The People's House

Considering that one's social graph is not uniformly distributed among the general population, but rather concentrated around a small number of highly-connected nodes, I think it is fairly safe to say that 100% of my readers fall in the lower 99%.  Recent posts on NPR's Deceptive Cadence blog discuss the widespread perception of opera as exclusive to the 1%, the super-rich.  And yet here you've come, my commoners, to where I like to share my thoughts on that very topic.  Responses to the posts ranged from accusations of opera being outdated and out of touch to those blaming Hollywood for the false stereotypes.  Many people pointed to their personally penurious positions and penchants for opera as evidence against the stereotype.  I'll take the argument a step further.  You will find few institutions more egalitarian than the opera house.

Grad School Allegory

Some friends of mine and I recently watched a DVD of a production of the opera, "Dialogues of the Carmelites" (1957) by Francis Poulenc based on the Martyrs of Compiègne.  It's somewhat modernist, being almost completely in recitative with occasional ensembles.  Unfortunately, the DVD forewent subtitles since the production used the English libretto, but can anyone ever understand a soprano in any language?  I understand the libretto is deep and thoughtful ("Dialogues..."), so I'm sorry we missed out on that.  Still, it ends with a most heartbreaking scene.  I could not stop thinking about it, so I looked up a few different productions of that scene on YouTube and decided I liked this one.  Watch it once and tell me it doesn't move you.  Yes, that is the sound of a guillotine that repeats 16 times for these 16 nuns.  Listen to the texture of the music thin down from chorus to quartet, trio, duet, solo.  It's tragic!

And then I realized it works as an allegory for our sad lives as PhD students.  Read on for my translation.  And excuse the sacrilege.  It's just satire.