The Enchanted Island

The Enchanted Island
with Placido Domingo as Neptune

Pastiche: a literary, musical or artistic piece consisting wholly or chiefly of motifs or techniques borrowed from one or more sources.

So how could an artistic hodge-podge ever be considered an original work of art? Isn't it just imitation (or plagiarism) to steal music or stories from other artists? Well, back in the pre-copyright days of the Baroque era, it was a common practice to "borrow" music from one opera and fit it with new words for another production.

According to Wiki: The modern concept of plagiarism as immoral and originality as an ideal emerged in Europe only in the 18th century, while in the previous centuries authors and artists were encouraged to "copy the masters as closely as possible" and avoid "unnecessary invention."

"Content scraping" is copying and pasting from websites. Exactly what I did above, and often do on the blog. The line between originality and close imitation still has a nebulous boundary. Right or wrong, copying was once a fundamental part of the artistic process.

I've been thinking about all of this because last Saturday we went to the live Met broadcast of The Enchanted Island. It's a new production that takes arias, music, choruses and dances from various Baroque composers. New words were written for the "borrowed" music and the story line is cobbled together from two Shakespeare plays, The Tempest and Midsummer Night's Dream. It sounds a bit wild, but it was entertaining. The singing, sets and costumes were great, plus the bonus of a performance by the great Placido Domingo. We're sold on these live broadcasts now-- well worth the price of the ticket if the MET offers the program at a movie theater near you.