The high alchemical Art, incorporating all other Arts. Drama. Music. Architecture. Dance.
And, of course, love and revenge.
Ven opera (the actual ven word best translates as “The Art that encompasses all other Arts”) is full of spectacle. Jim Steinman meets John Woo. The thunder of the music cracking the plaster in the walls. Actors bursting their throats, their eyes full of rage and tears. Musicians in the pit, playing furious anger and beautific joy. Choirs chanting choruses over and over and over.
There is no word in the ven language for “understatement.”
Like everything else, the ven are obsessed with the proper presentation of opera. So much so that they only recognize six plots as appropriate to the stage. This requires a bit of explanation.
Think for a moment about our own King Arthur. Just saying the name summons images and names. Camelot, Gwenevere, Lancelot, Excallibur, Mordred, Merlin, Morgana, love, loyalty and betrayal. Arthur’s story has been told thousands of times in thousands of different ways, but the key characters and elements remain. And though storytellers have taken liberty with Arthur’s tale, we accept those liberties so long as the truth of the story remains intact and honored.
When Arthur’s story goes too far from what we expect, we feel betrayed. Not an emotion easily explained. An instinct. An understanding. Almost as if we have to protect the story in some way.
So are the ven and their opera.
Only six stories are worthy of the stage. The ven recognize these stories from the character’s names. Just as we would know the plot the moment Hamlet’s name was mentioned. Or Odysseus. Or even James Bond. And while the plot may weave differently, certain key elements remain. Secondary characters come and go, but the lynchpin personnae remain.
Authors and composers work to re-tell these six tales with different voices, using each to communicate a new moral, a new truth. Just as Arthur’s tale can communicate the conflict of true love and duty, so can it tell the conflict of Christian against pagan. So can it tell the tale of Britain’s natives against her invaders. Just a tweak of the pen and a familiar tale delivers a different message.
So are the ven and their opera.
Lesser tales are delegated to playhouses and street theater. But not the opera house. Not that great and sacred place. Six stories. Only six.
But there are only two endings. Two.
A wedding or a funeral.