The Hope I Look For in My Everyday Life

I heard this interview my son had with Gidon Saks, on Holden's post.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-XPJb94qpvc

It brought tears to my eyes.  The honesty.  The clarity of understanding who we are are as humans.  It speaks for anyone who has ever felt to be judged by anyone else (all of us have in some way, at some time).

In recognizing the humanity of our fellow beings, we pay ourselves the highest tribute. 
-Thurgood Marshall, (1908-1993)

It shows compassion for anyone marginalized by being who they really are.  Saks has seen years of division of gender and race in his lifetime.

Gidon Saks talks, during the interview, on what he saw happening in the 60s and 70s.  He said he lived through decades of political development and most  people felt difference was the least important thing  and that fact we were more the same was going to make us strong for the future.

He speaks of this production as being about women taking "ownership of oneself". He expresses himself so clearly.  About freedom and equality he says, "...it's in the room and makes the room better."

http://www.operaontap.org/berlin/

I loved his statement of division he saw, in some culture groups he's lived in,  "...what men were allowed to do and what women were permitted to do."

I was struck by Gidon's statement, "If Holden can be so courageous, then we just, we go! We all are going to have to be that open and that playful and that ambiguous, if we choose to be."  He said, "Nothing has to have a clear delineated beginning and an end...the bottom line of it all is humanity."

Ohhhh, how I wish I could be there to see Holden and his co-actors in this production.

I tell him often how inspiring he is to me.  I think when I tell him something like that, he just brushes it over his shoulder, but when when he hears other people personally tell him the same thing, it says it for me too.

http://holdenmadagame.com/gidon-saks-on-gender-in-opera/

At the end of the interview Holden said, "Just for myself I found it very liberating to be in this production, it feels very safe.  Gender-wise. And it feels like, I can only speak for myself, I can express myself and I can express my gender in whatever way I feel is right and is comfortable and not only as a singing-actor but just as a person.  As a human being."

Thank you, Gidon ,and thank you, Holden, for sharing your feelings.  It's the hope I look for in my everyday life .

The earth is the mother of all people, and all people should have equal rights upon it.
–Chief Joseph, ( 1840- 1904)

"Just don’t give up what you’re trying to do. Where there is love and inspiration, I don’t think you can go wrong." 

- Ella Fitzgerald, (1919-1996)