{"id":2561,"date":"2017-11-28T10:22:31","date_gmt":"2017-11-28T09:22:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/atorod.pl\/?p=2561"},"modified":"2017-11-28T10:22:31","modified_gmt":"2017-11-28T09:22:31","slug":"for-such-is-the-soul-of-opera","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/atorod.pl\/?p=2561","title":{"rendered":"For such is the soul of opera"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose\u201d \u2013 this famous quote from Gertrude Stein\u2019s poem Sacred Emily<\/em> is usually interpreted as a manifesto of anti-symbolism. Things should be seen as they are. Regardless of what has happened in the course of the evolution of this musical form, opera is opera is opera is opera. In the previous century it was buried alive many times. Obituaries announcing its successive deaths were published, bitter tears were shed, dancing over its grave took place \u2013 and yet every time it rose from the dead and returned to the stage. True, increasingly poor, increasingly mauled, increasingly less certain of its identity, but still somehow distinct from the other varieties of vocal music. It was dealt the heaviest blow by modernism, an aesthetic movement in which were brought into focus all premonitions that the end was near. A certain order of civilisation did indeed pass away or rather died a violent death: in the trenches of the Great War, in the blaze of the Bolshevik Revolution, on the battlefields and in the death camps of the Second World War. Yet the world survived and moved on, although not always hand in hand with opera \u2013 which critics and philosophers began to blame for complicity in the recent catastrophe.<\/p>\n

They also included Theodor W. Adorno, who pointed out that opera was a model product of the \u201cculture industry\u201d, which sought profit and not true art. He accused opera of escaping reality, of being slavishly attached to the convention and prone to showiness. He lambasted operagoers: childish lovers of The Magic Flute<\/em> and Il Trovatore<\/em>, who liked only those melodies they had already heard. Unfortunately, he went a little bit too far: in wanting to criticise primarily the \u201cbourgeois\u201d institution, he also condemned the musical form as such. Theatre quickly reformed itself, perhaps even too much. Today it is difficult to find a staging without women and men in suits, while the audience \u2013 instead of demanding chariots and dragons in H\u00e4ndel\u2019s operas \u2013 laughs out loud on seeing a swan in Wagner\u2019s Lohengrin.<\/em> Music has not managed to keep up. A Romantic opera in modern sets sometimes seems more conventional and surreal than productions from the 1950s which so irritated Adorno. The audiences have accepted the fact that they have to grow out of Mozart, but they do not want to face Berg, Britten or Pendrecki. Directors of opera houses complain of poor results at the box office and lack of interest in contemporary music.<\/p>\n

Composers do what they can. They give up writing operas altogether. They write shorter works for smaller line-ups, often easier to understand and combining various genres. Patiently, they listen to explanations that the old convention has become obsolete and no one has yet come up with a way to attract the attention of new audiences used to a completely different speed of life. They nod in agreement but they do not really believe it. They disguise their works, calling them musical theatre, stage action, performance. They long for a possibility of writing a \u201creal\u201d opera: with a large orchestra and chorus, numerous soloists, captivating libretto. Others try to prey on the genre\u2019s past glory: they compose pieces that have nothing to do with opera. Without text, without singing, without sets, sometimes even without live performers at all. They try to convince us they have redefined the form. And yet opera is opera is opera is opera. And it will remain so as long as there are musicians capable of composing and performing it, audiences willing to listen to it and \u2013 last but not least \u2013 opera houses daring to present it.<\/p>\n

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Immanuel Kant<\/em>. Photo: FRU Media \/ Bart\u0142omiej D\u0119bicki, Jacek Pi\u0105tkiewicz \/ Opera Wroc\u0142awska.<\/p>\n

Why are so few new operas being written? Why do they disappear from the repertoire so quickly? It is enough to ask ordinary lovers of Traviata.<\/em> They will reply that they do not understand this cacophony of sounds and find no pleasure in listening to their favourite singers in parts which, in their view, do not make a logical whole. In Poland there are still thousands of music lovers for whom Wozzeck<\/em>, written nearly one hundred years ago, is too avant-garde. It would take too long to consider the causes of such a state of affairs now. It is better to reflect on what can be done about it.<\/p>\n

The best thing would be to start with a work that is compact in its dramaturgy, and features music that may by \u201cstrange\u201d but is vivid and consistent with the libretto. If the novices wince at Pendrecki\u2019s The Devils of Loudun<\/em>, give them one of Zygmunt Krauze\u2019s operas, easier to understand. Go back in time to works by Britten or Stravinsky. Do not push anything. The novices get tired \u2013 return to Verdi. And then show them the miracles happening here and there in Puccini\u2019s late scores, the novel solutions appearing in Jan\u00e1\u010dek\u2019s masterpieces. Suggest \u201cborderline\u201d compositions, in which they will be able to capture references to their favourite melodies they have already heard \u2013 for instance, Strauss\u2019 Ariadne auf Naxos.<\/em> Do not hurry. Sooner or later the novices will reach for Berg, if only out of sheer curiosity.<\/p>\n

