THE STANDARD READER
Weigel, George
The Standard Reader The Wubbulous World of Opera The scathing reviews of the New York City Opera's premiere of Lilith are a sign of just how bad it was: There's so little new opera that reviewers...
...In The Truth of Catholicism he takes up ten theological, moral, and political controversies, explaining Catholicism's position on suffering, salvation, and democracy...
...When Weigel says the "truth of Catholicism," he means to set forth the unity of Catholicism's vision for human life...
...It's not a typical opera in the sense of boy meets girl," Drattell admitted...
...The pews are filled with nominal Catholics who ignore their Church on moral matters, and the streets with lapsed Catholics who ignore everything else as well...
...The book is written in a clean, nonpietistic voice, and it presents what we might call the "Catholic alternative"—the alternative to commercialized, scientized, and sexualized life that makes the symbol of Catholicism loom so large in America...
...Whether one hates it or embraces it, Catholicism is the center of the nation's arguments about abortion, euthanasia, cloning, homosexuality, and nearly every other moral issue...
...Which is the world on which you would want to bet your life...
...The producers might have gotten their first hint of impending doom from Cohen's resume—^which, according to Playbill, includes the theme song for The Wubbulous Wo^ld of Dr...
...Catholicism ought not to matter, and yet, somehow, it does...
...Weigel is best known for his definitive 1999 biography of John Paul II, Witness to Hope (recently issued in an updated paperback edition...
...Which is the more liberated...
...It's all so confusing...
...The Catholic Alternative George Weigel on the Church by J. BOTTUM "When I was young," F.Scott Fitzgerald said, "the boys in my street still thought that Catholics drilled in the cellar every night with the idea of making Pius the Ninth autocrat of this republic...
...Cohen's first opera libretto...
...His account of the pope's theology of the body is particularly fascinating...
...The world of the saints is a world of radical, extravagant self-giving...
...The great unwritten story these days is how America uses Catholicism...
...Still, the story might have worked if the music hadn't consisted mostly of bass and drum rumbles under the vocals, if Eve and Lilith hadn't spent the entire opera in their underwear, if a male dance troupe hadn't swirled around them for two hours dressed as Hasidim, and if the lyrics by David Steven Cohen hadn't consisted of lines like "Wind Water Want...
...We guessed as much...
...Of course, that was back in the good old days, when people still worried that Catholicism would use America to advance its secret, Jesuitical agenda...
...Which is the more human world...
...Composer Deborah Drat-tell explained she was "attracted to women who triumph over the odds"—^which leaves one confused about why she chose Lilith, Adam's first wife according to some mystical Jewish writings...
...But maybe the company should have seen disaster coming...
...Seuss...
...The "Catholic vote" hasn't existed for years...
...The Standard Reader The Wubbulous World of Opera The scathing reviews of the New York City Opera's premiere of Lilith are a sign of just how bad it was: There's so little new opera that reviewers long to praise...
...Lilith is Mr...
...Washing away regret...
...He's had songs performed "by Elaine Stritch, Megan Mullally, Melanie Chartoff, and the Cat in the Hat," and his credits include Pee-Wee's Playhouse, Tiny Tunes, ALF, and Courage the Cowardly Dog...
...Wind Water Want...
...The brave new world is a world of rationally organized self-indulgence," Weigel observes...
...For politicians, commentators, editorial writers—indeed, for most Americans—the Catholic Church performs a massive symbolic function for the United States today...
...To understand what it is about the Catholic Church that lets it be used this way, George Weigel's The Truth of Catholicism is the place to begin...
Vol. 7 • December 2001 • No. 13
