Page 19 - Unlikely Stories 2

Blind Faith

The entire performance will take place in the dark. The audience will
know itself to be blind, as well. You will communicate that better
than anyone, and no one could question your artistic credentials. It
will be a theatrical first, ultimately an international sensation.”
The writer and the composer sat silently again. The impresario
waited.
“For my part,” said Rodrigo, “it is of no importance whether the
audience has any sense but hearing. Music in general is received by
the human brain as a tonal geography, the associations of which
cannot be within the composer’s control. However, in the case of
dance-drama or opera, where sound is but one element in a narrative
greater than the sum of its parts, music is the servant of that larger
purpose. It might stand alone—that is, work aesthetically—for
listeners having no acquaintance with the visual presentation or the
actors’ reactions expressed through body language; but it is doubtful.
Overtures and incidental music are usually the only orchestral music
from operas that can be tolerated; that which accompanies singing
makes no sense by itself. Were I to compose for a production such as
you describe, my inability to visualize the action would merely be a
handicap; add to that the audience’s deprivation of that context and I
fear my music would lose all subtlety, falling flat by being too timid
or too bold.”
Fluegelmann winced.
“Perhaps I can express the same objection in different terms,” said
Borges. “Let us return to the original framing parable. Humans
cannot grasp all the implications of an event owing to their imperfect
understanding, and the varying impressions among people may lead
to unforeseen, even catastrophic, consequences. That is the
overarching metaphor tying together the six stories. But imposing
blindness on the audience to induce, temporarily and artificially, the
conditions under which Rodrigo and I operate is doomed to failure.
It takes more than an hour or two for the brain to compensate for
visual loss by overdeveloping the other senses. Most people only
recognize superficially what the blind men cannot perceive in the
elephant’s nature. They do not, cannot, comprehend the richness and
complexity of what the sightless are able to distinguish by means of
touch, taste, smell and sound. Thus the sighted will produce an
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