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It would be wrong to describe the America of the 1930s as an operatic wasteland. It had been importing European talent (not least, Mozart’s librettist Da Ponte) for more than a century and boasted flourishing lyric companies. But home-grown opera was a novelty, and native composers were struggling to find a native means of self-expression – something that wasn’t merely shipped in from the old world. Marc Blitzstein (1905–64) and Virgil Thomson (1896–1989) were early experimenters, but the breakthrough came with George Gershwin (1898–1937), whose Porgy and Bess realised the hopes and strivings of a whole generation of American composers in the way it so successfully transcended the boundaries between ‘high’ and ‘low’ art: cultivated and vernacular. Gian Carlo Menotti (born 1911) has never been the showbiz figure that Gershwin was, and his Italian background tells in the Puccini-esque nature of his feel for melody and drama, but he was pushing at those high/low boundaries during the 1940s, with a succession of operas designed to play commercially in non-traditional Broadway-type venues. And with passing input from the racy Leonard Bernstein (1918–90) and the conservative but passionate Samuel Barber (1910–81), American opera has become a brilliantly hybrid industry, overflowing into transcendental events, such as those of Philip Glass (born 1937) and the very serious musicals of Stephen Sondheim (born 1930).
Backtracking slightly, France has had a disappointing 20th century for a country whose national house was once the spotlit focus of the opera world. After Pelléas et Mélisande there hasn’t been much of stature apart from a couple of lightweight charmers by Maurice Ravel (1875–1937) and a religious drama by Francis Poulenc (1899–1963).
Russia has had an altogether more distinguished time with Sergei Prokofiev (1891–1953) and Dmitri Shostakovich (1906–75), whose combined works add a sharp, abrasive edge to the development of an operatic language that largely derives from Musorgsky and Tchaikovsky. The earliest operas of Igor Stravinsky (1882–1971) take their tone from the magic fantasies of Rimsky-Korsakov. But as Stravinsky became progressively less Russian and more cosmopolitan, so his music became less ‘enchanted’ and more austerely Neoclassical, reinventing the past and reaching back beyond Wagner to the delicate detachment of Mozartian and Baroque closed forms. Another displaced person in America, it’s significant that Stravinsky wrote his chief opera, The Rake’s Progress, to an English text provided by the poet W.H. Auden and set almost as though it were Latin, with wilful unconcern that the language should sound idiomatic.
And that brings us, finally, to Britain, which, in the second half of the 20th century, became a serious creative centre for opera after two hundred years of producing almost nothing of significance. The English musical renaissance that began with Elgar produced a few attempts at music theatre that attracted passing fame, like Ethel Smyth’s The Wreckers, Delius’ A Village Romeo and Juliet and Vaughan Williams’ epic Pilgrim’s Progress. But the spark of genius didn’t quite ignite until 1945, when Peter Grimes put Benjamin Britten (1913–76) on the map as a figure of world stature. The thirteen original operas that followed built into a body of work unmatched by anybody of his generation. Their success inspired a torrent of work from other British composers that continues unabated, starting with Michael Tippett (born 1905) and William Walton (1902–83) and progressing down the years through the Mancunian duo of Harrison Birtwistle (born 1934) and Peter Maxwell Davies (born 1934) to Judith Weir (born 1954) and Mark-Anthony Turnage (born 1960). Turnage’s blistering adaptation of the bitter social satire Greek by Steven Berkoff has proved one of the most powerful and most-performed operas of the last decade or so, and it crowns a period of extraordinary productivity. With the possible exception of Finland – yes, Finland – where Aulis Sallinen (born 1935) has conjured a thriving opera industry out of nothing, it’s probably true to say that no country in the world could currently beat Britain’s ability to generate new opera. For a political culture which does as little as possible to encourage music in general and opera in particular, this is a pleasing but bizarre state of affairs.
A POSTSCRIPT ON OPERETTA
Unlike most aspects of opera proper, operetta was a French invention, derived from the mix of song and speech practiced by composers like André Ernest Grétry (1741–1813) and Pierre Monsigny (1729–1817). ‘Comique’ implied lightness though not necessarily comedy, and the boundary with serious opera was fairly loosely drawn, allowing figures like François Boïeldieu (1775–1834) and Daniel Auber (1782–1871) to cross it freely.
