Just a little Snape musing...

[valis2]

rickfan37 did her own build-a-snape here and mentioned this really excellent point:

Here’s the Urbane!Snape myth again. I don’t know, and we’re given no clue in canon. I simply don’t believe he’s a closet opera buff and spends his spare time humming along to great arias, or that he can quote Dante or Shakespeare at will.

It really made me think of something new. I've always been a bit apprehensive about fics where Snape quotes Byron and listens to Bach.

I think what really is happening is that giving Snape these "pretentious" hobbies is a way for an inexperienced writer to "shorthand" their characterization of him, because in just a sentence of quoting/playing classical music, they set him up (in their minds) as a certain sort of character, aloof, mysterious, educated, etc. It's a short-cut.

The thing is, the sort of character they're trying to develop is not canon. Snape is a pure-blood, and would most likely know very little, if anything, about the Muggle world (his matchbox comment notwithstanding). And I'm certain that most pure-bloods wouldn't want to involve themselves in any sort of Muggle-world scrutiny.

So authors who attempt this short-cut are really doing canon a disservice, when what they really need to do is discover what would make him an aloof, mysterious, and educated character in Rowling's world.

Just my little musing for the moment.

Comments

[straussmonster.livejournal.com]

there is no alternative opera or "chamber opera"

Actually, there are such things as 'chamber operas'. The most frequently performed is Britten's Turn of the Screw, which has only 11 instrumentalists and was deliberately written for a very small ensemble because of monetary concerns. It's done in mid-sized houses but a lot of the effect is lost. As well, some of the early operas were intended for chamber performance in a courtly context. One might also consider the French division of operas by type, as they were performed in different houses.

Basic argument is sound, though. :)

[pen-and-umbra.livejournal.com]

Really? How fascinating! I mean, I've seen operas done with a minimal orchestra, but those have been scaled-back productions of the usual suspects, not operas specifically written for a small number of instrumentalists. Would you consider it more a modern genre, the experimentations of a few individualists, or a legitimate off-shoot of the big-house opera tradition we know? Any other example operas that would come to mind?

As for Britten... due to being scarred by a Peter Grimes production, I'm actively trying to forget what little I've heard of his stuff. :P

[straussmonster.livejournal.com]

It's a typically 20th century thing, although it covers a lot of ground. For instance, in all honesty, Ariadne auf Naxos is a chamber opera--it's written for a chamber orchestra and was originally intended to be produced along with Moliere's Bourgois Gentilhomme, not in an opera house per se. Strauss is a master of making that little orchestra sound a lot larger than it is, but the thing was never meant for a barn like the Met. Similar thing for Rake's Progress. Some older works, like Pergolesi, are considered similarly, and something like Peri's Dafne is definitely a chamber work.

Turn of the Screw is nifty. Short and tight, a set of variations on a twelve-note theme. Peter Grimes is still better, though. I can live without Billy Budd.