What is in Kelvin's Head?

Pagliacci – Scottish Opera ****

28/07/2018

Paisley Opera House (aka a tent on Seedhill Playing Fields in Paisley)

Scottish Opera’s summer show in Paisley is a completely immersive bundle of fun that manages to be innovative and hugely entertaining.

It isn’t difficult to see where the idea of putting this show on in a big tent comes from. Pagliacci (The Clowns) is all about a troop of performing players coming to town. It just happened that this troop had turned up in Paisley and were putting on a show for a local gala day – the Sma’ Shot festivities.

There was a strong sense of local festival as soon as one entered the tent, with a range of sideshows – a magician, fortune teller and a real Punch and Judy show alongside games like Pin The Tail on the Donkey. It was a brave decision on the part of Scottish Opera to have an actual donkey wandering around too, given the recent debacle of the Eugene Onegin’s horse. However, no-one disgraced themselves and a good time was had by all, not least the three people who won the raffle and got to conduct the orchestra in some well-known operatic overtures.

By the time the singing started, it felt as though the show had been going on for some time.

With all the fun of the fair going on all around, the danger was that the singing might not matter that much. Fortunately this was a strong cast and in fact the singing was excellent. Particular praise must go to Ronald Samm for his utterly superb Vesti la guibba that ended the first act. The fact that he was surrounded at close quarters by the audience, who were invited to move about the tent to wherever the action was, didn’t distract him from an astonishing display of heartbroken anguish.

A huge chorus of both amateur and professional singers were mingling with the audience throughout most of the production and it was genuinely thrilling for the singing and the action to break out all around you as you tried, generally unsuccessfully, to work out what might happen next. High points included the entrance procession of the players and the sudden, stunning reveal of the stage (made out of a road-truck) for them to play on in the second half.

It is to the director, Bill Bankes-Jones’s credit that the pitiful tragedy of scorned love was perfectly balanced with the comedy and high jinks of a show that was hell bent on blowing away even the most jaded cynicism. By the end of the evening, what had we witnessed? A fun filled tragedy? A comedy beset by human misery? Both, surely, and more.

One hour 40 minutes is a bit long for a promenade performance, particularly as the audience didn’t move about quite as much as I suspect they were expected to do on what was a very hot July evening. However, the standing about all felt well worth it for a surprise summer hit.

The Orchestra of Scottish Opera were about the only ones who got to sit down all night and, apart from some repeated split notes in the brass section were on generally good form under Stuart Stratford.

All in all it seems like a shame that this show will play for a run of just three performances. It was an enormous effort for a relatively small audience and could easily have sustained a longer run.

The troop of performing players that rolled up into Paisley done good.

Done very good indeed.

Rating:

This review first appeared at Scene Alba:
https://www.facebook.com/scenealba/posts/2091329810937212

Pagliacci, Paisley, review, Scottish Opera

19 responses to “Grace Received: communion on the battlefield”

robert e lewis

19/04/2020

RE “Spiritual Communion”–This prayer has been used in one form or another of late in various instances, including the Easter Sunday service at the National Cathedral.

My Jesus, I believe that you are truly present in the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar. I desire to offer you praise and thanksgiving as I proclaim your resurrection. I love you above all things, and long for you in my soul. Since I cannot receive you in the Sacrament of your Body and Blood, come spiritually into my heart. Cleanse and strengthen me with your grace, Lord Jesus, and let me never be separated from you. May I live in you, and you in me, in this life and in the life to come. Amen .

I detest this prayer. It is smarmy, dorky, and focused on ME ME ME. There must be something better that we can come up with in this unprecedented moment when we cannot gather for Eucharist.

As an alternative I have created this prayer (well, not “created,” but rather pieced together using phrases and motifs from the BCP and A New Zealand Prayer Book), which I offer as a starting point for dicsussion.

it has echoes of the sursum corda and the sanctus
it is WE language (not ME language)
it expresses both our fear and our hope
it points to working together to end our exile.
it includes the key phrase “receive into our hearts by faith”

Lord, the door of your church is locked.

We are not able to gather around your table;
we are not able to share your peace.
We are anxious and afraid.

Nevertheless, we lift up our hearts,
we join with angels and archangels
and all the company of heaven
as we proclaim you holy
and receive you into our hearts by faith.

Strengthen our love for you.
Give us patience and hope,
and help us work together with all your faithful people,
that we may restore health and wholeness to one another
and to all your creation.
Through Christ our Savior, Amen.