But operetta finally came into its own in the French Second Empire with Jacques Offenbach (1819–80), whose career began on a small scale, writing for tiny Parisian theatres, but gathered international fame – which spread to Vienna in the 1860s and prompted Johann Strauss II (1825–99) to imitative action. Strauss’ waltz-based shows were softer in tone than the sometimes abrasive satire of Offenbach, and they owed almost as much to the native Viennese tradition of Singspiel (another mix of speech and song, often heavily sentimental) as they did to the French import. But the formula was unequivocally successful, and it was soon followed by Franz Lehár (1870–1948) who took the Viennese version of the genre to the point of no return.
Meanwhile, the Offenbach phenomenon visited Britain in the 1870s and left its mark on the librettist/composer team of W.S. Gilbert (1836–1911) and Arthur Sullivan (1842–1900), whose Savoy Operas so insinuated themselves into English cultural life that its language and customs carry their imprint – not least the practice of queueing, which was introduced as a means of coping with the demand for G&S tickets.
Offenbach and G&S between them then spread to America where, reinterpreted via European exiles like the Hungarian Sigmund Romberg (1887–1951), they laid one of the foundations for the American Broadway musical. But that’s another story …
John Adams
(1947–)
Nixon in China (1987)
The Death of Klinghoffer (1990)
I was looking at the Ceiling and then I saw the Sky (1995)
According to official statistics, John Adams is the most frequently performed of living American composers – his fame founded on an accessible style of writing known as Minimalism which involves the repetition of small groups of notes to a point where listeners are either mesmerised or driven crazy. An essentially West Coast American phenomenon, it was adopted by Adams in the early 1970s in reaction against an East Coast academic upbringing and meant that he was automatically associated with older Minimalist composers like Steve Reich and Philip Glass. But Adams has developed in a more eclectic way, providing himself with an escape route from what could otherwise be a restrictively dead-end musical language. Nixon in China and The Death of Klinghoffer are striking examples of newsreel opera, their stories taken from real life and presented like televisual current affairs. Nixon deals with high-level politics; Klinghoffer (a treatment of the Achille Lauro hijack) with the personal consequences of political conflict. His most recent stage work, I was looking at the Ceiling and then I saw the Sky, is a dramatised song-sequence in something like the popular manner of the collaborations between Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill earlier this century. Looking critically at the lives of young Americans at the time of the last Los Angeles earthquake, it premiered with spray-paint set-designs by radical graffiti artists.
Nixon in China
FORM: Opera in three acts; in English
COMPOSER: John Adams (1947–)
LIBRETTO: Alice Goodman
FIRST PERFORMANCE: Houston, 22 October 1987
Principal Characters
Richard Nixon, American president
Pat Nixon, his wife
Mao Tse-tung, Chinese statesman
Henry Kissinger, American statesman
Chiang Ch’ing, Mao’s wife
Chou En-lai, Chinese statesman
Synopsis of the Plot
Setting: China; February 1972
ACT I On their arrival in Beijing, Nixon and his wife are greeted by Chou En-lai. Nixon feels that this visit is of great symbolic significance – as much as the first moon landing, in fact, and he also expresses his pleasure that their arrival coincides with peak television viewing time in America, thus ensuring him maximum publicity. Then the President, Henry Kissinger, Mao Tse-tung and Chou En-lai each offer their individual views on world issues, during which the contrasting ideologies and philosophies of East and West become evident, and the first act closes with a banquet.
ACT II Pat Nixon is taken to visit a commune and the Summer Palace and later joins the President, Mao, Chou En-lai and Mao’s wife, Chiang Ch’ing, to watch a performance of the contemporary ‘political ballet’, The Red Detachment of Women. This depicts a courageous group of women soldiers successfully battling against an unscrupulous landlord (played by Henry Kissinger). When the ballet ends, Chiang Ch’ing presents her account of the Cultural Revolution and how she sees her own place in history.
ACT III On the last night of the visit Nixon, Pat, Mao, Chiang Ch’ing and Chou En-lai are each seen in separate beds. Nixon and Mao reflect on past events in their lives and on their struggles to succeed. Nixon’s wartime memories centre on the acquisition of his own hamburger stand while Mao’s most vivid memories are the struggles of the Revolution. It is left to Chou En-lai to unite the past with the present by asking the question common to all political ideologies: ‘How much of what we did was good?’, which brings the opera to a close.
