Opera in the
Twentieth Century – Part III (1970 – 2000)
Benjamin Britten: Death in Venice (1973) LONDON 425 669-2 English Opera Group, English Chamber
Orchestra, cond. Steuart Bedford.
“Chaos, chaos and sickness” CD 2 – Tr. 16 (4:24)
Thomas Mann’s novel Death in Venice has inspired an award-winning film as well as Benjamin Britten’s last opera. Once again, like in the opera’s we heard in part I, Peter Grimes and in part II, Billy Budd, Britten turns to a misunderstood male anti-hero as a source of tragic opera. Though situated far from the shores of England, Venice’s location next to the sea serves to highlight Britten’s enchantment and fascination with the sea. As well, the story, revolving around the lead Aschenbach’s near homosexual attraction to the young Tadzio served as a sort of final reflection on Britten’s own impulsive and forbidden impulse for adolescent boys. The music shows a string influence of Balinese music, particular in its use of five percussionists. Britten comes full circle here; the feeling of inevitable death is as potent as in his first great opera, Peter Grimes. We’ll listen to Scene 16 from Act II. This is near the conclusion of the opera. Aschenbach is sick and the city around him is falling ill from the plague. He is near death. Here, in this classic recording from 1974, Britten’s lifelong partner Peter Pears sings the role of Aschenbach.
Philip Glass, Robert Wilson: Einstein
on the Beach (1976) COLUMBIA M4K 38875 Philip Glass Ensemble, cond. Michael
Riesman
“Knee Play 2” CD 2 – Tr. 1 (6:50)
This is a work that changed everything. So modern, it transcended the classical genre and influenced popular music as well. In many ways it also brought the electronic instruments into the opera house as well. More importantly, the opera called on singers and actors to work together. There isn’t much to say about this, you’ll listen to it and you’ll know what I’m talking about. Here is Knee Play 2 from the end of Act I.
György Ligeti: Le Grand Macabre (1978, 1997 rev.)
SONY S2K 62312 London
Sinfonietta Voices, Philharmonia Orchestra, cond. Essa-Pekka Salonen
Scene III CD 2 Tr. 1-3 (7:00)
Ligeti’s Le Grand Macabre premiered in 1978. The premiere was sung in Swedish though it originated in a German text. By 1997, the opera had been performed in countless countries and translated into a number of languages. Ligeti felt it needed an overhaul. We’ll hear this version with English text. Possibly one of the oddest scenarios, the opera is set in the principality of Breughelland in the “anytime” century. The characters are extremely odd. I’ve chosen to play the opening of the third scene of Act One. Here, the gluttonous puppet Prince Go-Go is presented with his two ministers who lead two completely similar political parties, the White and Black, but who fight with each other constantly and have the Prince under tyrannical control. They force him to take riding lessons on an enormous rocking horse. It begins with a doorbell prelude.
Claude Vivier: Kopernikus (1979) CBC RECORDS MVCD 1047 Various Soloists, Members of the NEM, cond. Lorraine Vaillancourt
Despite his life being brought to a tragic and rapid end in 1983 by murder, Claude Vivier’s reputation as an innovative and expressive composer has continued to grow both in his native Canada and abroad. Recent issues by Philips have championed Vivier’s unique voice. The opera, Kopernikus was first performed on May 8 of 1980 at the Monument Nationale. It was a co-production between the Faculty of Music of the Université de Montréal and the National Theatre School. The work is composed for seven voices. The opera is a “ritual opera of death”. Vivier described it as such:
“The central character is Agni: around her gravitate mythical beings taken from history, represented by the six other singers: Lewis Carroll, Merlin, a witch, the Queen of the Night, a blind prophet, an aged monk, Tristand and Isolde, Mozart, the Master of the Waters, Kopernikus and his mother. These characters are perhaps only dreamed of by Agni as she undergoes her initiation and finally dematerialises.
There is no actual story, but rather a series of scenes which carry Agni along towards total purification and the attainment of a state of pure spirit. In fact she is initiated by the characters of her own dreams”
Alfred Schnittke: Life With An Idiot (1991) SONY S2K 52495 Vocal Ensemble, Rotterdam Philharmonic
Orchestra, cond. Mstislav Rostropovich
“Ekh!” from Scene Two, Act II – Tr. 12 (5:53)
Schnittke emerged after the death of Shostakovich as one of a generation of new and exciting Soviet composers. In the early 80’s, as the Soviet Union went through cultural and political changes, Schnittke’s music became more recognised in the west. It wasn’t until the 1990’s that Schnittke would tackle the opera. His satirical and bizarre Life With an Idiot was the result. Schnittke follows in a strong history of Russian Opera, but what’s so interesting is the fact that Schnittke, despite being born in Russia, was a German Jew, born in the Volga region. Nevertheless, Mussorgsky and Rimsky-Korsakov’s operatic shadow can be heard here, as well as the influences of Prokofiev and Shostakovich. Based on a story by Victor Erofeyev, the libretto owes a great deal to the influences of Dostoevsky and Gogol. The main character is simply named “I”. With problems at work, “I” is punished by having to take an idiot, “Vova” from the asylum into his home. But all does not go as planned. “Vova” first captures the heart of “I’s” wife but then when she aborts their child he turns to “I” who gladly agrees. In the end it is “I” who returns to the insane asylum and turns himself in. We’ll listen to the scene where I describes Vova’s seduction. It is accompanied by a chorus of homosexuals.
