It's a fair bet most people kidnapped by terrorists would probably be thinking more about the SWAT team than their favorite singer. But Bel Canto is pretty sure that music can do something for us when we're in the direst of straits. It can create a whole new world out of a house taken over by terrorists, it can let people find love for the first time in their lives, and it can change them. And it's not just music: art of any sort can do this. Just ask Fyodorov, the Russian whose entire life was shaped by looking at art as a child (7.96-128). Bel Canto seems to be saying that art, like love, can take human beings to a new level of awareness and intensity.
Questions About Art and Culture
- Why is art so crazy mad powerful in Bel Canto? What about art lets it change people's lives so much?
- Are there things art can't do for the characters in this book? Are there things they want that art just can't give them?
- Do you have to experience art for your life to be changed in Bel Canto? Or is it just one way to be transformed? In other words, if someone would rather play soccer than listen to Puccini, is that person missing out?
- Why is opera the art form that Bel Canto uses to explore the intensity of art most fully? Is there something about all that Viking armor that makes opera perfect for this book?
Chew on This
In Bel Canto, art and love have exactly the same function.
Opera is the perfect art form for this book because it's music at its most intense, and that fits with life at its most intense.