Music
Nixon in China is a mixture of exhilarating upbeat rhythms, pounding through the endless repetitions that make up a Minimalist score, and moments of reflective poignancy in which potentially cardboard characters really come to life. It isn’t easy to show recent historical figures with credibility on an opera stage, and the mere idea of Nixon and Mao singing to each other raises an assumption that the tone of the piece will be satirical. But no. Despite forays into the surreal, this is straight-laced all-American drama which if anything veers toward Romanticism – with appropriately luscious music. Even the synthesiser which Adams insinuates into the orchestral textures is given a romantic treatment.
Highlight
A brilliantly energised orchestral sequence called ‘The Chairman Dances’, which has entered the concert repertoire as a stand-alone piece.
Did You Know?
Recommended Recording
Sanford Sylvan, James Maddelena, Chorus and Orchestra of St Luke’s/Edo de Waart. Nonesuch 7559 79177-2. The only recording to date.
Samuel Barber
(1910–81)
A Hand of Bridge (1953)
Vanessa (1957)
Anthony and Cleopatra (1966)
Barber was an American who looked to Europe and the melodic abundance of European late-Romanticism for inspiration. Born into a WASP-ish East Coast family, he was one of the first students at the new Curtis Institute in Philadelphia where he studied singing as well as composition. Opera wasn’t a preoccupation, and his few stage works have tended to be overshadowed by concert scores like the Violin Concerto, the lyrically nostalgic scena for voice and orchestra Knoxville, Summer of 1915, and above all by the deathless Adagio, which must have featured on the soundtrack to more feature films and TV documentaries than anything since Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. But at Curtis he had met another young composer called Gian Carlo Menotti who was supremely a creature of the theatre. They went on to spend most of their lives together, and the first two of the three Barber operas were collaborations in which Menotti wrote the words. A Hand of Bridge doesn’t actually require many words: it lasts nine minutes and is no more than a brilliant little diversion. Vanessa, with its darkly Ibsenesque plot, is far more substantial, while Antony and Cleopatra is grander still, written for the opening of the new Metropolitan Opera in New York.
Vanessa
FORM: Opera in four acts; in English
COMPOSER: Samuel Barber (1910–81)
LIBRETTO: Gian Carlo Menotti; after Isak Dinesen’s story
FIRST PERFORMANCE: New York, 15 January 1958
Principal Characters
Vanessa, a baroness
Anatol, a young man
Erika, Vanessa’s niece
Old Baroness, Vanessa’s mother
Doctor
Synopsis of the Plot
Setting: A country house in an unnamed ‘northern country’ in the early 1900s
ACT I Vanessa waits alone in her sumptuous drawing room for a visitor to arrive. When he does at last come, Vanessa keeps her back turned to him, saying that she has waited twenty years for his return but, if he can no longer love her, then he must go immediately. As the visitor answers her, Vanessa whirls round, realizing that he cannot possibly be her lover, Anatol; he is much too young. Weak with shock she is taken to her room by Erika. Meanwhile, Anatol casts an acquisitive eye over the rich furnishings of the room. When Erika returns he explains that he is the son of Anatol, Vanessa’s lover who went away twenty years ago; his father is now dead. In view of the snowstorm raging outside, he begs Erika to let him stay the night and, carefully scrutinising the girl, calmly sits down to enjoy the meal prepared for his father.
ACT II A month has gone by. Erika confesses to the old Baroness that, although she and Anatol became lovers on that first night, she does not love him and will not marry him. Vanessa, aglow with happiness, returns from skating with Anatol and announces plans for a grand New Year Ball. Later, the old Baroness questions Anatol about his behaviour towards Erika and extracts his promise to marry her. Erika, however, knowing that her aunt, Vanessa, is in love with Anatol, rejects him.
ACT III The ball is under way and Vanessa and Anatol are about to announce their engagement. The pregnant Erika, shocked and disturbed, wanders unnoticed outside into the bitter cold as the music and dancing continue in the background.
ACT IV Erika has been found unconscious and has suffered a miscarriage, kept secret from Vanessa, who is now married to Anatol and preparing to leave for their honeymoon in Paris. After they leave, Erika is alone; she orders the mirrors to be draped and the gate to be shut, just as her aunt had done: ‘Now it is my turn to wait’.
