Beethoven and Quasimodo Put Their Heads Together
Zachary WoolfeJune 10, 2012: Variations pose a challenge for a composer: take a theme — a melody, bass line, whatever — and progressively transform it, but never beyond recognition. It’s harder than it sounds to change while staying the same. In a blog post about Bach’s “Goldberg Variations,” the pianist Jeremy Denk writes, “Think very similar thoughts for 79 more minutes, winding around the same basic themes, and then you will have some idea of what it’s like to experience — you might even say survive — the ‘Goldbergs.’ ” You would also have some idea of what it’s like to experience, not to say survive, “The Hunchback Variations,” a cutely but tediously absurdist chamber opera with music by Mark Messing and a libretto by Mickle Maher at 59E59 Theaters.
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