Ever year I have written a blogg devoted to that heart tugging event named after ST. Valentine. Sometimes the blogg is sentimental and warm .Sometimes it is cynical and sometimes it is filled with wisdom from your wise blogger!
This year for many reasons Valentine's day passed me by-nary a Valentine card or chocolate or offering of a devoted heart that promised to love me forever. Quite frankly I didn't even notice the lack of devoted love. Why was that? I think it was because I was too involved in living my busy life. However yesterday was "Opera at the Met" and I was plunged into passion of the heart in a big way which put me into a"Valentine's Day mood and inspired me to finally write my 2017 Valentine blogg.
The opera which was wonderful, was Rusalka-a romantic fairy tale composed by Dvorak. The story is familiar and has been repeated in many versions. The best known is "The Little Mermaid." In this version the little mermaid falls in love with a prince and to become human she has to exchange her lovely tail for legs.The payment for this transformation was to suffer pain in her feet especially when she danced with her handsome prince. Always there is a price to pay.
Rusalka fared worse. Rusalka,a water sprite who took the form of a wave, fell in love with a prince who frequently bathed in her lake.She negotiated with a witch to change her into a human being so she could be with her beloved prince. Her price was to lose the ability to speak- a true metaphor of neurotic love.
Of course the marriage was doomed to fail. To take away the right to speak one's own thoughts is the worst thing to happen to a happy union and it is amazing how often this does happen. One of the temptations when in love is to keep one's own real thoughts to oneself and try to say things that will please the loved one-A sure road to disaster- The other thing is that to block a woman's ability to express herself is a recipe for explosion. And so it was! It is ironic that in both myths the females are willing to give up so much;their home, their talents, their best features -tails and tongues and immortality for love-a tale of caution for all women. This is a dark fairy tale. They both die tragically to the delight of the witch who was a real number.
Always there is a moral-worse luck-to a fairy tale. The moral here was that true love cannot happen unless one is true to oneself and Rusalka really betrayed herself. She did not protect her own self, she was willing to compromise herself and her lover just to experience his embraces.
The Shakespeare saying "to thy own self be true it follows as night the day you can be false to no man" or something like that was the loud message here.
This is not my last word on love or Valentines. Unfortunately I am just starting -there is more to say.
