MHL 603 – OPERA-3

(F-11)

 

1. What's wrong with the 19th-century music-drama model (Verdi-Wagner model)?

Brecht: a) it's like a drug; it sucks the audience into the story and saps their critical judgment;

b)  it doesn't promote social change

Ashley: a) it distorts spoken American English

b) it's not an American way of story telling

Which critique is more trenchant? – Neither?

What were some other 20th-century critiques of 19th-century model?

Orff: Sense of ritual is lost – opera is too secular

Stravinsky: Sense of forms is lost – opera is too continuous

Partch: Sense of body is lost – opera is no long corporeal (dance)

 

2.  Review how 20th-century composers tried to change 19th-century model

a) Reconsidered co-ordination of elements (Gesamtkunstwerk)

separate voice from orchestra, from action etc.

discontinuity of action, scenes

b) Move back from song toward speech – Debussy, Janacek

          OR reintroduce speech-song contrast – Weill, Stravinsky

c) stories about common people, contemporary life – Berg, verismo

Janacek – House of the Dead as example

Moves singing very far toward speech

Opera doesn’t “tell a story” – It recounts several related stories – Drama is not carried out in action but via narration

In pantomimes the “drama” is enacted, but it’s not sung

Scenes don’t lead to one another – They’re independent (except for Goryanchikov’s story)

Role of orchestra – provide continuity for narration, echo or anticipate words, convey actions in pantomimes

Insofar as there is any drama, it’s still in the music

Einstein and Perfect Lives depart even farther from 19th-century model

Both dissociate music from drama – "Opera without drama"

Both change relation of speech and song (though quite differently)

Purpose of opera is no longer to enact a story in music

 

3.  Brecht’s theory of “epic” theater

Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956) – German playwright, Communist, author of librettos for Weill, Hindemith, Eisler, others

Essay is famous and influential in 20th-century theater – introduction to Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny (1930), music by Kurt Weill – Brecht is trying to explain how Mahagonny differs from the Verdi-Wagner model and that it points the way toward is a new kind of opera – Brecht applied many of these ideas to his later plays (e.g. Mother Courage, The Good Woman of Sezuan)

Principles

"Epic" as opposed to "dramatic" – Epic means that the theater presents a story to the audience (like an epic poem) – It doesn't make the story seem real to the audience (as a drama does)

Theater should not tell a story for entertainment (culinary theater) – It should present a story as an incentive to social change

The listener should not be drawn into the action; the listener should observe the action, draw a conclusion (the same conclusion as Brecht!), and then undertake social action

The elements of the theater should not be co-ordinated because this creates an illusion of reality and inevitability – They should be separated, so that the listener is obliged to judge ("separation of elements")

[Somewhat later Brecht formulated the closely related notion of the "alienation effect" – That actors and singers should "alienate" the audience from the story by making it clear at every moment that this is pretend (e.g. by stylized gestures or by stepping out of character]

What makes theater epic is not the subject of the play but how the story is presented – i.e. by what means in the theater

 

5.  Glass and Wilson – Einstein on the Beach (1976)

Philip Glass (b. 1937) – Student of Nadia Boulanger – Never bought into 12-tone program – explored music with very simple elements ("minimalism"), beginning c. 1966 with Steve Reich – Works in all genres, especially opera and movies ("qatsi" trilogy)– Extremely successful as composer and performer

Robert Wilson (b. 1941) – Theater director-designer-choreographer – Avant-garde theater in NY in 1968-69 – Einstein was his first big success – Subsequently directed many operas and plays plus more ambitious theatrical endeavors and movies

Einstein premier at Metropolitan Opera, Nov 1976 – Preview at Avignon Festival July 1976 – Made tremendous critical impression (pro & con) – Especially by its extreme difference from 19th-century model, indeed from anything previously called “opera” – Much imitated, but no one has done anything just like this again (not Glass, not Adams)

Some novel features

          Extremely long – about 5 hours

No “plot,” no “story” – just themes – e.g. Einstein, trial, trains

No logical connections between scenes

No sung text – recited prose vs. sung syllables

No solo singing – solo speaking, choral singing – Act 3 “aria” is the only "sung" number

Action on stage is mainly dancing, repetitive actions

Minimalist musical idiom

PLAY “Air-conditioned supermarket” CD 2 track 4 – Listen for features

What are musical characteristics of “minimalism “?

repetition – of melodic patterns, of cadential patterns

incremental change – rhythms, melodic patterns

tonal – scales, triads, cadences – sometimes modal

drones

 “Separation of elements”

Glass and Wilson on separation – Wilson on candelabra

What are elements? – words, music (harmony, melody, rhythm), dance (movement), song, character, groupings, words

PLAY DVD 8 – Look for separation of elements – Does separation lead you to rediscover each element as Wilson would like?

Dramaturgy of Einstein – PLAY DVD 11

Plot – replaced by themes (Einstein, spaceship, bus, courtroom) – All these are very familiar and audience brings its own associations

Purposeful action replaced by everyday action, repetitive action

Action not co-ordinated with music – music, movement, and action are simultaneous but independent

Stasis within scenes – repetition of all elements – contemplation of possible meanings

Open rather than closed – audience makes connections, audience brings possibilities

Does Einstein have any meaning, any message(s)? Is the opera actually "about" Einstein

 

4.  Robert Ashley – Perfect Lives (1980)

Ashley bio - b. 1930 – Ann Arbor MI – feels strongly about midwestern roots – trained in music but worked as acoustics researcher in speech lab – Involved in 60s with electronic and avant garde performances in Ann Arbor (ONCE) – Mills College from 1969, New York since 1980? – most works involve speech, images, music, song, mixed media  – Reluctant at first to call them "opera"

Ashley's vision of "A new kind of opera" (article)

Nationalism – American opera needs American stories, American speech, American musical idiom

Speech is music in itself (compare Janacek)

Opera is about characters and archetypes –– plot is irrelevant – Mythic dimensions (compare Einstein)

Opera mixes media –electronics, opera for TV, video opera, opera on computer

PLAY Part 2 ("The supermarket") beginning (not assigned)

          TV conventions – media mixing

          speech – narrator, chorus

          American images, stories, speech, clichés       

Perfect Lives (1980)

Background – Kitchen center commission for 7 half-hour segments for TV – I don't know where it was shown in US – It's been shown many times in Europe

Title – Ostensibly from the "Perfect Lives Lounge" – also beginning of Part 2 ("George") – Seems to refer to character archetypes – These are quintessential American characters acting out quintessential American lives

Characters – American archetypes (the singer, supermarket manager, bank tellers, captain of football team) – Contrast with "realistic" characters (e.g. Wozzeck)

Separation of elements?  speech, song, instruments, action, images, printed words, gesture, costumes – Separation is made easier, perhaps inevitable by TV tetchniques

Repetition – compare Glass – text doesn't repeat – chorus reinforces and repeats – so do words overlaid on top of the image– repetition of images and gestures

PLAY – Part 6 "The Church"

Archetypal situation

Musical style(s)

Is this "epic theater"?

Is this opera"?

Kyle Gann:  "When the 21st Century glances back to see where the future of opera came from, Ashley, like Monteverdi before him, is going to look like a radical new beginning"