Opera in the 20th Century

Turning Off the Lights

2004-12-11T23:30:00.000-05:00

This class has truly been a pleasure for me to organize and teach, thanks to the hard work of this group of students. I will do some final cleaning up and reshuffling of the information we have put together here. After that, we will be shutting down as far as regular contributions to this blog go. Thanks to everyone for reading!

For more current information on opera around the world, go to Ionarts, where there is a list of posts on opera.

December 10: Round Table Discussion

2004-12-11T22:34:00.000-05:00

For our final class, we invited a panel of speakers for a Round Table Discussion on the topic "Opera in the 21st Century: The Business of Opera":

Maurice Saylor, composer, and authority on American opera, and Head of the Catholic University Music Library
Dr. Andrew Simpson, professor of composition and composer of the opera trilogy Oresteia, which had its first opera premiered in a fully staged production at Catholic University in 2003
Dr. Elaine Walter, professor of musicology, former dean of the School of Music, and Founder and General Manager of the Summer Opera Theatre Company here in Washington, D.C.

Professor Simpson began with a presentation of the work he did on the first opera in his Oresteia trilogy, Agamemnon. The idea of setting Aeschylus's Greek tragedies as one-act operas in English translation was suggested to him by his wife, a classicist. Agamemnon was presented first by the Opera Workshop at Catholic University, in 2001. The budget for this production was roughly $3000, and we watched an excerpt of the performance (from the reduced score). After that experience, Professor Simpson went on to spend a year revising and scoring the opera for full orchestra, while on sabbatical leave in Greece, for a fully staged production that premiered in Hartke Theater at Catholic University on April 25, 2003 (see Joseph McLellan's review for the Washington Post). I was happy to learn that you can watch video Webcasts of all three performances of the opera.

For the full premiere, there was a budget of $33,000, and Professor Simpson admitted that he served ultimately an infinite number of roles during the whole process: composer, proofreader (in which Maurice Saylor assisted), grant-writer, score copier, advertiser, fundraiser, educational and preconcert lecturer, auditioner, coach, rehearsal pianist. The second opera in the Oresteia trilogy, The Libation Bearers, was presented by the Catholic University Opera Workshop this past March, and you can also watch that on video Webcast. While that opera works its way toward a full production, Professor Simpson assured us that the third opera, The Furies, is also in progress.

Maurice Saylor mentioned that he has also composed an opera, Express: a bus ride in one act, from 1983. However, he spent more time describing his interest in the two works by Gian Carlo Menotti that were given their American television premieres by the Catholic University School of Music, The Saint of Bleecker Street and The Consul. In fact, as we later discussed, Catholic University took part in four television premieres for NBC. The films appear to have been lost, but Mr. Saylor does have sound recordings of all of them in the Music Library. He also suggested the Museum of Television and Radio, in New York and Los Angeles, as a resource for broadcasts of hard-to-find American operas. For example, at the museum you can watch the broadcast of Menotti's The Labyrinth, an opera that has only and, in fact, can only be produced in the medium of television, since Menotti effectively made it impossible to stage traditionally.

This led to my question later: what has happened to opera on television in the United States? As far as I can determine, there will be a grand total of one opera broadcast on PBS this season (Otto Schenk's Metropolitan Opera production of Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, scheduled for April 3, 2005, at 2 pm). I remember how impressed I was, as an undergraduate student working in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan in the summer of 1990, seeing the telecast of Richard Wagner's Ring cycle from the Met. I still have the set of low-quality videotapes I made that summer. This is not to mention the regular programs like "Hour of Opera" that used to air on NBC, before my time. Why don't we have that anymore? And when will I be able to get the European network Arte from my satellite provider? (Radio broadcasts are great and all, but come on.)

Kevin McCarthy et al., The Performing Arts in a New Era (2001)

Professor Walter approached the topic from her vantage point as an impresario, the general manager of a small opera company. She described a book by William J. Baumol and William G. Bowen, Performing Arts, the Economic Dilemma: A Study of Problems Common to Theater, Opera, Music and Dance (New York: Twentieth Century Fund, 1966), which by and large correctly predicted the trajectory of opera as a business in the latter part of the 20th century. This has been followed by another book by Kevin McCarthy et al., The Performing Arts in a New Era, published by the Rand Corporation in 2001, which predicted—prior to the September 11 attacks, which have further devastated opera's funding base in the United States—that the wealthiest opera companies and the smallest-budget companies would probably survive but that most of the companies in between those extremes were likely to fail. This prediction appears to be coming true, according to data collected by the Opera America organization, she concluded, which shows that most opera companies are surviving only by running on deficit spending, paying off this year's bills by loans against what they expect to make the following season.

All in all, this was a lively and convivial discussion, followed by wonderful food prepared by the students. Thanks to everyone who was involved!

L’enfant et les Sortilèges by Maurice Ravel

2004-12-10T04:11:00.000-05:00

Ravel wrote two operas, the first, described as a comédie-musicale, L'heure espagnole (The Spanish Clock) and the second, with a libretto by Colette, the imaginative L'enfant et les sortilèges (The Child and the Enchantments), in which the naughty child is punished when furniture and animals assume personalities of their own. This opera gave a new edge to his music on bitonality and jazz elements. The opera is Ravel’s tribute to his beloved mother, and also resembles the rebellious Enfant of Colette’s Walt Disneyish.
The opera is one act with fantaisie lyrique, a libretto by Colette. The premiere was Monte Carlo, 21 March 1925. After the successful premiere, the opera was first given in Paris by the opera-Comique in 1926. The performances followed in Brussels ten days later in Prague and Leipzig, Viena, in San Francisco in 1930 and also in London. But it was not seen at the Metropoitan until in 1981, when it was conducted by Ravel’s friend and pupil, Maunel Rosenthal.
People criticized Ravel’s music is artificial. So Ravel said, “Does it not occur to these people that I may be artificial by Nature?” Ravel summons up in the opera all the arifices of his transcendent technique to reach both Nature and what is most natural in our childhood selves. Ravel told his friend Hélène Jourdan-Morhange that this opera contained everything: Massenet, Puccini, Monteverdi and American musical comedy.

Synopsis

setting a low-ceilinged room in a typical Normandy country house, and the garden. The naughty child is six or seven and his lesson was bored to him. He wants to be haughty out of sheer boredom. His mother looks in to see how he has been working, but he puts his tongue out at her. For this he must have dry bread and no sugar in his tea, and must stay on his own till supper time. Left alone, the child begins his mischief: with cries of joy, he smashes the teapot and cup, tears up his books, pokes the caged squirrel with his pen, pulls the cat’s tail, upsets the kettle on the fire, slashes the wallpaper, and pulling out the pendulum of the grandfather clock. Gazing with satisfaction on the havoc he has wrought, kicking his mathematics primer on the floor, with exhausted, he finally his retired his tormentors, then he drops into the armchair, but wonder of wonders the furniture comes to life. The armchair walks off and dances a sarabande with a bergere. The clock comes forward, unable to stop chiming an thoroughly indisposed. The Wedgwood teapot and china cup dance a fox-trot to appropriate words in English and what may pass for Chinese. The child shivers with fear and loneliness, but even the fire will have nothing to do with him, and expresses her anger in a florid aria “Get Back” it sings, “I warm the good but I burn the bad.” The rebukes of fire and ashes an succeeded by the modal laments of the pastoral figure of the wall paper he has slashed. They are followed by the princess of the fair-tales he has torn, who must leave him for ever. The child sing to her in his desolation, but she disappears. Her place is taken by a little old man, Arithmatic himself, surrounded by his class of Digits. Their crescendo is maddening and the child drops down in a daze. The cat jumps to the window ledge to sing a duet with his lady love in cat-language, during which the child finds himself transported to the moonlit garden. But even there the trees and small creatures-dragonflies, moths, bats and squirrels-conspire against the child who has ill-treated them. They turn to attack him. In his fear and loneliness, he cried “Maman!” In the general confusion a small squirrel is hurt and the repentant

Maurice Ravel's life and works

2004-12-10T03:59:00.000-05:00

He was born. in the Pyrenees March 7 1875. French composer. His family went to Paris when he was three months old. He entered the Paris Conservatory in 1889,and left in 1895.where he was later a student of Fauré. Ravel became a leading exponent of impressionism. Along with Debussy, with whom he had an affinity of style. He suffered for years from being labeled a follower of Debussy. Because Ravel was a passionate admirer of Pélleas et Mélisande.he led French music away from Wagnerian romanticism.

In 1915, Ravel enlisted in the French army as a truck driver, but was invalided out after 18 months. Two years later, his mother died and many of his friends felt that this was a blow from which he never recovered. For the last twenty years of his life, he lived a solitary existence, broken by visits from friends, concerts in Paris and foreign tours. As a result, he composed more slowly than ever and for his second opera, L’enfant et les sortilèges, took five years from 1920-25 to compose an hour’s music. In 1927, at the age of 52. he began to show signs of a brain illness, Alzheimer's disease or the budding tumor. Shortly after completing the two piano concertos in 1931 and for the last four years of his life, he was unable to compose. Not even sketches remain of his last operatic project, a setting of Delteil’s Jeanne d’Arc, in which he intended to ‘bring out Jeanne’s peasant simplicity and her brutal, warlike side.’ Finally, the brain tumor killed Ravel during brain surgery in Paris on December 28 1937.

His works:
He composed highly original, fluid music within the outlines of classical forms. Ravel excelled at piano composition and orchestration, often scoring his own piano pieces and works by other composers. Among his piano compositions are Pavane pour une infante dunte (1899), Jeux d'eau (1901), Gaspard de la nuit (1908), Valses nobles et sentimentales (1911), Le Tombeau de Couperin (1917), and Concerto in D Major, for left hand (1931). His orchestral works include Rhapsodie Espagnole (1908) and Bolero (1928); he is also known for his orchestration of Modest Moussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition (1922). Other works are the song cycle Shazade (1903), the chamber piece Tzigane, and ballets such as Daphnis et Chloé(1912), Ma Me l'Oye (1912), and La Valse (1920).

Olivier Messiaen's St. Francis of Assisi

2004-12-03T11:05:00.000-05:00

St. Francis of Assisi by Messiaen

Messiaen was first and formost a compser, but he was also a brillant organist and pianist a broadly educated and perceptive theorist, and a popular teacher. His pupils include some of the most famous names of European modernism, including Boulez, Stockhausen, Xenakis, and Kurtag.
Messiaen was born in Avignon, the son of Cecile Sauvage, the opet, and Pierre Messiaen, a translator of Shakespeare. From 1919 to 1931 he studied the organ (under Marcel Dupre) and compostion (under Paul Dukas) at the Paris Conservatire, where he himself worked from 1942 as professor of aesthetics, theory, and analysis. In 1955 a course in musical philosophy was established for him.
He was the organist at La Trinite in Paris from 1931. Messiaen created a kind of music that was as indebted to Gregorian chant as it was to the sounds of created the Javanese gamelan, that combines the meter of Greek verse with the sacles of Indian ragas, and that connects Debussy's and Skryabin's layerings of fourths and fifths with the principles of serial music and with bird songs from around the world. The foundation for all these components is a cosmogony fed by the mysticism of eastern Asia and European Catholicism.
Messiaen presented his aesthetics in a tract published in 1944, Techniques of My Musical Language. One of the high points of his career, and a key work of the epoch as a whole. was his Turangalila Symphony, commissioned by the Russian-American conductorSergey Kussevitzky for the Boston Symphony Orchestra. His opera Saint Francois d'Assise (St. Francis of Assisi) was also enormously influential. In it he put an end to the western distinction between the sacred and the profane, restoring to opera its ancient, cultic dimension.

A key operatic work

Messiaen was one of the most influential and unusual representatives of French music in the 20th century. His ethically and religiously motivated approach is evident in his work. Rolf Liebermann's suggestion of writing an opera for Paris came as a surprise to Messiaen, and he at first rejected it. Later he recognized the opportunity it repersented, and he worked on the opera between 1975 and 1983.
The premiere at the opera (under Seiji Ozawa) was considered by the composer to have been true to his intentions. However, with a performance time of 4 hours and 15 minutes, a huge orchestra (120 payers), and a chorus of 150 voices, and includes large woodwind and tuned-percussion sections as well as three ondes martenot, all providing resources for the vivid amplified birdsongs that underline and punctuate the score.
It has became customary to perform individual scenes, as in Salzburg in 1985 with Dietrich Fisher-Dieskau. There was a concert performance of the entire work at the Opera Lyon in 1988, with the Opera Lyon in 1988, with the London Philharmonic Orchestra under Kent Nagano, before Peter Sellar's production was performed to great acclaim at the Salzburg Festival in 1992.
St. Francis of Assis is no piece of secret or Catholic: it is an artwork in which the apperance of the Divine is articulated-under the most trying of circumstanced and with the utmost integrity-as an expression of freedom, joy, and fearlessness.
Messiaen's music, with its fluctuation rhythm, and chromatically dazzing harmonies, achieves the simultaneous expression of the tangible and the comlex. At the center of the opera is the scene in which St. Francis preches to birds. Accorging to Messiaenbirds proclaim God's love and love for God. With their help it is possible to approach divine truth, proceeding step by step through a natural world that is always accessible to our senses.

Synopsis

Opera in three acts and eight scenes

Libretto by Olivier Messiaen

Premier: 29 November 1983, Paris

The composition of the opera occupied Messiaen from 1975 to 1983. it came to surround many of techniques he had evolved since the beginning of his creative life.

Act 1: Francis is traveling with one of his monks, Brother Leo, and teaching him the meaning of 'perfect joy', which in a long monologue he says is to be found in the acceptance of suffering while thinking of the crucified Christ.

Then Francis and his community are discovered at prayer, and the saint sings verses from his Lodi delle creature.

Finally he meets a leper in great physical and spiritual distress. He tries to teach him acceptance, but he is rejected, until an Angel appeares and sings that God is love. francis, realixing that he has not loved the leper sufficiently, embraces him and bring about a miraculous cure. After Francis can learn patience and penitence. The act ends with a choral epilogue.

Act 2: The Angel returns to knock emphatically at the monastery door and question the monks about predestination. One responds angrily; another gives answer, and the Angel leaves.

He appears, to Francis, who is ar prayer. On his viol he plays a celestial melody at which Francis faints. Three brother come to find him, and he awakens, saying that if the music had continued longer his soul would have parted from his body.

He is with Brother Lasseo, identifying the birds, to whom he preaches, praising their gifts of flight, of freedom, and of being able to sing wordless music, like the angels. He blesses them, and after a moment of silence there begins a great bird concert, with different instruments and ensembles playing different songs out of synchrony. The birds then fly off, making a great cross in the sky.

Act 3: it is at night, and the orchestral becomes somber, falling to owl calls and severe 12-note patterns. Francis prays that before his death he may feel in his body and heart the anguish of the crucified Christ, and the chorus responds with Christ's words of acceptance of his sacrifice.

Francis bids farewell to the birds, to the city and to the community. He hears the nightingale singing in the darkness, which suddenly become light with the appearence once more of the Angel and the leper, both come to assist him at his death. He prays for the blinding light of divine illumination, and he dies. Brother Leo remarks on the silence of his going, and the monks depart, taking the saint's body. The opera ends fortissimo with a huge choral of resurrection sung and played.

Alfredo Scnittke's "Life with an Idiot"

2004-12-03T10:15:00.000-05:00

Life with an Ldiot by Alfredo Scnittke

The Text and its author

Vicot Erfeyev, born in Moscow in 1947, has emerged with startling suddenness from the shadow of Soviet literature.
In 1979 he and a number of other young writers conceived the idea of a yearbook, entiled Metropol, which they intended as a forum for uncensored literature. The resul was instant dismissal from his opst and expulsion from the Russian Writers' Union, so that he was able to publish only few of his schlarly writings on literature until 1989. His novel Russian Beauty, which had been written in 1980-82, and an anthology of shoet stories from the 1980's were both published in 1990 and brought him immediate international acclaim. Bothe voulumes have sussequently been translated into tewnty languages.
His short story, Life with an Idiot, was written in 1980 and predates Russian Beauty. It remained unpublished and unpublishable at the time with Frofeyev languishing in obscurity, few people in Russia suspected the literary critic's literary important at this period.
In 1982 he began to read his stories to a circle of close friends. When Gorachev came to power in 1985, Erofeyev was finally allowed to give public readings of his writings in libraries and clubs. One of these readings was attended the potential of Life with an Idiot as the basis for an opera libretto.
Erofeyev's highly original story, with its complex cross-cutting techniques, narrative intrusions, filmic approach to its subject and sudden shifts of perspective, tells of a married couple who, as an absurd punishment, have to accept an idiot inot their lives. Their choice falls on one Vova (Lenin;s nickname), who undermaines and deatroys their lives and , as a result of bestial sexual and murderous practices, finally drives them to madness and death.
While Frofeyev was turing his short story into a libretto and Schnittke was starting his sketches for the opera, he persuaded the brilliant head of the Moscow Chamber Theater, Boris Pokrovsky, to produce the finished work.
In Life with an Idiot we are in fact looking for a new culuture not by changing people but by creating conditions will allow Russian people to lead normal lives once again and became normal pepole from a social opint of view. It;s a mixture of tragedy and comedy. As a result of absurd policies and a bad social system we've lost all feeling for reality in Russia. We don't know where reality begins and where it ends. The idiot is our reality.

The Compoer and his opera

Alfred Schnittke had known Erfeyev for many years and was familiar with a number of the writer's works. Both lived in Moscow, both found their careers impended on the grounds that they were dissidents. Schnittke was pervented from travelling and from having his performed and had difficulty obtaining and publishing music.
Schnittke has now come to be regarded as one of the great musical figures of the late 20th century. This position of per-eminence he owes above all to a compositional method notable for its polystlistic approach, with a wide-ranging use of past and present styles are combined in a whole variety of different ways.
It is clear from Schnittke's origins that several culture groups overlap in his thinking and character ("I feel myself to be German, Russian, and Jewish, I can see my religious beliefs as Catholic, Jewish or Orthodox").
He was born in 1934 in the central Russian town of Engels. His mother was a journalist of Russian extraction who had been born in Frankfrut am Lain. No one in the family had shown musical talent and his own interest did not develop until 1946. Soon after he srarted taking piano lessons. In 1948 the family moved to Moscow, where Schmittke ttrained as chorus master.
In 1962, Schnittke was appointed instructor in instrumentation at the Moscow Conservatory, a post which held until 1972. Thereafter he supported himself chiefly as a composer of film scores; by 1984 he had scored more than 60 filmes.
His two new operas, Gesualdo, and Historia von D. Johann Fausten were unveiled in Vienna (MAy 1995) and Hamburg (June 1995) respectively.
It was around 1985 that Schnittke heard Erofeyev read his story in Moscow and told friends of its suitablility as the basis for an opera, although years were to pass before the idea had fully matured and demanded realization. He began with the vocal score, which occupied him during the winter 1990/91. On completing the short score in the early summer of 1991, Schnittke began work on writing out the full score. He had almost finished the first act when he suffered a second severe stroke, which pervented him from working for three months. Miraculously he was able to begin work on the second act in early October. His son Andrey and the composer Wolfgang Nicklaus worked on the piano reduction. Singers were from in Moscow, New York, Cologne and Rotterdam, as well as the conductor was from in Paris and the producer in Moscow. The hard work paid off and the opera received its first performance in Amsterdam on April 13, 1992.
Schnittke spoke about his opera in public two days before the permiere; "I've been writing music for more than forty years, but I'd always dreamt of doing so. The fact that this opera has now come to fruition is source of immense joy for me. It marks a new srage in my life, a stage which is full of new plans and new challenges."

Daniel Catán's "Florencia en el Amazonas" (1996)

2004-12-02T13:29:00.000-05:00

Daniel Catán, Composer
(Biography e-mailed to me by his agent)

Although Mexican-American composer, Daniel Catán, has composed in a number of genres, he is particularly known for the intricate beauty of his operas. Sung in an elegant Spanish, his operas are rich with long-spun, mellifluous melodies supported by delicately luscious harmonies and dramatic orchestration. Catán is a master storyteller, capturing the poetic ideas of the text in the music. His works embody a kind of traditional originality,' one that embraces all operatic traditions from Monteverdi to Alban Berg but at the same time refreshingly contemporary and highly individual.

Daniel Catán has recently finished his third opera, Salsipuedes, for Houston Grand Opera.

With the San Diego Opera's American premiere in 1994 of his second opera Rappaccini's
Daughter, based on Octavio Paz's retelling of the Nathaniel Hawthorne story, Catán became the first Mexican composer to have an opera produced in the United States. Gabriel Garcia Márquez, the Nobel Prize winner for Literature, who was in attendance at the world premiere of Rappaccini's Daughter in 1991, offered to work with the composer on his next opera. That was the beginning of a collaboration with Marcela Fuentes-Berain, who Márquez suggested as a librettist for Florencia en el Amazonas, an opera inspired by Márquez's writing. Florencia has
been since produced in Seattle, Los Angeles, and Bogotá, and was revived by the Houston Grand Opera (the original commissioner) in early 2001. In Catán's words, "I set out to write beautiful music for a story of the journey to transcendent love; it concerns all of us who have lived love with all its intricacies, subtleties, wretchedness, and glorious happiness." Critical reaction has confirmed the success of Catán's intentions, with such comments as: "Bewitching;" "A landmark;" "Its
voluptuousness seems as honest as it is beautifully crafted;" "Hypnotic;" "In a word, beautiful"--all coming from the press.

Catán has also written works for orchestra, chamber ensemble, and film (Bruce Wagner's "I'm Losing You"). En Un Doblez Del Tiempo (A Fold in Time) had its premiere in 1982 by the Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional (led by Sergio Cárdenas); it was later recorded by the Mexico City Philharmonic with Eduardo DiazmuZoz (FCM Vol. 3 CD SDX 21232). Catán's chamber piece Encantamiento, a haunting work for 2 recorders (also for varying combinations of either treble or bass instruments) has been performed worldwide by soloist Horacio Franco.

Born in Mexico City in 1949, Catán studied philosophy and music at University of Sussex and Southampton and received graduate degrees from Princeton University.
Returning to Mexico City, he took the post of music administrator at the Palace of Fine Arts, where he became more deeply related to singing and opera and the whole magical world of the stage. The 1998 recipient of Hispanics for Los Angeles Opera's Plácido Domingo Award now resides in Los Angeles.

In the hands of Daniel Catán opera becomes the first of the arts. The French painter Eugene Delacroix defined great art "ingenious artifice that expresses or pleases. Daniel Catán's Florencia en el Amazonas is the embodiment of that definition.

Considered a work of great beauty and power, Daniel Catán's Florencia en el Amazonasis the composer's second opera. Loosely inspired by Gabriel García Márquez's Love in the Time of Cholera, the opera follows the story of Florencia Grimaldi, an aging opera singer who embarks upon a steamboat journey down the Amazon River. As the journey progresses, the boatis beset by pink rain, foul waters, and the threat of a cholera epidemic. As Florencia and her fellow travelers are carried deeper into the jungle, they experience various revelations, until
finally the diva's spirit is transformed into a vast, emerald butterfly.

In many ways, Florencia is a culmination of Catán's previous work -- an early piece for soprano and orchestra, Mariposa de obsidiana ("Obsidian Butterfly") was based on a poem by Octavio Paz, and his first opera, La hija de Rappaccini, was inspired by another tale of a magically transformed beauty, Hawthorne's "Rappaccini's Daughter" as retold by Paz. First produced in the United States by the San Diego Opera, La hija de Rappaccini was critically acclaimed, and brought Catán to the attention of the Houston Grand Opera in 1994. (It also
brought him to the attention of Gabriel García Márquez, who had seen the work's premiere in Mexico City, and expressed interest in working with the composer.) Looking to commission a Spanish-language work to reflect the city's increasingly Latin character, HGO director David Gockley, in cooperation with opera houses in LA, Seattle, and Bogotá, asked Catán to produce a new work, an opera that celebrated the "artistic, musical, literary, and visual aspects of Latin America" as well as being "the most beautiful opera in the last fifty years."

Given this marvelous opportunity (and not to mention somewhat daunting challenge),
Catán turned to the works of Gabriel García Márquez for inspiration. Failing to find one isolated story that suited his needs, he decided to borrow a few themes from Gabo's work in general, with an emphasis on Love in the Time of Cholera. Gabriel García Márquez agreed to the project, given the condition that the libretto be penned by his protégé and filmscript collaborator,Marcela Fuentes-Berain. Using a river-voyage down the Amazon as their setting, Catán and Fuentes-Berain plunged deep into the lush world of "magical realism" and crafted a story about love, redemption and transfiguration. The opera premiered in Houston on October 25, 1996 to wide acclaim, and then made its way to the LA Opera, the Seattle Opera, and the Bogatá Opera.

It proved to be so popular that the Houston Opera has kept it in its repertory, where it was revived to popular acclaim in the Spring 2001 season.

Florencia possesses the artful beauty of traditional opera; a form that, at its best, values grace, craftsmanship, and lyricism over the sugar-high of instant gratification. Comparisons with late Puccini are inevitable and certainly apt, but much of Catán's score touches upon the flowing Impressionism of Debussy and the vibrant colors of Ravel as well. It also contains some engaging touches quite compelling to the modern ear -- frequent marimbas add a slightly exotic flavor, and the percussion section underscores the music with intriguing Latin rhythms. Catán
scores the opera for a relatively small orchestra, which adds a sense of precision and punch -- the strings never dominate, and each instrument is clearly articulated. The music simply shimmers,occasionally opening up into an expanse of surging sound, floating the vocals aloft on an iridescent wave of color.

Happily, Catán's vocal writing is well-matched to his orchestral fluency. Catán is a
believer in old-school lyricism, and it comes as a delight to hear a work that takes pure,unadulterated pleasure in a flowing, beautiful line. A few critics have questioned whether Catán has really broken any new ground; but in a world where the definition of opera itself has been stretched to include such otherwise praiseworthy pieces as Einstein on the Beach, The Cave, and Jackie O, it comes as a relief to know that someone can still write something that Doctor Juvenal Urbino himself would find immensely satisfying. (Dr. Juvenal Urbino is always
reminded of "the fate of unrequited love" when he smells bitter almonds–he’s a character in Love in the Time of Cholera.) Arioso blooms to aria with an unaffected grace and not a line feels clumsy or out of place. Still, while Florencia's lyricism might represent a welcome return to the Italian mode, there's really no single moment that particularly stands out. But again, compared to the vibrant tapestry of the whole, this comes as only a minor quibble. Florencia is a wonderful work, one that deserves to find its voice through numerous productions.

Its subject matter, too, is worth a few words of praise: it is a delight to see a modern opera so full of innocence and wonder; and if the soprano has to die in the end, then what's wrong with transforming into a giant butterfly? Florencia en el Amazonas stands as a hopeful reminder thatlove, faith, and beauty can be liberating powers in a world all too trapped in its own cynicism and irony.

