British composer is writing Karl Marx opera
mainThe bicentennial of the birth of the prophet of Communism is coming up next year so Theater Bonn has commissioned an opera from Jonathan Dove on the home life of Karl Marx in London.
It’s supposed to be a satire.
With a walk-on part for Jeremy Corbyn?
Nudge to the librettist, Charles Hart.
He is getting Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn to sing the lead roles. Boris will be the sugar plum fairy or Bottom character, ha, ha, ha.
Maybe something about high capitalism and the American Rustbelt? Something about the contributions Marx made to Britain’s very humanistic social democracy? Ahem…of course not. I’m not a communist, but Marx made some interesting observations, such as these prescient words from 1848:
“The bourgeoisie cannot exist without constantly revolutionizing the instruments of production, and thereby the relations of production, and with them the whole relations of society. Constant revolutionizing of production, uninterrupted disturbance of all social conditions, everlasting uncertainty and agitation distinguish the bourgeois epoch from all earlier ones. All fixed, fast frozen relations, with their train of ancient and venerable prejudices and opinions, are swept away, all new-formed ones become antiquated before they can ossify. All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses his real condition of life and his relations with his kind.”
Ah yes, the perfect existential theme for a new opera in London, the banking capital of the world…
The ‘marxist’ revolutions in the 20th century were much more disruptive than any other type of revolution could possibly be – see the Soviet Union.
Communism was initially disruptive, then extremely stagnant. Neither ideology justifies the other. We also see that the ravages of unmitigated capitalism creates stagnation, as in the American Rustbelt. Suck it dry, then abandon it. If the Rustbelt revives, the process will be repeated.
And then there’s China’s hybrid system of communism which is burying all competitors and showing many of the typical problems of industrial age capitalism. And now they seem to be transitioning to a post-industrial, high tech economy with the same success. We hear little about this, much less analysis of how its happening, since it contradicts our ruling ideologies.
Ironically, extreme capilalism and extreme socialism meet each other on the point of destroying humanity. It seems to me thatr China is merely picking elements from both in an attempt to combine them, and we know that many inhuman things happen in that society. Obviously, evolution is not as yet finished, and as long as we can comfortably lean backwards in Europe and worry about the World Outside during our afternoon tea and blame immigrants for our inconviences, all is well.
I’d love a cameo appearance of you, Norman. Let the clown come in.
We don’t have communism in Northern Ireland. We have Arlene Foster and her enforcer Dee Stitt, who between them will squeeze the very last farthing out of the Treasury so we can have a ball. Here they are at a recent event.
http://www.irishnews.com/news/2016/10/29/news/arlene-foster-has-no-regrets-over-being-pictured-with-a-uda-commander-760193/
This has already been done years ago by Monty Python.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7MN8aIFpHtI
Hilarious!