Olivier Messiaen: Saint François d'Assise (1983) DEUTSCHE GRAMMOPHON 445 176-2 Arnold Schoenberg Chor, Hallé Orchestra, cond. Kent Nagano (20:00)
A deeply religious and spiritual composer, Olivier Messiaen had already gained wide acceptance both in France and abroad by the early 1980’s but he had yet to compose an opera. Little surprise then that he should finally produce an opera in 1983. This epic opera, lasting over five hours and calling on 119 musicans, a chorus of 150 and seven soloists was his only work in the genre but it had such an effect that it should not be left out. The libretto of the work was written by Messiaen himself, no small feat for a contemporary composer! In an interview Messiaen described it as one of his greatest works.
“… it’s my densest work or, at any rate, a synthesis of my musical finds and, even more importantly, an unprecedented attempt on my part to express my Catholic faith by means of a subject that conveys its principal mysteries. I know only too well that it is an act of temerity to describe, scene by scene, the infusion of grace into the soul of one of the greatest of all saints. It is an inner drama from start to finish, yet there is something undeniably splendid about it: I’d like audiences to be as dazzled by it as I am. It contains virtually all the bird calls that I’ve noted down in the course of my life, all the colours of my chords, all my harmonic procedures, and even some surprising innovations such as the superimposition of different tempos, allowing total independece of the different instruments within a non-aleatory, organized chaos under the conductor’s control… 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. But I want people to know that God is present in everything, in the concert hall, in the ocean, on a mountain, even in the métro, it is this that my music seeks to express.”
I’ve decided to play the entire stigmata scene from the opera. This is from the Third Act, Scene Seven where Saint Francis is struck by five luminous beams hitting his hands, his feet and the right side of Saint Francis proving the divine confirmation of Saint Francis. Saint Francis is played by José Van Dam in this recording.
Luigi Nono: Prometeo (1985) EMI 5 55209
2 Solistenchor Freiburg, Ensemble
Modern, cond. Ingo Metzmacher
“Interludio Primo” CD 2 – Tr. 2 (7:45)
Subtitled a “tragedy about listening”, Nono’s opera lacks one of the essential elements of the operatic language, a story. I have chosen to play the Interludio Primo, the quietest section of the opera scored for solo Contralto, flute, clarinet and tuba. The words originate in the libretto by Massimo Cacciari of an original text by Benjamin. There is a Feldman feel here, but the rest of the opera is much different. Just a note, because of the use of electronics here, this opera will be repeated on the fourth part of our series on Opera in the Twentieth Century dedicated to electroacoustic opera. Luigi Nono, often forgotten in twentieth century music was an influential Italian composer that should be remembered not only for his pushing of musical boundaries but as well for his beautiful sense of harmonic line.
John Adams: The Death of Klinghoffer (1991) ELEKTRA NONESUCH 9 79281-2 Orchestra of the Opéra Lyon and
Chorus, cond. Kent Nagano
Act II: Scene 2 “Aria of the Falling Body” &“Day
Chorus” Tr. 11-12 (12:00)
American Minimalism became dominated by several key figures in the 1980’s. Philip Glass and Steve Reich were the most prominent, but John Adams came to the forefront with a sort of maximalist minimalist style. His first opera, Nixon in China was very successful mixing parody, humour and political intrigue. His second The Death of Klinghofer is far more tragic and understated. A poignant and controversial topic it covers the hijacking of an Italian Cruise vessel by Palestinian terrorists and the subsequent murder of the wheel-chair bound Jew Klinghoffer. We’ll listen to two parts from the Second Scene of the Second Act. This is after Klinghoffer has been shot. One of the hijacker’s sings the “Aria of the Falling Body” a sad and mournful song followed by a Chorus of the Palestinians in a very simple minimalistic style.
And now to the last ten years, how difficult to know what will make it and what won’t! Who knows, so I’ve picked two English opera’s that have been successful enough to be commercially released, a feat good enough for me!
Before the production of Gawain in 1991, Birtwistle had composed four other musical theatre pieces, but this was his first labelled an opera. Incredibly thick and Wagner-like it is based upon the Middle English epic of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. The work uses a lot of harmonic gestures. The Green Knight enters the court of King Arthur and states a challenge. He is willing to receive a blow to his neck as long as in a year whoever accepts the challenge will agree to accept the same from him. Only Gawain accepts and promptly decapitates the Green Knight, who arises, picks up his head and leaves! I won’t tell you what happens in the second Act. You’ll have to look it up for yourself! We’ll listen to the decapitation scene. Now here’s something you don’t hear every day! We’ll start off with the Raising of the Axe, followed by Frozen Time, the decapitation and the severed head’s instruction.
Thomas Adès: Powder Her Face (1995) EMI 7243 5 56649-2 Almeida Ensemble, cond. Thomas Adès
Thomas Adès, boy wonder from England was born in 1971. He has rapidly and astonishingly risen to huge acclaim both at home and abroad. In 1995, at the age of 24 he wrote his first opera, Powder Her Face for the Almeida Opera Company. Based on the life of Margaret Whigham. She later became Margaret Sweeny after her first marriage and Margaret, Duchess of Argyll in her second. She was made most famous in Cole Porter’s song “You’re the Top” when he rhymed Margaret Sweeny with Mussolini. She was extremely beautiful but she went through tragedy in her second marriage when her husband found evidence to her infidelity in a photograph. In the divorce case, the judge delivered a scathing verdict describing her as a “highly-sexed woman who had ceased to be satisfied by normal sexual relations”. We’ll listen to one of her seductions scenes. Here, she seduces the waiter who has come to her room.