Synopsis
The action takes place sat the port of Leticia, Colombia and then on the riverboat El Dorado.

Act I
Riolobo, a character who can assume various forms, announces that the El Dorado is
setting off down the Amazon for the opera house in Manaus where the legendary diva Florencia Grimaldi, who has not set foot in her native South America for twenty years, will give a concert. Florencia arrives on the dock incognito to make the river journey. Her motive for this trip is to search for her long-lost lover, Cristóbal Ribeiro da Silva. Twenty years ago, they parted on the river when he went in search of the world's rarest butterfly, the Emerald Muse, and Florencia set
out to pursue her life as an opera diva in Europe. Among the other travelers are the ship's Captain, his nephew Arcadio, the young journalist Rosalba, who is working on a biography about the famous singer, and Paula and Alvaro, a middle-aged couple journeying to hear Grimaldi in hopes of rekindling their marriage.

At dawn as the ship leaves behind the busy port, Florencia reflects on her history and her motives for making the trip. Arcadio and Rosalba grow closer as they exchange confidences. Alvaro and Paula attempt to dine on deck, but exchange only bitter words. Later a card game takes place between the two couples that underlines their differences. Florencia passes a sleepless night and then learns from the Captain that the butterfly hunter has not been seen for many years. Suddenly a storm of pink rain develops. Riolobo calls upon the gods of the river; theinjured Captain calls for help. Alvaro falls overboard as Arcadio takes the helm, and the ship
runs a ground.

Act II
In the quiet after the storm Florencia awakens, wondering whether she is alive or dead. Arcadio and Rosalba rejoice to find they have survived the storm. Paula sees Alvaro's body and laments his death. Suddenly, he awakens and the passengers resume their journey to Manaus.
Florencia and Rosalba argue over the source of the opera singer's talents. Florencia argues so persuasively that the writer realizes the woman standing before her is the diva herself. It is the first of other epiphanies.

The passengers anticipate the end of their journey as the ship's arrival in Manaus is
announced. But suddenly a message comes that cholera has spread in Manaus and no one may disembark. As Florencia collapses, realizing she may never find Cristóbal, her spirit drifts towards his in a mystical transformation.

The following note was written by Catán and was copied from the CD booklet:

My journey down the Amazon, the real and operatic one, began in the studio of my dear
friend Alvaro Mutis. He knows the jungle intimately and has written about it all his life; at the same time he is a great lover of opera. The combination could not be better. We met many times in his studio. Prints of magnificent riverboats occupy the spaces normally reserved for family photographs. It was there that I learned about the dangers of river navigation, and also about the psychological states the Amazon induces in its travelers; the way it conjures up their most secret desires and deepest fears. In the opera, Florencia undertakes a journey that will bring her back to her origins. It is, I believe, the story of the return journey that we all undertake at a certain point in our lives: the moment when we look back at what we once dreamed of becoming, and then confront what we have now become. As Florencia sings her final aria, her voice, her song and she herself, become intertwined with the image of a butterfly. She breaks through her cocoon; her voice soars, her song acquires transparent wings. Love and beauty become indistinguishable from each other. The image of the butterfly, supremely beautiful from the moment of its birth, is overtly present at the end of Florencia. But it is an image that has been present in my mind as I composed several of my works. I have asked myself why. I think it is my way of understanding the moment when something is no more, my way of transforming it, like when I finish an opera, and say good-bye to characters that have lived with me for so long and have taught me so much, that grew out of me so I could be born out of them, that are, in the end, indistinguishable from myself.

November 25: Thanksgiving Holiday

2004-11-25T13:00:00.000-05:00

Of course, we did not have class this week. I direct you to a post at Ionarts (The Phoenix, November 23) on the reopening of La Fenice opera theater in Venice. You will recall our discussion about the choice of opera for this event, Verdi's La Traviata, which I characterized as a missed opportunity. You can read more there. I have also posted some comments on other opera DVDs that you might find interesting (More Opera and Music on DVD, November 18).

Michael Nyman's musical style for 'The Man who Mistook his Wife for a Hat'

2004-11-25T10:57:00.000-05:00

Nyman’s opera, ‘The Man who Mistook his wife for a Hat (1986),’ based on the book by Oliver Sacks, amply demonstrates his musical style in its use of variation and modular form. And this work also describes lyrical vocal lines over restless, chugging, repetitive phrases and doublings of tonal primary-colored chords within regularly repeated harmonic blocks. Besides, unexpected metrical shifts and harmonic angularities suggest a curious conjunction between Stravinsky and rock and roll.
Even though he expresses on his knowledge and experience of American minimalism, his distinctive elements for his musical language set it apart from those influences. He has spoken of his more’ intuitive’ approach to process, in which ‘the ear rather than the process is the initial and final arbiter.’ Moreover, the prominence of the bass in his music, as well as suggesting the influence of rock, creates a harmonic stability and rootness more characteristic of the European tonal tradition than of American minimalism. It is this often curious confluence of classical harmonic functions and rock rhythms and textures that provides Nyman’s music with a rich and effective fusion of the codes of high and popular art.

Messiaen's "Saint Francoise d'Assise"

2004-11-19T10:20:00.000-05:00

I first must apologize for what I'm about to do, but I've had zero time to come up with anything original or interpretive because I'm so swamped; so instead, I've decided to post bits and pieces of some good things I've seen regarding this opera.

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This is the article on Saint Francois d'Assise by Paul Griffiths that one can find in New Grove.

Saint François d’Assise [Scènes franciscains (‘Franciscan Scenes’)].
(‘St Francis of Assisi’).
Opera in three acts by olivier Messiaen to his own libretto; Paris, Opéra, 28 November 1983.

The work is in eight self-contained scenes, each further subdivided into small units, often placed in repetitive patterns. The solo vocal writing suggests plainchant (though the modes are Messiaen’s own), and the sense of a liturgy is enhanced by a monumental chorus of 150 voices. The orchestra is on a similar scale (120 players), and includes large woodwind and tuned-percussion sections as well as three ondes martenot, all providing resources for the vivid amplified birdsongs that underline and punctuate the score. Each scene is the exposition of a single moment in the saint’s life, omitting the conflicts of his early years to centre on his faith and attainment of grace: there is no dramatic continuity either within the scenes or from one to another; rather they are single, static and separate, like a cycle of stained-glass windows.

There are three scenes in Act 1. In the first, ‘La croix’, Francis (baritone) is travelling with one of his monks, Brother Leo (baritone), and teaching him the meaning of ‘perfect joy’, which in a long monologue he says is to be found in the acceptance of suffering while thinking of the crucified Christ. Then in ‘Les laudes’ Francis and his community are discovered at prayer, and the saint sings verses from his Lodì delle creature. Finally, in ‘Le baiser au lépreux’, he meets a Leper (tenor) in great physical and spiritual distress. He tries to teach him acceptance, but is rejected, until an Angel (soprano) appears and sings that God is love. Francis, realizing that he has not loved the leper sufficiently, embraces him and brings about a miraculous cure: the ragged, raging victim is transformed back into a medieval gentleman, and he executes a dance of triumph, after which he can learn patience and penitence. The act ends with a choral epilogue.

Act 2 again is in three scenes. In ‘L’ange voyageur’ the Angel returns to knock emphatically at the monastery door and question the monks about predestination. One responds angrily; another gives answer, and the Angel leaves. He appears, in ‘L’ange musicien’, to Francis, who is at prayer. On his viol he plays a celestial melody (it is heard in fact from the ondes martenot) at which Francis faints. Three brothers come to find him, and he awakens, saying that if the music had continued longer his soul would have parted from his body. In scene vi, ‘Le prêche aux oiseaux’, he is with Brother Masseo (tenor), identifying the birds, to whom he preaches, praising their gifts of flight, of freedom, and of being able to sing wordless music, like the angels. He blesses them, and after a moment of silence there begins a great bird concert, with different instruments and ensembles playing different songs out of synchrony. The birds then fly off, making a great cross in the sky.

‘Les stigmates’, the first scene of Act 3, is set at night, and the orchestra becomes sombre, falling to owl calls and severe 12-note patterns. Francis prays that before his death he may feel in his body and heart the anguish of the crucified Christ, and the chorus responds with Christ’s words of acceptance of his sacrifice. An enormous black cross is projected at the back of the stage, and from it come rays of light to pierce the saint’s hands, feet and side, to an immense outburst from chorus and orchestra. The final scene is ‘La mort et la nouvelle vie’: Francis bids farewell to the birds, to the city and to the community. He hears the nightingale singing in the darkness, which suddenly becomes light with the appearance once more of the Angel and the Leper, both come to assist him at his death. He prays for the blinding light of divine illumination, and he dies. Brother Leo remarks on the silence of his going, and the monks depart, taking the saint’s body. But the opera ends fortissimo with a huge chorale of resurrection, sung and played while intense light shines from the place where Francis’s body lay.

The composition of the opera occupied Messiaen from 1975 to 1983, and, like other works of this late period, it came to encompass many of the techniques he had evolved since the beginning of his creative life. If, nevertheless, the work has an imposing identity, that comes perhaps from the block structuring and from the allied use of modes to link the elements, however disparate, so that any musical object can find a place in the divine order.

* * *

Since those sneaky people at JSTOR do not allow users to cut and paste anything, the following citations are two pieces that can be found on the database:

Dingle, Christopher. "Charm and Simplicity: Messiaen's Final Works."
Tempo 192 (April 1995): 2-7.

Pasler, Jan. "St. Francis at the Opera." The Musical
Times 125/1693 (March 1984): 149-151.

November 19: Postmodern Opera

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Olivier Messiaen (1908–1992), Saint François d’Assise (premiered at the Opéra de Paris in 1983).

Available at Amazon:

Olivier Messiaen, Saint François d’Assise (recorded in 1999)

This composer's only opera, subtitled "Scènes franciscaines en trois actes et huit tableaux," has a libretto by Messiaen, culled from his reading on the medieval vitae of Saint Francis.

Here are some short quotes from It's a Secret of Love, Jean-Christophe Marti's interview with Messiaen in January 1992, shortly before his death, about his reverence for this opera:

I'd like audiences to be as dazzled by it as I am. It contains virtually all of the bird calls that I've noted down in the course of my life, all the colors of my chords, all my harmonic procedures, and even some surprising innovations such as the superimposition of different tempos, allowing total independence of the different instruments within a non-aleatory, organized chaos under the conductor’s control. [...]

It's true that I don't like neoclassicism: this approach strikes me as absurd, but I am not attacking anyone by saying this. . . . I simply do not understand [Stravinsky's] neoclassical works: but for me, Stravinsky—the composer of The Rite of Spring and The Firebird—remains one of the greatest geniuses. If I were to offer a serious reason for the attacks on my music, it would be that certain people are annoyed that I believe in God. [...]

In short, you have a very new language made up of discoveries and advances, but without any intentional break with the basic, general assumptions of music such as tonality?

Well, here I have to say that for me tonality and modality are no more than words in a dictionary. They are of practical use but by no means indispensable. If you look at history, you'll see that after birdsong, which imitated rain, the oceans and the noise of storms, people began to sing in octaves and fifths, according to the natural distribution of voices; then came modes—pentatonic modes from China, diatonic ones from Greece, and chromatic ones from India. This modal language was used for centuries, because tonality as such didn't emerge until Bach's day, when it was merged with a highly modal and chromatic language. Before him, Monteverdi and Gesualdo were highly chromatic, just as Mozart was later. If you like, tonality proper has existed for only two centuries, and Beethoven strikes me as the only composer who is frankly tonal. With Chopin and even more with Debussy, this famous tonality becomes veiled once again. Beyond these concepts, the only phenomenon inherent to the world of sound and which composers have to take into account is resonance.

As for his approach to musical style, Messiaen had the following comments for 12-tone music:

Dodecaphony, serial music, atonal music, the result is the same: music without color, grey and black. Except to express a terrible feeling of fear and anxiety, I see no emotion in this language, which sought to abolish resonance. I'm afraid that a love of music is missing from such a world. For me, Debussy's lesson is irreplaceable. One could say that Ravel wrote more spicy harmonies, more colorful orchestrations, but he never achieved Debussy's absolute formal freedom. Debussy found an inspired way of blurring the edges of his structures. The term he used to describe it is untranslatable: un sens de flou—a sort of soft-focus effect. I still marvel at it and freely admit that I'd be incapable of imitating it. It was a work by Debussy that made me decide to become a composer, Pelléas et Mélisande. A humble teacher from Nantes, Jean de Gibon, had the inspired idea of giving me a copy of the score when I was not yet eleven years old. I have to say that for a long time I felt I was not sufficiently gifted to write an opera—in this, I'm no different from my contemporaries. I thought that there was no longer any way forward after Wozzeck.

Messiaen's Opera at the Bastille (Ionarts, October 12, on this fall's production of the opera in Paris)
Joshua Kosman, A heavenly premiere: S.F. Opera pulls off complex Messiaen masterpiece 'Saint Francois D'Assise' (San Francisco Chronicle, September 30, 2002), a review of the opera's U.S. premiere (2002)
Tim Page 'St. Francois,' Worthy of A Pilgrimage (Washington Post, September 30, 2002)
Steven Winn, A strange and transfixing opera: Impact of Messiaen's 'Saint Francois d'Assise' depends on the staging (San Francisco Chronicle, October 13, 2002)

György Ligeti (b. 1923), Le Grand Macabre (Stockholm, April 12, 1978; revised in 1997)

Available at Amazon:

György Ligeti, Le Grand Macabre (recorded in 1999)

Libretto by Michael Meschke and Ligeti, after the play La balade du grand macabre by Michel de Ghelderode. The story takes place in an imaginary country called Breughelland ("run down but nevertheless thriving and carefree"), in an "anytime century." The name of the country refers to the main character of Nekrotzar, the Grand Macabre, Death incarnate, depicted in Breughel’s The Triumph of Death (oil panel, c. 1562).

Charles T. Downey, Ligeti's Le Grand Macabre in San Francisco (Ionarts post on the American premiere of this opera, right now, in San Francisco)
Photos of the San Francisco Opera production
Richard Felciano, A Demoniacal Romp, a Great Extravaganza (San Francisco Opera)
Thomas May, Viewpoint (San Francisco Opera)
Gyorgy Ligeti -- Illusions and Allusions, Herman Sabbe's interview with Ligeti (October 23, 1978), Interface 8 (1979), pp. 11–34, translated by Josh Ronsen

Michael Nyman (b. 1944), The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat (premiered on October 27, 1986, at Institute of Contemporary Arts, London).

Available at Amazon:

Michael Nyman, The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat (recorded in 1990)

The libretto by Christopher Rawlence is based on a case study by Dr. Oliver Sacks, on one of his actual patients. This is a chamber opera, with an orchestra of strings, harp, and piano, and only three characters, Dr. P, the patient (bass); Mrs. P, his wife (soprano); and Dr. S (tenor), who is the neurologist, Oliver Sacks (author of Awakenings, the basis for the movie of the same name, with Robin Williams).

Nyman read the case study in November 1985, and it formed into an opera in his mind. Dr. P suffers from visual agnosia, that is, he has difficulty recognizing objects by sight, because of Alzheimer’s; he thinks parking meters are people, for example. On the patient's first visit with Dr. S, when leaving, he reaches for his hat but confuses his wife's head with the hatstand (thus the title). However, his singing voice is still intact: in real life, he was a singer and knew Peter Pears. He sings songs from Schumann's song cycle Dichterliebe to communicate. There are musical references in the opera to the song "Ich grolle nicht," which Dr. P sings in the couple's apartment, joined by Dr. S for part of it, and Britten's setting of "The Sick Rose," which is the couple's favorite piece, sung by Mrs. P and hummed by Dr. P.

There are sly self-references in this opera, not unlike in Corigliano's Ghosts of Versailles. During the first doctor-patient interview in the apartment, Mrs. P turns on the TV and sees Michael Nyman playing the piano on TV. Dr. P recognizes him, saying "That's Nyman. Can't mistake his body rhythm." The moves in the chess game the doctor plays with his patient are sung and could be used to reproduce the moves. Singing little songs is the only way Dr. P can find his way if he is jolted from his ritualized schedule. Music becomes Dr. S's prescription, and at the opera's conclusion we hear Dr. P humming to the final bars of the instrumental postlude, until it ends.

Nyman's most recent opera, Man and Boy: Dada was premiered this past summer at the Almeida Theatre in London, 2004. The libretto, by Michael Hastings, brings together, fictionally, the life of Dada artist Kurt Schwitters and the adolescent Michael Nyman (named only as Michael), who discover that they both collect bus tickets, for collage and collections, respectively. See this post at Ionarts, Opera and Collage, from August 9, for more information.

Very Interesting Article

2004-11-14T17:10:00.000-05:00

This article recently appeared in the Arts section of the New York Times and I think it could bring about some healthy discussion. (I especially saw it befitting since I spent all that time talking about Shostakovich's Lady MacBeth and the need for certain body types to play roles like Sergei and Katerina.)

Should the Fat Lady Diet Before She Sings?

November 14, 2004
By ANTHONY TOMMASINI

The dramatic soprano Deborah Voigt returns to the Metropolitan Opera on Thursday as Elisabeth in Wagner's "Tannhäuser," and opera buffs are abuzz with anticipation over this popular American artist's first foray into the role at the house. Yet besides wondering how she will sound, many in the audience will no doubt be curious to see how she looks. Ms. Voigt, a large woman, has been dieting, exercising and losing weight. The physical appearance of opera singers became a hot topic last summer, when word came that Ms. Voigt had been forced out of a production of Strauss's "Ariadne auf Naxos" at the Royal Opera House in London. Ariadne is her signature role. But the director of the company's trendy production thought she was too heavy to look right in a black cocktail dress that he deemed crucial to his concept.

Though countless Voigt fans were distressed by this insult to her artistry, the story did stir debate about nagging questions in the field: vocal endowment is obviously the most important factor in casting a role, but is it everything? Shouldn't the element of drama in opera demand that singers look reasonably like the characters they portray? And what about the new generation? Do younger singers who have grown up in a visually oriented age believe that looking good and staying in shape are prerequisites for a career?

Read the rest here.

November 12: Opera in Russia

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Sergei Prokofiev (1891–1953) composed more than ten operas, not all of them completed.

Ljubowk k trjom Apelsinam [The Love of Three Oranges] (Chicago, 1921), with libretto by the composer, after Gozzi.

War and Peace (composed 1941-1952) was begun after Prokofiev's return to the Soviet Union. The work was first premiered in an incomplete concert version (eight scenes of first version), on October 16, 1944, by the Ensemble of Soviet Opera of the All-Union Theatrical Society, conducted by Konstantin Popov with piano accompaniment. After a second incomplete concert performance (with nine scenes, on June 7, 1945, by the USSR State Symphony, conducted by Samuel Samosud), Prokofiev continued to revise the opera. After his death, the work was finally staged, in the finished revised version (March 31, 1955, at the Leningrad State Academy Maly Opera Theater, conducted by Eduard Grikurov) and in a restored 13-scene version (November 8, 1957, in the Stanislavsky Operat Theater, Moscow, conducted by Alexander Shaverdov).

Alex Ross, in his review (Prokofiev's War and Peace, The New Yorker, March 4, 2002) of the recent production at the Metropolitan Opera in New York (a coproduction with the Maryinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg, with some pictures available here), called it "the most visually compelling opera production that I have seen in New York in many years." That production was also reviewed by Anthony Tommasini ('War and Peace' Opens; Mishap Raises Concerns, February 16, 2002) for the New York Times.

Music under Soviet Rule: Prokofiev
The Serge Prokofiev Foundation
James Fenton, Prokofiev and propaganda (The Guardian, February 22, 2003)
Metropolitan Opera materials on War and Peace
Robert Hilferty, A Knight at the Opera (New York Magazine, January 21, 2002), on billionaire Alberto Vilar, who financed the Met production
Production of War and Peace at the Opéra de Paris, directed by Francesca Zambello (2000)

Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975), Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District (premiered at the Leningrad Opera, January 22, 1934), with libretto by Dmitri Shostakovich and Alexander Preys.

Thomas May, Katerina Ismailova and the huge, black waves of desire (San Francisco Opera)
Music under Soviet Rule: Shostakovichiana
Alex Ross, Ruined Choirs: Shostakovich (The New Yorker, March 20, 2000)
Alex Ross, "Unauthorized" (The New Yorker, September 6, 2004)

Alfred Schnittke (1934-1998), Life with an Idiot (Amsterdam, 1992), first of three operas by this composer: Gesualdo (Vienna, 1995) and Historia von D. Johann Fausten (Hamburg, 1995).

Review of Alexander Ivashkin, Alfred Schnittke (Phaidon 20th Century Composers, 1996) in DSCH Journal 7 (Summer 1997)
Russian composer Alfred Schnittke dies (BBC, August 3, 1998)

Making Opera Relevant

2004-11-11T23:18:00.000-05:00

Any of you students who saw the latest productions from the Washington National Opera—Il Trovatore and the zarzuela Luisa Fernanda—please feel free to post comments about the productions here. There are reviews of both productions at Ionarts (from October 25 and November 8, respectively).

One of the topics we have been discussing this semester is how opera lost its connection with larger audiences in the 20th century, as the idea of the rare "contemporary premiere"—usually of a work rarely, if ever, to be produced again—became the norm for new operas. Perhaps the opera world—composers, librettists, impressarios, singers, conductors, all of us—should take a lesson from music theater, as discussed in Sarah Crompton's recent article (Tune-and-toe: Musicals are still calling the tune, November 10) for The Telegraph (thanks to ArtsJournal for the tip):

If you stop to think about it, the survival of the musical as an art form is one of the miracles of the 21st century. Musicals are expensive, complicated and old-fashioned in their unreal mingling of song, dance and theatre. They are also incredibly hard to pull off successfully. Yet the form not only survives but thrives. Three of the major theatrical openings of the season - The Producers, which opened last night, Grand Hotel and Mary Poppins - are stage musicals based on films. A staggering 63 per cent of all West End tickets sold are for tune-and-toe shows of one sort or another. [...]

This, I suppose, shows the resilience of the form. Although its basic construction - sing a bit, dance a bit, talk a bit - has changed very little in the past 60 years, the subjects covered and the stories told have been transformed. The musical is now able to embrace everything from Stephen Sondheim's dark examinations of the state of America to shows such as Mamma Mia, which take their impetus from pop songs. In this respect, Grand Hotel, based on Vicki Baum's book which in turn prompted the famous 1932 film, makes an interesting case history. The show, which opens at the Donmar at the end of the month, was last seen in London in a production, directed by Tommy Tune, at the Dominion Theatre in 1992, after a long and successful Broadway run. Garlanded with Tony awards, this darkly glittering portrayal of the sad lives and soaring hopes of guests in a Berlin hotel in 1928 was loved by some - me included - but branded both too bleak and too sprawling by others. It closed after just four months.

Should opera librettists seek to have the same popular appeal? Some already have, as we have discussed in class. The WNO's choice of a zarzuela is an example of such an attempt, perhaps. An article (Houston opera speaking to the streets: Spanish work keeps company relevant, November 6) by William Littler for the Toronto Star speaks to a similar attempt, the premiere of a new work, in Spanish, at the Houston Grand Opera, Daniel Catán's Salsipuedes (libretto by Eliseo Alberto and Francisco Hinojosa):

It used to be said, in the corridors of Toronto's Opera Atelier, that if people can't pronounce the name of an opera, they won't buy tickets. Well, Salsipuedes may represent quite a mouthful in Toronto but not in Houston, which is not only America's fourth largest city but a metropolis destined to play host, in the not too distant future, to a Spanish-speaking majority. In Spanish, Salsipuedes apparently means "leave if you can." It's an amusing title to top the remarkable list of 31 works premiered by Houston Grand Opera in its half-century history.

Well aware of the demographic direction of his city, David Gockley, Houston Grand Opera's general director, some years ago turned to the Mexican composer Daniel Catán to provide his company with its first specially commissioned opera to be sung in Spanish. The result, premiered in 1996, was Florencia en el Amazonas, based on a tale by the Nobel Prize-winning Columbian writer Gabriel Garcia Márquez. Florencia portrayed a famous opera singer's attempt to return to her roots, sailing up the Amazon to the fabled Brazilian opera house in Manaos. Drenched in the seductive atmosphere of Magic Realism, it became a surprise hit which has not only been revived in Houston but staged as well in Los Angeles, Seattle, Mexico City and even Manaos itself. There is also a two-CD album of the score, taped live in Houston, available on the Albany label.

So when Gockley decided to commission a second Spanish language opera, it wasn't too hard for him to imagine the appropriate composer. Assisted by his two Mexican librettists, Catán has responded with what he calls a dramma giocoso, the very title used by Mozart to identify his Don Giovanni, a score which similarly represents a comedy with serious dramatic overtones. The subtitle for Salsipuedes identifies it as "a tale of love, war and anchovies." Set in 1943, the tale begins with a celebration of the marriage of two singer-musicians from a popular local band to a pair of amorously smitten sisters.

The final performances of this new opera are this Friday and Sunday. However, reviews have not been all that positive, for example, Charles Ward's article (Catán's 'Salsipuedes' sashays rather than struts: It's entertaining, but it doesn't have electricity, November 1) for the Houston Chronicle:

Despite the fervent hopes of Houston Grand Opera, there was no dancing in the aisles for Daniel Catán's Salsipuedes, a tale of Love, War and Anchovies. Instead, Friday's premiere of Catán's warmhearted comedy about ordinary people accidentally caught up in the machinations of a corrupt and delusional dictator evoked smiles, chuckles and good feelings. The ensemble cast sang with splendid enthusiasm and passion. Director James Robinson and set designer Allen Moyer provided a vigorous, colorful production that was perfectly outlandish in look and gesture. Conductor Guido Maria Guida confidently steered an imaginative, rhythmically tricky score using an orchestra without violins or violas. But never did the music provide the electric charge that seemed guaranteed by all the talk about an opera based on Afro-Caribbean rhythms.

One of the more interesting recent operas we will be studying, Ligeti's Le Grand Macabre, is being performed right now at the San Francisco Opera: see the write-up at Ionarts. Here are some other posts at Ionarts that are also related to our subject:

Dawn Upshaw in Carmélites (November 10)
Kát'a Kabanová in Paris (November 9)
This Sounds Like a Job For... (November 2), on a collection of Shostakovich materials looking for a new home
Pelléas in Berlin (November 1)
George Crumb Ensemble at the Library of Congress (November 1)
Pentatonic Scale? So Gay! (October 26), on the new book mentioned in class, about the creation of an "American sound" by gay composers
Opera by Film Directors (October 23)

Lastly, don't forget to tune in to WETA (90.9 FM) on November 20 at 1:30 pm, to hear the WNO production, from last year, of Andre Previn's opera A Streetcar Named Desire.