It is also possible to use a trick. To introduce music lovers to the world of contemporary opera, alternating it with Monteverdi, French Baroque opera, groundbreaking works of Gluck the reformer. Hopefully, the music lovers will cease to listen endlessly to the beautiful tunes from the core repertoire and instead will start exploring the structure of the pieces, will comprehend their inner logic, will understand that the 21st-century opera composers often employ the same methods as the masters of the past. They will appreciate elements of pastiche in P\u00e9ter E\u00f6tv\u00f6s\u2019 works and will no longer associate them with caterwauling cats.<\/p>\n

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La voix humaine. <\/em>Photo: Krzysztof Bieli\u0144ski \/ TW-ON.<\/p>\n

For various reasons, not only patriotic, it is good to start the education well with works by Polish composers \u2013 with comprehensible, well-delivered text, which the listeners will not have to read from the surtitles projected above the stage. Because of similar considerations soloists should be required to work diligently with vocal coaches and sing their parts with respect for the words, regardless of the language. After all, opera is primarily drama, and the ease of following the libretto helps greatly with following the changes in the musical narrative. An opera should captivate like a novel, shock like a tragedy by Shakespeare, terrify like a horror film, amuse like the best cabaret. Paradoxically, the technological revolution may boost the popularity of contemporary opera. What we will miss in the opera house, we can listen to in a recording or watch on YouTube. We can enjoy comparisons between various versions of a work that is just emerging \u2013 assuming a slightly different form in each staging, in each performance. Nothing can stop us from suggesting an idea for a new composition to a composer, suggesting an unlikely source of inspiration, on one of the numerous online fora for example. From debunking this bizarre myth that opera is a dead art, a closed chapter in the history of music, a galvanised frog that will stop moving as soon as directors of opera houses give up the temptation to occasionally present a new work and spend the funds they have managed to save as a result on yet another premiere of Traviata.<\/em>\u00a0 In suits of course.<\/p>\n

Jokes aside. We are writing about serious matters. About a chronic disease of a form that could flourish, if we realised at last that opera is not a museum piece and that its musical potential lies in every one of us. Through it, it is still possible to spin social allegories, discuss important dilemmas of the present, tell stories from the lives of scholars and car mechanics \u2013 supported by the power and depth of emotion probably no other art has at its disposal. Provided we find an opera house that will welcome it with open arms and just as open mind.<\/p>\n

Such an opera house turned up in Wroc\u0142aw. Nine years ago Ewa Michnik, the previous director of the Wroc\u0142aw Opera, decided to bring together works already in the company\u2019s repertoire and present them during a Contemporary Opera Festival. The programme of the first festival featured Zbigniew Rudzi\u0144ski\u2019s Antigone<\/em>, two operatic double bills \u2013 Tadeusz Baird\u2019s Tomorrow<\/em> paired with Joanna Bruzdowicz\u2019s The Penal Colony<\/em>, and Esther <\/em>by Tomasz Praszcza\u0142ek (today writing under the pseudonym PRASQUAL) coupled with Hagith <\/em>by Karol Szymanowski \u2013 <\/em>Szymanowski\u2019s King Roger<\/em> directed by Mariusz Treli\u0144ski, a much more interesting production than his earlier staging for Teatr Wielki-National Opera, and Krzysztof Penderecki\u2019s Paradise Lost.<\/em> The set was complemented by a ballet production featuring The Saragossa<\/em> Manuscript<\/em> by Rafa\u0142 Augustyn, who also reconstructed the second part of the bill, Devil\u2019s Frolics<\/em> by Adam M\u00fcnchheimer and Stanis\u0142aw Moniuszko, the full score of which was lost during the Second World War. Apart from Esther<\/em>, a chamber work that won a prize at a composing competition in St. Petersburg in 2002, these are all works by established and eminent composers, works that should appear regularly in the repertoires of Polish opera companies. The first festival was very well received by the critics and began to be seen as one of Ewa Michnik\u2019s most important initiatives \u2013 especially given the fact that the company\u2019s director had no intention of becoming content with just one edition.<\/p>\n

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Ubu Rex. <\/em>Photo: Tomasz Zakrzewski \/ Opera \u015al\u0105ska.<\/p>\n