Music and Background
A conservative piece for its time, Vanessa is richly scored in the manner of late Romanticism, owing much to Puccini and Richard Strauss, and with most of the formal ingredients of conventional 19th-century grand opera but translated into American terms. There is a fragment of a ball scene, ravishingly lyrical set-piece arias, and a sort of folk ballet – all of which contributed to the enormous success Vanessa enjoyed in its early years. It was the first opera in English ever to be heard at Salzburg, where it played with the Vienna Philharmonic in the pit.
Highlights
Erika’s aria ‘Must the winter come so soon?’ is a winner, as is Vanessa’s ‘Do not utter a word’, and the final quintet is arguably one of the most effective climaxes in modern opera.
Did You Know?
Recommended Recording
Eleanor Steber, Rosalind Elias, Regina Resnik, Nicolai Gedda, Metropolitan Opera/Dmitri Mitropoulos. BMG/RCA GD 87899. The original cast, and the only recording.
Béla Bartók
(1881–1945)
Duke Bluebeard’s Castle (1918)
Born in a part of Hungary which is now Romania, Bartók was one of the pioneer figures of 20th-century music, forging a new musical style from the folk traditions of his native country that owes nothing to the two composer-giants who are generally considered the great originators of modernity, Schoenberg and Stravinsky. Most of his work was instrumental and orchestral, with a set of six string quartets that rank as the most significant of their kind since Beethoven, and major concert scores like the Concerto for Orchestra and Music for Percussion, Strings and Celesta. His involvement with the stage was limited and Duke Bluebeard’s Castle his only opera, although he did subsequently produce two ballet scores, The Wooden Prince and The Miraculous Mandarin. He left Hungary for America in 1940 and died there in financially straitened circumstances five years later.
Duke Bluebeard’s Castle
FORM: Opera in one act; in Hungarian
COMPOSER: Béla Bartók (1881–1945)
LIBRETTO: Béla Balázs; after a fairy tale by Charles Perrault
FIRST PERFORMANCE: Budapest, 24 May 1918
Principal Characters
Duke Bluebeard
Judith, his wife
Synopsis of the Plot
Setting: Bluebeard’s castle; an unknown time and country
Bluebeard enters, leading his new wife into her home, a strange, dark Gothic castle which has seven doors but no windows. He asks her if she has changed her mind about staying with him and, on her reassurance that she has not, they embrace. The door behind them is shut and bolted. Judith then notices the doors for the first time and, saying she wants to let in light and air, asks the Duke for the keys. A strange, long sighing sound is heard throughout the castle as Bluebeard, on her insistence, gives her the key to the first door. As she opens it a vivid red light streams through; it is the Torture Chamber and the walls are wet with blood. Undeterred, Judith maintains that she is not afraid and proceeds to open the next four doors: the Armoury is characterised by bronze light, the Treasury by golden light, the Garden by bluish light and the vision of Bluebeard’s Kingdom by a brilliant white light. Bluebeard suggests that she has seen enough and takes her in his arms. But Judith is, by now, obsessed with knowing all his secrets and demands the sixth key. The haunting sigh is heard once more as she opens the door to find a Lake of Tears.
The final door, insists Bluebeard, must remain closed. But Judith begins to question him about his love for her. She wants to know about the women he loved before he met her, and asks what happened to them. Bluebeard stays silent and Judith opens the door, convinced that the truth lies behind it. Immediately the fifth and sixth doors swing shut and the stage darkens. Three beautiful women step out: they are his ex-wives, Bluebeard explains, and represent the morning, noon and evening of his love. Judith, he says, is his last love, that of the night, and after her is eternal darkness. Judith disappears through the seventh door and Bluebeard is alone.
Music and Background
As theatre, Duke Bluebeard’s Castle is compact, with just one act and a playing time of an hour, but as music it has epic stature, grandly terrifying in its depiction of Duke Bluebeard’s dark domain and heavy with the gloom of Gothic horror. Bartók’s treatment of the story is, of course, symbolic – the opening of the doors is like an exercise in Freudian analysis, exposing the hidden secrets of the subconscious mind – and the counterbalancing of inner and outer worlds is echoed in Bartók’s key structures, which gravitate between F sharp for Bluebeard and C for Judith.