Background of 'Nixon in China'

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John Adams grew up in New Hampshire, where was in political environment. So he developed early on a fascination for American political life. Particularly, the city of Concord, where he attended high school, was the nerve central of the presidential primary campaigns which rolled into town every four years. He shook JFK’s hand the night before he won the New Hampshire primary in 1960. His first vote was for the maverick Eugene McCarthy, whose 1968 campaign ultimately signaled the resignation of Lyndon Johnson and the slow winding down of the Vietnam War. So it was somewhat of a natural fit when the topic of Richard Nixon, Mao Tse-tung, capitalism and communism should be proposed to him as the subject for an opera.

He was slow to realize the brilliance of his idea. However, by 1983 Nixon had become the stuff of bad, predictable comedy routines, and it was difficult to untangle his own personal animosity because he’d tried to send him to Vietnam. But when the poet , Alice Goodman, agreed to write a verse libretto in couplets, the project suddenly took on an wonderfully complex guise, part epic, part satire, part a parody of political posturing, and part serious examination of historical, philosophical, and even gender issues. All of this centered on six extraordinary personalities in his opera: Nixon, Chairman Mao and Chiang Ch’ing, Chou En-lai, and Henry Kissinger.

Nixon’s 1972 trip was in fact an epochal event, one whose magnitude is hard to imagine from our present perspective, and it was perfect for Peter Sellars’s dramatic imagination. Nixon in China was for the sure the first opera ever to use a staged “media event’ as the basis for its dramatic structure. He understood brilliantly how dictatorships on the right and one the left throughout the century had carefully managed public opinion through a form of public theater and the cultivation of ‘persona’ in the political arena. Both Nixon and Mao were adapt manipulators of public opinion and the second scene of Act I, the famous meeting between Mao and Nixon, brings these two complex figures together face to face in a dialogue that oscillates between philosophical sparring and political one-upmanship.

In Act II, scene 2, a reform dance- The Red Detachment of Women, which the Nixon and Pat saw on 22 February, their second evening in Beijing. Chang Ch’ing who was the wife of Mao began her career as a movie actress and only later enlisted in the party, accompanying Mao on the grueling Long March and ultimately became the power behind his throne, the mind and force behind that hideous experiment in social engineering, the Cultural Revolution. It was at the beginning of 1966 that Mao launched the “Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution,” a movement to recall the Chinese people, especially the young, to the revolutionary spirit. It led to horrors no less vile than those in Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. Mao’s wife, Chiang Ch’ing, was put in charge of cultural affairs and launched a reign of terror in the worlds of education and the arts. Her hatred was directed particularly at European-American cultural traditions and anything that could be stigmatized as bourgeois. As a reason, she introduced the reform dance as a scenario of political significance to the Nixon and his wife. As a representative scene for her cruel character, she interrupts the ballet to shout angry orders at the dancers and sing her credo of power and violence. “I am the wife of Mao Tse-tung.’

Adam’s first orchestral work, completed in 1980 and called Common Tones in Simple Time(Nonesuch 79144) is a pure and beautiful essay in what one might call extreme or truly minimal minimalism, without melody, and with all other elements such as color, rhythm, and harmony treated with extraordinary delicacy. His music is like Reich’s in the sense that Mozart’s is like Haydn’s but it is also as different from it as Mozart’s is from Haydn’s.
Adams referred to himself as “a minimalist bored with minimalism.” His music is indeed go far beyond the bounds of “Classical Minimalism.” Nixon in China is his second major composition on a text, the first being Harmonium in 1981 for chorus and orchestra, setting poems of John Donne and Emily Dickinson.

At a preview performance in San Francisco in May 1987, Adams joked that Nixon in China was an opera for Republicans and communists. Kissinger is treated without a lot of mercy, but the other portraits seem to reveal something essential of how each character would have seen himself or herself. Therefore he said that this opera is not a political cartoon: it contains elements of both historical and the comic. So Adam and Goodman offer it as a heroic and mythic drama. It is also rare for us to encounter living and real character on the operatic stage.

November 5: Opera and Minimalism

2004-11-04T22:12:00.000-05:00

Available at Amazon:

Philip Glass, Einstein on the Beach (recorded in 1993)

Philip Glass (b. 1937), Einstein on the Beach

The opera was premiered at the Avignon Festival in 1976, in a production by Robert Wilson (see also the Watermill Center). Wilson was born in Waco, Texas, and was trained principally in painting in architecture. His interest in drama, especially in creating productions of operas and other theatrical works dominated by light, led Eugene Ionesco to label him as "America’s most important dramatist." That production was brought from France and given two blockbuster, sold-out performances at the Met, which were praised by Andrew Porter in the New York Times. It brought Glass immense fame and was the first major exposure of the minimalist style to a broad audience.

Glass has often voiced his opposition to what he characterizes as a serialist clique among contemporary composers: "There was a time when there wasn't this tremendous distance between the popular audience and concert music, and I think we’re approaching that stage again. For a long while we had this very small band of practitioners of modern music who described themselves as mathematicians, doing theoretical work that would someday be understood. I don't think anyone takes that very seriously anymore."

The opera eventually became the first part of an opera trilogy about men who changed the world through their ideas, followed by Satyagraha, on the life of Gandhi (1980), and Akhnaten, about the ancient Egyptian religious leader (1983).

Other resources:

Einstein on the Beach (GlassPages, with great images)
Musical Themes in Einstein on the Beach (Nicolas Sceaux)
Philip Glass in conversation with Thomas Moore (October 10, 1981, the Pension Building, now the National Building Museum, in Washington, D.C.)
25 Years after 'Einstein On The Beach': Frank J. Oteri talks with Philip Glass (October 9, 2001)
Portrait of Philip Glass at the piano (Annie Leibovitz)
Kaleidoscope: Philip Glass talks to Michael Berkeley (September 22, 1986, BBC Radio 4)
Profile of Philip Glass (BBC)
Porter Anderson, Philip Glass: 'Be careful what you want' (June 4, 2001, CNN)
T. J. Medrek, BU Fringe Fest presents cosmic 'Galileo' (Boston Herald, October 31, 2004): on a performance of Glass's opera on the life of Galileo Galilei, premiered in 2002

Available at Amazon:

John Adams, Nixon in China (conducted by Edo de Waart)

John Adams (b. 1947), Nixon in China (Houston Grand Opera, 1987). The libretto was written by Alice Goodman, an American who lives in Cambridge, England, based on the actual events of President Nixon's visit to China, February 21 to 27, 1972, to meet with Mao Tse-Tung. Peter Sellars was involved as director/producer from the start and was the one who brought Adams and Goodman together. Adams wanted the libretto to be written in rhymed couplets; it was written in 1985 to 1986. Andrew Porter, reviewing the Houston premiere for The New Yorker, observed that almost all of the character's real-life counterparts could have attended the premiere (the Nixons, Dr. Kissinger, even Mrs. Mao, who was serving a prison sentence at the time, for her part in the Cultural Revolution).

Other resources:

Elena Park, John Adams Speaks Out About Art in a Time of War (Andante)
Intersections: John Adams and the Poetry of Music (NPR, January 12, 2004)
Brian Wise, John Adams's 9/11 Work Wins 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Music (WNYC)
On the Transmigration of Souls, a New Work by John Adams (2002)

See also John Adams, Death of Klinghoffer (Brussels, 1991)

Robert Gable's comments on this opera
Ionarts review of Penny Woolcock's film version of the opera

The team of Adams, Goodman, and Sellars will premiere a new opera, Dr. Atomic, on the life of Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer, in September 2005 in San Francisco.

UPDATE:
There is a Web site devoted to Dr. Atomic and its upcoming premiere. Thanks to Lisa Hirsch at Iron Tongue of Midnight for the link.

Thomson's 'Four Saints in Three Acts'

2004-10-29T12:11:00.000-05:00

Composed by Virgil Thomson
Libretto by Gertrude Stein
Thomson met Stein, a poet and playwright older and more famous than he, in 1926, when they were both living in Paris. By early the following year they were planning an opera. Thomson, whose musical idiom was born of the Baptist hymns of his Kansas City youth by way of Erik Satie, was drawn to Stein, who ‘liked rhymes and jingles and … had no fear of the common-place’. Her love for artfully constructed verbal edifices using the simplest of means, her contrapuntal interweaving of repeated words and phrases, as well as her childlike abstraction, all defined an inherently musical sensibility. ‘She wrote poetry … very much as a composer works’, Thomson recalled. ‘She chose a theme and developed it, or rather, she let the words of it develop themselves through the free expansion of sound and sense … I took my musical freedom, following her poetic freedom, and what came out was a virtually total recall of my Southern Baptist childhood in Missouri.’
The theme Stein and Thomson chose for their first opera was the lives of 16th-century Spanish saints. ’We saw among the religious a parallel to the life we were leading’, Thomson wrote, ‘in which consecrated artists were practicing their art surrounded by younger artists who were no less consecrated and who were trying to learn and needing to learn the terrible disciplines of truth and spontaneity, of channeling their skills without loss of inspiration.’
The music was composed between June 1927 and July 1928, but not orchestrated until 1933. Its style was direct and accessible, in the manner of Kurt Weill and other exponents of a folksy leftism in the 1930s but purged of any political subtext. For the première, Thomson’s friend, the painter Maurice Grosser, provided a scenario sympathetic to Stein’s dreamy poetic abstraction, yet offering some clues as to the significance of this enigmatic work.
The first performance, on 8 February 1934 at the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford, Connecticut, was presented not by an established opera company but by an organization called the Friends and Enemies of Modern Music. There was an all-black cast, stage direction and movement by Frederick Ashton and John Houseman and cellophane décor by Florine Stettheimer. The same production was presented that year on Broadway and in Chicago, for a run of more than 60 performances. Despite this success, which established Thomson as an intellectuals’ darling, and which vastly augmented Stein’s notoriety (‘Pigeons on the grass alas’ from the third act became a humorist’s watchword for vanguard silliness), the opera has never entered the repertory of major opera houses. This is partly because Stein’s poetry is something of an acquired taste, and partly because Thomson’s faux-naïf music now seems prescient of minimalism. Its chamber scoring (for an orchestra of about 25, using modest strings) has, however, made it a feasible work for smaller companies. Thomson insisted that the precedent of an all-black cast need not be considered binding, but major productions with white or mixed casts have remained rare, and most companies find it difficult to assemble all-black casts of this size. This synopsis is drawn from Grosser’s scenario; it could not be deduced from Stein’s words alone. The music throughout is an American patchwork of marches, waltzes, hymns and singsong recitative.
Prologue A choral introduction to all the saints, some 30 counting the chorus, but concentrating on the four principals (with St Teresa sung by two singers) and including the Commère and Compère.
Act1 (‘A Pageant, or Sunday School Entertainment’) On the steps of Avila Cathedral This consists of seven tableaux focussed on St Teresa II and revealed through a portal by the drawing of a small curtain. The first tableau shows St Teresa II in an early-spring garden, painting Easter eggs and conversing with St Teresa I. In the second scene St Teresa II, holding a dove, is photographed by St Settlement. St Ignatius serenades the seated St Teresa II in the third scene, at the end of which she rises and asks, ‘Can women have wishes?’ (Stein was an early feminist). St Ignatius offers St Teresa II flowers in the fourth tableau, and in the fifth the two saints admire a model house, a Heavenly Mansion. In the sixth, St Teresa II is shown in ‘an attitude of ecstasy’. Finally, she rocks an imaginary child in her arms: ‘The act ends with comments, congratulations, and general sociability.’
Act2 A garden party in the country near Barcelona The Compère and Commère, dressed in formal attire, observe the anion from the side. A Dance of Angels is performed, St Chavez organizes a game and the Compère and Commère share ‘a tender scene’, observed by the two St Teresas. Everyone peers through a telescope at a vision of the Heavenly Mansion. As all pack to leave, St Ignatius refuses to give back St Teresa I’s telescope; St Chavez consoles her, and remains alone on stage after the others depart.
Act3 A monastery garden on the coast near Barcelona St Ignatius and his Jesuits mend fishing nets. The two St Teresas and St Settlement discuss monastic life with St Ignatius and see a vision of the Holy Ghost (‘Pigeons on the grass alas’, etc.). After a military drill St Chavez lectures the men; the women saints enter, doubt the vision, and are reproved by St Ignatius, who predicts the Last Judgment. After a storm passes, the saints file out, chanting and singing hymns about their future heavenly life.
Act4 The Compère and Commère argue before the curtain as to whether there should be a fourth act. The curtain rises to reveal the saints in heaven. They remember with pleasure their earthly existence and sing a communion hymn (‘When this you see remember me’). The opera ends when the Compère sings, ‘Last act’, and everyone else shouts, ‘Which is a fact’.
Despite its infrequency of performance, Four Saints and Thomson’s music in general have risen steadily in prestige, especially since the waning of total serialism among American academic composers after the 1970s. Thomson’s style is seen now as an anticipation not just of minimalism, but of the entire movement towards simplicity, accessibility and vernacular inspiration that has defined composition in the 1980s and 90s.

October 29: Opera in America

2004-10-28T20:34:00.000-05:00

At Christopher Hapka's Web site, usopera.com, you can find lots of information on the history of opera in the United States. That history goes back farther and is more extensive than you might think, as you can see in Hapka's Timeline of American Opera, 1845–1995. For example, on September 27, 1855, George Frederick Bristow premiered his opera Rip Van Winkle at Niblo's Garden, in New York, "the first opera by an American composer on an American subject." In the same year, "the Norwegian violinist Ole Bull offers a prize of $1000 for the best original American opera on an American subject." At the time of his death in 1898, Bristow was at work on an opera on the life of Christopher Columbus.

Another major event, in 1893, was the Denver premiere of The Martyr, by Harry Lawrence Freeman, "the first known performance of an opera by an African-American composer." Scott Joplin's first ragtime opera, A Guest of Honor, was premiered in St. Louis in 1903, but it has been lost. Joplin's opera Treemonisha, which takes place on a plantation run by freed slaves, was completed around 1907, with a piano-vocal score published in 1911. In spite of Joplin's efforts, the opera was not staged until 1975, at the Houston Grand Opera.

There were some major commercial successes that died out in popularity. Dublin-born Victor Herbert (1859–1924), most famous for the dozens of operettas he composed, such as Naughty Marietta and Babes in Toyland, composed an American Indian opera called Natoma, premiered by the Philadelphia-Chicago Opera Company on February 25, 1911. Horatio Parker (1863–1919) won a $10,000 prize in a competition sponsored by the Met for his opera Mona. It was premiered on March 14, 1912, but received only four performances. Howard Hanson (1896–1981) premiered his neo-Romantic opera Merry Mount to stunning success at the Met, receiving 50 curtain calls at the premiere on February 10, 1934.

In the same year, Virgil Thomson (1896–1989) premiered a rather different opera, Four Saints in Three Acts, to celebrate the opening of the Avery Memorial wing of the Wadsworth Athenaeum Museum of Art, in Hartford, Conn. Working with the experimental expatriate author Gertrude Stein (see this excerpt of the libretto, Pigeons on the grass alas), Thomson completed the opera in Europe in 1928. An all-black cast premiered the opera, sponsored by a group called The Friends and Enemies of Modern Music, in a production choreographed by Frederick Ashton and directed by the painter Maurice Grosser, who was Thomson's partner. The American hymn tunes that pervade the opera were familiar to Thomson from his upbringing in a Baptist church in Kansas City, Missouri. See these reviews of the premiere:

Stein Opera Sung by All-Negro Cast (New York Times, February 9, 1934)
North Side: Gertrude Stein (Pittsburgh Press, April 15, 1934)

Thomson and Stein's intriguing second opera, The Mother of Us All, on the life of activist Susan B. Anthony, was premiered on May 7, 1947, at Columbia University. (A scene from this opera was performed at the recital by young singers from the Domingo-Cafritz Young Artists Program, reviewed at Ionarts on October 11.) Thomson's final opera, on the life of controversial Romantic poet Lord Byron, had its planned premiere at the Met cancelled. It was ultimately first performed at the Juilliard School in New York.

Other resources:

Virgil Thomson Foundation
Paul Wittke, Virgil Thomson—Vignettes of His Life and Times (September 19, 1997)
Virgil Thomson: The Composer in Conversation with Bruce Duffie
Alice Neel, Portrait of Virgil Thomson (1971)
Patricia Juliana Smith, Essay on Virgil Thomson (from glbtq.com)
Virgil Thomson Papers (Irving S. Gilmore Music Library, Yale University)
Four Saints in Three Acts (Theater Pro)
Charles Ward, Four saints, three acts, one character: difficult composer Virgil Thomson (Houston Chronicle, July 16, 1997)
Notes on the Robert Wilson production of Four Saints, Houston Grand Opera (1996)
Jean E. Mills, Gertrude Stein, The Great Great Grand MF of Rap?: Four Saints in Three Acts and the Hip Hop/Rap/Spoken Word Aesthetic [Americana: The Journal of American Popular Culture (1900–present), Spring 2003, Volume 2, Issue 1]

Gian Carlo Menotti/"The Saint of Bleecker Street"

2004-10-27T13:42:00.000-05:00

Gian Carlo Menotti, born 7 July 1911 in Cadegliano, (Varese) Italy, wrote and produced his first opera when he was eleven. Following preliminary studies at Milan’s Verdi Conservatory, he went to the U.S. on the advice of Arturo Toscanini and completed his compositional studies under Rosario Scalero at the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia. His first mature work, the one-act opera buffa Amelia Goes to the Ball, was given its premiere by the Metropolitan Opera in 1938.

Written in 1954, one of Menotti’s major works, The Saint of Bleecker Street, won both the Pulitzer Prize and the New York Drama Critic’s Circle Award. (Another of Menotti’s successes, The Consul, also received both of these awards.) Approached by NBC to create the first television opera, he wrote Amahl and The Night Visitors, a Christmas classic that has received countless performances since its premiere in 1951, reaching a wider audience than any other work in operatic history.

Menotti’s operatic output includes the first radio opera, The Old Maid and The Thief, a second television opera, The Labyrinth; the church operas (Martin’s lie and The Egg); and several opera written for children, including Help, Help, the Globolinks!. In addition to The Consul and The Saint of Bleecker Street, his major works include Maria Golovin and The Last Savage, which was the first opera by a non-French composer commissioned by the Paris’ Opera since Verdi’s Don Carlo. Other operas of note are Juana la Loca (written for Beverly Sills), Goya (written for Plácido Domingo and produced by The Washington Opera at the Kennedy Center in 1986), and The Marriage commissioned by the Olympic Arts Festival and premiered in Seoul in September 1988.

As his own librettist, Menotti has also provided operatic texts for other composers (most notably for Samuel Barber’s Vanessa), and his literary output includes plays as well as poems, short stories and film scripts. Although best known as an operatic composer, Menotti has displayed great versatility in a wide range of musical forms, including large-scale orchestral works such as Missa O Pulchritudo, First Symphony, the symphonic poem Apocalypse, and concerti for piano, violin, and double bass. He has also written cantatas, such as the Death of the Bishop of Brindisi and written for ballet as well. Menotti also composed the song cycle Canti della Lontananza commissioned by Elizabeth Schwarzkopf, Five Songs for Tenor and several chamber music pieces including A Suite for Two Cellos written for Piatigorsky. His tremendous record as a stage director includes productions for the Teatro la Scala, The Metropolitan Opera, The Washington Opera, and the opera Companies of Munich, Vienna, Berlin and Paris. Since his historic production of La Bohème at the 1960 Festival of Two Worlds, his staging activities has included Così Fan Tutte, The Rake’s Progress, Parsifal, Tristan und Isolde, Meistersinger, Carmen, Manon Lescaut, Don Giovanni and Le Nozze di Figaro.

Founder of the world-wide acclaimed Festival of Two Worlds in 1958, which also had an Australian parenthesis in the late 1980s an now has definitely settled in Italy, under the name Spoleto Festival, Menotti has discovered and fostered talented young people in virtually every area of the creative and performing arts. Although his Italian citizenship, in recognition of his contributions to the performing arts in America, he was awarded the Kennedy Center Honors in 1986. He has been artistic director of the Opera di Roma from 1992 to 1994. Menotti not resides in Scotland with his family where he is now planning to create a small opera theatre.

The Saint of Bleecker Street

SYNOPSIS
ACT I

In a tenement on Bleecker Street, a group of people are gathered outside the bedroom door of Annina, who is supposed to have the Stigmata. They argue about whether she can heal the sick or not; Maria Corona gets into a fight with one of the other women there. Don Marco, a priest, has Annina carried out among them; in great pain, she has a vision of the Crucifixion. The neighbors crowd around her, Maria Corona first among them, but Michele, Annina's brother, arrives and throws them all out, including Don Marco. Michel does not believe in Annina's visions; he is determined to save her from his neighbors' fanaticism. Don Marco warns Michele that he is competing with God for his sister's love.

Later, Annina and her friend Carmela are preparing a little girl for her part in a procession; Carmela confesses to Annina that she has fallen in love with Salvatore and won't be taking the veil with her. Carmela is afraid because she has broken her promise, but Annina is happy for her. Annina describes a vision of Heaven for her neighbors. Maria Corona comes to warn Annina: angry because Michele won't let her take part in the procession, they are planning to come and drag her away by force. Maria Corona describes to Annina the changes that have taken place in her son since the day he touched her during her vision; formerly dumb, he has begun to speak. Michele arrives; he tries to convince Annina that her visions are only hallucinations, but she is certain they are visions from God. Michele wants to prevent her from taking the veil; he is afraid of losing her. As the procession passes, Michele is overpowered and tied to a fence by a group of men, while Annina, frightened and helpless, is carried off. Michele is rescued by his lover, Desidera.

ACT II

At Carmela and Salvatore's wedding, a young man offers an Italian toast to the bride and groom. When the guests have gone into the next room, Annina enters; she tells Salvatore to be good to her friend. Desidera arrives, looking for Michele; she has been thrown out of her mother's house. She is angry at the neighborhood; because everyone knows she is sleeping with Michele, she is not invited to weddings and christenings, but Michele still is. Desidera wants Michele to take her in to the wedding, but Michele is worried about how it would affect Annina. Desidera is angry and jealous that Michele lets his love for his sister come between them. Michele agrees to take her in; Don Marco tries to prevent them, and their argument brings out the guests. Salvatore accuses Michele of causing trouble; Michele sings a bitter aria of defiance. Desidera accuses Michele of being in love with his sister rather than her. When she refuses to take her words back, Michele stabs her and runs away; Desidera begs Annina to help her; as they pray together, Desidera dies.

ACT III

Annina and Maria Corona are meeting Michele in a subway station. Maria Corona shows Annina Michele's picture in the paper. Don Marco arrives with Michele. Annina asks Michele to give himself up. He refuses; he says he will fight to the end, even against God. He tells Annina that she is all he has left. Annina in turn tells him that her voices have told her she is going to die very soon; she has decided to take the veil immediately. Michele tries to convince her to stay with him, but she is unmoved. Michele curses her and runs off.
Back in her apartment, Annina, very ill, is waiting with Carmela for word on whether Annina will be allowed to take the veil. Annina is upset because she doesn't have a white dress to wear; Carmela gives her her wedding dress to wear. Her permission is granted, and Don Marco begins the ceremony. The guests wonder if Michele will try to stop the ceremony. As she is being ordained as Sister Angela, Michele bursts in and tries to convince her to stay with him. Annina does not hear him; as the ceremony finishes, she falls down dead.

Geshwin's Orchestra for "Porgy and Bess"

2004-10-24T13:50:00.000-05:00

Even though I posed this question in class on Friday, since no one (including myself) seems to know anything about it, I'm extending this question to ANYONE who is reading this blog.

It is well-known that Gershwin wanted Porgy and Bess to be performed by an all-black cast for 100 years, but there is no record on the racial composition of his orchestra for its production. (At least the original production, that is.) Since segregation laws were still in effect during the opera's premiere, was the orchestra all-black, too?? I think this could be an extremely interesting topic to investigate and would appreciate any assistance or information regarding this matter.

Kurt Weil's Musical Style in The American Opera, Street Scene

2004-10-23T10:58:00.000-05:00

I. How Weill produced the American Opera

He was born in Dessau, 2 March 1900 and died in New York, 3 April 1950. German American composer. He became an American citizen in 1943 after fleeing Germany. He was the one of the composers of the 20th century has devoted himself as single-minded to musical theatre, including opera.

Lady in the Dark produced in 1940, the work that established Weill as a Broadway composer of the first rank. Accordingly, the European harmony and Pucciniesque bridge of “September song” have given away. Later, as one of the central achievements of his American career, a successful work is Street Scene in 1947. It has been called an American Opera.

Weil attempts to integrate his personal style effectively into the popular American musical theatre and to compose ‘the American opera’ means that we now possess a body of work that often transcends the usual limitations of plot or theme and musical sophistication found in the Broadway musical.

Weill saw a production of Elmer Rice’s Street Scene in Berlin before immigrating to the USA. During rehearsals for Johnny Johnson in 1936, he met Rice and suggested a musical version of his drama, which meanwhile had been awarded a Pulitzer Prize. Rice rejected the idea as premature. However, he finally consented ten years later. The black Harlem poet Langston Hughes was engaged to write to write the lyrics. Then finally, the American Opera, Street Scene, was produced in the world.

II. Weill’s Two Dreams in Street Scene

Weil considered Street Scene is his chef d’oeuvre. In a note for the cast recording in 1947, he described it as ‘two dreams come true’: the first dream was for a form of musical theatre that would completely integrate drama and music, spoken word, song and movement and the second was that of an ‘American Opera.’

Street Scene has many names such as American musical theatre, Broadway opera, American Melting-pot Opera, mood music, and dramatic musical opera. In another words, He combined operatic forms with popular elements and spoken text rather than through-composed recitative. Street Scene was a powerful emotional drama that challenged American post-war enthusiasm, questioning naïve notions of the melting-pot idea and traditional “family values.”

III. Spoken Dialogue in the opera

William Thonhill says that Weill used spoken dialogue rather than traditional recitative so that the work would flow ‘naturally from dialogue into music and back.’ In fact, much of the spoken dialogue functions and a technique are most closely related to film music practice. Through this sophisticated and systematic musical style established a new American operatic genre. Besides, Weill accomplished to attract a diverse audience without sacrificing his artistic high quality.

VI. Heroine, Anna Maurrant’s Aria in Act one:

“Somehow I never could believe,” illustrates many of the compositional techniques used by Weill. There is a quotation from the Tristan Prelude at the words, ‘Oh dream of love’ and also ‘There’s got to be a little happiness somewhere.’ So life after Anna Maurrant hammers its message home to us. There is Weill the master composer and master communicator, sharing the pain of his life through his characters and sharing his irrepressible optimism so that we can all learn how to behave learn to be kind and learn to care.

