Lecture on opera

Lecture on Opera, Stanford University, Febr. 1939

More than anything else in the world of music opera is dependent upon the so- cial conditions of the epoc. Opera is the most expensive of all musi- cal exhibitions, and therefore more sensitive for all kinds of economic fluctuations. In examining the present state of opera, we will find many important clues by looking to the social and economic back- ground of operatic life. There are practically only two countries with a comprehensive and living operatic tradition; they are Italy und Germany. Of course, there are opera-houses in France, in Scan- dinavia, in Poland, Russia, and so on. But opera playing and produ- cing is an intrinsic part of musical activities only in those two countries. One could find reasons for this fact in some ethnical pecularities of the German and Italian nations, but it seems to be of more importance, that both countries were divided into a lot of independent and rivaling territories when opera became fas- hionable. Everyone of these princes and dukes who ruled over small sections of the country had to have his own opera house, and thus opera became a form of art permeating the whole nation. Later on, when the princes dis- appeared, the municipalities, city and state governments, took over the opera houses in Germany where there is no private opera house since long time. In Italy the situation developed differently. There the system of local and traveling managers went into being. Whereas the German opera houses keep permanently keep an ensemble which is supposed to be ready for performing practically every task the Italian manager hires a group of singers for a special task to be performed during a limited period. Opera houses in other contries, as the Grand Opera of Paris, or the National opera houses in the capitals of smaller coun- tries are of less importance for the elaboration of a special type of an operatic style. They are more or less representative institutions. - Artikel

Modern opera must be considered from the angle how it got along with in handling the heritage of Richard Wagner. He coined the style of opera playing directly and indirectly even there where he evoked strong opposition. Generations of singers and conductors have been trained in performing the demands of his style. The outstandingly exceptionally suggestive power, the persistent nearly obstrusive eloquence of his language his style explain the extraordinary the influence he had on the operatic world for decades. His overwhelming success

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can partly be explained by the fact that the emotional and intellectual content of his work glorifies and magnifies the intellectual and emotional set-up of the middle class which began its slow ascent to power in the second half of the 19th century. The behaviour of Wagner's heros certainly augments the self-confidence and promotes the self-justification of small business people. The main idea of Wagner's operatic style is illusion. The central concept of what he called "Gesamt- kunstwerk" is illusion. The effect which is supposed to be the result of the cooperation of arts in this "universal art work" is the illusion of a complete, autarchic, selfsufficient artistic world. The unity of word, music, stage, color, light and so on should be is intended to become a so perfect one that the listener feels himself transported in a kind of super-world. The artificial character of this world, how- ever, should be forgotten, therefore the apparatus which produces the spell is concealed by all means. It is very significant, for instance, that Wagner introduced ordered the orchestra to be invisible to the public. Another important stylistic device for the creation of an illusiona- ry world is the idea that the music never ceases in going on, that all of the words of the libretto are sung. That means, of course, that one should not become aware that there is another artistic world outside of the Gesamtkunstwerk. Thus the medium which is the most artificial in opera, the music, is ingeniously put on duty to perform just the main task of the illusion that there is no artificial arrangement, but a kind of second sublime nature.

Opera developed mainly along this line, during the de- cades after Wagner's death. Even a composer like Debussy could not destroy the spell, although deliberately tending to other principles. It was only the world war and what followed afterwards which un- dermined defintely the idea of illusion both in life and in art. We are no more apt to believe in a complete and equilibrated picture of the outside world. Science taught us the relativity of physical concepts, and the the reality of life convinces us that there is no stability in social und political systems. We are in- clined to emphasize contradictions rather that to conceal them. Yet, the process leading to such an insight is long and runs through many various attempts of setting forth new ideas. The first approach to a new conception of opera led to a revival of its primitive character of a stage play with

The music should no more be evident as accompa- niment, an element outside of the stage, but an insepa- rable ingrediens of the whole mystic entirety of the "Gesamt- kunstwerk". Yet, this concept fosters at the same time the ideology of the ascen- ding capi- talism. The middle class on its way to power does not like to be aware how things are made, they simply exist created by rather miraculous means. 3//

song and dance. The content of the play is no more transformed into a new a different and somewhat mysterious medium but presented as it is, an arrangement of musical and scenic ele- ments. In regard to the music, there is a revival of absolute purely musical forms as they like those which were usual before Wagner, arias, ensembles, finales, and so on. This formal tendency was never broken up entirely in opera, as the exemple of Verdi shows, but it was very much overshadowed by Wagner's con- cept of the supremacy of the dramatic expression over the for- mal element. I want to show you as an example of this ten- dency some fragments of my opera "Jonny spielt auf".

