Performing the Victorian: John Ruskin and identity in theater, science, and education

terms they resonate thematically with the subject matter of each of the roughly chronological episodes from Ruskin’s life. The result of naming and structuring the creative work after the critical suggests that Matthew Arnold was in this respect right: criticism provides the stream of ideas for artists, quite literally. The opera also dramatizes art as criticism and criticism as art, almost as though the subject matter were Wilde’s “The Critic as Artist,” insinuating that the boundary between the two is meaningless.22 In addition the show implies that opera is structured like architecture23: it is meant to last, to be worthy of sacrifice, to be a monument and a living, inhabitable cathedral of music, meant as much for future generations as for us. In organizing their opera along the Seven Lamps, Lang and Hoelterhoff make a very grand claim. 97 Self and Other on the Millennial Stage Modern Painters, Santa Fe Opera, July 1995.Hans Fahrmeyer, photographer. Ann Panagulias as Effie, François Le Roux as John Ruskin. Weltman_CH4_3rd.qxp 3/2/2007 5:32 PM Page 97