Editing Norma (opera) (section)

==Schopenhauer's praise==
[[Arthur Schopenhauer|Schopenhauer]] claimed that tragedy causes the spectator to lose the [[will to live]]. "The horrors on the stage hold up to him the bitterness and worthlessness of life, and so the vanity of all its efforts and endeavors. The effect of this impression must be that he becomes aware, although only in an obscure feeling, that it is better to tear his heart away from life, to turn his willing away from it, not to love the world and life."<ref name=AS>''[[The World as Will and Representation]]'', volume 2, chapter 37</ref> He praised ''Norma'' for its artistic excellence in producing this effect. "…[T]he genuinely tragic effect of the catastrophe, the hero's resignation and spiritual exaltation produced by it, seldom appear so purely motivated and distinctly expressed as in the opera ''Norma'', where it comes in the duet "Qual cor tradisti, qual cor perdesti" [What a heart you betrayed, what a heart you lost]. Here the conversion of the will is clearly indicated by the quietness suddenly introduced into the music. Quite apart from its excellent music, and from the diction that can only be that of a libretto, and considered only according to its motives and to its interior economy, this piece is in general a tragedy of extreme perfection, a true model of the tragic disposition of the motives, of the tragic progress of the action, and of tragic development, together with the effect of these on the frame of mind of the heroes, which surmounts the world. This effect then passes on to the spectator."<ref name=AS />