The process of emphasizing the play-like elements of opera is yet still very naive in this piece, and the presentation of the idea through these elements remains still in the realm of roman- ticism, that means there is no more made an attempt made to establish a world of illusion in the sense of Wagner, but the clear and simple musical forms which I tried to introduce are applied to the dramatic action rather superficially.

The terrible fuss which this opera created but also the tremendons success it obtained was were mostly due to the fact that I let an opera singer make use of the telephone on stage and that one of the scenes presents a railroad station. Although such elements are really very simple rather unimpor- tant, they acted in the way of destroying illusions. One did not expect to see people in opera wearing modern clothes and behave themselves like living persons, and thus a shock was felt. May be, it was the main value of this opera to produce such sort of a shock. I had, however, in mind to set forth some general idea drawn from the aspect of European life of the post war period. I tried to confront the introvertedspectiv attitude of an artist with the vitality I personified in the figure of the jazz-player Jonny.

It is certainly the most important accomplishment of Richard Wagner that he raised opera to the level of an adequate showplace of philosophical presentation. The desire to present such ideas by means of opera penetrated soon the endeavours of the most important opera composers of our time.

There was A new interest in historic subjects was the re- sult of this desire. I want to show you some examples from the Opera "Maximilian" of the french composer Darius Milhaud. It deals with the tragie fate of the emperor Maximilian of Mexico.

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Another much more important attempt in this sense is made in Milhauds monumental work "Christophe Colomb". The book written by Paul Claudel is most interesting in regard to the progressive destruction of illusion. The fictious character of the play is strongly emphasized by the presentation of an announcer who starts to read the story of Columbus from a book, and of a chorus which represents the posterity invited to consider and to judge the deeds of the hero. The stage itself is divided into several showplaces, and even the person of Columbus is doubled. The real Columbus leaves the historical showplace and looks to his own doings which are acted by a double on a second stage. Some times the action is transposed to even presented by moving pictures on a screen. who Here, the illusion of a selfsufficient operatic world is distroyed entirely. Opera is conceived as a deliberately artificial arrangement of heterogeneous elements with the purpose to set forth a great philosophical idea.

A very similar concept is realised in my last opera "Charles V."

The subject is the story of the Hapsburg Emperor Charles who ruled in the 16th century over the greatest part of Europe and the newly discovered American territories. It was my aim to show how his magnificent idea of reuniting all Christian nations of the world in a sort of replica of the old Roman empire und of providing them everlasting peace must fail because it clashed with the main evils of modern times, nationalism, heresy, and so on. Thus the tragedy of Charles V, was that he came either too late or too soon. To late, because the spiritual unity of the catholic middle age already fell to pieces, too soon because the world just started on the road to leading to the ordeal of nationalist struggles. This idea called for a comprehensive presentation of the highly complex story of the emperor. I had to show his feud againt the nationalist King Francis I of france, his never ceasing conflict with the stubborn nationalism of the German Pro- testants, the difficulties he encountered in Spain where the gold floating in from America unfolded its corrupting power and the inquisition ravaged the country. I had to show the fight of the Emperor against narrow-minded popes who mistrusted him by cheap political reasons although there was no more sincere supporter of the spiritual supre- macy of the Holy See than Charles V. I had to present the merely mecha-