Reply
Father Ron Smith

20/04/2020

There will come a time – we are told in a certain Christian hymn: “When Sacraments shall cease” In the meantime, Jesus told his disciples that they were to “Do this to remember me”. In saying that, I’m pretty sure that Jesus meant that we were to gather together (whether in the body, corporately, or – in todays’s situation – possibly over the ether of the Internet – to re-member Him.

Having been given the Spirit of Christ in our Baptism, we are told that the Holy spirit now lives within us. Teilhard de Chardin, when faced with the prospect of celebrating Mass with neither bread not wine to hand, asked God to “be my bread and wine for today”. He believed that he was receving Christ sacramentally in that moment. Knowing that God is much great than our understanding of God, can we not believe that God will feed us sacramentally when our hearts are actually open to receive Him? “I will never leave you” said Jesus. Do we really believe Him in this time of extraordinary need?

Reply
David Wood

20/04/2020

A typically helpful and generous reflection, Kelvin, thank you.

Thanks to you too Robert, for your simple and elegant prayer suggestion, which will hopefully replace that narcissistic rubbish.

Reply
Anne Wyllie

05/05/2020

Thank you Kelvin for your helpful and thought-provoking reflection and questions. As a lay member of the Scottish Episcopal Church, I am following the current guidance from our College of Bishops and making ‘spiritual communion’ instead of partaking of bread and wine whenever I join in an online SEC Eucharistic Service. As a member also of the Church of Scotland, I gladly accept the invitation from Ministers in the Church of Scotland and other churches in the Reformed tradition to set apart a portion of bread and wine in order to receive it during an online Communion Service conducted by such a Minister. Do I feel more nourished by one of these acts of worship rather than the other? Actually, so far, no: I value both traditions and am grateful to belong to both.

Reply
Rev. Lewis G. Walker

05/05/2020

And what exactly is the purpose of an article which is all to do with senseless sensationalism and nothing to do with good an sound Theology?… This is the sort of nonsensical gibberish I expect to find the Sun Newspaper, or the Daily Mail, or the Express… They all make a living out of hysterical spectacle passing as “journalism”!

What is the main objective of an article like this?… I have no idea! Irresponsible scaremongering certainly springs to mind, along with disbelief. What happened to Faith?

This is not a matter of public relations, Earthly Humanism, or marketing. And this is NOT the place, the time or the subject matter for senseless speculation of utmost gravity!

This is the MOST HOLY SACRAMENT OF THE EUCHARIST, the Body and Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ, instituted by Him at the Last Supper, with a simple and straight forward request: DO THIS IN MEMORY OF ME.
For 2020 years Christendom has honoured that promise, through and through, amid endless wars, plagues, sieges, catastrophes in Europe and elsewhere and terrible tragedies such as World Wars 1 and 2, persecutions, and even evil, demonic dictatorships such as the Soviet Union and China.
Despite all that, Our Lord Jesus Christ emerges, always radiant, always loving, always REAL and PRESENT, a magnet of the Christian Faith, the ultimate catalyst of the New and Eternal Covenant, declared at every Holy Mass during the Canon, at the Elevation.

COVID-19 is no different than any other calamity the miserable History of Humanity has landed on our doorstep. And as before in 2020 years of Christian History, Our Lord Jesus Christ shall rise again, because we shall raise HIM again. We shall raise him in churches, and if we are forbidden to do so, we shall raise HIM in the streets, in processions, in Open Air Masses, in the open and in hiding if it needs be. And we shall raise HIM again, in public places and in private homes, in gilded altars and on kitchen tables if it comes to that!

And why?!… Because He promised and so far has never failed us, to fulfil His Mission NEVER TO LEAVE US ALONE, even though He ascended to the Heavens.

So the message for you, and ME, and all others in ALL CHURCHES is simple: Get AWAY from behind the comfort of a screen and a keyboard, put a washed and nicely ironed cassock on, get inside a cotta, grab a stole and get out, celebrate Mass as before. Ring the bells until they drop off the silent towers.

Get organised, invite local brass bands, CELEBRATE the Victory of Resurrection as it should be celebrated. Take the Holy Eucharist in procession from local churches to the Cathedral, stop all the traffic, make a splash, make noise. MAKE A FUSS!

Dying on the Cross for all of us is worth all of that and more, I believe.

Have FAITH! And for goodness sake, blog less, especially when you are bored, it results in train crash articles like this one. Do something else for the Love of God.

Regards.

The Faithful will come, because Love is more powerful than blogs, empty notions, cheap pseudo-debates and all that nonsense.

Reply