Lyric Opera’s Billy Budd is getting extensive coverage from the Chicago Sun Times (11/7), The Chicago Tribune (11/ 11, 11/19) and The New York Times (11/20). The Trib mentioned the opera’s homosexual subtext, as does The NY Times, but only the Sun-Times clearly indicated that the opera is based on a story by the (very probably) gay Herman Melville, with libretto by gay British novelist E.M. Forster, and music by gay composer Benjamin Britten (written with the main role for his partner, Peter Pears). Britten asked Forster to slightly recast the story as a conflict between good and evil rather than an undeniable homosexual story. The all-male cast has a gay Christ-like hero, a gay captain, and a gay master-at-arms, villain Claggart. “Claggart is someone who has never found anywhere to direct his love. Fundamentally homosexual, he lives in a world and at a time when it’s impossible for that to be expressed, and it has perverted his entire nature.”
The Chicago Reader (11/9) had a half-page analysis of why Chicago didn’t land the Gay Games in 2006. The post-mortem says that while the Chicago group fixed several financial flaws evident in the 1998 Amsterdam Games, they had a number of other negatives to fight: 1) seniority—this was the first time Chicago had tried out while it was winner Montreal’s third time; 2) money—the Canadian government offered more; 3) the Canadians and Europeans voted as a bloc probably because it’s cheaper to go to Canada; 4) U.S. immigration won’t let HIV+ folks enter, even on a tourist visa; 5) there were only four cities on the ballot, three of them American (which would screw the voting away from any one city).
Salim Muwakil in the Chicago Tribune (11/19) has a major column on why the war on drugs is such a wasted effort, especially at this time when so many of the federal agencies are being stretched thin by the War on Terrorism. The D.E.A. raid in L.A. last month was directed against those who were growing marijuana for those with severe painful diseases, including AIDS. The DEA’s Chief Asa Hutchinson had already complained of his agency’s workload because of 9/11. The raid was supported by U.S. Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft, who Muwakil points out, “promised during his confirmation hearings to hold his ideological zeal in abeyance and apply the law objectively.
Yes-Even-Though-It’s-A-Children’s-Book-There-Ought-To-Be-A-Gay-Angle” Department: do you think that a review of a biography of Handel from The New York Times (11/18) will mention he was gay? Nah!!
From the Sunday Supplement Magazine, Parade (11/18), how little can be said in an article on Hilary Swank, actress, about the movie she won an Oscar for, Boys Don’t Cry? Answer: you’d have no idea it was about a girl playing a boy and in a semi-gay relationship, but you do get to see Hilary quoted: “Brandon’s life touched me.”
The Chicago Sun-Times (11/11) pairs two book reviews on roughly the same topic but on two different sexes: The topic? The Crotch: A Mind of It’s Own: A Cultural History of the Penis by David M Friedman, is contrasted with The Camera My Mother Gave Me (about the vagina) by Susana Kaysen. Ummm. Might make perfect Xmas gifts for—someone?