Therefore, Weill sets out to reform it, freeing it from “aristocratic residue” and making it attractive to a larger theatre audience. So his works have been heard on the Broadway stage, in opera houses, in concert halls, and in Hollywood films. Throughout this opera, the result was a dramatic legacy distinguished by its diversity, innovative intentions, and the high quality of its musical content. He subsequently wrote series of musicals which stretched the genre and eventually led to Street Scene.

Porgy and Bess by George Gershwin

2004-10-22T21:51:00.000-05:00

DuBose Heyward(1885-1940)

Heyward first wrote the character as a novel and in 1927 with his wife Dorothy, dramatized it for the Theater Guild. The play "Porgy" ran for more than 300 performances in New York, went on a long cross-country tour, played a return engagement in New York and was finally produced in London. Just a decade later George Gershwin had transformed Heyward's book into as opera that would became one of the most ending masterworks of American music.
As a young man Heyward was immmersed in the Gullah culture of his city. Especially through his mother, a performer and interpreter of Guhllah life in folktale and song, he discovered the gateway into fascinating world.
A native of Charleston, Heyward knew well and appresiated the atmosphere in which Porgy was created. There is a real Catfish Raw in Charleston, and there long existed a beggar who traveled around the city on a goat-cart begging for living. Heyward dad started his literary career with short stories of Negro life in his native South. When he finally hook up the story of "Porgy" he was considered one of the finest writers on the Negro theme in the country.
Heyward was a versatile artist equally an ease with verse, short, fiction, novels, plays, and Hollywood screenwriting. He and his wife helped to energize the nascent black theater movement in New York. Heywood became a vigorous promoter of southern writing that was to peak in the great southern literary renaissance. He began as a social conservative but ended his life as a staunch progressive commited to the advancement of African American. "Manba's Daughters" is the novel with Negro theme written by Heyward. It was successful in its original form, and he transformed into a drama.

Ira Gershwin(1896-1983)

American Lyricist. In true reflection of his Jewish heritage, Ira Gershwin was named Israel Gershvin at birth by his parents. Ira;s father was never in business for long at any location and moved Ira and his family the thirty times until Ira turned eighteen. After the family piano was purchased, Ira was going to sturdy the piano. George took the immediate interest in it and began to successfull play by ear. start to study seriously at the young age of 12 years and Ira focoused his attention on the literary area.
Ira worked as a carnival businessman, clerk, and in other jobs which under-used his talent. finally Ira was finding himself and deciding on a career, young brother George was developing a reputation in the musical realm. Ira returned to musical realm to try his hand at lyric writing. Ira used a penname rather than his real name, so he was borrowing from his little brother, Arthur, and little sister, Francis. Ira used the Pseudonym Arthur Francis as the name apperaring on "The Real American Folk Song". 'Porgy and Bess" may be Ira's best work.

Porgy and Bess (1934)

Georgy Gershwin

In 1926 George gershwin read "Porgy" by DuBose Heyward and they collaborate on a folk opera based on the novel. Even Heyward was enthusiastic, but Gershwin's composing and performing schedules permitted him to start actual work on the project in 1934. Heyward and his wife dramatized "Porgy" for a 1927 production that incorporated spirituals into the action. Finally in 1934, after years of correspondence, George and Ira Gershwin joined DiBose heyward in Charleston to write the opera that had been germinating Gerorge's imagination for several years.

They settled for the summer at Folly Beach, located about ten miles from Charleston, where they could observe the Gullahs an isolated group living on adjacent James Island. They became the prototype of the Catfish Row residents. Happily DuBose heyward wrote the libretto, and Ira Gershwin and Heyward wrote the lyrics. (Heyward's contributions included the lyrics to Summertime and My Man's Gone Now) By mid-August the Gershwins left Charleston, and George applied himself to finishing the recitatives and orchestrating the opera. It was finally completed in July, 1935, the 700 pages of music repersented his most ambitious creation and his favorite composition.

Next, Gershwin involved himself with the casting and production of his opera. Todd Duncan, the first Porgy. Music critic Olin Downes recommended that Gershwin hear Duncan, who was teaching at Howard University as well as singing, but Gershwin rejected the idea because he felt that "he didn't want any university professor to sing." Finally they arranged the meeting during which Gershwin played and Duncan sang, and Gershwin asked Duncan to take the part of Porgy. Gershwin arranged an evening for Duncan with Ira and his wife, the Theater Guild board, and prospective backers. Duncan recalls that he was supposed to sing three or four songs, he sang as hour and half. Then Ira and George got out the score of Porgy and Bess and sang the entire opera. Duncan said that he just thought he was in heaven. These beautiful melodies in this new idiom it was something he had never heard. When he ended with I'm on My Way I was crying, he was wepping.

Gershwin chose to have Porgy and Bess given a Broadway run at the Alvin Theater rather than a full operatic production to assure performances. The first cast of ninteen singing principals included, with Duncan, Anne Brown as Bess, John W. Bubbles as Sportin' Life, Warren Coleman as Crown, and Eva Hessye Choir; Rouben Mannoulian porduced and directed, and Alexander Smallens conducted. Porgy and Bess tried out in Boston and opened in New York on October 10, 1935, for a disappointing run of 124 performances.

Porgy and Bess was George's longest and most ambitious creation, but it was not successful for his lifetime. Some of the songs had achieved popularity before Gershwin's death in 1937, but the work became real approval after the 1940 Theater Guild presentaion. It was performed more often in Europe, where it was considered a true American opera, than in America. in the 1970's it was produced its first uncut production in Houston Opera. It was finally performed at the Met some 50 years after the first production.

Porgy and Bess was Gershwin's last serious work, and his only full-length opera. It possesses that richness, vitality, and variety of melody with vigor of rhythm. Rich in materials derived from spirituals, shouts, and street cries. Porgy and Bess is truly a folk opera. Ite roots are in the soil of the Negro people, whom it interprets with humor, tragedy, penetrating characterizations, dramatic power, and sympathy.

Heyward's novel was inspired by a newspaper article about a crippled black man who committed murder in the height of passion. This novel was based on a real-life well-known local character called 'Goat Sammy," who could not stand upright and was forced to travel about in a goat-drawn cart. The three-act opera takes place in Catfish Raw, once an aristocratic mansion, now a crowed waterfront tenement.

"Street Scene:" Sources and Libretto

2004-10-21T14:58:00.000-05:00

Street Scene: Sources and Libretto

Kurt Weill’s 1947 opera is based on an earlier play by writer Elmer Rice. Rice’s Street Scene explores the struggles of humanity of neighbors living in a Depression-era New York City tenement. Residents from a variety of cultures, ranging from Italians to Swedes to Jews, gather outside to get a breath of fresh air and share bits and pieces of their lives. Over a period of one day there are births, deaths, romances of all sorts, and plenty of gossip, building up a cluster of storylines as events unfold. The characters that inhabit Rice’s play, although all bound together by their lower class status, are complex and congenial, and still communicate a freshness to the audience.

* * *

A consummate playwright, author, director, impresario and outspoken advocate of American theatre, Elmer Rice has over 50 plays to his name. Rice was born Elmer Leopold Reizenstein and much as one of his own Street Scene denizens, spent his childhood in a New York walk-up apartment on 90th St. His grandparents had immigrated from Germany and not unlike his own character Sam Kaplan, Rice was raised in the Jewish faith and studied law, though with less enthusiasm. Serving as a legal clerk while waiting to take his Bar Exam, Rice began writing plays and produced his first Broadway hit, On Trial, in 1914 at the age of 21.

Street Scene was Rice’s next effort to reach Broadway after his 1923 success with The Adding Machine. Street Scene typifies what could only be called American verismo: it bears an uncanny resemblance to Italian works of the genre, which emphasized a localized drama in a narrow timeframe with inflated passions and violent conclusions. Rice’s play was begun in 1925 innocuously enough as The Sidewalks of New York with several scenes later being incorporated into Landscape With Figures, an early working title for Rice’s final version of Street Scene. In the play, Rice’s conflicts are more emotionally charged than Weill’s, his racial tensions more pointed, and his social messages very clear.

* * *

Kurt Weill saw a production of Rice’s Street Scene in Berlin prior to emigrating to the U.S. During rehearsals for Johnny Johnson in 1936, he met Rice and suggested a musical version of his play, which had already been awarded a Pulitzer Prize. Rice rejected the idea as premature, but ultimately consented when the two men met again ten years later. Much of the spoken dialogue was retained in abridged form, and the black poet Langston Hughes was engaged to write the lyrics.

Weill’s opera mollifies many of the play’s more volatile themes, including its thinly veiled political agenda and inherent racism, and improves upon the boy-meets-girl story, no doubt in an effort to satisfy the demands of musical theatre audiences. Rice objected to some of these trivializations though so much of his original dialogue made its way into the opera that he later insisted on equal billing as lyricist. His objections may not have been warranted—in some ways the more prosaic Broadway numbers create a broader palette and tighter juxtaposition of emotions. The graduation girls gleefully sing “Wrapped in a Ribbon” as the Hildebrands’ eviction looms in the near future, the neighbors celebrate a new birth with “When a Woman Has a Baby” the day before one of their own is brutally murdered, and the nursemaids sing a sardonic lullaby to their charges—a bit of almost Shakespearian comic relief—making light of recent tragic events.

Rice’s play laid the groundwork that comfortably served Weill’s linear aspiration for musical drama, and situations work themselves out of dialogue and into song with relative ease. The collaborators found they only needed to introduce one additional character into the melting pot, Henry Davis, chiefly because they wanted a blues tune. Other dramatic moments of the play almost beg for further musical interpretation: in the play Lippo and Anna dance while Mrs. Fiorentino plays Puccini on the piano; Mae Jones hums a snappy jazz tune while she and Dick McGann drink on the stoop; Sam recites to Rose Walt Whitman’s poem “When lilacs last in the dooryard bloom’d”, set to music by Weill as “Don’t Forget the Lilac Bush.” Already a master of innovation with respect to his art form, Weill melds the European operatic formulas with jazz, blues, bebop and popular song to create a genuine slice of Americana.

Hot Jazz In Jonny Spielt Auf

2004-10-21T14:40:00.000-05:00

So I haven't found an actual theoretical analysis of "Jonny" and its links to jazz. But I just finished listening to it and I don't think it's even necessary after hearing it to be able to technically explain why it's considered a jazz opera. All one really has to do is listen to it. I was under the impression before hearing it that it would use jazz in an intellectual way similar to Wozzeck's use of traditional forms. I though it would be subtle. Well let me tell you something boys and girls, it is not. The jazzy sections of the opera are straight up jazz. They sound like Duke Ellington and are perfectly authentic. Harmonically, orchestrally, and rhythmically Krenek reproduces the early jazz sound in this opera quite effectively.

October 22: Opera and Jazz

2004-10-20T21:25:00.000-05:00

Available at Amazon:

Ernst Krenek, Jonny Spielt Auf, Lucia Popp, Evelyn Lear, Thomas Stewart, Vienna State Opera, conducted by Heinrich Hollreiser

Ernst Krenek (1900–1991), Jonny Spielt Auf
Premiered at the Leipzig Stadtheater on February 10, 1927. On New Year's Eve in 1925, Krenek saw an American negro review called "Chocolate Kiddies" in Frankfurt, with music by Duke Ellington. Krenek soon wrote the libretto himself for this early "jazz opera." By 1930, it had been shown in 70 different productions around Europe, making it the most often performed opera of the period. Jonny Spielt Auf made Krenek's name, and he lived off the royalties and repeated performances into the 1930s, when the Third Reich's opposition cut into his profits.

Due to Nazi opposition, the premiere of Krenek's later opera, Karl V, about the disintegration of the Austrian empire under Charles V, was canceled at the Vienna Staatsoper in 1934. At that point, Nazi pressure on conductor Clemens Krauss was at its peak. The Nazis hated the black content of Jonny Spielt Auf and called Krenek a Bolshevik and decadent composer in 1938, at the infamous Entartete Musik exhibit in Dusseldorf, along with Hindemith, Schoenberg, Berg, and many others. The opera received its Prague premiere in June 1938, the last opera performed there before German troops invaded.

Although it evokes the devil-may-care sexual attitude of the 1920s and appealed to mass audiences by incorporating jazz and other dance sounds, the opera was a flop at its New York premiere. That was the beginning of the decline, as more and more critics thought its musical style was more appropriate to an operetta. The Nazis seized Krenek's assets, as well as the rights to his royalties, so when he emigrated to the United States, he landed in New York with almost nothing. Krenek taught briefly at Vassar and in Minnesota, before ending up in California.

You can find more information available from the Ernst-Krenek-Institut-Privatstiftung in Krems, Austria.

Available at Amazon:

George Gershwin (1898–1937), Porgy and Bess, Willard White, Cynthia Haymon, Glyndebourne Opera

George Gershwin, Porgy and Bess
Premiered at the Alvin Theater, New York City, on October 10, 1935. Libretto based on DuBose Heyward (1885–1940), Porgy (novel from 1925, Broadway play with Dorothy Heyward in 1927; read the hypertext edition of the novel, edited by Kendra Hamilton). Gershwin sketched the opera in 1934 and prepared the orchestral score from September 1934 to September 1935. (Gershwin had seen a performance of Krenek's Jonny Spielt Auf in Vienna, part of the 1928 European trip on which he also met Alban Berg.)

Other resources:

James Standifer, The Complicated Life of Porgy and Bess (Humanities, vol. 18, no. 6, November/December 1997)
Wayne Shirley, The Operatic Gershwin, New York City Opera
Official George and Ira Gershwin Web Site
George and Ira Gershwin Education Fan Page
Raymond A. White, The Gershwin Legacy: Library Celebrates Contributions of George and Ira, from the Library of Congress (September 1998)
Porgy and Bess, from Imagination: American Treasures of the Library of Congress
George Gershwin (Jewish Virtual Library, Judaic Treasures of the Library of Congress)
Robert Marx, American Icons, New York City Opera (on Porgy and Virgil Thomson's Mother of Us All)

Available at Amazon:

Kurt Weill, Street Scene, English National Opera (1989)

Kurt Weill (1900–1950), Street Scene
Premiered at the Adelphi Theatre, New York, on January 9, 1947. The libretto was adapted from a Pulitzer Prize-winning play, produced in 1929, by New York-born Elmer Rice (1892-1967), with additional lyrics by Langston Hughes. The original production ran for 148 performances, leading Weill to remark, "Seventy-five years from now, Street Scene will be remembered as my major work." The opera was the first real successor to Porgy and Bess.

Kurt Weill (born in Dessau, Germany) started a theater revolution with his collaboration with Bertold Brecht on Die Dreigroschenoper (The Threepenny Opera), premiered at the Theater am Schiffbauerdamm, in Berlin, on August 31, 1928. It was an updating of John Gay's The Beggar's Opera (1720), which had just been given a modern staging in London in 1920, to huge success. Die Dreigroschenoper cannot really be called an opera: it was staged but in a small theater, not an opera house; no member of the original cast was a professional opera singer (the roles are not designed for that sort of voice, and the cast were mostly theater actors who could sing); the instrumentalists were not pit musicians, and most belonged to dance hall bands (2 saxophones, 2 trumpets, trombone, banjo, timpani, harmonium). Weill said at the time that the work "presented us with the opportunity to make 'opera' the subject matter for an evening in the theater." He also said it was "the most consistent reaction to Wagner" and a positive step toward operatic reform. It is important to realize that this premiere took place less than three years after that of Berg's Wozzeck.

Weill then premiered a similar work, Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny (Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny), on March 9, 1930, in Leipzig. However, in March 1933, Weill fled Germany with his wife, the singer Lotte Lenya, who had sung important roles in both of the works just mentioned. They spent some time in Paris, where Weill completed his Second Symphony and renewed briefly his collaboration with Brecht for Die sieben Todsünden, a "ballet with singing" for George Balanchine's troupe "Les Ballets 1933." In September 1935, Weill went to America with Lenya (although they later divorced), to oversee Max Reinhardt's production of Franz Werfel's biblical epic Der Weg der Verheissung, for which Weill had written an extensive oratorio-like score. After many delays, the work was finally staged in 1937 but in truncated form as The Eternal Road. Weill's first hit in the U.S. was Lady in the Dark, a musical play about psychoanalysis by Moss Hart, with lyrics by Ira Gershwin, his return to the theater after his brother's death in 1937. Marc Blitzstein made an English translation of The Threepenny Opera that had great success. Weill had a huge influence through his Broadway musicals and became the most challenging figure on that scene before Sondheim (he worked with Lerner and Ira Gershwin).

Other resources:

Kurt Weill Foundation for Music, in New York (founded by Lotte Lenya)
The World of Kurt Weill
Kurt Weill Fest (Kurt-Weill-Zentrum, in Dessau, Germany)
The Papers of Kurt Weill and Lotte Lenya, in the Irving S. Gilmore Music Library of Yale University
Street Scene and Urban Space in 20th-Century Music Theater The City as Heterotopia—The City as Transition Space Interdisciplinary Symposium (conference planned for March 4 to 6, 2005) at the Bauhaus, in Dessau, Germany
Kim H. Kowalke, Kurt Weill and His American Identity, American Composers Orchestra

Phil Carluzzo, Hot Jazz in Jonny Spielt Auf
Lindsay Heller, "Street Scene:" Sources and Libretto
Grace Cho, Kurt Weil's Musical Style in The American Opera, Street Scene
Kyoung-Hee Jung, Porgy and Bess by George Gershwin
Lindsay Heller, Gershwin's Orchestra for Porgy and Bess

ionarts: 20th-Century Opera

2004-10-19T08:49:00.000-05:00

I draw your attention to the following posts related to our subject at ionarts:

Remembering the Second Viennese School, October 18
Fiat Lux, Stockhausen Dixit, October 16 (on the completion of Stockhausen's seven-opera cycle, Licht)
Opera Is Back in Toulouse, October 16 (premiere of Leoš Janáček's Jenůfa in the newly renovated Capitole in Toulouse)
Music in Nazi Germany, October 11, and More on Music in Nazi Germany, October 16
Messiaen's Opera at the Bastille, October 12 (on Saint François d'Assise production in Paris)
American Opera at the Renwick Gallery, October 11 (review of recital of American opera presented by singers from the Domingo-Cafritz Young Artists Program)
Blogwatch/Operawatch, October 2 (on productions of Richard Strauss's Daphne)
The Greek Passion in London, October 1 (on the opera, by Bohuslav Martinů, finally produced at the Royal Opera House, at Covent Garden, in London)
Hanjo in Brussels, September 28 (on production of Toshio Hosokawa's Hanjo, at the Théâtre de La Monnaie [De Munt] in Brussels)
Pelléas in Paris, September 21 (Sylvain Cambreling conducts Debussy's opera, designed by Robert Wilson, at the Bastille)

I have quoted or linked to earlier posts in my posts here on Bartók and Janáček.

Chinese Melody, Mo-Li-Hua, in Turandot

2004-10-19T05:20:00.000-05:00

Puccini borrowed the Chinese tunes and invented in his last masterpiece, Turandot. He got two sources for the Chinese tunes: one was the music box belonging to the Baron Fassini that Adami reported having heard at Nagani di Lucca in August 1920. He seized the opportunity to discuss China with his friend Baron Fassini, an old China hand at Bagni di Lucca. Later he borrowed the Baron’s little Chinese music-box, from which he borrowed some authentic Chinese melodies in the opera, Turandot. The other was the booklet Chinese Music by J. A. Van Aalst in Shanghai 1884.

Mo-Li-Hua (Jasmine flower) is the authentic,”Chinese pentatonic, Chinese folk tune.” The most typical feature of the pentatonic scale has no semitones unlike the normal diatonic scale. Rudolf Steiner says that the pentatonic melodies are, perhaps, closer to heaven or cosmos than major or minor diatonic scales.

Mosco Carner identifies about Puccini’s Turandot that at least eight Chinese melodies used in the score of Turandot. Particularly, Mo-Li-Hua melody is used the most frequently in the opera. It occurs mainly at appearances of the Principessa Turandot or references to her or her power and glory. For example, in Act 1, scene 1, Là sui monti dell’Est- the first appearance of the melody is right before the appearance of the pince of Persia. It is sung by boys accompanied discretely by offstage saxophones as the chorus hums and the orchestra provides a gently raking accompaniment.

At this point, Michele Girardi suggested on the melody that was the execution motive associated with some quality in the Pincess’will and her cruelty. Then Girardi insisted again that the next, Mo-Li-Hua melody continues to be associated directly with Turandot, on-or-off stage throughout the opera. Therefore, the execution motive is conceived as “Turandot’s cruelty and power.”

Another good example of the Chinese melody is the pentatonic arietta, ‘Singore, ascolta,’ In this Liu’s aria, an adventurous use of whole-tone, pentatonic and modal Chinese melodies are used. The melodies are no longer a mere orientalism as in Madama Butterfly, but the music is organized in motivically authentic Chinese tunes. One more typical Chinese Mo-Li-Hua melody is the tune the three Ministers sing at their first appearance, “Ferma! Che fai?’ so called “Imperial hymn.” Puccini used this tune exactly from Baron Fassini’s music box in his Act I rh. 28-30.

There are many examples for being used the Chinese melodies in the opera such as “Pincipessa!, Non senti? Il suo profumo è ell’aria! è nell’anima!, Turandot! Turandot! Turandot! ( the Pince of Persia’s last cry of Turandot), and the music of Ping, Pang and Pong in act 1. Therefore, Puccini accomplished certainly successful oriental melodies throughout the opera, Turandot, and he also introduced the different dramatic opera world.

John Corigliano Speaks

2004-10-18T21:38:00.000-05:00

After our work on John Corigliano's opera The Ghosts of Versailles in class (see October 8: The Ghosts of Versailles and the posts after it), we were able to attend a lecture given by the composer at Catholic University's Benjamin T. Rome School of Music on October 15, after a composition master class he gave there. After having gone through hell and high water to locate a copy of the Met's production of Ghosts for the students to watch, I was quite happy to hear Mr. Corigliano say first that he had made a DVD copy of the Met production, which he was donating to our music library. His plan for his lecture was to introduce the opera, have us watch some excerpts from the DVD, and then take some questions.

Corigliano described how he told James Levine that he wanted to write an opera buffa. When Levine said that an opera buffa wouldn't work at the Met, Corigliano revised his plan for Ghosts, which would be a "grand opera buffa." He said rightly that the production recorded on DVD had performances from "the best singers in the world at the time," and he mentioned Teresa Stratas (Marie-Antoinette), Håkan Hagegård (Beaumarchais), Marilyn Horne (Samira), and Renée Fleming (first Met role as Rosina). What suited Corigliano's interests in the libretto was "the chance to time travel back to the 18th century," allowing him to shift the style back and forth between neoclassical and modern idioms, not to be bound to one style as Stravinsky was in The Rake's Progress. He likened the quotations from Mozart and Rossini, which are heard in the "world of deranged classicism" of the ghosts, to "subliminal flashes."

As for the music of the ghosts, Corigliano said that it was associated in his mind as he composed it with "clouds, smoke, wisps," and that it was based on a tone row. As different instruments take up the row, the color changes, creating a sort of Klangfarbenmelodie. Aside from the range of styles in the opera, Corigliano said that he believed the opera's success was due to the fact that, in his opera, "the singers are given the music for their voices," meaning not only that he wrote for operatic voices, in general, but also that he adapted the opera for these specific singers. We watched Marie-Antoinette's Act I scene, "Once there was a golden bird," which ends with an extremely high note. Although Corigliano notated the note simply as "highest note possible," Teresa Stratas wanted him to change the score to reflect the fact that she hit a high E at this point in the production. It's a dramatic moment on the video version.

There was not time for many questions. In response to the question on many people's minds, Corigliano responded that, no, he and William Hoffman have no plans to create another opera. The Ghosts of Versailles has had several incredibly successful productions (see notes on the productions in my previous post), all completely sold out. At the Met premiere, Corigliano said, "even Jackie Kennedy couldn't get tickets," although she did eventually see it. In spite of the opera's success, he insisted, he is not going to go through the anguish of creating another opera until Ghosts is produced more often and with more regularity. Houston Grand Opera, he says, thinks of Ghosts as "the Met's opera" and refuse to produce it, although they have expressed interest in a new opera from Corigliano. Plácido Domingo, at the Washington National Opera, likes the opera but will not commit to producing it here. Why should composers labor to produce new operas that will only get one or a few productions? John Corigliano may have a point.

Berg, Wozzeck: Overview

2004-10-16T21:46:00.000-05:00

Berg saw in the play in 1914 and in the situation of its main character things which remined him of his own spell of service in the Austrian army. He deliberately changed some details of Buchner's text to make them correspond to his own experiences of military service.

Berg emphasizes through his choice of musical structures and it is through this emphasis that the opera becomes a protest against both an inhuman and sadistic social order and an uncaring and hostile world.
Berg himselg called 'a traditional three-part ABA structure'
In the music the retograde movement runs its predetermined course to return, like the turning earth and mill-wheel, to the point at which it started.
The musical palindromes stand as a symbol of predestination and of man's inability to effect the course of events. The circular images in the text, returning to the point in which they began, closing the circle and symbolically negating their own existence.
There is no feeling of closure or completion in the end of opera. The music could continue, as Berg himself remarked, it does continue. The circle is closed and the cycle starts afresh. The death of Wozzeck has passed unnoticed and it is implied. Tragedy is about to be re-enacted with Wozzeck's child.
In the libretto both the image of the turning globe and image of the mill-wheel present the idea of time moving in a circle.

Berg wrote to his wife Helene in 1918, while working on Wozzeck. 'There is a bit of me in this character'.

Berg may have recognized a deeper similarity between his own situation and that of Wozzeck: As a young man Berg had ahd a love affair as a result of which he became the father of an illegitimate child when he was age of 17. The mother of Berg's daughter was a girl called Marie Scheuchl who worked in the kitchen of the Berghof.
Berg also saw in Wozzeck another reflection of his own personal concerns and obsessions. Like Wozzeck, Berg was predisposed to regard everyday things as having mysterious messages and portents hidden within them. An ardent believer in nuerology, he regarded the number 23 as having a peculiar significance for him. using them as a means of determining the proportions and the metronome markings of many of his works. He even allowed such numbers to govern the way in which he organized his everyday life, arranging to write important letters or to start or finish work on a composition on the 23rd of the month.

