The B word, revisited

Renée Flemming (opera singer) is just... divine. Now tell me something I have not heard; she has won Grammies and recorded for The Lord of the Rings soundtrack. Yet being there, at Bellas Artes, watching her all dressed in red and surrounded by a symphonic orchestra made me think how much beauty there was in the way she felt all the songs.

Once my brother told me about a Russian violinist we were watching: 'He is really good', I asked why and he said: 'Can't you see how he feels the music and closes his eyes, how he is passionate about what he's playing?'

So Renée Flemming was beyond 'really good', she made people feel like crying, even (or specially) when she sang something in Czech - a very sentimental tune of Dvorak on God knows what. My friend Alex also thought the song was amazing; needless to say neither of us speaks Czech (well... I can say 'Ahoj!'...). How does the collective art appreciation reach an agreement on what is beautiful?

I went with JB once to this exhibit on pictures taken by a very aesthetic photographer at the morgue; there was one I particularly liked of a lady who died on her sleep and looked as if she were asleep, just that she had the 'Y' of the autopsy across her shoulders and all the way down. You could buy original prints at the Museum and they were priced differently - I found out that the one I liked was exactly the most expensive.

So coming back to my opera evening, the collective agreement on beauty resembled my own. And Mrs Flemming will always be worth to watch as passion transformed in musical notes flowing through the air to the very core of the spectator's soul.