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nical but nonetheless terrifying menace looming in the East where the Turks became more and more powerful. How could I locate condense all these tremendous historic events within the brief extension of a normal opera performance? It was only possible by abolishing completely the idea of illusion. The piece starts a few hours before the death of the emperor who retired to the monastery of San Yuste in Estremadura. He hears the voice of the Lord who asks him whether he feels himself justified for having abdicated, whether he believes he had performed the holy task assigned to him, the unity and peace of Christendom. The emperor who wishes to clarify his mind calls for his young confessor and starts to tell him the main events of his life. The past scenes of the history are presented on a second plan, but only as illustrations, as examples of what is discussed in the foreground. The young monk interrupts the emperor often by with questions, asking for further explanation, raising objections against the argu- ments, thus inducing the emperor to develop new facts, and so on. By these proceedings , I gained not only the technical possibility to present many things in as abridged a manner as it seemed necessary - thus for instance, the meeting of the Diet of Worms, decisive for the development of the German problem, is condensed into a short dialogue of a few essential sentences, with- out any preparations concerning mood und color; the de- struction of Rome by the emperor's distressed soldiers, the climax of his conflict with the Pope, takes hardly more than 4 minutes. On the other hand, this technique transports the remote distant historical facts from their distance of remotness and indifference their vanishing part straigth into the line orbit of the attention of the listener. The young monk who questions the emperor speaks for the listener, he is calling for such explanations as the listener might claim when wit- nessing a historic action which he first might consider to be of very little actual interest to him.

This demonstrative didactic style was also advanced by the German writer Bert Brecht in some works he crea- ted in collaboration with Kurt Weill. There is no doubt that this style with its implication of short aphoristic scenes and quick and sudden changes of showplaces is strongly influenced by the tech- nique of the moving pictures which trained developed the public to a higher presence of mind of the public than it had before. The same is true with respect to the musical means. The modern develop- ment of musical language leading to Atonality and

Twelvetonetechnique acts in the same way against the illusion of completeness and self sufficiency of a musical style. The static system of tonal harmonies organized in well defined interdependences replaced by a more polyphonic concept of music where the idea of movement prevails. Werefore the new musical style is especially apt for fitting into the dramatic ideas of modern opera writing.

This most progressive line of modern opera is not yet followed up by many composers. Nevertheless, I believe that the future of opera at least of its more extensive type, will depend on how far it will be able to include deal with the vital problem of mankind . Only under this condition opera can justify the high expenses involved in its performances because there will come sooner or later the moment where a new kind of public opinion will object and stop tremendous spending only for the exhibition of stars singers and costful stage settings. - Article

I think that especially the first idea of the touring chamber opera should have many possibilities in America. It is true that many of the major cities already are subjected to the prejudice that opera is can only be conceived as a glamorous spectacle and that there therefore any attempt to perform operas below without displaying the supposed magnificence of the New York Metropoliten Opera House is not worth while. Yet there are in this country numberless smaller communities displaying showing a most hopeful interest in drama with music, and they should offer a most fertil soil for evolving such an entirely new operatic style as I out- lined in my second proposal. It is evident that only in this way even a genuine American type of opera, most eagerly sought after by many Americans could be created, most a type which will but never be attained by attempts to copy the worn out type of the old European repertory theater. Of course, this task would require a new organisation framework set up by other people than those who are running at present most of the American opera enterprises and who only try to exploit imported tastes and pre- judices for the sake of money making. I hope that the forced or voluntary immigration presence of some many younger European artist to this country might be helpful for the establishment of this American opera style when their insight and experience is used in the right way. To be sure, they do not wish anything better than to work for such a most interesting purpose.

Maximilian S. 101, S. 53 Jenufa S. 23

There is only the folklore opera going a little bit its own way, that means opera based deli- berately on folksongs and -dances, as for example "Carmen" or the "Bartered Bride" of Smetana. By far the most original works of this sort are the operas of Moussorgsky, and this unique amateur found the only congenial conti- nuation in another half amateurish composer of the slavic world, I mean the Czech Leos Janacek. His opera Jenufa, the only one I could obtain in score, is one of his earlier works, but nontheless characteristic for his pecularities. I show a short scene of a dialogue where some young peasants of Moravia exchange their opinions about the future of the beautiful girl Jenufa who in fact is doomed to a tragic fate. The folklore material is used only as a material, not in order to produce stylized folk-songs as in most of the popular operas, but to create an original language in itself. Janacek goes farther as Wagner insofar as he deduces the short motives building up his vague forms straight from the cadence of the Czech language. And the dialogue reminds in some way the monotonous antiphonies of the

old slavic liturgy. Thus a really new though limited musical medium is obtained. The later works of Janacek show also a rather progressive attitude in regard to the musical material and an extrandinary imaganition. __________

But, the idea of illusion is not yet directly attacked.

Jonny S. 77 200