Turandot Synopsis

2004-10-15T12:11:00.000-05:00

Turandot Giacomo Puccini
ACT I: Peking, legendary times. In a quarter swarming with people near the Forbidden City, a Mandarin reads an edict: any prince seeking to marry Princess Turandot must answer three riddles - and if he fails, he will die. Her latest suitor, the Prince of Persia, is to be executed at the rise of the moon. Bloodthirsty citizens urge the executioner on, and in the tumult a slave girl, Liù, calls out for help when her aged master is pushed to the ground. A handsome youth recognizes him as his long-lost father, Timur, vanquished king of Tartary. When the old man tells his son, Prince Calàf, that only Liù has remained faithful to him, the youth asks her why. She replies it is because once, long ago, Calàf smiled on her. The mob again cries for blood, but the moon emerges, and all fall into sudden, fearful silence. The doomed suitor passes on the way to execution, moving the onlookers to call upon Turandot to spare his life. Turandot appears and, with a contemptuous gesture, bids the execution proceed. The crowd hears a death cry in the distance. Calàf, smitten with the princess' beauty, determines to win her as his bride, striding to the gong that proclaims the arrival of a new suitor. Turandot's ministers Ping, Pang and Pong try to discourage the youth, their warnings supplemented by the entreaties of Timur and the tearful Liù. Despite their pleas, Calàf strikes the fatal gong and calls out Turandot's name. ACT II: In their quarters, Ping, Pang and Pong lament Turandot's bloody reign, praying that love will conquer her icy heart so peace can return. As the populace gathers to hear Turandot question the new challenger, the ministers are called back to harsh reality. The aged Emperor Altoum, seated on a high throne in the Imperial Palace, asks Calàf to give up his quest, but in vain. Turandot enters and tells the story of her ancestor Princess Lou-Ling, brutally slain by a conquering prince; in revenge Turandot has turned against all men, determining that none shall ever possess her. She poses her first question: what is born each night and dies each dawn? "Hope," Calàf answers correctly. Unnerved, Turandot continues: what flickers red and warm like a flame, yet is not fire? "Blood," replies Calàf after a moment's pause. Shaken, Turandot delivers her third riddle: what is like ice but burns? A tense silence prevails until Calàf triumphantly cries "Turandot!" While the crowd gives thanks, the princess begs her father not to abandon her to a stranger, but to no avail. Calàf generously offers Turandot a riddle of his own: if she can learn his name by dawn, he will forfeit his life. ACT III: In a palace garden, Calàf hears a proclamation: on pain of death, no one in Peking shall sleep until Turandot learns the stranger's name. The prince muses on his impending joy; but Ping, Pang and Pong try unsuccessfully to bribe him to withdraw. As the fearful mob threatens Calàf with drawn daggers to learn his name, soldiers drag in Liù and Timur. Horrified, Calàf tries to convince the mob that neither knows his secret. When Turandot appears, commanding the dazed Timur to speak, Liù cries out that she alone knows the stranger's identity. Though tortured, she remains silent. Impressed by such endurance, Turandot asks Liù's secret; "Love," the girl replies. When the princess signals the soldiers to intensify the torture, Liù snatches a dagger from one of them and kills herself. The grieving Timur and the crowd follow her body as it is carried away. Turandot remains alone to confront Calàf, who at length takes her in his arms, forcing her to kiss him. Knowing physical passion for the first time, Turandot weeps. The prince, now sure of his victory, tells her his name. As the people hail the emperor, Turandot approaches his throne, announcing that the stranger's name is - Love.

Unfinished Masterpiece

2004-10-15T12:08:00.000-05:00

Italian composer Giacomo Puccini's last masterpiece before his death, Turandot, the opera that salutes the power of love.

Giacomo Puccini was born in 1858, the son of the musical director of the Cathedral of S. Martino in Lucca. Though Puccini might have been inclined toward music as a profession through his own discretion, there was never a thought that he would do otherwise as it was assumed he would carry on family tradition. Though Puccini received training in various areas of music, including chamber music and organ, his true love was the opera. He is remembered as a master of operatic realism.

Puccini's first operas were true to 19th Century Italian harmonies with drama that portrayed balance of action. Puccini's operas were strong in emotional appeal and conflict, but they also contained gentler segments of repose and reflection. An example of such balance is suggested by Puccini's "farewell" and "death" arias that are marked with passionate lyrical melodies contrasted against underlying tones of morbidity.

Toward the end of his career, Puccini was influenced by the compositions of Rimsky-Korsakov, Strauss, Schoenberg, and Stravinsky, early forerunners of the Impressionistic Music Era. As Impressionistic music diverged from traditional harmonies, Puccini endeavored to assimilate a more contemporary style into the writing of "Turandot," an opera based on Italian dramatist's Carlo Gozzi's play by that name. Puccini's "Turandot" is by far his most grand opera, replete with climaxes, choruses, and full pageantry.

Princess Turandot, according to the fable that served as Gozzi's inspiration, lived in the City of Peking. She was destined to marry but had pledged to thwart any attempts of suitors because of an ancestor's abduction by a prince and resultant death. With each suitor, Turandot posed three riddles. If the suitor answered all three riddles correctly, he won the hand of the princess. If he failed, he lost his head.

Act I opens as the Prince of Persia, who has failed to answer Turandot's riddles, is being escorted to the execution block. Calaf, a handsome prince in his own right, notices a slave girl who is attending to her fallen master. When Calaf approaches the scene, he recognizes his father whom he has not seen in many years. After a sentimental reunion, the threesome turn their attention to the execution, joining others in the crowd who are calling for Princess Turandot's reprieve of execution for the Prince of Persia. The princess does appear; however, there is no reprieve. She orders the execution to proceed.

In Act II, Calaf believes that Turandot's heart can be conquered by love, and against the objections of his newly found father, he presents himself as a suitor. Having successfully answered the Princess's questions, Calaf turns the tide and becomes the author of his own challenge: if Turandot can learn his true identity by dawn, he will forfeit his life. Turandot is enraged and in Act III issues a proclamation to the city, prohibiting the sleep of anyone until she can discover the name of the young prince. Frightened by their princess's obvious rage, some of the people of Peking surround Calaf and draw daggers to intimidate him. Others race to find the old man with whom he had been seen earlier. Soon they have brought his father and the slave girl who serves him to the scene. Princess Turandot herself appears and orders that the girl be tortured. Though the torture is intense, the young girl will not give up Calaf's name. Turandot is impressed by the girl's endurance and asks her secret. The girl replies, "It is love." Calaf tears Turandot's veil from her face and kisses her. The princess gives way to tears and Calaf knows he has broken through the barrier that has kept her heart shut from all emotion. The chorus applauds the power of love.

Puccini was suffering from cancer of the throat as he endeavored to complete his Turandot masterpiece. He lacked the composition of a final duet between Calaf and Turandot when he died post-surgery in Brussels. Puccini's colleague, Franco Alfano, completed the duet as well as a finale, using Puccini's notes and sketches. The opera was first performed in 1926, two years after Puccini's death.

Written by Elaine Schneider
Copyright 2002 by PageWise, Inc

Buchner's "Woyzeck" and "Wozzeck" as the Anti-hero

2004-10-14T22:26:00.000-05:00

Büchner’s Play, Woyzeck

Woyzeck is the all-purpose servant of a German Captain. The Captain considers him largely amoral and stupid Woyzeck is poor. Woyzeck also makes money by allowing the Doctor to experiment on him. He has eaten nothing but peas in order to prove some unstated scientific premise.

Woyzeck discovers his girlfriend, Marie, with whom he has had a son, having an affair with the Drum Major. He brings Marie to a side of a pond and slits her throat. After getting drunk, Woyzeck realizes that people are looking at him suspiciously and he returns to the pond and presumably drowns himself.

* * *

The Doctor and Captain are major characters in the play but they have no proper names. They are meant to be representative of the forces that manipulate humanity while falling short of full human status themselves. The Doctor has no compassion; he experiments merely to see the results, not to do good. At one point, he throws his cat out the window to watch how it will land.
The Captain has a strict morality that makes him incapable of seeing Woyzeck’s deeper morality. Woyzeck himself in one of the first anti-heroes, sacrificed to powers larger than himself.

* * *

Woyzeck is among the first works in the Western tradition to break with Aristotle’s rough (and ancient) formulation of the types of subjects that differentiate comedy from tragedy.

Woyzeck clearly took up a character the tradition (and in operatic tradition as well) would’ve depicted comically—an inarticulate menial servant—but built a circumstantial case of enormous potential sympathy for his oppressed condition in society. This powerful circumstantial case has struck many of Woyzeck’s admirers as the revolutionary purpose of the play. This play is seen by some as a masterpiece of Socialist Realism, noting that, well before Karl Marx led the way, Woyzeck perfectly anticipated dialectical materialism and clearly illustrated the untenable position of the proletariat in industrialized capitalist states. After WWI, German Expressionists like Bertolt Brecht would revere Woyzeck as the prototype of their anti-naturalistic style.

Modern doctors and psychiatrists have found the portrayal of the character of Woyzeck so objectively clinical that the case for an impassioned revolutionary intent on Büchner’s part has given way to a more strictly medical reading of the play. Büchner is now thought to have given in the scenes of Woyzeck one of the earliest clinically accurate descriptions of acute paranoid schizophrenia to be found in European literature.

The story of the real Woyzeck: In June 1821, in Leipzig, a forty-one-year-old barber named Johann Christian Woyzeck stabbed his mistress, the widow Woost, in a fit of jealous rage. He was tried and condemned to death. However, for the first time in the history of German law (and twenty years before the M’Naghten rule became part of the English criminal code), the question of diminished responsibility on the basis of insanity was raised. A forensic expert testified at the trial that Woyzeck had been sane at the time of the murder, and a date was set for the barber’s execution, but a private observer volunteered the information that the defendant had been mentally unstable prior to committing the crime. A second examination by Dr. Johann Christian A. Clarus failed to reverse the original medical decision, and Woyzeck was beheaded on 27 August 1824. Dr. Clarus wrote about his part in the trial in a medical journal.

Büchner’s principal sources for the play are the clinical analyses of the medical examiner Dr. Clarus, who, in the 1820s, pronounced that "a stronger exercise of free-will might have rid [the real-life Woyzeck] of his unwillingness to work, his gambling, his drunkenness, and his illegitimate satisfaction of sexual desire…" all of which bad habits contributed to his predilection for bad company…and eventually his deliberate criminal decision to commit murder.

Woyzeck, according to Clarus, had drifted from job-to-job, showing signs of paranoia, depression, and even experiencing hallucinations. He imagined that he was persecuted by the Freemasons, and could turn aggressive and violent; but he could also be a regular sort, a not-too-bright but thoroughly reasonable person. He had had several mistresses and had fathered a child by one of them; he left because of her infidelities and had been known to assault her, just as he finally attacked and killed the widow Woost. He planned the murder, stabbed his victim seven times, and told Dr. Clarus he had planned to throw the knife into a pond on the outskirts of the city. He also contemplated suicide, not only to escape punishment but also to relieve himself of the visions and of the awful poverty in which he lived and from which he saw no way out. (It is interesting to note that Dr. Clarus was among the first of the many 19th century physicians who developed an intense interest in a quasi science they called criminology: a blend of forensic medicine, psychiatry, free-wheeling speculation, and a dash of what we would later come to call sociology.)

To underline his credo that there is no such thing as free will, Büchner made Woyzeck a soldier, caught in the webs of the military. Woyzeck, in order to support the child he didn’t want and had never wanted, added to his meager earnings by submitting to physical contact with two male authorities, the captain and the doctor, both of them nameless, standing as prototypes in the commedia dell-arte manner. Each morning, Woyzeck had to shave the captain, who prattled about whatever came into his mind, insulting his servant whenever he realized that he was in the company of another human and was not merely talking to himself. For extra money, Woyzeck submitted his body to the most degrading experiments made in the name of science, subsisting on peas shelled out to him by the doctor in return for all his urine. (Berg in his opera made the fluid phlegm instead of urine.)

In the 1930s and 1940s, medical fascination with Woyzeck was no longer fixated on a sociological solution to criminal behaviour; the emphasis had shifted to personal psychology and the practice of psychiatry. By the mid-20th century, Woyzeck was appreciated for its stark portrayal of an existentialist despair soon to be echoed and paralleled by Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot.

Woyzeck had, long before the advent of the "theatre of the absurd," claimed new aesthetic scope for purely theatrical depictions of nameless states of consciousness, anxiety, and dread on the stage.

* * *

Berg’s Wozzeck

From the beginning, Berg intended his Wozzeck to be a full-scale work that would go on the same stages and play to the same audiences as Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde and Verdi’s Il Trovatore; that much of the old operatic tradition he intended to keep. Yet, in light of the new musical language, which didn’t allow scenes and acts of opera to be built up around cornerstones of tonality, was opera still within the realm of possibility?

Lectures Berg later delivered recalling the creative processes that led to his first opera show that he was thinking of precisely these question as he begun work on Wozzeck. He consistently denied that he had any intention of reforming the art form, as Gluck had done in 18th century France, or of writing a work that would serve as a model for future efforts, either his own, or others'. He claimed he had nothing else in mind except "to render unto the theatre what is the theatre's--and that means to shape the music in such a manner that it is aware in every moment of its duty to the drama...The music must produce everything that the play needs for its transposition into the reality of production...without prejudicing the music's own life, which may not be hindered by anything extra-musical."

* * *

Wozzeck as the Anti-hero

-He is the anti-hero in a general human sense because of his actions: although they are wrong, as a listener, part of you want to "root" for Wozzeck because of his horrible life
-In terms of opera tradition, Wozzeck is also the anti-hero because someone who is from a lower class was generally part of an opera buffa and their lives and antics were used as vehicles for comedy, not drama such as Berg's
-It must be kept in mind that in Buchner's play, Woyzeck was not really "crazy." He is weak, a pawn, attacked emotionally by the captain and physically by the doctor.
**(There's obviously a lot more to be discussed here that will be covered in my presentation. Scroll up as well for more insight into Wozzeck as the anti-hero.)

Traditional Forms in Wozzeck

2004-10-14T08:12:00.000-05:00

So it turns out Berg used nothing but traditional forms in shaping Wozzeck. It's interesting to me how the men who were most enthusiastically abandoning traditional harmony (Shoenberg, Webern, Berg) were at the same time embracing 18th and 19th century forms.

October 15: The End of Opera?

2004-10-13T20:58:00.000-05:00

The two operas we will examine this week were premiered within a few months of one another in 1925 to 1926, both conducted by legendary conductors. One represents the end of traditional Italian opera, and the other is sometimes regarded as the perfect modernist opera, combining atonal techniques with a disturbing psychological analysis of its characters. Was this the one-two punch that was the beginning of the decline of opera?

Available at Amazon:

Giacomo Puccini, Turandot, Joan Sutherland, London Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Zubin Mehta

Giacomo Puccini (1858–1924), Turandot
Premiered on April 25, 1926, at La Scala in Milan, conducted by Arturo Toscanini.

Libretto (in Italian only): Giuseppe Adami and Renato Simoni, after a play by Carlo Gozzi, Re Turandot (1762) or actually after Friedrich Schiller's German adaptation of Gozzi, Turandot, Prinzessin von China, from 1802). Suites of incidental music for performances of the play were composed by Carl Maria von Weber and Ferrucio Busoni. Operas on the same story were also composed by Antonio Bazzini in 1867, and by Busoni in 1917

As for the "Chinese" sound of the opera, the closest Puccini got to China was listening to the Chinese musicbox owned by his friend Baron Fassini, who had been to China. Puccini supposedly derived some of the opera's main themes from this musicbox. His reading on Chinese culture and ritual was extensive, including a book by J. A. van Aalst, Chinese Music (Shanghai, 1884).

The opera was left incomplete (ending in the middle of the third act, after the death of Liù) at the composer's death in 1924; finished by Franco Alfano, in consultation with Toscanini.

Turandot will be broadcast live on radio from the Met, on January 29, 2005.

Other resources:

Materials on Turandot (Met Opera Radio Broadcasts)
From The Metropolitan Opera Archives: Notes on Turandot (information on the American premiere of the opera, at the Met, on November 16, 1926)
Giacomo Puccini and Turandot (Pucciniana!)
Puccini's "Turandot" turns Lebanese palace into Chinese imperial court (Living Portals News, July 5, 2004, about a production of the opera in Lebanon this summer)
Giacomo Puccini's Turandot in the Forbidden City: An Introduction (production of the opera in Beijing in 1998)
Enrique Subercaseaux, The Ultimate Turandot (Asia Week, September 25, 1998) (also about the production described above)
Frank Johnson, Puccini scores—analysis of aria 'Nessun Dorma' (National Review, July 23, 1990)
Jonathan Christian Petty and Marshall Tuttle, Tonal Psychology in Puccini's Turandot (Center for Korean Studies, Berkeley, and Langston University)
Eric Teo, Trembling over China: Italian opera Turandot reveals unchanging Western prejudices about a 'paradise lost' (Channel News Asia, November 20, 2003)
Robert Hilferty, Puccini/Berio: Turandot, Act III (Andante, 2002) (Luciano Berio's completion of Puccini's opera was premiered in 2002 in the Canary Islands, but has not been recorded, as far as I know)

Available at Amazon:

Alban Berg, Wozzeck, Hildegard Behrens, Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Claudio Abbado (recorded live at the Vienna Staatsoper, 1987)

Alban Berg (1885–1935), Wozzeck
Premiered at the Deutsche Staatsoper, Berlin, December 14, 1925, conducted by Erich Kleiber.

Libretto (in German only): by the composer, based on a play by Georg Büchner (1813–1837), Woyzeck (completed in 1837, published in 1879, first performed in 1913 in Munich). The play is derived from real events in Leipzig, in 1821, when Johann Christian Woyzeck, a barber and former soldier, had murdered his mistress, Frau Woost. His lawyer's defense of insanity was rejected by the court, and Woyzeck was hanged publicly in Leipzig's market square in 1824. The case was written up in a medical journal, to which Büchner's father, a doctor, subscribed.

Berg saw the first performance of the play in Vienna in 1914 and immediately began sketching out plans for the opera. World War I delayed his plans. The full score was completed in 1922, the cost of which was underwritten by Alma Mahler, to whom the work was dedicated.

Messiaen remarked that he hesitated to compose an opera, because he thought that nothing was possible after Wozzeck, which was typical of many at the time.

Other resources:

Mark Morris, Berg's Wozzeck (essays on the works of Alban Berg)
Maria F. Rich, Alban Berg and the Vienna of His Time (Opera Quarterly 3, no. 3 [Autumn 1985]: 38–67)
Composer Profile: Alban Berg (BBC Music)
Alban Berg's Lecture on Wozzeck (1929)
Willem Pijper, Obituary: Alban Berg 1885–1935 (Musical Times, May 1936, translated by Herbert Antcliffe)
Information on Alban Berg (Met Opera Radio Broadcast, including information on Lulu)
Hildegard Behrens as Marie in Wozzeck
Joseph L. Lockett, "As Good A Murder As You'd Ever Want To See": Human Reduction in Georg Büchner's Woyzeck (December 20, 1989)

Grace Cho, Chinese Melody, Mo-Li-Hua, in Turandot
Phil Carluzzo, Traditional Forms in Wozzeck
Lindsay Heller, Buchner's "Woyzeck" and "Wozzeck" as the Anti-hero
Tim Ballard, Unfinished Masterpiece
Tim Ballard, Turandot Synopsis
Kyoung-Hee Jung, Berg, Wozzeck: Overview

Beaumarchais' Character in the Ghost of Versailles

2004-10-13T12:05:00.000-05:00

Several casts in the Ghost of Versailles bring from the two operas- Barbiere di Siviglia and the Marriage of Figaro: Count Almaviva, Rosina , Cherubino, Susanna and Figaro. However, in the story of Hoffman who is the librettist of the Ghost of Versailles adds some more related casts to the opera such as Leon who is the son of Rosina and Cherubino and Florestine who is the daughter of Almaviva.

Basically, Beaumarchais himself was the model for Figaro in his plays. As a young man, he was known as the son of Caron. With the slightest of twists, he became “Figaro” when he was seeking a name for his alter ego like the upstart valet or barber. Accordingly, in the Barber Seville and the Marriage of Figaro, he showed himself his alter-ego character.

However, the character of Beaumachais in the Ghost of Versailles reveals his creative power over his art by entering into the opera to save Marie Antoinette who is the wife of Louis XVI but he loves her. Within the opera, Beaumarchais accomplishes his goal and is about to spring Marie from jail and changes the historical event. However, the author of the opera, The Ghost of Versailles, pulls the strings and has Marie refuse Beaumarchais’ aid. Then, Marie accepts her fate of historic correctness. Finally, Marie dies in the revolution, but Beaumarchais and Marie are united in death with true love while the French Revolution.

The Ghosts of Versailles: ActI

2004-10-12T00:46:00.000-05:00

ActI:
Prologue and SceneI:
Marie Antoinette and the excecuted Court of Louis XVI are caught in a world beyond time because of the Queen's despairing refusal to accept her destiny and the conditions of her execution. Beaumarchais is deeply in love with her and hopes to effect a change in her destiny by replotting her denoument in his new opera. The ghosts of the Court assemble to hear the new opera and they expect to be bored. Marie Antoinette rejects Beaumarchais' advances. Louis and the Court persuade her to allow the entertainment to take place in her private theatre at Versailles and Beaumarchais introduces his opera.

Scene2: The opera-within-in opera begins in the Paris house of Almaviva, the Spanish Ambassador to France Figaro appears and regale his audience. They are all delighted except for Marie Antoinette. She is saddened because of her own deperssion. Beaumarchais borrows the Queen's necklace as a prop and it now appears in the hands of Count Almaviva. Beaumarchais intereupts the proceedings to explain that the story takes place at a time when the king has been executed by the Revolution and the Queen languishes in Jail.

Scene3: In the Count's salon Figaro and Susanna discover the jewels on the Count's person and Figaro's inquiries about them lead to his instant dismissal. They are interrupted by the appearance of Begearss and his servant. Begearss boasts of his intentions and extols the Worm, the symbol of evil. Marie Antoinette compares Florestine's plight to her own when she came as a child-bride to France. Louis hears Beaumarchais alluding to his plans for the Queen's future with himself.

Scene4: In the Almavivas' garden Begearss hypocritically implores Almaviva to forgive his wife's infidelity, but the Count is unmoved in his vindictive refusal. Rosina affair with Cherubino and the night of her seduction in the garden which resulted in the birth of Leon. Beaumarchais uses the romanticsituation to his own advantage. Marie Antoinette allows herself to become more intimate with the auther. A kiss is prevented by Lois who furiously challenges Beaumarchais to a duel. The ghosts realize the impossibility of such a second death and the siuation dissolves into farce with all the ghosts stabbing each other.

Scene5: The sward play is interrupter by a change of scene to the Turkish Embassy. Giant duelists are amusing the Pasha's guests. Leon secretly declares his love to Florestine, Begearss and his servants prepare to catch Almaviva rehanded with the jewels and the Count and the English Ambassador attempt to make their exchange. Figaro turns up disguised as one of the Turish dancing girls who are the back-up team to Samira, the Pasha's favorite Egyptian singer. A chaotic chase ensues, during which Turkish musicians deflected his many pursuers. A Wagnerian stranger apperars to question the nature of this opera shortly before Figaro makes a pyrotechnical escape from the Embassy and his Pursuers.

Sequel to Rossini & Mozart? Darius Milhaud, "La mere coupable"

2004-10-08T06:43:00.000-05:00

Since there is not a lot of information on The Ghost of Versailles or Milhaud’s La mere coupable, in order to best answer this topic, I will give some insight into Beaumarchais, followed a some information on the setting of each of the plays in his trilogy and Corigliano’s work.

Pierre-Augustin (Caron de) Beaumarchais (b Paris, 24 Jan 1732; d Paris, 18 May 1799.)

Although remembered as a writer, Beaumarchais was the son of a clockmaker who was appointed to the royal court in 1755. Subsequently, he became the harp teacher to the daughters of Louis XV, and thanks to contact with some important people, Beaumarchais was ultimately able to buy himself a place into the nobility of the day. In his Essai sur le genre dramatique serieux (1767), the preface to his Eugenie, he took up the ideas of Diderot in favour of a distinct genre of drame, different from both French classical tragedy and comedy. His works in this particular genre outnumber his Figaro comedies, and even these display its influence: he returned to it fully in the third Figaro play, La mere coupable (1792).

Le barbier de Seville was first conceived as a more substantial musical play in the form mentioned above, but was refused by the Theatre Italien (which had absorbed the Opera-Comique) in 1772. Song remained an important structural element in the final dialogue comedy version, successful at the Comedie-Francaise in 1775. (The original version was a complete failure. Beaumarchais had overloaded the last scene with allusions to the facts of his own case and the whole action of the piece was laboured and heavy. He thankfully cut down and remodeled the piece in enough time for the second version, which it was a complete success.)

The intrigues which were necessary in order to obtain license for the second and more famous comedy, Le Mariage de Figaro, are highly amusing, and shed much light on the unsettled state of public sentiment at the time. The play was completed in 1778, but the opposition of Louis XVI, who alone saw its dangerous tendencies, was not overcome until 1784. The comedy enjoyed unprecedented success. The principal character in both plays, Figaro, is completely original conception; in fact Beaumarchais drew a portrait of himself in the resourceful adventurer, who, for a mingled wit, shrewdness, gaiety and philosophic reflection, may not unjustly be ranked with Tartuffe. To English readers the Figaro plays are generally known through the adaptations of them in the grand opera of Mozart and Rossini; but in France they long retained popularity as acting pieces. The success of Le Mariage de Figaro was helped on by the methods of self-advertisement so well understood by Beaumarchais. The proceeds of the fiftieth performance were devoted to charity, the choice of which provoked numerous epigrams. Beaumarchais had the imprudence to retaliate by personalities that were reported by his enemies to be dedicated against the king and queen, and he was subsequently imprisoned for a short time by royal order.

Rossini’s Setting of Le barbier de Seville (Il Barbiere di Siviglia)

The text is a free adaptation of Beaumarchais’ first play in the Figaro trilogy. Although Rossini’s version is the most well-known, the success of Beaumarchais’ play also attracted settings from composers like Benda, Paisiello and Isouard.

Mozart’s Setting of Le Mariage de Figaro (Le nozze di Figaro)

This operatic version of Beaumarchais’ play may have been a timely notion of Mozart’s own. Although the play was banned from the Viennese stage, it was available in print and Paisiello’s opera on the earlier play, Le barbier de Seville, had triumphed in Vienna in 1783 (and all over Europe, as well). Mozart evidently studied Paisiello’s handling of the same personalities and included deliberate references to it. Composition began in late 1785 and the opera may have been drafted in only six weeks. After some opposition attributed to the Italians, and (if Da Ponte is to be believed) after the librettist had overcome the emperor’s objections, it was produced in May with an outstanding cast whose character and skills, as well as their performance in Paisiello’s Barbiere, contributed to its conception.

Milhaud’s La mere coupable

In 1964, Darius Milhaud produced his one real operatic failure, La mere coupable, a work full of bustle and commotion ans very little inspiration that completes a Beaumarchais trilogy with Il Barbiere di Siviglia and Le nozze di Figaro.