Two years later, thanks to a co-production with Prague\u2019s N\u00e1rodni Divadlo, we could for the first time see Bohuslav Martin\u016f\u2019s opera Hry o Marii <\/em>(premiered in Paris in 1934). Yet what came to be regarded as the most important event of the 2nd Festival was the presentation of La libert\u00e0 chiama la libert\u00e0<\/em>, <\/em>part three of Eugeniusz Knapik\u2019s operatic triptych The Minds of Helena Troubleyn<\/em>, <\/em>in a production that was taken over \u2013 from the author of the idea of the project, the Flemish multimedia artist Jan Fabre \u2013 by a young and very promising director, Micha\u0142 Zadara. The consternation caused by the inclusion in the programme of Giacomo Orefice\u2019s mediocre Chopin <\/em>of 1901 (justified solely by the celebrations of the Chopin Year) was alleviated by a very successful production of Hanna Kulenty\u2019s The Mother of Black-Winged Dreams<\/em>, <\/em>prepared by Ewelina Pietrowiak, another talented Polish opera director. Wroc\u0142aw also hosted Philip Glass\u2019 The Fall of the House of Usher<\/em>, <\/em>Barbara Wysocka\u2019s debut at Teatr Wielki-National Opera, which won the Polityka<\/em> weekly\u2019s prestigious Passport Award. This time there was no ballet \u2013 the programme was complemented by King Roger<\/em> and Paradise<\/em> Lost. <\/em><\/p>\n

The 3rd Festival, in 2012, again featured intriguing novelties: a concert performance of Peter E\u00f6tv\u00f6s\u2019 opera Angels in America<\/em>, based on Tony Kushner\u2019s famous Pulitzer-winning play (conducted by Bassem Akiki); the chamber opera Z\u00edtra se bude <\/em>by Ale\u0161 B\u0159ezina, who composed music to Jan H\u0159ebejk\u2019s Oscar-nominated film Divided We Fall <\/em>(a production from Prague\u2019s N\u00e1rodni Divadlo w Pradze); another production directed by Ewelina Pietrowiak \u2013 Zygmunt Krauze\u2019s The Trap<\/em> after Tadeusz R\u00f3\u017cewicz\u2019s play inspired by the biography of Franz Kafka; and the opera-performance Martha\u2019s Garden<\/em> by the Wroc\u0142aw composer Cezary Duchnowski, with Agata Zubel singing the solo part. Operatic themes were also to be found in a guest production from Hessisches Staatstheater Wiesbaden, Bluebeard\u2019s Secret<\/em>, a ballet fantasia based on Bart\u00f3k\u2019s masterpiece, and featuring music by Henryk Miko\u0142aj G\u00f3recki and Philip Glass.<\/p>\n

The 4th Festival, organised as part of the 2014 World Music Days, was surprisingly modest, although critics wrote favourably about both Angels in America<\/em> (this time in a staged version) and the premiere of PRASQUAL\u2019s Songs from the Cage<\/em> to R\u00f3\u017cewicz\u2019s poems with excellent performances by Jadwiga Postro\u017cna, Mariusz Godlewski and the actor Jerzy Trela.<\/p>\n

Three years passed. The director of the Wroc\u0142aw Opera changed. As did, radically, the company\u2019s repertoire plans. The next edition of the festival started by Ewa Michnik will be launched under a slightly perverse title of Contemporary Opera Festival+. The plus sign means that its formula will be expanded again: to include, for example, symposia devoted to the future of opera and a ballet production of Eufolia\/Ambulo <\/em>with music by Kilar, G\u00f3recki, PRASQUAL and Andriessen, choreographed by Jacek Przyby\u0142owicz and Jacek Tyski. Pendrecki\u2019s Ubu Rex<\/em> from the Silesian Opera in Bytom, winner of the Golden Mask, needs no special introduction. Poulenc\u2019s La voix humaine<\/em> from Teatr Wielki-National Opera sharply divided the critics. I did not like it, others were really enthusiastic. The premiere of Immanuel Kant<\/em>, Leszek Mo\u017cd\u017cer\u2019s \u201cjazz opera\u201d, will certainly attract crowds \u2013 if only because of the fact that the piece became one of the first victims of the new repertoire policy at the Warsaw Chamber Opera under the helm of Alicja W\u0119gorzewska-Whiskerd and has had to wait before being revealed to the world.<\/p>\n

I do not know about you, but for me all this makes up a logical whole and I hear no cacophony in it. Opera is opera is opera is opera. Even contemporary opera. Especially contemporary opera.<\/p>\n

Translated by: Anna Kijak<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose\u201d \u2013 this famous quote from Gertrude Stein\u2019s poem Sacred Emily is usually interpreted as a manifesto of anti-symbolism. Things should be seen as they are. Regardless of what has happened in the course of the evolution of this musical form, opera is opera is opera … [Read more…]<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,10],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"entry","1":"post","2":"publish","3":"author-mangusta","4":"post-2561","6":"format-standard","7":"category-miscellanea","8":"category-posts-in-english"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/atorod.pl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2561","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/atorod.pl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/atorod.pl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atorod.pl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atorod.pl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2561"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/atorod.pl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2561\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2565,"href":"https:\/\/atorod.pl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2561\/revisions\/2565"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/atorod.pl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2561"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atorod.pl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2561"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atorod.pl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2561"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}