Hildegard von Bingen: Ordo Virtutum

Before this class I had no idea who Hildegard von Bingen was, nor did I really care.  Now after a brief exposure to her music I find myself fascinated by music and life story.  The video performance that we watched in class was of one of her most famous works:  Ordo Virtutum.  In a nutshell, it is a liturgical drama or a morality play in the plain chant style, with music and text written by Hildegard, rather than based on some already existing chants being used in the church.
Here is the castlist:

Prophets and Patriarchs
Virtues (in order of appearance): Knowledge of God, Humility (Queen of the Virtues), Charity, Fear of God, Obedience, Faith, Hope, Chastity, Innocence, Contempt for the World, Heavenly Love, Discipline, Modesty, Mercy, Victory, Discretion, and Patience
Soul
Devil    

The piece begins with men singing, representing the Patriachs and the Prophets.  Afterwards we hear from the virtues, played by seventeen different women, who reply to the Patriarchs and Prophets.  Soon we are introduced to the main character of the play, the soul.  She begins her journey in a joyful state, and invokes the power of the virtues.  They begin to sing to her - sometimes all together, sometimes one at a time - trying to support her, to lift her up.  Sadly, she does not feel her own worth the way the virtues do, and eventually she is faced with the next character who enters the play, the devil.  Interestingly, the devil is the only one who does not sing his lines, but instead speaks them with the natural rhythm of the words (is he too wicked to even be allowed to sing?).  There follows a show down of sorts between the devil and the virtues and the soul must choose which voice(s) to follow.  In the video we watched, this part was illustrated through the use of a metaphor with clothing.  The soul began her journey in a white robe, but when the devil entered the scene dressed in a black tuxedo, he removed her robe to reveal a black, cocktail dress.  The symbolism of the white robe representing purity, and the black, revealing dress representing the worldy ways of sin was pretty apparent.  After this scene the devil and the soul are out of the picture for awhile as the virtues continue to teach about themselves and what they represent.  Eventually, the soul feels penitence for her bad decisions and turns to the virtues to help her repent of her sins.  She is once again dressed in the white robe (by the virtues), and is brought back into the good graces of God.  The virtues then combine together and bind the devil, freeing the soul and praising God.
   I really enjoyed seeing the video performance, and only wished that we could have seen the whole thing during class.  I found the music to be beautiful and inspiring, even though I could not understand the individual words they were singing.  Having the word-to-word translation helped bring the whole thing to life for me.  When I have time I would like to write my own play of virtues, or some sort of liturgical drama.  Music has the beauty and ability to both teach and inspire us to be better people.  During class, I think many of my fellow students kind of laughed at the scene in which the devil entices the soul to follow the ways of the world, but it wasn't funny to me.  Putting aside religious views, it is clear that in America we have lost our faith in the old fashioned values espoused by Hildegard in this play.  Not many of us think that chastity is an important virtue; not many of us try to be humble, modest, or have charity for each other.  I feel sad when I see the overall lack of moral values in our society, and the devestation it is having on the family unit.  One of my strongest beliefs is that when I do my best to be a good person, and to follow the teachings of Jesus Christ, I feel happier (oops, I just let religion back into it).  I'm not trying to be preachy, only open with my feelings on this subject.  Hildegard did not write her music just for us to study it from a historical perspective.  The Ordo Virtutum is meant to teach us about some of the core values (virtues) that we should attempt to posess.  She lived from 1098 - 1179 but her message is needed more today than it was back then.