John Corigliano’s The Ghost of Versailles

The Ghosts of Versailles is set in Marie Antoinette's private theater in Versailles. The ghost of the playwright Beaumarchais, author of The Barber of Seville and The Marriage of Figaro, has fallen madly in love with the ghost of the executed Queen Marie Antoinette, who after two centuries still grieves for her lost life. Although Beaumarchais' love is unrequited, he offers to cure the queen's melancholy through a performance of his new opera, which features the latest exploits of Figaro and the Almaviva family, who attempt to change history and save the queen from death in the French Revolution. The other ghosts at Versailles warn Beaumarchais that this will endanger his soul, but he wishes only Marie Antoinette's happiness. Through Beaumarchais' willingness to sacrifice himself during a performance of his opera, Marie Antoinette realizes the depth of his love for her and learns to love him. Just as Beaumarchais is about to successfully save Marie Antoinette, she rejects "salvation" and allows history to continue as it was. The two are joined for eternity.

October 8: The Ghosts of Versailles

2004-10-06T00:10:00.000-05:00

The Ghosts of Versailles was premiered in 1991 at the Metropolitan Opera, New York, and revived there in 1994. It was then produced in 1995 at the Chicago Lyric Opera, with its European premiere in 1999 for the opening of the new Niedersächsische Staatsoper in Hannover, Germany. The work was never recorded for CD, and the videotape and laserdisc versions of the Met premiere are now out of print.

Music: John Corigliano (b. 1938), winner of the 2001 Pulitzer Prize in Music, for his Symphony No. 2, and an Oscar in 2000, for his score to the film The Red Violin (by the director who made the extraordinary Thirty-Two Short Films about Glenn Gould)

Libretto: William M. Hoffman, after Beaumarchais's La Mère Coupable (1792)

John Simon's article, Other People’s Music: Corigliano at the Met in The New Criterion (vol. 10, no. 6, February 1992), written a few months after the 1991 premiere gives the following perspective:

Long in gestation and long in duration, The Ghosts of Versailles has arrived at the Metropolitan Opera as one of the most sumptuous productions I have seen on any operatic stage. With music by John Corigliano and a libretto by William M. Hoffman, it is the first new opera commissioned by the Met in a quarter century, or since Samuel Barber's Antony and Cleopatra and Marvin David Levy's much worse Mourning Becomes Electra proved failures. It was twelve years ago, in 1979, that James Levine suggested to Corigliano at a dinner party that he write an opera for the Met's centenary season, 1983–84; the three-hour work did not get written and produced till December 17, 1991, amid considerable hoopla and fanfare. (It had become, along the way, a joint commission with the Chicago Lyric Opera, where it will be seen during the 1995–96 season.) Was it worth the effort, the wait, and the reported four-million-dollar cost? [...]

Applauded, too—perhaps above all—were John Conklin's ostentatious sets and costumes. The scenery was not exactly uncluttered, but, opulent and versatile, it achieved kaleidoscopic effects. One could see where those millions of dollars went—or, rather, sashayed, capered, tripped, and thronged. Surely, what was being applauded was trappings and tumult.

According to Simon, Hoffman himself admitted the parallels of his libretto to the Strauss-Hofmannsthal Ariadne auf Naxos, in which the story also involves the staging of an opera. For Simon, the failure of the opera lies in the lack of sympathy we feel for the love between Beaumarchais and Marie Antoinette:

This is the weakest aspect of a weak libretto and music: neither verbally nor musically are we made to believe in and care for this love story. But if we don't believe and care, how are we to buy what Hoffman calls the "philosophical basis of the opera," that it is "a spiritual reconciliation between the legitimate desire to improve things, which represents the revolution [i.e., is represented by the revolution], and the spirit of the ancien régime. So my marriage between the two is after death, in the afterworld, between the two leading proponents of both [i.e., the leading proponents of each]." What disingenuous nonsense! If this were "the motivation for the whole thing," as Hoffman also says, the piece would not be flagrant camp, and the two main characters would be more complex and more real.

Other resources:

Michael Begg, Interview with John Corigliano, for Twentieth Century Ltd.
William M. Hoffman, "Confessions of a Librettist: How Rossini's Barbiere Influenced The Ghosts of Versailles," Opera News, 59, no. 15 (April 15, 1995): 8.
William M. Hoffman, The Barber of Seville: The Real Figaro, from New York City Opera
William M. Hoffman, What's Passed is Passed On, from New York City Opera
Greg Sandow, On Contemporary Opera (material on Corigliano)
Benjamin Ivry, Pulitzer winner breaks boundaries (Christian Science Monitor, May 4, 2001), on Corigliano

Lindsay Heller, Sequel to Rossini & Mozart? Darius Milhaud, "La mere coupable"
Grace Cho, Beaumarchais' Character in the Ghost of Versailles
Dr. Downey, John Corigliano Speaks
Kyoung-Hee Jung, The Ghosts of Versailles: Act I

Janáček, Kát'a Kabanová

2004-10-05T20:37:00.000-05:00

From ionarts (Leoš Janáček, August 2):

Here is an interesting article (Back to the old country, July 26) by John Tusa in The Guardian, in which the author goes back to the country where he was born, Czechoslovakia, on the trail of composer Leoš Janáček, whose 150th birthday we celebrate this year. Janáček—whom Tusa describes as "the musical puzzle, the composer who came from nowhere, who left no school, yet who strides the international opera scene to this day"—may be the greatest opera composer of the 20th century in the minds of many people, myself included. On his first night in Brno, Janáček's professional base, Tusa witnessed a performance I would love to have heard:

On the first evening, the Janacek Opera of the Brno National Theatre were performing Katya Kabanova. Part of a fortnight's anniversary festival including all of Janacek's stage works, it was a turbulent evening. Janacek sung in Czech by Czechs has a special impact; this is not surprising, given Janacek's obsession with the way the spoken language sounds and the way in which it influences composed music. But it was the theatrical brutality of the piece that took me aback. The speed with which Janacek disposes of the action, culminating in Katya's suicide, is breathtaking, yet achieved without skimping. The emotional impact is huge, because the economy and concentration of the music are so intense. That is the paradox. That is his genius.

Next, Tusa goes deeper into the countryside to find Janáček's house and tries to understand how folk music had such an influence on the composer:

Two evenings later, we were in Janacek's home village of Hukvaldy, surrounded by the wooded hills he loved so much, the 500-year-old lime trees, the old castle on the hilltop about which he lyricised, clean air and bright sunshine that seemed to give him creative energy. We were in the pub Janacek used, Pod Hradem, below the castle. Then, as now, musicians played folk music, violin and dulcimer, perhaps even the one the composer listened to. They sang while they played. In Janacek's time, the musicians were local farmers and peasants, the music preserved and transmitted through the oral tradition. That evening the two performers were computer programmers by day but had learned folk music at the hands of local musicians.

It's a long article, full of information, and definitely worth reading.

Available at Amazon:

Leoš Janáček, Kát'a Kabanová, with Nancy Gustafson at the Glyndebourne Festival

Kát'a Kabanová opens with the clerk, Van'a, admiring the waters of the Volga River, where the action will end tragically. This opera revolves around an adulterous love triangle: Tichon (tenor), a weak man dominated by his horrible, bitter mother, Kabanicha (contralto); his wife, Kát'a; and her lover, Boris (tenor). Kát'a's sexual repression in the first act is as frenetic as that of the governess in Benjamin Britten's Turn of the Screw (1954). At the opening, she pines for her life before it was stifled by her marriage, when she as free as a bird. She used to love going to church, where she had ecstatic visions of angels in the rising incense. Kát'a obsessively dreads (fantasizes about?) the "terrible sin" she knows she is going to commit ("on the edge of an abyss," she confides to herself that she is "thinking of someone"). She begs her spineless husband not to go on the trip her mother-in-law forces him to take, to no avail.

With Tichon away, Kabanicha continues her malicious attacks on Kát'a in Act II. Varvara, the family's foster daughter, tempts Kát'a toward her dreaded sin, by offering her the key to the garden, where she could meet her lover that night. Kát'a wonders what she can safely allow herself to do: look at Boris? speak to Boris? see Boris? If we had any doubt about the sexual nature of Kát'a's religious mysticism, Boris, waiting for her in the garden, tells his friend, "when she prays, she is beautiful." In the third act, everyone is brought together in a cave during the terrible storm (whence the title of the source play), and Kát'a rashly confesses her sin. Distraught over this confession, Kát'a sings an incredible monologue of insanity, in which she obsesses over her guilt, insisting that she should be punished and thrown in the river. The orchestra, which from the somber opening introduction has provided the music of the characters' inner turmoil (especially Kát'a's), is joined in this final scene by the "funeral chanting" of an offstage chorus. Before she jumps into the Volga, Kát'a sings of how "birds will sing over my grave and flowers will blossom." The rotten elders of the opera say equally heartless things when villagers bring the dead body to the cave: Boris's uncle Dikoj says to Tichon, "There's your Kát'a"; Kabanicha says coldly to the villagers, "Good people, I thank you for your kindness." Only the faceless chorus laments the suicide.

Janáček's dramatic economy in this opera is nothing short of remarkable. George Martin observes that this opera's three acts take 15 fewer minutes to perform than Strauss's one-act Elektra. There is nothing vocally or orchestrally that is not absolutely necessary. He relentlessly pursues a sparse vocal style that is sharp and effective. What is surprising to realize about Janáček's operas is that, although the composer died in 1928 at the age of 74, his operas were largely unknown outside of Czechoslovakia for so long. Bartók's Duke Bluebeard's Castle, from 1918, was not premiered in the English-speaking world until 1946 and more widely in the 1950s, and Kát'a Kabanová, from 1921, was also premiered in England and the U.S. in the 1950s. Some of Janáček's other operas took even longer, like the wonderful Cunning Little Vixen (1924 vs. the 1960s), The Makropulos Affair (1926 vs. the 1960s) The Excursions of Mr. Brouček (1920 vs. the 1970s/80s), and the postumously premiered From the House of the Dead (1930), based on the Dostoevsky novel Memoirs from the House of the Dead, which was not staged in the United States until 1990.

Overview of Bluebeard Castle

2004-10-05T04:44:00.000-05:00

Béla Bartók’s Bluebeard Castle is one act opera, and he dedicated it to his young wife. He was influenced by Mussorgsky and Debussy. However, the opera is mostly directly by Hungarian peasant music and has a Strauss’ orchestral pictures. In some of different points, Bartók turned increasingly to instrumental symphonic music instead of becoming as a great force in early twentieth-century opera as Richard Strauss or Alban Berg. He expressed nationalist of elements with classical instrumental structures rather than essential expressionism which many progressive composers were embracing in 1910.

The libretto written by Béla Balazas
Balazas took only the skeleton of his plot of this opera from Perrault’s well known fairy tale. In that tale Bluebeard’s last wife is given the keys of his household and told that she may open every door and save one. She opens the forbidden door and finds hanging the severed heads of Bluebeard’s former wives. At last minute, she was rescued by the lady’s brothers, who slay Bluebeard. The story puts a happy ending to this grizzly business.

Balazas’s version owes something to Maeterlinck’s Ariane et Barbe-Bleue internalized the horror. The figures of the plot take on universality, in other words, becoming everyman and woman. The wives heads are not severed, but they suffer a still more terrible severance. In a word, the seventeenth-century fair tale has become the early twentieth-century symbolic play.

Serge Moreux’s interpretation of this opera:

This opera runs in man’s interior world, perhaps, there are secrets locked away: each one of us contains the best and the worst by our material condition. Only the shining intoxication of fresh love can sometimes dissipate this dark threat: but let the new woman in a man’s life be discreet; the hidden places of the masculine self are forbidden to her and above all those where past love lives. Women too have their own hidden places of the self.

The seven doors imply some symbols as follows:

*The first door (Torture chamber) and the second door (Armory weapons) indicate bestial cruelty and lust for power.
*The third door (God and Jewelry) and the forth door (The Castle Garden) indicate that we pass to the pleasures of material gain and esthetic gratification.
*The fifth door (Bluebeard’s dominions) indicates Lordship over a large and peaceable.
*The sixth door (The Lake of tears) indicates the bitterness of self-knowledge and self-accusation.
*The seventh door (The chamber of wives) indicates the chamber wherein memory lives undying, though its objects are no longer attainable.

Janacek-Kat'a Kabanova: Folk Music and Nationalism in the Opera

2004-10-03T21:03:00.000-05:00

Janacek closely related with the Czech cantor tradition. His family (grand father and father) served in the poor community as teachers, musicians, and leading cultural figures.
Brno was a important place in Janacek's development as a choirmaster, leading composer, and his music education.
In 1881 he married Zdenka who was 16 years old was from a German middle-class background. Soon after the birth of thrie daughter Olga they started separated and did not have a happy marriage.
In 1887 Janacek began to work with the philologist and folkorist Bartos. They had know each other from Czech cultural activities in Brno and became as collegues and collaborator to edit of Moravian folksongs: a collectio of 174 songs and the massive definitive collection of 2057 songs and dances. (published 1899-1901)
Before he met Bartos, Janacek already had an interest in the folk music of his native country.
Kamila Stosslova was a last remarkable influence to Janacek's music. After he met the couple and fell in love with friend's wife. Relationship continued for 10 years until 1927. He wrote song cyle 'Zapisnik Zmizeleho' and inspired to his opera 'Kat'a Kabanova'.
In 1926 Janacek wrote 'Glagolitic Mass'. Even he was not a relogious man, this work give slovonic and erotic as well. (probably he dreamed wedding for himself and Kamila)

Janacek began writing operas in the familiar mold of Czech nationalist opera.

He attemped to evoke a Moravian atmosphere with his Moravian roots. And he present folk music not as a colourful exoticism but as part of his distinctive style.
"Speech melody" which were to influence his approach to the voice live and his whole musical idiom for the rest of his life.

In Kat'a Kabanova (1920-1) there are two 'folk-songs':Act II scene 2

The Love Triangle in Billy Budd

2004-09-29T09:07:00.000-05:00

Beauty – Handsomeness – Goodness

So much has been written about the “interview Chords” in Billy Budd and although one is loath to revisit such an apparently dead horse. For this topic the meaning of those chords must be assumed to be love, a love that leads to a tragic fate. However, the love that Vere and Billy share I believe transcends the earthly or eros (erotic) type of love and is a love on a higher plane above the mundane. It is this very love that frustrates Claggart so, for he cannot understand it. In that very sense Claggart, Vere and Billy step into the spiritual roles of God the father, (Vere) Christ (Billy) and Satan/Lucifer (Claggart). Billy is the light that Claggart cannot comprehend, and thus seeks to destroy.

I believe that an argument can be made for a triangle of a Spiritual, Sexual and Social Trinity with in this opera.

Spiritually

Billy is a type of Christ (although referred to as an Angel – Christ appeared as an Angel in Christophonic form). He is a “foundling” so in his lack of parentage is Christ-like and also would tie him to the King of Salem, Melchizedek, mentioned in Hebrews. (Heb. 5:6 NKJV).

Billy’s death can be seen as Christ-like. Although Billy cries out for Vere to save him or spare him (much like Christ did in the Garden of Gethsemane), Billy resigns him self to his death as what is best for Vere.

Billy’s only imperfection, his stutter, is that which reveals the inner nature of a faultless man.

Socially

The contradictions of the opera are best seen in Vere. He is the only character that is shown as capable of intelligent thought (besides Claggart – of course). Vere is neither victim or criminal, yet he is led by his perceptions of the crew. The crew is “sheep-like” in its wavering devotion to Vere. In one scene they sing “Bless You” of the Captain and in another they “rumble” with mutiny!

Vere’s heart and emotion is perhaps best portrayed in his Prologue and Epilogue – the pathos of his music and the passion of his words are interestingly juxtaposed to his calmness in his music inside his memory of Billy.

Sexually

The sexuality of Billy Budd is deliberately ambiguous. Britten spent quite some time estranged from Crozier (the librettist) over Claggart’s aria. Crozier and Forster wanted the aria much more passionate and overt in its homosexual nature. Britten wrote the work with subdued passions and foreboding.

Does Vere feel the same attraction to Billy that Claggart does? Vere echoes Claggart’s words “O beauty, o handsomeness o goodness!” I think there is definitely and very deep love and respect between Vere and Billy. Consequently, the way that Britten writes the scenes between the two the “love that dare not speak its name,” is told in the music.

Billy is the quasi-spiritual visitor who because of his beauty and goodness – threatens to destroy Claggart’s world. Although the question of homosexuality should not be approached in respect to its explicitness, it is a consideration that might be implied by the opera but never realized!

Zambello’s production that begins on what seems initially to be a stark minimal set, I think, explores the psychology of Melville, Crozier and Forster, and Britten equally well. Certainly the homoerotic nature of an all male cast on a ship is explored. Equally done is the conflict that Vere still feels as an old man and his assimilation of those past events into his ultimate salvation. Dewayne Croft was as stunning as Billy, as Ramey was a purely evil Claggart.

The set appears quite stark initially, basically a raked set that represents the bow of a ship. By utilizing lighting effects Zambello dispenses with the usually scene changes and Britten’s music for these changes seems all the more powerful and realistic.

October 1: Opera and Nationalism

2004-09-27T22:06:00.000-05:00

Available at Amazon:

Béla Bartók, Bluebeard's Castle, Budapest Festival Orchestra, conducted by Iván Fischer

Béla Bartók (1881–1945), Bluebeard's Castle (Budapest Opera, 1918)

Libretto (in Hungarian only): Béla Balázs (1884–1949), film critic and writer. Later, he was assistant director to Leni Riefenstahl on her film Das blaue Licht (1932). His Jewish heritage drove him from Germany shortly thereafter, when Riefenstahl began working for the Nazi Party.

From ionarts (Bartók's Bluebeard, September 20):

Tim Ashley's article (Bloody chambers, August 28) for The Guardian is a nice introduction to some of the problems of Béla Bartók's one-act A Kékszakállú herceg vára (Duke Bluebeard's Castle), a troubling and fascinating work. It also has some good information about the historical background of the legend on which the opera is based:

There is no consensus even as to its origins, which have been traced to two very different sources, though both, significantly, have a serial killer at their centre. The first deals with Comar, a spurious fifth-century Breton chieftain, who murdered his wives in turn, when each found evidence of what had happened to her predecessor. The second concerns the historical figure of Gilles de Rais, who was executed by the Inquisition in Nantes in October 1440. At his trial, De Rais stood accused of "heresy, sacrilege and offences against nature". During its course, however, he confessed to the sexual assault and murder of more than 140 children, crimes so obscene as to defy belief, though historians have also questioned - and continue to question - whether the charges were fabricated and his confession forced.

Other stories about De Rais were soon in circulation, however. We know him to have been estranged from his wife, Catherine, but it was soon rumoured that he killed her when she found incriminating evidence in his torture chamber. Then there was the question of his beard, so black that in a certain light it looked blue. It was said that De Rais's actions appalled even the devil so that the latter marked him with the blue beard to distinguish him from all other men.

The rumours surrounding De Rais were doubtless the source of Charles Perrault's tale, published in 1695. Here we find the legend's essential elements: Bluebeard handing his keys to his wife with instructions that she may use all but one in his absence; her breaking of his prohibition only to discover his former wives' bodies; the bloodstained key that betrays her actions; and Bluebeard's determination to kill her as punishment for her curiosity.

Here is the text of Charles Perrault's second edition of the Conte de Barbe Bleue (in French or in English), or the original edition with morality (in French only). The opera was performed recently at the Proms (Prom 69, September 7), with Jeanne-Michèle Charbonnet as Judith and John Tomlinson as Bluebeard, and the BBC Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Jukka-Pekka Saraste. The program began with the British premiere of Kaija Saariaho's Orion (see Andrew Clements's appreciative review of the concert on September 9, for The Guardian). If you're in London, the Hungarian National Opera and Ballet will perform the opera (along with Bartók's ballet The Miraculous Mandarin) at Sadler's Wells, from October 4 to 6.

Available at Amazon:

Leoš Janáček, Kát'a Kabanová, Gabriela Benacková, Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Charles Mackerras

Leoš Janáček (1854-1928), Kát'a Kabanová (premiered at the National Theater in Brno, November 23, 1921).

Libretto (Czech with Italian translation): the composer, after Alexander N. Ostrovsky, Groza (English translation, The Storm), translated by V. Cervinka. (Tchaikovsky composed an Overture to The Storm, op. 76, in 1864. Rimsky-Korsakov's opera The Snow Maiden is also derived from the play.)

This opera will be broadcast live on the radio from the Metropolitan Opera on December 25, 2004.

Other resources:

Janáček and Kát'a Kabanová (San Diego Operapaedia)
Leoš Janáček and a Brief Look at Czech Music (San Diego Operapaedia)
Lynne Walker, Sir Charles Mackerras: In from the cold (The Independent, September 13), interview with the British conductor who "single-handedly revived the music of the Czech composer Janacek. Now he is aiming do the same for Martinu."
Overview of Janáček's operas

Kyoung-Hee Jung, Janacek-Kat'a Kabanova: Folk Music and Nationalism in the Opera
Dr. Downey, Janáček, Kát'a Kabanová
Grace Cho, Overview of Bluebeard's Castle

Available at Amazon:

Carl S. Leafstedt, Inside Bluebeard's Castle (1999)

John Tyrrell, Leoš Janáček: Kát'a Kabanová (1982)

Three important characters

2004-09-26T19:26:00.000-05:00

Britten wrote the tree important voice type on major characters and these role are justified.
1. Billy Budd:

The lmost perfect innocence of the young sailor.
he is pure, he is not alone against the crowd, and he is untouched by self-hatred. He conquers the real evil and then 'saves' the morally ambigious figure who orders his distruction.
He is liked by all except Claggart who determines to destroy him and accuse him of inciting mutiny.
Billy is unable to answer the accusation because of his stimmer and in frustration strikes out blindly, killing Claggart.
He is hanged from the yard-arm, calling out 'Starrey Vere, God bless you' before he dies. That is a strong plot and this theme of the corruption of good by evil.
He is able to reflect with great maturity on fate, his relationship with Vere and his vision and his vision of ultimate peace.
He responds to the goodness, he die for Vere to keep the his promise: Billy accept what has to be done, and to bless the man who must order his execution.
His voice typeis Bariton: this voice not only can express both warmth of inside feeling with low and middle voice but also happy innocent feeling with light high range.

2. Vere

He is the most fascinating character in the work. Because of the librettist's device of the framing prologue and epilogue, we see and interpret the tragedy through Vere's eyes and voice.
In the novel, the physical attraction that Billy holds for Vere is hinted at, there is no point coming near to a personal relationship with Billy. In the Opera, the physical appeal noted in Claggart's representation to Vere: Specially, for Vere the climax is reached in the aria on Scylla and Charybdis. It exposes tha agony caused by his dilema. 'My heart's broken, my life's broken'. He has come to mean more to him than an ordinary seaman.
Clearly Vere has a desire for same-sex love and society's homophobia.
In this opera, he was a leader in Ship. He must be logical and rational on his difficut situations, so Tenor voice was perfect choice from Britten.

3. Claggart

He was described as a true evil in the work and perverted desire for Billy. His desire could not express outward and hurts into a hatred. So he must destroy the unattainable object of love.
Claggart and Vere love Billy, and the compulsion of fate both are led to destroy the object of their love.
Claggart represents Bill's opposite pole and evilness which cannot exist without goodness.
Forster viewed Claggart's motivation as primarily sexual. Claggart's extended aria 'O beauty, o handsome, goodness' provide a credible psychological motive for his attitude towards the Hansome Sailor.
He had a evil feeling and darkness thoughts in the work, low and strong voice was so effective on his character.

Through the whole point of opera is its voices and singing.

Three symbols of Melville's story in Billy Budd

2004-09-26T09:30:00.000-05:00

Melville implies on the source of three symbols that a total recognition of life has natural goodness, natural evil and human justice. The symbol of natural goodness is Billy, who people call him as a king of the birds or king of the world. He is a tale of handsome foretopman, faithful, but he has one fatal flaw which he is a stammer. He at last becomes a symbols of the fleece of the Lamb of God by being sentenced to death of hanging.

The symbol of natural evil is the evil master-at-arms, Clagget, who is named a fallen angel from heaven. He accuses Billy of mutiny and insubordination to the captain, Vere. However, his fate is faced on a sudden death by Billy.

The third symbol of human justice is the Captain, Edward Fairfax Vere. His name means truth and a maker of goodness. Vere also has a nickname, taken from Melville's poem, Appleton House:

"This is 'tis to have been from the first
In a domestic heaven nursed,
Under the discipline severe
Of Fairfax and the Starry Vere."

On the contrary of the meaning of his name, he decide an injustice and unfairness at the last moment of Billy's trial to hang low in the East, even if he could have saved the innocent youn men. Vere is laid the most painful of all burdens: he perceives the truth, the naked conflict between good and evil.

Good and Evil in Britten's Tonal Language: Billy vs. Claggart

2004-09-24T12:38:00.000-05:00

• Observations on Good and Evil from the Synopsis

-Act I, scene iii: Left alone, Claggart reveals that it’s Billy’s very “handsomeness” and “goodness: that attract his sadistic desire to destroy him. (See diagram)
-Act II, scene i: In a great state of agitation, Vere asserts that Claggart is evil and Billy is good.
-Act II, scene ii: As Vere enters the side cabin to tell Billy his fate, the scene’s orchestral coda unfolds in a sequence of common chords, all harmonizing notes of the F major triad and expressing a mixture of resolution, compassion and resignation in a startlingly direct yet subtle manner.
-Act II, scene iii: After Dansker has left Billy, Billy sings an expressive farewell, affirming his acceptance of his fate to a reminiscence of the chord-sequence from the end of the previous scene.

• New Grove Dictionary of Opera (quoting Arnold Whithall’s article on Billy Budd):

-Billy Budd “demonstrates Britten’s ability to create an opera in a distinctively ‘grand manner’ through the use of elaborate ensembles and unrestrained outpourings of emotion, often with richly orchestrated accompaniments.”
-“In the way motivic and harmonic processes integrate the evolving drama into a flexible yet coherent form, Billy Budd is Britten’s most richly worked operatic score.”
-“Of all Britten’s operas, Billy Budd is the one in which the composer’s instinct for telling simple musical ideas and his sense of how far such ideas could be extended and enriched to serve an ambivalent but never obscure dramatic theme is most impressively displayed.”

