Semele for a wonderful day! I'll definitely be back, if not before, on the 9th or 11th of December to see Messiah!
Gosh..I've certainly made up for my lack of blogging with this entry! ;-)
Thank you also to all for your kind comments and prayers. God bless you and those you pray for.