• Observations Based on Listening and Score Analysis

-The music of Billy Budd is highly integrated. Certain themes, motifs, chords and rhythms recur as part and parcel of the opera’s musical idiom. They are characteristic of certain persons or situations, principles or ideas, and are at the same time the material for the opera’s architecture. In Billy Budd, the integration of the thematic material goes farther than Peter Grimes and is more than a means of dramatic expression. In a sense, the unusually close coherence of the music makes up for the prose of the libretto. Much of the opera’s material is derived from the very first page of the score, though Britten wasn’t even aware of some of his derivations–an interesting example of how a composer’s mind works.
-In Act I, the key scheme moves upwards from an early and ambiguous B-flat major with a few significant diversions–to E major for Billy’s first aria, and to F minor for Claggert (“Was I born yesterday?”) and the novice’s touching scene.
-In the final scene of Act I, Claggart’s monologue ends in his characteristic F minor, which then turns to F major to depict Billy asleep (the same motif as when later he’s lying in chains). The act concludes in G major with the duet between Billy and Dansker accompanied by an ostinato derived from Claggart’s motif, to which Dansker sings “Jemmy Legs is down on you.”
-In the opera this slightly aggressive side of Billy’s goodness is expressed in a series of rising arpeggios on triads a tone apart, first heard when the boat containing him and the other impressed men nears the Indomitable in Act I, scene I. This motif subsequently forms the accompaniment to Billy’s first aria (“Billy Budd, king of the birds!”), and when in his last scene Billy lies in chains, it punctuates the phrases of his ballad, played on the piccolo, still chirpy but lonely and forlorn. At the opening of Act II, however, it is transformed into the melody the whole crew sings in pursuit of the French ship, this suggesting psychologically that this moment of unity is a product as much as Billy’s influence as of the excitement of the chase. (See Ex. 2)
-The unrest of the crew at other times, indeed the whole atmosphere of incipient mutiny in the aftermath of the Spithead and the Nore, is suggested by a musical motif first heard in the Prologue, where it’s set to Vere’s “O what have I done?”, and subsequently developing into the shanty “O heave away, heave’,” that runs throughout the first scene (see Ex.3). It’s heard ever time the subject of mutiny occurs, and a variant of it forms Claggart’s official accusation.
-Being a suggestive force, rather than a specific symbol, a musical motif can reflect such subtle changes of mood and meaning, the “murmurous indistinctness” Melville describes, and Britten was able to achieve such nuance in his depiction. Claggart, for instance, is characterized by a motif that contains two falling fourths. It’s first heard against the ambiguous B flat–B minor chord in the Prologue, but reaches its most powerful expression against a stark F minor chord without its fifth, in such moments as the climax of the Act I aria. (See Ex. 4)
-The motif of a perfect fourth, without the downward plunge of Claggart’s depravity, effectively expresses the emotional charge behind the abstractions that both the Master-at-arms and the Captain use when they contemplate Billy: “O beauty, handsomeness, goodness”, they both sing to the same melody, sharing alone among the ship’s crew a special sense of and connection to the natural wonder of the Handsome Sailor, whose single flaw, his stammer (musically portrayed by a trilling trumpet, the wood block and abrupt woodwind arpeggios), is a sign of the flaw of creation, of Original Sin.
-While the verdict on Billy is being delivered, we hear thirty-four clear, triadic chords, each of them harmonizing a different note of the F major triad, and each scored differently. They’re vaguely reminiscent of the chords that occurred earlier whenever Claggart addressed Billy: in the sailor’s last aria they appear at the moment when he begins to feel his full strength, and finally and triumphantly they underpin the climax of the Epilogue when Vere, singing Billy’s B-flat melody, utters the crucial Fosterian lines, “But I’ve sighted a sail in the storm, the far-shining sail, and I’m content.”
—>These chords lie at the heart of the musical treatment of the metaphysical overtones of Billy Budd. They seem to suggest that in Platonic terms, the love of Ideal Beauty can lead to wisdom, knowledge and forgiveness; and that in Christian terms, goodness and love have the power to forgive. This moment of unalloyed optimism is perhaps the crux of the opera.
-For Claggart’s smooth phrase and his motif, see Ex. 7 and 7a
-Harmonic progressions over a pedal B, in sharply marked rhythms on the strings, provide the structure of Claggart’s questioning of the men. Their individual replies–Red Whiskers’ buffo ariosos, Arthur Jones’s dull ostinato and Billy’s self-assured singing, though once interrupted by his stammer–form apt divisions of a loosely knit set piece. An important motif arises when Claggart, consulted by the officers, gives his opinion of Billy. (See Ex. 8a) He is accompanied, as in many later instances, by common chords on the trombone.
-Claggart is left alone and his music expands (see Ex. 7b). E major turns to F minor–it’s Claggart’s own key, and related to E major as B minor is to B-flat major. There’s one particular colour combination representing Claggart: the tonic chord of F minor without the fifth, pp, spread over the whole range of the orchestra and tinged by a soft cymbal stroke. Claggart’s motif, its inversion, and variations on both, dominate his arioso and the succeeding presto duet with Squeak.
-The soloists begin a new gay shanty, the chorus joins in and spirits grow high. Suddenly Billy is heard stammering. He’s found Squeak meddling with his kit; they flight and Billy floors him at the moment when Claggart appears on the scene. Billy’s poise again disarms Claggart and to the melody of Ex. 8a he sings Melville’s words “Handsomely done, my lad. And handsome is as handsome did it, too.” While the men sling hammocks and the tune of a nostalgic shanty continues from the distance, Claggart remains deep in thought. His repeated “Handsomely done” leads to his great aria: Billy’s goodness and beauty, to which Claggart himself had for moments succumbed, are shaking his evil mind. He determines to annihilate Billy.
-The music of Billy’s later ballad is the frame of his duet with the Novice and comes in like a lullaby when he slowly awakes. Two new versions (Ex. 11a and 11b) of the mutiny motif (Ex. 6) arise.
-The dramatic reason for placing the battle in the midst of Claggart’s calumnious attempt is, that in Vere’s mind the fog and Claggart mean the same evil thing. When Vere has dismissed Claggart and turns to the officers, exclaiming, “O this cursed mist!” they have the enemy in their minds, but he thinks of deeper problems. They are, we may assume, expressed in the subsequent orchestral interlude: the music of the mist surrounds a chorale-like melody, until the blurred chords give way to Billy’s clear fanfares in D major.
-Vere’s confident arioso and his duet with Billy are followed by Claggart’s entry. The melody of the accusation (ex. 14) is based on the mutiny motif (see Ex. 6). Billy, urged to defend himself, is choked by his stammer (ex. 4) and the catastrophe happens. Elements of broken Claggart motif (ex. 7a) remain and form the accompaniment to Vere’s aria of despair.
-The trial scene, in F minor, is mainly built up on a new theme which opens as a broad and dignified melody in the strings; it’s derived from Claggart’s accusation (ex. 14) and from his motif (ex. 7a). When Billy is lead back, the theme is inverted–the dramatic effect of the device is telling. An immensely moving trio of officers follows. Though each voice has its individual phrases they are dovetailed so as to form a single melody. The officers would like to save Billy, but they have no choice; the verdict is shown in Ex. 15.
-A bit more obvious in the b theme, especially in its x shape, a symbol of Claggart’s malevolence, gives rise to many other fourth-dominated shape, some (like Ex 1gi and ii) patently relevant to Claggart himself, others reflecting in other contexts either his predisposition to evil or his bitter recognition of the beauty and goodness symbolized in Billy.
-the trombone is Claggart’s characterizing tone colour
-At one extreme, Britten has elevated the triad to a symbolic role that’s unprecedented: only in an age which has so strenuously sought to rid that unit of primacy in its musical thinking could his spelt-out major arpeggio with each note supported by a triad (see Ex. 1m) serve to represent the culminating moral drama and triumph of the whole work. And the distribution of thirteen possible triads (see Ex. 2a) suggests that the perfection of the major implies, as strongly as in older music, the imperfection of the minor. Much of the music of Billy Budd turns on a conflict between these two, while in still more this is extended into semitonal key opposition; how close the two are may be seen in the reductio ad absurdum of Ex. 2b.
-Elsewhere in the opera there is an undermining of one key by its semitonal neighbor, though the conflict is transferred to other levels: for example, the scene in which the Novice tries to bribe Billy into service as a mutineer vacillates between F and F-sharp minor. In addition, in several contexts free of this semitonal friction, the colour of B-flat minor is introduced with the ruthlessness of a blow–whether of fate or some human agency, as in Claggart’s intrusion upon the fight between Billy and Squeak.
-After the return of the mist after Billy’s fight, the irony is intensified by the return of the opening, quasi da lontano, and its immediate collapse into Claggart’s resumption (G minor/F-sharp minor) of his lugubrious report to the Captain. With that many-sided fitness that distinguishes many Britten touches, a single G minor trombone chord at once closes the complete scene and reintroduces Claggart’s baleful character to set in motion the next one.
-The mist and Claggart as instruments of an evil fate have clearly fused in Vere’s mind in the B-flat minor of his “O this cursed mist” when the master-at-arms leaves, and the following interlude gloomily pursues this train of thought until Billy’s arrival is anticipated with the move into D Lydian. Yet it’s the sound of F minor, in particular a fifthless wide-spaced wind chord with a cymbal stroke that repeatedly represents Claggart’s malevolence, a quality that proves to be strongest after his own death at the hands of his intended victim. The chord first appears as he vents his sullen fury against his patronizing superior officers (“Do they think I’m deaf?”) and acquires a more sinister tone at his pitiless contempt for the flogged novice (“Let him crawl”): the whole ensemble then goes by in an F minor in which the sailors’ compassion is overshadowed by that bestial response. Its place in a ghastly pattern is underlined later when Claggart strikes out at a boy to the same chord and the saxophone D-flat makes its appeal: so the climax of Claggart’s aria extended this pattern for his vow, against solemn repetitions of this chord (Ex. 5), to destroy Billy, is followed by the novice’s appearance and saxophone theme, but now the boy is to become a pawn in an evil design of a quite new magnitude. The master-at-arms is too practiced a dissembler for this token of naked evil to betray itself in his reports to Vere, but at the court-martial following his death the F minor symbol emerges again (now with brass and drums, complete with Claggart’s own cadence–cf. x in Ex. 1b and Ex. 5–at 89), as as a dry third from the harp it hammers home the verdict.
-F major has in fact been used already in the scene for the trio in which the officers voice their sympathy for Billy’s plight, but after this remarkable scene (or lack thereof) the key is associated consistently with Billy’s fortitude. The transfer to B-flat major for his glowing farewell links his fate with Vere’s, but the turn to A major at the center of this brings the clearest view of the special role that tonal area has been given at several points in the opera. Billy’s song moves towards A (guided by imitations of the interlude triads) at the words

But I’ve sighted a sail in the storm
The far shining sail that’s not fate
And I’m contented, I’ve seen where she’s bound for.
Now definitively in A major, he continues: “She has a land of her own here she’ll anchor for ever,” and the vision fades.
–>It’s reasonable enough to find in this key-colour the symbol of an immanent good towards which we can only faintly aspire in an existence a shot through with evil. But this in turn means that a very special significance may be attached to those few moments at which Billy’s music has settled into A major–the fanfares signaling his victory over Squeak’s evil acts and his descent from the foretop to be among the boarding party.
-With a tone that is strongly reminiscent of his earlier music, D Lydian, complete with fanfares and figurations of superimposed thirds, is heard only during the scenes that concern the Capt. and Billy.
-More frequently, Claggart is associated musically with trombone sonorities, usually in the triadic contexts, whether in the solemn spacing (with tuba doubling the bass) against which his apparently benevolent remarks to Billy are made or the lugubrious movement in close position as he broaches to Vere the subject of Billy’s treachery; here the darkness of the sound is intensified by the melodic line of double basses, bassoon and double bassoon.
-The enharmonic change from B-flat to A-sharp that was noted at the beginning of Act I (see. Ex. 52) occurs in reverse at the end of Act II scene iv just after Billy has been hanged at the yarndarm.
-Fanfares and sennets are closely associated with Billy Budd himself.
-There is, first, a broad pattern of contrast between the fourth in which Claggart’s vocal line predominately moves (see Ex. 8.2), and the way in which Vere’s line frequently reverts to thirds, often with a falling third at points of cadence. But when, in his agony, he reflects on the judgement of the court, he moves from his characteristic falling thirds to the fourths of Claggert as he recognizes that fate has decreed that he must be the instrument of Billy’s destruction (see Ex. 8.3, in which the tritone may be taken to symbolize evil, as so often in Britten’s music). Then there is the ‘fate’ theme and its associated motifs in F minor to which reference has already been made. It may be contrasted with the jaunty arpeggio figure with which Billy comes aboard and which reflects his irrepressible spirit, a thought to which movingly returns when Billy comes on deck to face execution, ready to cry “Starry Vere, God bless you.”
-In other works by Britten, sequences of triads occur in the contexts protraying love, whether homosexual or heterosexual. The interview chords may naturally be interpreted in the same light. Similar triads (with a more sinister flavour) appear at moments when Claggart, in his own perverted way, is drawn to Billy (Ex. 8.5). Here we have yet another example of Britten’s assigning the same motif to opposed characters: it symbolizes the sharing of a common element, which is nevertheless susceptible of significantly different interpretations.

Francesca Zambello's Production of Billy Budd

2004-09-21T19:32:00.000-05:00

Here are some reviews and other articles on the production of Billy Budd we will be seeing at Washington National Opera, seen at Covent Garden, in London, in 1995, directed by Francesca Zambello, with sets and costumes by Alison Chitty.

Tim Page 'Billy Budd' Is One Taut Ship (Washington Post, September 20)
T. L. Ponick, 'Budd' blossoms (Washington Times, September 20)
Tim Smith, 'Billy Budd' is a voyage not to be missed (Baltimore Sun, September 21)
Brian Moylan, Outing 'Billy Budd' (Washington Blade, September 10)

See also the Ionarts review (Opera at Sea, September 29).

Billy Budd, Act I

2004-09-20T21:25:00.000-05:00

In his article on Britten for the first edition of the New Grove, Peter Evans described this opera as

Britten's biggest, most densely written opera. Its menace stems from much more than the large orchestra and chorus, though their weight is deployed overpoweringly at such moments as the muster before the execution scene. [...] The only escape from oppression and violence lies in the sweet, hopeless shanties and the promise of action against the enemy.

Although Billy Budd is, in Evans's words, "at the furthest remove from chamber opera," its unusual restriction to the male vocal range does help Britten create the obsessive atmosphere of a ship at sea. An interesting comparison to this opera, whose action takes place on an English naval ship in the summer of 1797 (according to Vere's epilogue), can be found in Peter Weir's movie Master and Commander: From the Far Side of the World (2003). Based on the series of novels by Patrick O'Brian, the action takes place on the HMS Surprise, an English naval ship during the Napoleonic Wars, some time around 1805.

In Billy Budd, the important figures on HMS Indomitable are her captain, Edward Fairfax Vere (nicknamed "Starry Vere" by his adoring crew), cast by Britten as an idealistic tenor, the role created by Britten's partner, Peter Pears (see Kenneth Green's Portrait of Peter Pears and Benjamin Britten, from 1943). He is assisted by First Lieutenant Mr. Redburn and Second Lieutenant Mr. Ratcliffe. The captain relies on two officers to manage the ship: the Sailing Master (Mr. Flint), who oversees the crew's handling of the boat; and the Master-at-Arms, John Claggart (a sininster bass nicknamed "Jemmy Legs"), who is responsible for law and order on the ship. Most of the crew members are not even known by name, with the obvious exception of the new foretopman, impressed unlawfully with other "recruits" in the opening scene, Billy Budd (nicknamed "Baby" and "Beauty"), the baritone torn between the opposed representatives of the two poles of the male voice.The opera's prologue shows Captain Vere as an old man, remembering the events recounted in the opera. Vere is a noble ideal, an honorable man lost in his genteel system, who cannot do the right thing to defend Billy from Claggart. When Billy is told he has been appointed foretopman, he exuberantly bids farewell to his old ship, the Rights o' Man. The officers think is a reference to Thomas Paine's revolutionary tract The Rights of Man (1791–1792), an English adaptation of a French revolutionary document (Déclaration des droits de l'Homme et du citoyen, August 26, 1789). English sailors in this period were often sympathetic to the American revolutionaries, which led to a mutiny on the HMS Nore, which the officers in Billy Budd call the "floating Republic." The suspicious officers order Claggart to keep an eye on Billy, which the Master-at-Arms interprets as a mandate to destroy him. He sends the grovelling Squeak to make Billy's life difficult. Later, Claggart rips Billy's scarf from his throat, growling that it is inappropriate attire for the ship ("This is a man-o'-war").

The classically educated Vere is seen reading Plutarch in his cabin. He calls Claggart "a veritable Argus" (the Greek god of 100 eyes), a mythological reference lost on his officers. Billy pledges an almost matrimonial loyalty to the ship's captain ("Starry, I'll follow you through darkness"), whom the crew uniformly adore. In spite of the suspicion of his officers, Vere thinks that Billy cannot possibly mean any harm, as they listen to the echos of the innocent sea shanties being sung in the crew's quarters below. The joy of the shanty singing is interrupted by Billy's stammer, his only flaw, of which the sailors are superstitiously wary. Billy catches Squeak trying to steal his belongings and fights with him, knocking him down as Claggart arrives on the scene. When Billy's story is corroborated, Claggart handcuffs and gags Squeak and has to let Billy go free. He makes a veiled but threatening remark to Billy ("Handsomely done, lad; and handsome is as handsome did it, too") and even lashes a boy who stumbles against him on the way out.

Claggart then walks along the deck to sing his aria ("O beauty, o handsomeness, o goodness! ...I am doomed to annihilate you"), in which we understand that Billy has upset what he established, "an order such as reigns in Hell." In an interesting gloss on the opening verses of the Gospel of John, Claggart says of Billy, "the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness comprehends it and suffers." (There are interesting similarities between Claggart and Iago in Verdi's Otello, especially his aria "Credo in un Dio crudel che m'ha creato," in which he delights in his life's mission, to be evil.) The novice Claggart had flogged for bumping into him becomes his lackey (in a dark moment, the boy confides to Claggart, "you said you'd protect me, spoke so fatherly to me when you found me crying"). Claggart sends him to tempt Billy to do something illegal. Although the novice is heartbroken about it ("Why had it to be Billy, the one we all love?"), he feels he has to do it. The stage is set for the tragic ending.

September 24: Billy Budd (1951)

2004-09-19T21:59:00.000-05:00

Available at Amazon:

Benjamin Britten, Billy Budd, Peter Pears, Covent Garden, conducted by Benjamin Britten

Benjamin Britten (1913–1976)
Premiered at Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, London, on December 1, 1951 (with Britten conducting, for the Festival of Britain).

Billy Budd will be produced this season by the Washington National Opera (September 18 to October 3, 2004), the production brought from Covent Garden, which we have the chance to see together. (I will be attending on Monday, September 27.) We are covering this opera out of chronological sequence for this reason.

Libretto (4-act version): Eric Crozier, with E. M. Forster (synopsis). (Based on Herman Melville's last prose work, the novella Billy Budd, Foretopman, which was written from 1888 to 1891 and concluded five months before Melville's death. The book was not published until 1924.) The two-act revision of the opera, made by Britten in 1960, is now the standard version.

Related Posts:

Dr. Downey, Francesca Zambello's Production of Billy Budd
Lindsay Heller, Good and Evil in Britten's Tonal Language: Billy vs. Claggart
Grace Cho, Three symbols of Melville's story in Billy Budd
Kyoung-Hee Jung, Three important characters
Tim Ballard, The Love Triangle in Billy Budd
Dr. Downey, Billy Budd, Act I

Other Resources on Salome

2004-09-18T22:30:00.000-05:00

Here are a few more online articles on Wilde, Strauss, and Salome:

Nancy Thuleen, Symbolism and Decadence in Wilde's Salome (1995)
Delyse Ryan, Intertextuality and Oscar Wilde's Salomé
Alex Ross, The Last Emperor: Richard Strauss (The New Yorker, December 20, 1999)
Strauss’s Salome: Its Arts and Its Morals
Salome, from Metropolitan Opera Radio Broadcast

Wilde was certainly not the first to create a sensual story about the character of Salome. In an intermission feature for the Met broadcast of the opera (Salome: Lovable Creature of Excess, March 27, 2004), Nimet Habachy noted the following precursors of Wilde's play:

Heinrich Heine's Atta Troll, in which Herodias, not Salome, kisses the severed head of John the Baptist
Joris-Karl Huysmans's A Rebours (English translation: Against the grain), with a sensual description of Salome (1884)
Gustave Flaubert's Hérodiade (English translation: Herodias), in which Herodias does the seductive dance for King Herod (the basis for Massenet's opera on this story, Hérodiade, 1880)
Stéphane Mallarmé's Symbolist play Hérodiade, which he left incomplete

Wilde first conceived the role of Salome for the eccentric actress Sarah Bernhardt, who at a dinner party given by Henry Irving, asked him to write a play for her in French. Bernhardt was never able to perform the role that Wilde supposedly envisioned as divine and pure, supposedly suggested by the depiction of Bernardo Luini, Salome Receiving the Head of John the Baptist (c. 1525).

Richard Strauss was not the first composer to tackle the story of Salome: there had already been Massenet's Herodiade (see above), and a symphonic work by Glazunov (Salome, op. 90), which also focused on Herodias.

Part 3:entrance of Herod, Herodias, and the court

2004-09-18T10:13:00.000-05:00

Herod, Herodias and their retinue come out of the Palace. Herod summons torches and wine for his guests, and slips on the blood around Narraboth's corpse. He presses wine and fruit upon the princess and begs her to sit by him. But Salome refuses.
The voice of Jokanaan again comes from below, prompting a cross theological debate among Herod's Jewish guests, and a pair of Nazarenes report what they know of the Messiah. The voice goes on to prophesy shame and death for the daughter of Babylon, to the great annoyance of Herodias.
(Here a linking portion of Wilde's text was cut)
Suddenly the Tetrarch's frenzy is increased where there is a proclamation of the day
"When the Kings of the Earth shall be afraid". He asked Salome to dance for him. At first she rejects, but agree to perform. He has sworn to grant her whatever she wants in return. Then Salome demands the head of Jokanaan.

Comparing Libretto of Salome in the New Testament and Oscar Wilde's play

2004-09-18T04:48:00.000-05:00

Oscar Wilde’s Salome story originally derives from the Bible story: Matthew 14:1-12 and Mark 6:14-29. He embellished very much and focused on Herodia’s daughter, Salome, rather than John the Baptist-named Jochanaan in his play. In fact, the Bible does not mention about the name, Salome, but only indicates Herodia’s daughter.

Herodias first married Herod Philippus, who had been a son of king, Herod the Great. When Herod Antipas who was the half-brother of Herod Philippus visited Rome, he was attracted by Herodias and persuaded her to divorce, then, he married her. As a reason, the king’s adulterous marriage-incestuous marriage was accused by the John the Baptist because it was against the Jewish law.
Finally, she got a chance at the Herod’s birthday banquet to kill her enemy, John the Baptist. She asked Salome to dance for her step-father, Herod Antipas. At last, while Salome was entering to the banquet, she danced for him. However, it was very immoral, disgraceful event for Romans in the customs of the royal society. The reason was that princess danced alone with naked body in front of all the high class guests. Therefore, she was treated as a prostitute by people.

No mention in the Bible that Salome had a sexual obsession for John and Herod one for Salome, nor that Herod ordered Salome’s death. In addition to Salome’s sexual obsession for John in Wilde’s own imagination, she begged him passionately to touch his body and eagerly love to kiss his mouth.

Oscar Wilde reversed the Bible story and much more added up in order to reveal more dramatic and humanistic story: Salome sexually danced for him after he had vowed in front of the guests in spite of her mother restricted her dancing. Later, Salome insists, “I do not heed by mother. It’s for mine own pleasure that I asked the head.” Last scene in the play, she kissed Jochanaan’s mouth that already had been beheaded according to Herod’s vow to Salome.

Wilde had no desire to remain true to the original tale of the Bible in his play. Hence, when his play was performed in public, he was rebuked for deviating from the true Bible story. He said, “I prefer the other truth, my own which is that of the dream. Between two truths, the falser is the truer.”(Richard Ellman, Oscar Wilde New York: Knopf, 1988 p. 334) Therefore, Oscar Wilde established what he considered the truth about erotic and murderous Salome.

"Salome": The "Dance of the Seven Veils" to the Beheading (pt. 4)

2004-09-17T12:51:00.000-05:00

The "Dance of the Seven Veils" to the Beheading (Pt. 4)

A Herod almost possessed by his desire to see Salome dance virtually begs her to do so. With her mother, Herodias, begging her not to, Salome continues to turn down the King's pleas for a dance until he starts speaking of a reward. Telling her that she will receive anything she asks for in return for the dance, her demeanour changes slightly at the thought that Herod promises says, "All, all, whatsoever you shall ask of me, even unto the half of my kingdom." ("Alles, alles, was du von mir begehren wirst, und war's die Halfte meines Konigreichs.") Herod then goes on a bit of a dramatic tirade swearing to Salome that she "will be as fair as a Queen," and once Salome has heard Herod officially swear an oath, she agrees to dance.

Right before the music starts, slaves come to remove Salome's shoes, hand her perfumes, and the seven veils. The dance begins wildly in the orchestra, creating a sense of both excitement and curiosity. Although Salome doesn't begin to move right away, she slowly rises from her place and signals to the musicians that she is ready. The music becomes suddenly subdued with a gentle melody that envokes swaying back-and-forth, and Salome begins to dance the "Dance of the Seven Veils." After she has been dancing, Salome seems to tire at one point, but a sudden renewal of her energy brings her back to her dance and she continues. When the dance ends, the music begins to die down as Salome stares off into space by the cistern, only to then throw herself at Herod's feet.

Herod vehemently praises Salome ("Wundervol! Wundervol!") and then proceeds to ask her what she would like as her reward. Salome graciously askes for a little silver bowl (or plate) and this causes Herod to repeat her request in the manner of derranged man. He says "In einer Silberschussel" ("In a silver charger") over and over, calling Salome "charming" because she only asked for a small silver piece after doing her precious dance. Herod again sings her praises and reminds Salome that he promised her anything she wanted--even half of his kingdom--to which she replied as she rose and smilied: "Den Kopf des Jochanaan" ("The head of John the Baptist").

Herod immediately protests Salome's request, although her mother (Herodias), for the first time is praising her daughter's choice. Salome, a bit taken aback by this, reminds Herod that he swore an oath; although Herod tells her that she is crazy and a man's head on a platter is wrong and disgusting, she begins to demand what she wants. Herod offers her all these precious things that any person would most likely jump at, but Salome continues to insist the head of Jochanaan, with each of her requests rising in pitch and becoming more intense.

Claiming that Salome's beauty has distracted him, he requests wine to quench his thirst, all the while still offering Salome his riches. Herod pleads with her, saying that Jochanaan is a holy man and "the finger of God has touched him," therefore beheading him might harm Herod. Still demanding her "reward" Salome eventually makes Herod sink back into his chair and tell the court to give the girl what she wants. Herodias then takes the ring of death from Herod's hand and gives it to the First Soldier, who immediately hands it to the executioner. "I am certain some misfortune will come," says Herod, after noticing the missing ring and the empty wine goblet.

Salome then leans over and listens for the sounds of a man about to be beheaded, but when she hears nothing until the headman's sword hit the ground, she immediately thinks the executioner was too cowardly to do the deed. She commands the soldiers to go and complete the task of which she speaks and bring her "the thing that the Tetrarch has promised, the thing which is mine." Then, a huge black arm--the executioner's--comes forth from the cistern, bearing a silver platter with Jochanaan's head. Herod hides his face in his cloak while Salome seizes her prize and her mother smiles in triumph.

As she leans over to look into Jochanaan's dead eyes, Salome begins a long soliloquy (for lack of a better term) actually addressing the head, speaking of love, hunger, and thirst. Salome is virtually drunk with her own beauty and power now, ending with this: "Oh, why didst thou not look at me? If thou hadst looked at me, thou wouldst have loved me. I know it wel, thou wouldst have loved me. And thy mystery of love is greater than the mystery of death." Herod claims his daughter to be a monster, while Herodias sticks by Salome and defends her. Convinced something terrible is going to occur, Herod tells his wife that they must hide. The slaves put out the torches, the stars leave the sky, and a giant black cloud covers the moon so there is complete darkness while a tortured Herod begins to ascend the staircase.

Salome is then possessed to kiss the dead head of Jochanaan, and actually kisses him on the lips. She speaks of a bitter taste upon her kiss and wonders if it's just blood, or maybe even the taste of love. After telling everyone she has kissed Jochanaan's mouth, a solitary ray of moonlight falls upon Salome, illuminating her. Abruptedly, Herod turns around and shouts to his soldiers to "kill that woman!" Although she is listless, the soldiers rush towards Salome and crush her beneath their shields.

Artworks on Salome

2004-09-16T20:13:00.000-05:00

In creating his play, Oscar Wilde was probably inspired by a series of paintings by Gustave Moreau on the Salome story (1874–1876):

Here are some of Moreau's sketches for these paintings. The English edition of Wilde's play was published with illustrations by Aubrey Beardsley:

See also these images, these images, and these images of Salome.

Salome Scandals

2004-09-16T15:12:00.000-05:00

I'm having a harder time than I expected finding good information about the scandalous world premieres of Salome. Based on what I've read so far the Metropolitan Opera in New York was only place to really freak out about it. Anybody know anything about this topic?

Orchestration and Motives in Salome

2004-09-15T20:43:00.000-05:00

In Salome, Strauss wrote for a 105-piece orchestra, profiting from his experience of composing symphonic poems before he got into composing operas. Over half of that large ensemble is strings, including an overpowering violin section of 16 first violins and 16 second violins. That massed violin sound is heard prominently in Salome's scene with Jochanaan's severed head. There is a large brass section (six French horns, four trumpets, four trombones and one tuba), easily able to cover most singers by themselves. Some specialized instruments include harp, celeste, xylophone, triangle, tamborine, castanets. A metal beater is to be rubbed on a gong or tam tam to depict the rushing wind that Herod hears in his madness.

There are several musical themes that have been analyzed as "leitmotifs" in Salome. I think two are the most important. The first appears when Jochanaan ascends for the first time from the cistern. It is part of the "pure" C major music associated with the Baptist (as opposed to the C# music of Salome, full of dirty little accidentals), including the striking descending tritone, resolved from D# to E at the end. Salome sings part of this theme when she sets eyes on him the first time, and it accompanies the curse that Jochanaan places on Salome as he descends again into the cistern. The sinister, deep sounds of the bass clarinet and contrabassoon are associated with the darkness of Jochanaan's prison. There is also a very unusual instrument called a heckelphone, a four-feet-long bass oboe invented by Wilhelm Heckel.

The second major theme is heard first when Salome, as she first seems repulsed by Jochanaan, sings "Er ist schreklich" (He is terrible). This triadic theme, which seems to represent her obsessive lust, sounds in the orchestra as she fantasizes about kissing parts of his body. After appearing many times through the rest of the opera, it is again prominent when Salome finally kissed Jochanaan's mouth, on his severed head.

Psychological points found in Salome

2004-09-12T12:32:00.000-05:00

Herod – sub-govenor
Herodias – his wife and the wife of his dead brother
Salome – Her daughter
Jochanaan – John the Baptist
Narraboth – Soilder in love with Salome
Page in love with Narraboth

Page
|
|
V
Narraboth < - - - Herod < - - - Herodias
|
|
V
Salome < - - - Herod < - - - Herodias |
|
V
Jochanaan

I Look
Narraboth looks at Salome
Page looks at Narraboth
Herod Looks at Salome and Narraboth
Salome looks at Jochanaan
Jochanaan refuses to look at Salome

II Rejection
Salome rejects the Wine and Fruit and throne offered by Herod
She is rejected herself by Jochanaan
In the final scene she compares Jochanaan to Fine wine ad Fruit
She rejects the world for the taste of his lips

Look Body White
Touch Hair Black
Kiss Mouth Red

Blood = Love
Violence = Sex

Salome in her final scene wants Jochanaan’s viper to spit its venom on her once again.

September 17: Salome (1905)

2004-09-12T00:07:00.000-05:00

Aubrey Beardsley, "Climax" (1894, for English edition of Oscar Wilde's Salome)

Richard Strauss
World premiere: December 9, 1905, Court Opera, Dresden

American premiere: January 22, 1907, Metropolitan Opera, New York

Libretto: Hedwig Lachmann, German translation of the play by Oscar Wilde, Salome, a play in one act, originally written in French (corrected by Wilde's French friends) in 1891. Wilde's play was published in French in 1893, and then in an English translation by Lord Alfred Douglas, Wilde's lover, in 1894. The play was premiered in Paris in 1896 (the original French version), in which director Aurélien Lugné-Poë cast the Page as a woman (often done in stage versions, as well as by Strauss). Toulouse-Lautrec designed the program.

The play was first performed in Germany at the Neues Theater in Berlin in 1903: Max Renhardt produced it based on the success of his earlier private production at the Kleines Theater in 1902. The production ran for 200 performances. Richard Strauss was in the audience for some of those performances.

Wilde's Salome has also been made into several different film versions, including Ken Russell's Salome's Last Dance (1988).

See also the The Salome Cartellone (on the text and music, in Italian).

Related Posts:

Tim Ballard, Psychological points found in Salome
Dr. Downey, Orchestration and Motives in Salome
Phil Carluzzo, Salome Scandals
Dr. Downey, Artworks on Salome
Dr. Downey, Other Resources on Salome
Grace Cho, Comparing Libretto of Salome in the New Testament and Oscar Wilde's play
Kyoung-Hee Jung, Part 3:entrance of Herod, Herodias, and the court
Lindsay Heller, "Salome": The "Dance of the Seven Veils" to the Beheading (pt. 4)

Available at Amazon:

Derrick Puffett, Richard Strauss: Salome, Cambridge Opera Handbooks (1989)	Richard Strauss, Salome, Hildegard Behrens, Vienna Philharmonic, Herbert von Karajan
Richard Strauss, Salome, Birgit Nilsson, Vienna Philharmonic, Georg Solti

Other Settings of "Pelleas" (Sibelius)

2004-09-11T22:33:00.000-05:00

Sibelius' Pelleas

--wrote the incidental music to Pelleas och Melisande in 1905
--the was the Swedish translation of the play, since that was the language of Finland at the time
--it ran for 15 performances in Helsinki in March 1905, most of which Sibelius himself conducted
--the concert suite Sibelius arranged from the original 10 movements contains eight actual movements, all of which are fairly short and possess great charm
--the following is a brief breakdown of what happens in each of the movements:

I.) At the Castle Gate has a rich opening theme in the strongs to depict the opening of the main gate to Arkel's castle; there are optimistic overtones that reach a majestic climax
II.) Eventually becoming Melisande in the concert suite, this movement has a sad cor anglais melody crying over a sea of muted strings. The music floats gently forward in the form of a slow waltz.
III.) Later known as At the Seashore, there is an ominous growling of the basses to symbolizing the surging currents of the sea, which is apparently cited as a Sibelian hallmark.
IV.) As a light and cheerful waltz, By a Spring in the Park is faintly ominous at the same time.
V.) Melisande at the Spinning Wheel is a dark movement, made ominous by the symbolic presence of the wheel (and its incessant spinning, portrayed by a viola trill)
VI.) De trenne blinda systrar (The Three Blind Sisters) is a fairly cryptic song on (the fading of) hope, where a mezzo-soprano solo is then replaced by a woodwind section on the same melody
VII.) A pastorale played Andantino provides a sweet and tranquil melody, with a wind section playing in characteristic Sibelian thirds. There is also an appealing pizzicato figure on the cello to accompany the winds and paint the picture of little birds (flutes and violins) flying on a glorious day.
VIII.) The Entr'acte is joyous and acts as a prelude to the couple's secret meeting in the park.
IX.) This is a prelude leading into the tragic scene of Pelleas' death, where a dialogue occurs between solo cello and cor anglais sitting above a dark and ominous string figure.
X.) With the strings providing a very atmospheric undertone, The Death of Melisande concludes Sibelius' work with a pianissimo whispering in the foreground.

Other Settings of "Pelleas" (Schoenberg)

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Schoenberg's Pelleas

--a symphonic poem written in 1902 at the advice of Richard Strauss
--the piece was first performed in 1905 with Schoenberg at the podium; one audience member describes the experience: "The orchestra was ill-at-ease and the reception cool."
--in Pelleas, Schoenberg begins to establish the "soloistic orchestral writing" he later employed in other works
--New Grove describes the symphonic poem as a "single vast movement, but naturally without illustrative interludes"
--the piece is in a familiar post-Wagnerian manner, but Schoenberg's techniques to exploit and develop make it still seem unique and fresh
--he creates a polyphonic motivic web that grows to be quite complex
--memorable parts include the adagio love seen between Pelleas and Melisande, with its tortured growth of motifs and the sudden blinding light of murder
--it's a dark and sombre work that, and its best, equals--if not transcends--Mahler's pantonal, post-Romantic utterances in a tightly-packed and emotionally-exhausting display
--this work also hints at the forthcoming of Schoenberg's trademark 12-tone system
--early evidence of later Schoenberg, where affekt became subordinate with texture
--this symphonic poem presses the Straussian model towards denser thematic argument and contrapuntal richness

Acts IV and V of Pelleas et Mélisande - by Debussy

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The symbolist doctrine subscribes to the goal of saying the least to communicate the most.

IV i – A Room in the castle
Semiquavers from the hair scene (III,i) with foreboding harmonies. Pelléas and Mélisande agree to meet. Hauntingly, Pelléas sates that “it will be our last night!”

IV ii – Arkel enters looks forward to the return of Joy because of Mélisande, yet he pities her. She appears to him as if she is waiting on something dreadful. I believe the lost crown and the lost ring are of great significance – this is before Freud but highly Freudian.

Golaud enters angry with Mélisande – he examines his own sword (again highly Freudian) and notes that Mélisande has innocent eyes as if the “angels of heaven bathe there.)

Arkel “If I were God I would have pity on the hearts of men.”

IV iii – Yniold is playing and his gold ball is trapped and cannot be moved – this is symbolic of destiny and fate. A flock of sheep pass by and they are not going to the stable – Yniold asks, “where will they sleep tonight?” The sheep are destined for

IV iv The Final Scene

Is this Wagnerian…Is this Anti-Wagnerian – I suggest Wagnerian in orchestration and not vocally.
I believe it to be Wagnerian Symbolism taken to the extreme!

Pelléas declares his love…. “How beautiful it is here the dark”

Pelléas is then killed by his brother with his sword!

V – Arkel know it is over and the Mélisande will die.

Pelléas asks for a window to be opened so that she may see the sun set – she has chosen darkness and it will soon envelope her.

Golaud asks Mélisande if she loved Pelléas – her reply is “Mais oui!”
He asks if she was innocent – she affirms her innocence but Golaud doesn’t believe her and she dies.

All hope for the future is in Mélisande’s daughter!

Other Settings of Pelleas (Faure, pt. 2)

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--Faure's version was clearly based on Koechlin's final conducting score, but his (Faure's) additions ensure greater continuity in the climax
--the conducting score Faure used in 1898 was comprised of 17 numbers of varying lengths, including the four numbers now of the Suite
--what possibly caused the London Times critic to comment on the work's lack of "tangible form" was probably the widespread dispersal of pieces throughout the play, coupled with the melodramatic function of some of the music
--most of the 17 small pieces are brief, and in keeping with the subject, are musically dramatic, often only prividing a fleeting illumination of a specific moment in the story
--Faure was directly concerned with the overall unity of his incidental music
--"Pelleas" was Faure's third venture into the theatre, which was an area both he and Koechlin preferred to avoid
**--Faure's overall aim: to write a unified score which reflected the mysterious mood of the drama as a whole, in which each piece would stand up musically on its own, infused with his ideas of classic beauty, dignity, and disciplined emotional restraint

Other Notes on Pelléas

2004-09-10T16:25:00.000-05:00

The premiere of Debussy's Pelléas et Mélisande at the Opéra-Comique was directed by Albert Carré and conducted by André Messager. Maurice Ravel, who was 27 years old, reportedly went to all 14 performances in the opera's first season. Debussy wanted the shortest possible musical interludes between scenes, which is what he published in the first vocal edition of the score in 1902. The stage of the Salle Favart, with its limited wing space, made scene changes time-consuming and required more music to cover them. Debussy added the longer interludes in the first season, revised their orchestration in the second season, and they appear in the full score that he published in 1904. Much of the opera's music was revised and altered throughout Debussy's life. He gave some thought to having Pelléas sung by a woman's voice, although he ended up making him first a baryton-martin, a high baritone with a light high range). In the 1919 version, Debussy recast the role for tenor. Debussy specifically wanted Yniold to be sung by a boy soprano but accepted a female singer for the role in the first production, a precedent which has been followed for the most part ever since.

Mélisande as Golaud's Prey. At the opening of the opera, Golaud has been hunting, but he has lost the prey that he believed he had fatally wounded. On the animal's tracks, he comes upon the girl by the well. The score directs Mélisande to sing her first lines presque sans voix (almost voiceless): "Ne me touchez pas, ne me touchez pas!" The mysterious crown that the girl has thrown in the well may have been given to her by Bluebeard, to whom she was possibly married. (There is some evidence to think that Maeterlinck conceived of her as the only one of Bluebeard's wives to have escaped alive. His play Ariane et Barbe-bleue from 1902 was set as an opera by Paul Dukas in 1907.) In any case, she does not allow Golaud to retrieve the crown from the water. Golaud insists on leading her away, even though he admits in the last line of the first scene, "je suis perdu aussi" (I'm lost, too).

In the second scene of Act IV, Golaud comes in with blood on his forehead, which Mélisande tries to wipe away. In an exact reversal of the opening scene, he insists that he does not want her to touch him and asks menacingly where his sword is. He plans to kill the beggars by the ocean, he says, but he sees that Mélisande is afraid of him. He insists that he is not going to kill her, which in the atmosphere of the opera, we know means that he is planning exactly that. Her innocent look infuriates him, and he becomes more and more agitated. In a horrible scene, he throws his wife around the room by her hair, the perverse reversal of Pelléas's tender playing with her hair hanging down the tower wall, which he witnessed. In Act IV, scene 4, at the lovers' last meeting, Pelléas is afraid to touch Mélisande, and she is breathing so hard that he describes her as a "hunted bird." After hearing much noise from the château, Golaud approaches, strikes down his half-brother, and heartlessly pursues his quarry, Mélisande, into the forest.

Vous/Tu in Maeterlinck's Text. In French, there are two ways of speaking to another person, the formal way of saying you (vous) and the personal way (tu). In general, one uses vous to an unknown adult in a situation in which you want to be respectful, and tu with family, close friends, and children. Using vous with anyone in the latter group is likely to be perceived as cold, and using tu with the former group is seen as rudely condescending. (This system has exceptions and in general is hopelessly complicated for a foreign speaker to understand flawlessly.) If we analyze the ways that Maeterlinck's characters use vous and tu in the play, it reveals some interesting points.

Of course, when Golaud and Mélisande meet in the opening scene, they address each other as vous. By Act II, scene 2, when they are married and Mélisande is tending Golaud in his bed, he calls her tu, but she still refers to him as Seigneur (Lord) and vous. This is how their verbal relationship remains throughtout the opera—in conflict as to their degree of intimacy—until the fourth act, when as he looks for his sword, Golaud coldly begins to call Mélisande vous. In the final scene, as she forgives Golaud, she begins to address him as tu, just before she dies. When Golaud writes to Pelléas in the second scene of Act I, in a letter read to Arkel by Geneviève, he uses tu. In the same scene, Arkel and Geneviève address Pelléas as tu (normal, for his grandfather and mother). In the following scene, however, Geneviève uses vous with Mélisande.

Pelléas and Mélisande, brother- and sister-in-law, call one another vous for the first part of the opera. In Act III, scene 1, where Pelléas plays with her hair as it hangs from the tower window, they both use tu, a sign that their intimacy is established at that point and is reciprocal. When Golaud surprises them, he now addresses his half-brother as vous, which is a sign of disapproval. Golaud continues to use tu with his wife. In the fourth scene of this act, the traditional relationship of powerful adult and weak child is established by Golaud's use of vous to his son, Yniold, and Yniold's use of tu. (For the most part, children today address their parents as tu.) At their final meeting (Act IV, scene 4), Pelléas continues to say tu while Mélisande switches to vous, in an attempt to distance her lover, but then returns to tu when he says that this will be their last time together. They express their love, with incredible softness, both using tu. In the final scene, Arkel and Golaud use tu with Mélisande, but Arkel addresses Golaud coldly as vous.

Act 1, Pelleas et Melisande

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Without doubt, the modern symbolism opera has been represented by Debussy’s Pélleas et Mélisande. The text and stage scene in the opera do not indicate directly all of the situations and emotions of the characters. In the text of the opera, the symbolic nuance makes audience more imaginative scene in their own minds. The most emotional symbolic moments extend into the melodic lines in which are mostly recitatives for solo singing. Besides, the melodic lines are like threshold of speech ideally adapted to the specificities of language, so it brings out the hidden nuance of the text for the scenario. For example, in the Act 1, scene three, in the garden of the castle, Mélisande is afraid of thick darkness of the castle garden, where she lives and looking at a dim light that comes out of the sea. In other words, Mélisande tries to escape from her unhappy marriage life and longs to catch happiness.

Other Settings of "Pelleas" (Faure, pt. 1)

2004-09-09T07:19:00.000-05:00

Faure's "Pelleas"
-Faure composed incidental music for the English translation of Maeterlinck's play, which debuted in London at the Prince of Wales Theatre on 21 June 1898 (the translation of the text was done by Jack Mackail)
-it has been said that Faure acquired the comission to write the music thanks to his frequents London visits and contacts there
*-Faure's version was the first score based on the play to receive a public performance, and also the only score not written in the shadow of Debussy's opera (Faure's music preceeded Debussy's by four years)
-the most important extended movements from the incidental music now form the Suite (Op.80): "Prelude" to Act I, "La Fileuse" from Act III, the "Sicilienne" which preceeds Act II, and the movement known as "La Mort de Melisande" from Act V, which is untitled in both the conducting and printed scores
-Faure wrote the "Sicilienne" as an independt piece for cello and piano in March 1893 (Op. 78), but then later used it as his starting point for the incidental music
-With his disinterest in orchestration well-known, Faure entrusted former pupil Charles Koechlin with the task of formally arranging the incidental music
-Three different scores of "Pelleas" exist: 1) contain's Koechlin's autograph first version of the orchestral score constructed between 7 May-5 June 1898; 2) the conducting score used by Faure in London (in Koechlin's hand), which originally belonged to pianist Alfred Cortot (and later presented to Nadia Boulanger on her birthday); and 3) the printed version of the orchestral stuie, for which Faure revised Koechlin's orchestration in the conducting score, adding extra parts for 2nd oboe, 2nd bassoon, and 3rd and 4th horns, and rescoring various passages (particularly the climaxes in movements I, II, and IV)
-the dating on Koechlin's first score shows that "Pelleas" as we know it came to fruition in this order: "Sicilienne"--"La Fileuse"--["La Mort de Melisande"]
-music is scored for 2 flutes, oboe, 2 clarinets, bassoon, 2 F horns, 2 F trumpets, timpani, harp, and strings (presumably the chamber orchestra Faure knew he would have at his disposal in London)
-the many subtle changes in Koechlin's orchestration in the suite version show that Faure was by no means insensitive to orchestral colour, nor inexperienced with it in 1898
-as a matter of personal preference, Faure was mainly interested in the creation of absolute music and the application of his extreme craftsmanship to the organization of the notes themselves, irrespective of the medium
-

Maurice Maeterlinck and the "Theater of the Unexpressed"

2004-09-08T10:31:00.000-05:00

Maurice Maeterlinck (1862-1949) was born in Ghent, Belgium, to parents who were wealthy, French-speaking, and Catholic. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1911: see his acceptance speech. A concise biography is available from Kirjasto, as well as Edward Thomas's biography, Maurice Maeterlinck, 2nd ed. (1911).

The Life of the Bee (La Vie des Abeilles, 1901), translated by Alfred Sutro
Other works by Maeterlinck from Online Books Page
Ariane et Barbe-bleu (1902), set as an opera by Paul Dukas in 1907
The Blue Bird (1908)

On the history of symbolism, see The Chronology of Symbolism and Art Nouveau. It is a style of literature which uses symbols to express ideas or emotions, in which ultimate meaning is often left intentionally ambiguous. French poets Stéphane Mallarmé and Villiers de l'Isle-Adam are usually considered its greatest practitioners. Maeterlinck met both of them during his advanced studied in Paris in 1885. Symbolism as a movement had peaked around 1890, around the time Mallarmé died, but Maeterlinck continued to write in his own version of the symbolist style for rest of his career. By 1896, Maeterlinck was living in Paris, and he later lived at Saint-Wandrille, an old Norman abbey, outside Rouen, that he had restored.

Maeterlinck wrote in The Treasure of the Humble (1916):

Indeed, it is not in the actions but in the words that are found the beauty and greatness of tragedies that are truly beautiful and great; and this not solely in the words that accompany and explain the action, for there must perforce be another dialogue besides the one which is superficially necessary. And indeed the only words that count in the play are those that at first seemed useless, for it is therein that the essence lies. Side by side with the necessary dialogue will you almost always find another dialogue that seems superfluous; but examine it carefully, and it will be borne home to you that this is the only one that the soul can listen to profoundly, for here alone is it the soul that is being addressed.

The silence and gloom of Belgium and Holland may have been the inspiration for the magical realm of Allemonde. The region had already fascinated French poets, for example as the place of "luxe, calme et volupté" in Baudelaire's poem Invitation au Voyage, in Les Fleurs du Mal. In his essay Le Silence, he wrote that what is left unsaid may be more important than what is said. Maeterlinck was nicknamed le grand taiseur (the great taciturn one), which reminds me of the line "Flamands taiseux et sages" (Flemish, taciturn, and good) in Jacques Brel's song Mon Enfance (My childhood); Brel was also Belgian. As Arkel says at the end of the play Pelléas et Mélisande: "L'âme humaine est très silencieuse . . . L'âme humaine aime à s'en aller seule . . ." (The human soul is very silent . . . The human soul live to go off alone . . .).

Maeterlinck's Pelléas play premiered in 1893. Debussy had already read the play before attending that premiere at the Théâtre des Bouffes-Parisiens and knew that he wanted to set it to music. That November, Debussy travelled to Ghent to meet with Maeterlinck to discuss his plans for a musical setting. Maeterlinck was supportive until his mistress, Georgette Leblanc, was not cast as Mélisande, and the role was given to Scottish singer Mary Garden. He then tried to stop the production with a legal injunction, which failed.

September 10: Pelléas et Mélisande (1902)

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Claude Debussy (1862-1918)
Premiered at the Opéra-Comique, Paris (1902), with Mary Garden in the title role (instead of Maeterlinck's mistress, Georgette Leblanc), directed by Albert Carré, and conducted by André Messager.

Libretto (in French) (English translation): Maurice Maeterlinck (1862-1949, received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1911) (play premiered in 1893). Also set to music by Gabriel Fauré, Suite of incidental music, op. 80 (1898); Arnold Schoenberg's symphonic poem, op. 5; and Jan Sibelius's incidental music, op. 46.

Most famous performance: Covent Garden, 1969, with Pierre Boulez conducting.

This opera will be produced at the Metropolitan Opera, from January 29 to February 8, 2005 (with a live radio broadcast on February 5, 2005).

See the information on Pelléas et Mélisande from the Metropolitan Opera International Radio Broadcast Information Center.

Related Posts:

Dr. Downey, Maurice Maeterlinck and the "Theater of the Unexpressed"
Dr. Downey, Other Notes on Pelléas
Lindsay Heller, Other Settings of "Pelleas" (Faure, pt. 1)
Lindsay Heller, Other Settings of Pelleas (Faure, pt. 2)
Lindsay Heller, Other Settings of "Pelleas" (Schoenberg)
Lindsay Heller, Other Settings of "Pelleas" (Sibelius)
Grace Cho, Act 1, Pelleas et Melisande
Tim Ballard, Acts IV and V of Pelleas et Mélisande - by Debussy

Available at Amazon:

Roger Nichols et al., Claude Debussy: Pelléas et Mélisande, Cambridge Opera Handbooks (1989)	Claude Debussy, Pelléas et Mélisande, Montreal Symphony, Charles Dutoit (1991)
Claude Debussy, Pelléas et Mélisande, Covent Garden, Pierre Boulez (1991)	Claude Debussy, Pelléas et Mélisande, Maria Ewing, Vienna Philharmonic, Claudio Abbado (1992)
Claude Debussy, Pelléas et Mélisande, Anne Sofie von Otter, Bernard Haitink (2002)

September 3: Introduction

2004-09-03T09:09:00.000-05:00

Welcome to this course on Opera in the Twentieth Century at The Catholic University of America. We will be covering a range of modern operas in class, and I hope that we can use this Weblog to continue our presentation and discussion of the works we study during this semester. You are all invited to post your findings, your questions, your answers, and anything else that you find interesting related to our topic. You can use the Comments function to respond to another student's post, or you may choose to write a complete post instead.

The matters that we discussed in our first class were:

What is an opera? What are the qualities that all operas have in common that allow us to distinguish them from other types of music?
What are the conventions that opera composers of the 20th century inherited from the past, to reject or re-embrace?
What happened to the business of opera and the question of patronage in the 20th century?
Why have some 20th-century operas become accepted as part of the operatic canon? How does the idea of an operatic canon affect the creation of new works?
What influence did the ideas of Richard Wagner have on operas created after him?
What are the traditional literary sources of opera? What has happened to the process of choosing and creating opera librettos in the 20th century?